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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/16124-8.txt b/16124-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..44c0868 --- /dev/null +++ b/16124-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8807 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 24, 2005 [EBook #16124] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J.B. +LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at +Washington. + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + +DECEMBER, 1880. + + + + +AN HISTORICAL ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST. + +[Illustration: GOING TO THE JUDGE'S.] + + +The day might have graced the month of June, so balmy was the air, so +warmly shone the sun from a cloudless sky. But the snow-covered +mountain-range whose base we were skirting, the leafless cottonwoods +fringing the Fontaine qui Bouille and the sombre plains that stretched +away to the eastern horizon told a different story. It was on one of +those days elsewhere so rare, but so common in Colorado, when a summer +sky smiles upon a wintry landscape, that we entered a town in whose +history are to be found greater contrasts than even those afforded by +earth and sky. Today Pueblo is a thriving and aggressive city, peopled +with its quota of that great pioneer army which is carrying civilization +over the length and breadth of our land. Three hundred and forty years +ago, as legend hath it, Coronado here stopped his northward march, and +on the spot where Pueblo now stands established the farthermost outpost +of New Spain. + +The average traveller who journeys westward from the Missouri River +imagines that he is coming to a new country. "The New West" is a +favorite term with the agents of land--companies and the writers of +alluring railway-guides. These enterprising advocates sometimes indulge +in flights of rhetoric that scorn the trammels of grammar and +dictionary. Witness the following impassioned utterances concerning the +lands of a certain Western railroad: "They comprise a section of country +whose possibilities are simply _infinitesimal_, and whose developments +will be revealed in glorious realization through the horoscope of the +near future." This verbal architect builded wiser than he knew, for what +more fitting word could the imagination suggest wherewith to crown the +possibilities of alkali wastes and barren, sun-scorched plains? + +A considerable part of the New West of to-day was explored by the +Spaniards more than three centuries ago. Before the English had landed +at Plymouth Rock or made a settlement at Jamestown they had penetrated +to the Rocky Mountains and given to peak and river their characteristic +names. Southern Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have been the theatres +wherein were enacted deeds of daring and bravery perhaps unsurpassed by +any people and any age; and that, too, centuries before they became a +part of our American Union. The whole country is strewn over with the +ruins of a civilization in comparison with which our own of to-day seems +feeble. And he who journeys across the Plains till he reaches the Sangre +del Cristo Mountains or the blue Sierra Mojadas enters a land made +famous by the exploits of Coronado, De Vaca and perhaps of the great +Montezuma himself. + +In the year 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was sent by the Spanish +viceroy of Mexico to explore the regions to the north. Those +mountain-peaks, dim and shadowy in the distance and seeming to recede as +they were approached, had ever been an alluring sight to the +gold-seeking Spaniards. But the coveted treasure did not reveal itself +to their cursory search; and though they doubtless pushed as far north +as the Arkansas River, they returned to the capital from what they +considered an unsuccessful expedition. The way was opened, however, and +in 1595 the Spaniards came to what is now the Territory of New Mexico +and founded the city of Santa Fé. They had found, for the most part, a +settled country, the inhabitants living in densely-populated villages, +or _pueblos_, and evincing a rather high degree of civilization. Their +dwellings of mud bricks, or _adobes_, were all built upon a single plan, +and consisted of a square or rectangular fort-like structure enclosing +an open space. Herds of sheep and goats grazed upon the hillsides, while +the bottom-lands were planted with corn and barley. Thus lived and +flourished the Pueblo Indians, a race the origin of which lies in +obscurity, but connected with which are many legends of absorbing +interest. All their traditions point to Montezuma as the founder and +leader of their race, and likewise to their descent from the Aztecs. But +their glory departed with the coming of Cortez, and their Spanish +conquerors treated them as an inferior race. Revolting against their +oppressors in 1680, they were reconquered thirteen years later, though +subsequently allowed greater liberty. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo +in 1848 they became citizens of the United States. From one extreme of +government to another has drifted this remnant of a stately race, till +now at last it finds itself safely sheltered in the arms of our great +republic. + +Such is the romantic history of a portion of our so-called "New West;" +but it was with a view of ascertaining some facts concerning occurrences +of more recent date, as well as of seeing some of the actors therein, +that we paid a visit to Pueblo. We found it a rather odd mixture of the +old and the new, the adobe and the "dug-out" looking across the street +upon the imposing structure of brick or the often gaudily-painted frame +cottage. It looked as though it might have been indulging in a Rip Van +Winkle sleep, except that the duration might have been a century or two. +High _mesas_ with gracefully rounded and convoluted sides almost +entirely surround it, and rising above their floor-like tops, and in +fine contrast with their sombre brown tints, appear the blue outlines of +the distant mountains. Pike's Peak, fifty miles to the north, and the +Spanish Peaks, the Wawatoyas, ninety to the south, are sublime objects +of which the eye never grows weary; while the Sierra Mojadas bank up the +western horizon with a frowning mountain-wall. A notch in the distant +range, forty miles to the north-west, indicates the place where the +Arkansas River breaks through the barriers that would impede its seaward +course, forming perhaps the grandest cañon to be found in all this +mighty mountain-wilderness. Truly a striking picture was that on which +Coronado and his mail-clad warriors gazed. + +[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING +NORTH-WEST--PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.] + +A motley throng compose the inhabitants of Pueblo. The dark-hued +Mexican, his round face shaded by the inevitable _sombrero_, figures +conspicuously. But if you value his favor and your future peace of mind +have a care how you allude to his nationality. He is a Spaniard, you +should know--a pure Castilian whose ancestor was some old hidalgo with +as long an array of names and titles as has the Czar of All the Russias +himself. Though he now lives in a forsaken-looking adobe hut with dirt +floor and roof of sticks and turf that serves only to defile the +raindrops that trickle through its many gaps--though his sallow wife +and ill-favored children huddle round him or cook the scanty meal upon +the mud oven in a corner of the room--he is yet a Spaniard, and glories +in it. The tall, raw-boned man, straight as a young cottonwood, whose +long black hair floats out from beneath his hat as he rides into town +from his ranch down the river, may be a half-breed who has figured in a +score of Indian fights, and enjoys the proud distinction of having +killed his man. There is the hungry-looking prospector, waiting with +ill-disguised impatience till he can "cross the Range" and follow again, +as he has done year after year, the exciting chase after the +ever-receding mirage--the visions of fabulous wealth always going to be, +but never quite, attained. The time-honored symbol of Hope must, we +think, give place to a more forcible representation furnished by the +peculiar genius of our times; for is not our modern Rocky-Mountain +prospector the complete embodiment of that sublime grace? His is a hope +that even reverses the proverb, for no amount of deferring is able to +make him heartsick, but rather seems to spur him on to more earnest +endeavor. Has he toiled the summer long, endured every privation, +encountered inconceivable perils, only to find himself at its close +poorer than when he began? Reluctantly he leaves the mountain-side where +the drifting snows have begun to gather, but seemingly as light-hearted +as when he came, for his unshaken hope bridges the winter and feeds upon +the limitless possibilities of the future. Full of wonderful stories are +these same hope-sustained prospectors--tales that are bright with the +glitter of silver and gold. Not a single one of them who has not +discovered "leads" of wonderful richness or "placers" where the sands +were yellow with gold; but by some mischance the prize always slipped +out of his grasp, and left him poor in all but hope. And in truth so +fascinating becomes the occupation that men who in other respects seem +cool and phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the +horde rushing toward some unexplored district, impelled by the +ever-flying rumors of untold wealth just brought to light. The golden +goal this season is the great Gunnison Country; and soon trains of +_burros_, packed with pick and shovel, tent and provisions, will be +climbing the Range. + +Pueblo has likewise its business-men, its men of to-day, who manage its +banks, who buy and sell and get gain as they might do in any +well-ordered city, though, truth to tell, there are very few of them who +do not sooner or later catch the prevailing infection--a part of whose +assets is not represented by some "prospect" away up in the mountains or +frisking about the Plains in herds of cattle and sheep. But perhaps the +most curiously-original character in all the town is Judge Allen A. +Bradford, of whose wonderful memory the following good story is told: +Years ago he, with a party of officers, was at the house of Colonel +Boone, down the river. While engaged in playing "pitch-trump," of which +the judge was very fond--and in fact the only game of cards with which +he was acquainted--a messenger rushed in announcing that a lady had +fallen from her horse and was doubtless much injured. The players left +their cards and ran to render assistance, and the game thus broken up +was not resumed. Some two years later the same parties found themselves +together again, and "pitch-trump" was proposed. To the astonishment of +all, the judge informed them how the score stood when they had so +hurriedly left the game, and with the utmost gravity insisted that it be +continued from that point! + +On a bright sunny morning we sought out the judge's office, only to +learn that he had not yet for the day exchanged the pleasures of rural +life across the Fontaine for less romantic devotions at the shrine of +the stern goddess. Later we were informed, upon what seemed credible +authority, that upon the morning in question he was intending to sow +oats. Though cold March still claimed the calendar, and hence such +action on the part of the judge might seem like forcing the season, yet +reflections upon his advanced years caused us to suppress the rising +thought that perhaps some allusions to _wild_ oats might have been +intended. Hence we looked forward to a rare treat--judicial dignity +unbending itself in pastoral pursuits, as in the case of some Roman +magistrate. "A little better'n a mile" was the answer to our +interrogatory as to how far the judge's ranch might be from town; but +having upon many former occasions taken the dimensions of a Colorado +mile, we declined the suggestion to walk and sought some mode of +conveyance. There chanced to be one right at hand, standing patiently by +the wayside and presided over by an ancient colored gentleman. The coach +had been a fine one in its day, but that was long since past, and now +its dashboard, bent out at an angle of forty-five degrees, the faded +trimmings and the rusty, stately occupant of the box formed a complete +and harmonious picture of past grandeur seldom seen in the Far West. Two +dubious-looking bronchos, a bay and a white, completed this unique +equipage, in which we climbed the _mesa_ and then descended into the +valley of the Fontaine. The sable driver was disposed to be +communicative, and ventured various opinions upon current topics. He had +been through the war, and came West fourteen years ago. + +"You have had quite an adventurous life," we remarked. + +"Why, sah," he returned, "if the history ob my life was wrote up it +would be wuth ten thousand dollars." + +While regarding the valuation as somewhat high, we yet regretted our +inability to profit by this unexpected though promising +business-opportunity, and soon our attention was diverted by a glimpse +of the judge's adobe, and that person himself standing by his carriage +and awaiting our by no means rapid approach. He was about to go to town, +and the oats were being sown by an individual of the same nationality as +our driver, to whom the latter addressed such encouraging remarks as +"Git right 'long dere now and sow dat oats. Don't stand roostin' on de +fence all day, like as you had the consumshing. You look powerful weak. +Guess mebbe I'd better come over dere and show you how." + +[Illustration: THE JUDGE.] + +Judge Bradford's career has been a chequered one, and it has fallen to +his lot to dispense justice in places and under circumstances as +various as could well be imagined. Born in Maine in 1815, he has lived +successively in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado, and held almost +every position open to the profession of the law. From the supreme +bench of Colorado he was twice called to represent the Territory as +delegate to Congress. In 1852, when he was judge of the Sixth Judicial +District of Iowa, his eccentricities of character seem to have reached +their full development. He exhibited that supreme disregard for dress +and the various social amenities which not infrequently betray the +superior mind. Never were his clothes known to fit, being invariably +too large or too small, too short or too long. As to his hair, the +external evidences were of a character to disprove the rumor that he +had a brush and comb, while the stubby beard frequently remained +undisturbed upon the judicial chin for several weeks at a time. The +atrocious story is even told that once upon a time, when half shaven, +he chanced to pick up a newspaper, became absorbed in its contents, +forgot to complete his task, and went to court in this most absurdly +unsymmetrical condition. But, despite these personal eccentricities, a +more honest or capable judge has rarely been called upon to vindicate +the majesty of the law. Upon the bench none could detect a flaw in his +assumption of that dignity so intimately associated in all minds with +the judiciary, but, the ermine once laid aside for the day, he was as +jolly and mirthful as any of his frontier companions. Judge Bradford +was no advocate, but by the action of a phenomenal memory his large +head was stored so full of law as to emphasize, to those who knew him, +the curious disproportion between its size and that of his legs and +feet. These latter were of such peculiarly modest dimensions as to call +to mind Goldsmith's well-known lines, though in this case we must, of +necessity, picture admiring frontiersmen standing round while + + Still the wonder grew + That two small feet could carry all he knew. + +The judge's mind is of the encyclopædical type, and facts and dates are +his especial "strong holt." But his countenance fails to ratify the +inward structure when, pausing from a recital, he gazes upon your +reception of the knowledge conveyed with a kindly smile--a most innocent +smile that acts as a strong disposer to belief. Whether it has been a +simple tale of the early days enlivened with recollections of +pitch-trump and other social joys, or whether the performances of savage +Indians and treacherous half-breeds send a chill through the listener, +it is all the same: at its close the judge's amiable features wear the +same belief-compelling smile. Under its influence we sit for hours while +our entertainer ranges through the stores of his memory, pulling out +much that is dust-covered and ancient, but quickly renovated for our use +by his ready imagination and occasional wit. With a feeling akin to +reverence we listen--a reverence due to one who had turned his face +toward the Rocky Mountains before Colorado had a name, who had made the +perilous journey across the great Plains behind a bull-team, and who +has since been associated with everything concerned in the welfare and +progress of what has now become this great Centennial State, toward +which all eyes are turning. Not without its dark days to him has passed +this pioneer life, and none were more filled with discouragement than +those during which he represented the Territory in Congress. He +describes the position as one of peculiar difficulty--on one hand the +clamors of a people for aid and recognition in their rapid development +of the country, while on the other, to meet them, he found himself a +mere beggar at the doors of Congressional mercy and grace, voteless and +hence powerless. Truly, in the light of his experience, the office of +Territorial delegate is no sinecure. + +No one has more closely observed the course of events in the Far West +than Judge Bradford, and his opinions on some disputed points are very +decided and equally clear. Many have wondered that Pueblo, which had the +advantage of first settlement, had long been a rendezvous of trappers +and frontier traders, and lay upon the only road to the then so-called +Pike's Peak mines, that _viâ_ the Arkansas Cañon--that this outpost, +situated thus at the very gateway of the Far West, should have remained +comparatively unimportant, while Denver grew with such astonishing +rapidity. But, in the judge's opinion, it was the war of the rebellion +that turned the scale in favor of the Queen City. The first emigrants +had come through Missouri and up the Arkansas, their natural route, and +as naturally conducting to Pueblo. But when Missouri and South-eastern +Kansas became the scenes of guerrilla warfare the emigrant who would +safely convey himself and family across the prairies must seek a more +northern parallel. Hence, Pueblo received a check from which it is only +now recovering, and Denver an impetus whose ultimate limits no man can +foresee. + +Many strange things were done in the olden time. When the Plains Indians +had gathered together their forces for the purpose of persistently +harassing the settlement, the Mountain Utes, then the allies of the +whites, offered their services to help repel the common enemy. Petitions +went up to the governor and Legislature to accept the proffered +services, but they were steadily refused. Our long-headed judge gives +the reason: The administration was under the control of men who were +feeding Uncle Sam's troops with corn at thirteen cents per pound, and +other staples in proportion, and the Indian volunteers promised a too +speedy ending of such a profitable warfare. + +Thus eventfully has passed the life of Judge Bradford. During his +threescore-and-five years he has moved almost across a continent, never +content unless he was on the frontier. Long may he live to ride in his +light coverless wagon in the smile of bright Colorado sunshine, honored +by all who know him, and affording his friends the enjoyment of his rare +good presence! + +[Illustration: OLD ADOBE FORT.] + +Thirty years ago this whole Rocky-Mountain region, now appropriated by +an enterprising and progressive people, contained, besides the native +Indians and the Mexicans in the south, only a few trappers and frontier +traders, most of them in the employ of the American Fur Company. These +were the fearless and intrepid pioneers who so far from fleeing danger +seemed rather to court it. Accounts of their adventures--now a struggle +with a wounded bear, again the threatened perils of starvation when lost +in some mountain-fastness--have long simultaneously terrified and +fascinated both young and old. We all have pictured their dress--the +coat or cloak, often an odd combination of several varieties of skins +pieced together, with fur side in; breeches sometimes of the same +material, but oftener of coarse duck or corduroy; and the slouched hat, +under whose broad brim whatever of the face that was not concealed by a +shaggy, unkempt beard shone out red from exposure to sun and weather. +The American Fur Company had dotted the country with forts, which served +the double purpose of storehouses for the valuables collected and of +places where the employés could barricade themselves against the +too-often troublesome savages. For such a purpose, though not actually +by the Fur Company, was built the old adobe fort the ruins of which are +still to be seen on the banks of the Arkansas at Pueblo. How old it may +have been no one seems to know, but certain it is that for long years, +and in the earliest times, it was a favorite rendezvous. Here was +always to be found a jolly good party to pass away the long winter +evenings with song and story. Here Kit Carson often stopped to rest from +his many perilous expeditions, enjoying, together with Fremont and other +noted Rocky-Mountain explorers, the hospitalities of the old fort. Many +times were its soft walls indented by the arrows of besieging Indians, +but its bloodiest tragedy was enacted in 1854, when the Utes surprised +the sleeping company and savagely massacred all. + +While these events were transpiring at the old fort a party of Mexicans +had journeyed from the south, crossed the Arkansas River and formed a +settlement on the east side of the Fontaine. A characteristically +squalid and miserable place it was, with the dwellings--they scarce +deserved the name of houses--built in the side of the bluffs very much +as animals might burrow in the ground. Part dug-out and part adobe were +those wretched habitations, and the shed-like parts which projected from +the hill were composed of all conceivable and inconceivable kinds of +rubbish. Sticks, stones, bits of old iron, worn-out mattings and +gunny-sacks entered more or less into the construction of these dens, +all stuck together with the inevitable adobe mud. The settlement +extended some distance along the side of the bluff, and the sloping +plain in front was dignified as the _plaza_. Perhaps the dark-hued +immigrants expected a large town to spring from these unpromising +beginnings, and their plaza to take on eventually all the importance +which a place so named ever deserves in the Spanish and Mexican mind. +But the Pike's Peak excitement, originating in 1852 with the finding of +gold by a party of Cherokee Indians, and reaching its culmination in +1859, brought a far different class of people to our Rocky-Mountain +outpost, and a civilization was inaugurated which speedily compelled the +ancient Mexican methods to go by the board. Thus, Fontaine was soon +absorbed by the rising town of Pueblo, though the ancient dug-outs still +picturesquely dot the hillside, inhabited by much the same idle and +vagabond class from which the prosperous ranchman soon learns to guard +his hen-roost. + +The growth of any of our Far Western towns presents a curious study. In +these latter days it frequently requires but a few months, or even +weeks, to give some new one a fair start upon its prosperous way. +Sometimes a mineral vein, sometimes the temporary "end of the track" of +a lengthening railway, forms the nucleus, and around it are first seen +the tents of the advance-guard. Before many weeks have elapsed some +enterprising individual has succeeded, in the face of infinite toil and +expense, in bringing a sawmill into camp. Soon it is buzzing away on the +neighboring hillside, and the rough pine boards and slabs are growing +into houses of all curious sizes and shapes, irregularly lining the main +street. Delightfully free from conventionality are matters in these new +towns. Former notions of things go for naught. Values are in a +highly-disturbed state, and you will probably be charged more for the +privilege of sleeping somewhere on the floor than for all the refined +elegancies of the Fifth Avenue. The board-walks along the street, where +they exist at all, plainly typify this absence of a well-defined dead +level or zero-point in the popular sentiment; for the various sections +are built each upon the same eccentric plan that obtains in the +corresponding house. The result is an irregular succession of steps +equally irregular, with enough literal jumping-off places to relieve any +possible monotony attending the promenade. If the growth of the town +seems to continue satisfactory, its houses--at least those in or near +its central portions--begin gradually to pass through the next stage in +their development. During this interesting period, which might be called +their chrysalid state, they are twisted and turned, sometimes sawn +asunder, parts lopped off here and applied elsewhere, and all those +radical changes made which would utterly destroy anything possessed of +protean possibilities inferior to those of the common Western frame +house. But, as a final result of this treatment and some small additions +of new material, at last emerges the shapely and often artistic +cottage, resplendent in paint, and bearing small resemblance to the +slab-built barn which forms its framework. If the sometime camp becomes +a city--if Auraria grows into a Denver and Fontaine develops into +Pueblo--the frame houses will sooner or later share a common fate, that +of being mounted on wheels or rollers for a journey suburbward, to make +room for the substantial blocks of brick or stone. By this curious +process of evolution do most of our Western towns rapidly acquire more +or less of a metropolitan appearance. + +[Illustration: MEXICAN INTERIOR.] + +Pueblo, while not a representative Western town in these respects, yet +in its early days presented some curious combinations, most of them +growing out of the heterogeneous human mixture that attempted to form a +settlement. The famous Green-Russell party, on its way from Georgia to +the Pike's Peak country, had passed through Missouri and Kansas in 1858, +and there found an element ripe for any daring and adventurous deeds in +unknown lands. Many of the border desperadoes, then engaged in that +hard-fought prelude to the civil war, found it desirable and expedient +to leave a place where their violent deeds became too well known; and +these, together with others who hoped to find in a new country relief +from the anarchy which reigned at home, fell into the wake of the +pioneers. Pueblo received its full share of Kansas outlaws about this +time, and, what with those it already contained, even a modicum of peace +seemed out of the question. Here, for instance, was found living with +the Mexicans by the plaza a quarrelsome fellow named Juan Trujillo, +better known by the sobriquet of Juan Chiquito or "Little John," which +his diminutive stature had earned for him. This worthy is represented as +a constant disturber of the peace, and he met the tragic fate which his +reckless life had invited. From being a trusted friend he had incurred +the enmitv of a noted character named Charley Antobees, than whom, +perhaps, no one has had a more varied frontier experience. Coming to the +Rocky Mountains in 1836 in the employ of the American Fur Company, he +has since served as hunter, trapper, Indian-fighter, guide to several +United States exploring expeditions, and spy in the Mexican war as well +as in the war of the rebellion. Antobees still lives on the outskirts of +Pueblo, and his scarred and bronzed face, framed by flowing locks of +jet-black hair, is familiar to all. The frame that has endured so much +is now bent, and health is at last broken, and about a year since an +effort was made by Judge Bradford and others to secure him a pension. +But twenty years back he was in his full vigor and able to maintain his +own against all odds. Whether or not it is true we cannot say, but +certain it is that he is credited with causing the death of Juan +Chiquito. An Indian called "Chickey" actually did the deed, lying in +ambush for his victim. Perhaps few were sorry at the Mexican's sudden +taking off, and in a country where Judge Lynch alone executes the laws +the whole transaction was no doubt regarded as eminently proper. + +Among those who came to Pueblo with the influx of 1858 were two brothers +from Ohio, Josiah and Stephen Smith. Stalwart young men were these, of a +different type from the Kansans and Missourians, yet not of the sort to +be imposed upon. They were crack rifle-shots, and even then held decided +opinions on the Indian question--opinions which subsequent experiences +have served to emphasize, but not change. And what with constant +troubles with the savages, as well as with the scarcely less intractable +Kansans, their first years in the Far West could not be called +altogether pleasant. Many a time have their lives been in danger from +bands of outlaw immigrants, who, dissatisfied with not finding gold +lying about as they had expected, sought to revenge themselves upon the +settlers, whom they considered in fault for having led the way. Their +personal bravery went far toward bringing to a close this reign of +terror and transforming the lawless settlement into a permanent and +prosperous town. Still in the prime of life, they look back with +pleasure over their most hazardous experiences, for time has softened +the dangers and cast over them the glow of romance. And while none are +more familiar with everything concerning the early history of Pueblo, it +is equally true that none are more ready to gratify an appreciative +listener, and the writer is indebted for much that follows to their +inimitable recitals. + +About the first work of any note undertaken in connection with the new +town was the building of a bridge across the Arkansas. This was +accomplished in 1860, when a charter was obtained from Kansas and a +structure of six spans thrown across the river. It was a toll-bridge, +and every crossing team put at least one dollar into the pockets of its +owners. But trouble soon overtook the management. While one of the +proprietors was in New Mexico, building a mill for Maxwell upon his +famous estate, the other was so unfortunate as to kill three men, and +was obliged, as Steph Smith felicitously expressed it, to "skip out." +Thus the bridge passed into other hands, where it remained till it was +partly washed away in 1863. The following little matter of history +connected with its palmy days will be best given in the narrator's own +words: "We had a blacksmith who misused his wife. The citizens took him +down to the bridge, tied a rope around his body and threw him into the +river. They kept up their lick until they nearly drowned the poor cuss, +then whispered to him to be good to his wife or his time would be short. +He took the hint, used his wife well, and everything was lovely. That +was the first cold-water cure in Pueblo, and I ain't sure but the last." +This incident serves to illustrate the inherent character of American +gallantry, for, however wild or in most respects uncivilized men may +appear to become under the influence of frontier life, instances are +rare in which women are not treated with all the honor and respect due +them. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that the general sentiment +concerning woman is more refined and reverential among the bronzed +pioneers at the outposts than under the influence of a higher +civilization. + +The Arkansas, ever changing its winding course after the manner of +prairie-rivers, has long since shifted its bed some distance to the +south, leaving only a portion of the old bridge to span what in high +water becomes an arm of the river, but which ordinarily serves to convey +the water from a neighboring mill. We lean upon its guard-rail while +fancy is busy with the past. We picture the prairie-schooners winding +around the mesas and through the gap: soon they have come to the grove +by the river-bank; the horses are picketed and the camp-fire is blazing; +brown children play in the sand while their parents lie stretched out in +the shadow of the wagons. They left civilization on the banks of the +Missouri more than a month ago, and their eyes are still turned toward +those grand old mountain-ranges in the west over which the declining sun +is now pouring its transfiguring sheen. The brightness dazzles the eyes, +and the Mexican who rides by on a scarce manageable broncho with nose +high in air might be old Juan Chiquito bent upon some murderous errand. +But no: the rider has stopped the animal, and is soliciting the peaceful +offices of a blacksmith, whose curious little shop, bearing the +suggestive name of "Ute," is seen near the bridge. Here bronchos, mules +and burros are fitted with massive shoes by this frontier Vulcan and +sent rejoicing upon their winding and rocky ways. Our sleepy gaze +follows along Santa Fé Avenue, and the eye sees little that is +suggestive of a modern Western town. But soon comes noisily along a +one-horse street-car, which asserts its just claims to popular notice in +consequence of its composing a full half of a system scarce a fortnight +old by filling the air with direful screeches as each curve is +laboriously described. And later, when the magnificent overland train, +twenty-six hours from Kansas City, steams proudly up to the station, +fancy can no longer be indulged. The old has become new. The great +Plains have been bridged, and the outposts of but a decade ago become +the suburbs of to-day. + +[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE.] + +Doubtless Old Si Smith now and then indulges in reveries somewhat +similar, but his retrospections would be of a minute and personal +character. To warm up the average frontiersman, however--and Old Si is +no exception--into a style at once luminous and emphatic and embellished +with all the richness of the border dialect, it is only necessary to +suggest the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his +yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is the +red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to become fervid +and impressive. To him the Indian is the embodiment of all that is +supremely vile, and hence merits his unmitigated hatred. Killing +Indians is his most delightful occupation, and the next in order is +talking about it. His contempt for government methods is unbounded, and +the popular Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith +brothers have had a varied experience in frontier affairs, in which the +Indian has played a prominent part. They hold the Western views, but +with less prejudice than is generally found. They argue the case with a +degree of fairness, and many of their opinions and deductions are novel +and equally just. Said Stephen Smith to the writer: "We've got this +thing reduced right down to vulgar fractions, and the Utes have got to +go. The mineral lands are worth more to us than the Indians are"--this +with a suggestive shrug--"and if the government don't remove them from +the reserves, why, we'll have to do it ourselves. There's a great fuss +been made about the whites going on the Indian reserves; and what did it +all amount to? Maybe fifty or sixty prospectors, all told, have got over +the lines, dug a few holes and hurt nobody. But I suppose the Indians +always stay where they ought to! I guess not. Some of them are off their +reserves half the time, and they go off to murder and kill. Do they ever +get punished for that? Not much, except when folks do it on their own +account. But let a white man get found on the Indian reserves and +there's a great howl. I want a rule that will work both ways, and I +don't give much for a government that isn't able to protect me on the +Indian reserves the same as anywhere else. Some years ago Indian +troubles were reported at Washington, and Sherman was sent out to +investigate. Of course they heard he was coming, and all were on their +good behavior. They knew where their blankets and ponies and provisions +came from. Consequently, Sherman reported everything peaceful: he hadn't +seen anybody killed. That's about the kind of information they get in +the East on the Indian question. + +"Misused? Yes, the Indians have been misused, badly misused. I know +that. But who have _they_ misused? This whole country is covered with +ruins, and they all go to show that it has been inhabited by a +highly-civilized race of people. And what has become of them? I believe +the Indians cleaned them out long years ago; and now their turn has +come. I find it's a law of Nature"--and here the narrator's tone grew +more reverent as if touching upon a higher theme--"that the weak go to +the wall. It's a hard law, but I don't see any way out of it. The old +Aztecs had to go under, and the Indians will have to follow suit." + +Whatever humanitarians and archæologists may conclude concerning these +opinions, they are nevertheless extensively held in the Far West. The +frontiersman, who sees the Indian only in his native savagery, who has +found it necessary to employ a considerable part of his time in keeping +out of range of poisoned arrows, and who must needs be always upon the +alert lest his family fall a prey to Indian treachery, cannot be +expected to hold any ultra-humanitarian views upon the subject. He has +not been brought in contact with the several partially-civilized tribes, +in whose advancement many see possibilities for the whole race. He +cannot understand why the government allows the Indians to roam over +enormous tracts of land, rich in minerals they will never extract and +containing agricultural possibilities they will never seek to realize. +His plan would be to have only the same governmental care exercised over +the red man as is now enjoyed by the white, and then look to the law of +the survival of the fittest to furnish a solution of the problem. The +case seems so clear and the arguments so potent that he looks for some +outside reasons for their failure, and very naturally thinks he +discovers them in governmental quarters. "There's too many people living +off this Indian business for it to be wound up yet a while." Thus does a +representative man at the outposts express the sentiment of no +inconsiderable class. + +Next to the Indian himself, the frontiersman holds in slight esteem the +soldiers who are sent for the protection of the border. The objects of +his supreme hatred still often merit his good opinion for their bravery +and fighting qualities, but upon raw Eastern recruits and West-Point +fledglings he looks with mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods +by many hard knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity +toward those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to +this may be a lurking jealousy--which, however, would be stoutly +disclaimed--because the blue uniform is gaining honors and experience +more easily and under conditions more favorable than were possible with +him in the early days. "They be about the greenest set!" said an old +Indian-fighter to whom this subject was broached, "and the sight of an +Injun jest about scares 'em to death at first. I never saw any of 'em +_I_ was afraid of if I only had any sort of a show. Why, back in '59 I +undertook to take a young man back to the States, and we started off in +a buggy--a _buggy_, do you mind. When we got down the Arkansas a piece +we heard the red-skins was pretty thick, but we went right on, except +keeping more of a lookout, you know. But along in the afternoon we saw +fifteen or twenty coming for us, and we got ready to give 'em a +reception. We had a hard chase, but at last they got pretty sick of +the way I handled my rifle, and concluded to let us alone for a while. +They kept watch of us, though, and meant to get square with us that +night. Well, we travelled till dark, stopped just long enough to build +a big fire, and then lit out. When those Injuns came for us that night +we were some other place, and they lost their grip on that little +scalping-bee. They didn't trouble us any more, that's sure. And when we +got to the next post there were nigh a hundred teams, six stages and +two companies of soldiers, all shivering for fear of the Injuns. It +rather took the wind out of 'em to see us come in with that buggy, and +they didn't want to believe we had come through. But, like the man's +mother-in-law, we were _there_, and they couldn't get out of it. And, +sir, maybe you won't believe me, but those soldiers offered me +_seventy-five dollars_ to go back with them! That's the sort of an +outfit the government sends to protect us!" + +[Illustration: SANTA FÉ AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO.] + +We have had frequent occasion since our frontier experiences began to +ponder the untrammelled opulence of this Western word, _outfit_. From +the Mississippi to the Pacific its expansive possibilities are +momentarily being tested. There is nothing that lives, breathes or +grows, nothing known to the arts or investigated by the +sciences--nothing, in short, coming within the range of the Western +perception--that cannot with more or less appropriateness be termed an +"outfit." A dismal broncho turned adrift in mid-winter to browse on the +short stubble of the Plains is an "outfit," and so likewise is the +dashing equipage that includes a shining phaeton and richly-caparisoned +span. Perhaps by no single method can so comprehensive an idea of the +term in question be obtained in a short time, and the proper qualifying +adjectives correctly determined, as by simply preparing for a +camping-expedition. The horse-trader with whom you have negotiated for a +pair of horses or mules congratulates you upon the acquisition of a +"boss outfit." When your wagon has been purchased and the mules are duly +harnessed in place, you are further induced to believe that you have a +"way-up outfit," though, obviously, this should now be understood to +possess a dual significance which did not before obtain, since the wagon +represents a component part. The hardware clerk displays a tent and +recommends a fly as forming a desirable addition to an even otherwise +"swell outfit." The grocer provides you with what he modestly terms a +"first-class outfit," albeit his cans of fruits, vegetables and meats +are for the delectation of the inner man. Frying-pans and dutch-ovens, +camp-stools and trout-scales, receive the same designation. And now +comes the crowning triumph of this versatile term, as well as a happy +illustration of what might be called its agglutinative and assimilating +powers; for when horses and wagon have received their load of tent and +equipments, and father, mother and the babies have filled up every +available space, this whole establishment, this _omnium gatherum_ of +outfits, becomes neither more nor less than an "outfit." + +The last five years have witnessed a wonderful material progress in the +Far West. The mineral wealth discovered in Colorado and New Mexico has +caused a great westward-flowing tide to set in. The nation seems to be +possessed of a desire to reclaim the waste places and to explore the +unknown. Cities that were founded by "fifty-niners," and after a decade +seemed to reach the limits of their growth, have started on a new +career. And for none of these does the outlook seem brighter than in the +case of the city of Pueblo, the old outpost whose early history we have +attempted to sketch. Its growth has all along been a gradual one, and +its improvements have kept pace with this healthy advance. Its public +schools, like those of all Far Western towns which the writer has +visited are model institutions and an honor to the commonwealth. A +handsome brick court-house, situated on high ground, is an ornament to +the city, and differs widely from that in which Judge Bradford held +court eighteen years ago--the first held in the Territory, and that, +too, under military protection. Pueblo's wealth is largely derived from +the stock-raising business, the surrounding country being well adapted +to cattle and sheep. The _rancheros_ ride the Plains the year round, and +the cattle flourish upon the food which Nature provides--in the summer +the fresh grass, and in the winter the same converted into hay which has +been cured upon the ground. An important railway-centre is Pueblo, and +iron highways radiate from it to the four cardinal points. These +advantages of location should procure it a large share of the flood of +prosperity that is sweeping over the State. But enterprises are now in +progress which cannot fail to add materially to its importance as a +factor in the development of the country. On the highest lift of the +mesa south of the town, and in a most commanding position, it has been +decided to locate a blast-furnace which shall have no neighbor within a +radius of five hundred miles. With iron ore of finest quality easily +accessible in the neighboring mountains, and coal-fields of unlimited +extent likewise within easy reach, the production of iron in the Rocky +Mountains has only waited for the growth of a demand. This the +advancement and prosperity of the State have now well assured. Many +kindred industries will spring up around the furnace, the Bessemer +steel-works and the rail-mills that are now projected; and a few years +will suffice to transform the level mesa, upon which for untold +centuries the cactus and the yucca-lily have bloomed undisturbed, into a +thriving manufacturing city whose pulse shall be the throb of steam +through iron arms. The onlooking mountains, that have seen strange +sights about this old outpost, are to see a still stranger--the +ushering-in of a new civilization which now begins its march into the +land of the Aztecs. + +Perhaps these thoughts were occupying our minds as we climbed the +bluffs for a visit to this incipient Pittsburg. The equipage did no +credit to the financial status of the iron company, as it consisted of +a superannuated express-wagon drawn by a dyspeptic white horse which +the boy who officiated as driver found no difficulty in restraining. +Two gentlemen in charge of the constructions, their visitor and two +kegs of nails comprised this precious load. The day was cloudless and +fine, albeit a Colorado "zephyr" was blowing, and the party, with +perhaps the single exception of the horse, felt in fine spirits. The +jolly superintendent, who both in face and mien reminded one of the +typical German nobleman, was overflowing with story, joke and witty +repartee. The site of the works was reached in the course of time. +Excavations were in progress for the blast-furnace and accessory +buildings, and developed a strange formation. The entire mesa seems +built up of boulders packed together with a sort of alkali clay, dry +and hard as stone, and looking, as our _distingué_ guide remarked, as +though not a drop of water had penetrated five feet from the surface +since the time of the Flood. Two blast-furnaces, each with a capacity +of five hundred tons, will be speedily built, to be followed by +rail-mills, a Bessemer steel-plant and all the accessories of vast +iron-and steel-works. With the patronage of several thousand miles of +railway already assured, and its duplication in the near future +apparently beyond doubt, the success of this daring frontier enterprise +seems far removed from the domain of conjecture. + +[Illustration: OLD SI SMITH.] + +All this was glowingly set forth by the courtly superintendent, who, +though but three months in the country, is already at heart a Coloradan. +That there are some things about frontier life which he likes better +than others he is free to admit. Among the few matters he would have +otherwise he gives the first place to the tough "range" or "snow-fed" +beef upon which the dwellers in this favored land must needs subsist. "I +heard a story once," said he, "about a young man, a tenderfoot, who, +after long wondering what made the beef so fearfully tough, at length +arrived at the solution, as he thought, and that quite by accident. He +was riding out with a friend, an old resident, when they chanced to come +upon a bunch of cattle. The young man's attention seemed to be +attracted, and as the idea began to dawn upon him he faced his +companion, and, pointing to an animal which bore the brand "B.C. 45," +savagely exclaimed, 'Look there! How can you expect those antediluvians +to be anything but tough? Why don't you kill your cattle before they get +two or three times as old as Methuselah?'" + +We took a long ride that afternoon under a peerless sky, with blue +mountain-ranges on one hand, whose ridges, covered with snow, seemed +like folds of satin, and on the other the great billowy Plains, bare and +brown and smooth as a carpet. The white horse, relieved of the kegs of +nails, really performed prodigies of travel, all the more appreciated +because unexpected. A stone-quarry for which we were searching was not +found, but a teamster was, who, while everything solemnly stood still +and waited, and amid the agonies of an indescribable stutter, finally +managed to enlighten us somewhat as to its whereabouts. These adventures +served to put us in excellent humor, so that when the road was found +barricaded by a barbed wire fence, it only served to give one of the +party an opportunity to air his views upon the subject--to argue, in +fact, that the barbed wire fence had been an important factor in +building up the agricultural greatness of the West. "For what +inducements," he exclaims, "does the top rail of such a fence offer to +the contemplative farmer? None, sir! His traditional laziness has been +broken up, and great material prosperity is the result." + +Whatever causes have operated to produce the effect, certain it is that +the West is eminently prosperous to-day. Everywhere are seen growth, +enterprise and an aggressiveness that stops at no obstacles. Immigration +is pouring into Colorado alone at the rate of several thousands per +week. The government lands are being rapidly taken up, and the stable +industries of stock-raising and farming correspondingly extended. +Manufacturing, too, is acquiring a foothold, and many of the necessaries +of life, which now must be obtained in the East, will soon be produced +at home. The mountains are revealing untold treasures of silver and +gold, and the possibilities which may lie hid in the yet unexplored +regions act as a stimulus to crowds of hopeful prospectors. But while +Colorado is receiving her full share of the influx, a tide seems to be +setting in toward the old empire of the Aztecs, and flowing through the +natural gateway, our old Rocky-Mountain outpost. It is beginning to be +found out that the legends of fabulous wealth which have come down to us +from the olden time have much of truth in them, and mines that were +worked successively by Franciscan monks, Pueblo Indians, Jesuit priests +and Mexicans, and had suffered filling up and obliteration with every +change of proprietorship, are now being reopened; and that, too, under a +new dispensation which will ensure prosperity to the enterprise. +Spaniard and priest have long since abandoned their claim to the rich +possessions, and their doubtful sway, ever upon the verge of revolution +and offering no incentive to enterprise, has given place to one of a +different character. Under the protection of beneficent and fostering +laws this oldest portion of our Union may now be expected to reveal its +wealth of resources to energy and intelligent labor. And it may +confidently be predicted that American enterprise will not halt till it +has built up the waste places of our land, and in this case literally +made the desert to blossom as the rose. Thus gloriously does our new +civilization reclaim the errors of the past, building upon ancient ruins +the enlightened institutions of to-day, and grafting fresh vigor upon +effete races and nationalities. And now, at last, the Spanish Peaks, +those mighty ancient sentinels whose twin spires, like eyes, have +watched the slow rise and fall of stately but tottering dynasties in the +long ago, are to look out upon a different scene--a new race come in the +might of its freedom and with almost the glory of a conquering host to +redeem a waiting land from the outcome of centuries of avaricious and +bigoted misrule, and even from the thraldom of decay. + +GEORGE REX BUCKMAN. + +[Illustration] + + + + +LOST. + + + I. + + I lost my treasures one by one, + Those joys the world holds dear; + Smiling I said, "To-morrow's sun + Will bring us better cheer." + For faith and love were one. Glad faith! + All loss is naught save loss of faith. + + II. + + My truant joys come trooping back, + And trooping friends no less; + But tears fall fast to meet the lack + Of dearer happiness. + For faith and love are two. Sad faith! + 'Tis loss indeed, the loss of faith. + +MARY B. DODGE. + + + + +ADAM AND EVE. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +From the day on which Adam knew that the date of Jerrem's trial was +fixed all the hope which the sight of Eve had rekindled was again +completely extinguished, and, refusing every attempt at consolation, he +threw himself into an abyss of despair a hundred-fold more dark and +bitter than before. The thought that he, captain and leader as he had +been, should stand in court confronted by his comrades and neighbors +(for Adam, ignorant of the disasters which had overtaken them, believed +half Polperro to be on their way to London), and there swear away +Jerrem's life and turn informer, was something too terrible to be dwelt +on with even outward tranquillity, and, abandoning everything which had +hitherto sustained him, he gave himself up to all the terrors of remorse +and despair. It was in vain for Reuben to reason or for Eve to plead: so +long as they could suggest no means by which this dreaded ordeal could +be averted Adam was deaf to all hope of consolation. There was but one +subject which interested him, and only on one subject could he be got to +speak, and that was the chances there still remained of Jerrem's life +being spared; and to furnish him with some food for this hope, Eve began +to loiter at the gates, talk to the warders and the turnkeys, and mingle +with the many groups who on some business or pretext were always +assembled about the yard or stood idling in the various passages with +which the prison was intersected. + +One morning it came to her mind, How would it be for Adam to escape, and +so not be there to prove the accusation he had made of Jerrem having +shot the man? With scarce more thought than she had bestowed on many +another passing suggestion which seemed for the moment practical and +solid, but as she turned it round lost shape and floated into air, Eve +made the suggestion, and to her surprise found it seized on by Adam as +an inspiration. Why, he'd risk _all_ so that he escaped being set face +to face with Jerrem and his former mates. Adam had but to be assured the +strain would not be more than Eve's strength could bear before he had +adopted with joy her bare suggestion, clothed it with possibility, and +by it seemed to regain all his past energy. Could he but get away and +Jerrem's life be spared, all hope of happiness would not be over. In +some of those distant lands to which people were then beginning to go +life might begin afresh. And as his thoughts found utterance in speech +he held out his hand to Eve, and in it she laid her own; and Adam needed +nothing more to tell him that whither he went there Eve too would go. +There was no need for vows and protestations now between these two, for, +though to each the other's heart lay bare, a word of love scarce ever +crossed their lips. Life seemed too sad and time too precious to be +whiled away in pleasant speeches, and often when together, burdened by +the weight of all they had to say, yet could not talk about, the two +would sit for hours and neither speak a word. But with this proposition +of escape a new channel was given to them, and as they discussed their +different plans the dreadful shadow which at times had hung between them +was rolled away and lifted out of sight. + +Inspired by the prospect of action, of doing something, Adam roused +himself to master all the difficulties: his old foresight and caution +began to revive, and the project, which had on one day looked like a +desperate extremity, grew by the end of a week into a well-arranged plan +whose success seemed more than possible. Filled with anxiety for Eve, +Reuben gave no hearty sanction to the experiment: besides which, he felt +certain that now neither Adam's absence nor presence would in any way +affect Jerrem's fate; added to which, if the matter was detected it +might go hard with Adam himself. But his arguments proved nothing to +Eve, who, confident of success, only demanded from him the promise of +secrecy; after which, she thought, as some questions might be put to +him, the less he knew the less he would have to conceal. + +Although a prisoner, inasmuch as liberty was denied to him, Adam was in +no way subjected to that strict surveillance to which those who had +broken the law were supposed to be submitted. It was of his own free +will that he disregarded the various privileges which lay open to him: +others in his place would have frequented the passages, hung about the +yards and grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought +and sold. Money could do much in those days of lax discipline, and the +man who could pay and could give need have very few wants unsatisfied. +But Adam's only desire was to be left undisturbed and alone; and as this +entailed no undue amount of trouble after their first curiosity had been +satisfied, it was not thought necessary to deny him this privilege. From +constantly going in and out, most of the officials inside the prison +knew Eve, while to but very few was Adam's face familiar; and it was on +this fact, aided by the knowledge that through favor of a gratuity +friends were frequently permitted to outstay their usual hour, that most +of their hopes rested. Each day she came Eve brought some portion of the +disguise which was to be adopted; and then, having learnt from Reuben +that the Mary Jane had arrived and was lying at the wharf unloading, not +knowing what better to do, they decided that she should go to Captain +Triggs and ask him, in case Adam could get away, whether he would let +him come on board his vessel and give him shelter there below. + +"Wa-al, no," said Triggs, "I woan't do that, 'cos they as I'se got here +might smell un out; but I'll tell 'ee what: I knaws a chap as has in +many ways bin beholden to me 'fore now, and I reckon if I gives un the +cue he'll do the job for 'ee." + +"But do you think he's to be trusted?" Eve asked. + +"Wa-al, that rests on how small a part you'm foaced to tell un of," +said Triggs, "and how much you makes it warth his while. I'm blamed if +I'd go bail for un myself, but that won't be no odds agen' Adam's goin': +'tis just the place for he. 'T 'ud niver do to car'y a pitch-pot down +and set un in the midst o' they who couldn't bide his stink." + +"And the crew?" said Eve, wincing under Captain Triggs's figurative +language. + +"Awh, the crew's right enuf--a set o' gashly, smudge-faced raskils +that's near half Maltee and t' other Lascar Injuns. Any jail-bird that +flies their way 'ull find they's all of a feather. But here," he added, +puzzled by the event: "how's this that you'm still mixed up with Adam +so? I thought 'twas all 'long o' you and Reuben May that the Lottery's +landin' got blowed about?" + +Eve shook her head. "Be sure," she said, "'twas never in me to do Adam +any harm." + +"And you'm goin' to stick to un now through thick and thin? 'Twill niver +do for un, ye knaw, to set his foot on Cornish ground agen." + +"He knows that," said Eve; "and if he gets away we shall be married and +go across the seas to some new part, where no one can tell what brought +us from our home." + +Triggs gave a significant nod. "Lord!" he exclaimed, "but that's a poor +lookout for such a bowerly maid as you be! Wouldn't it be better for 'ee +to stick by yer friends 'bout here than--" + +"I haven't got any friends," interrupted Eve promptly, "excepting it's +Adam and Joan and Uncle Zebedee." + +"Ah, poor old Zebedee!" sighed Triggs: "'tis all dickey with he. The day +I started I see Sammy Tucker to Fowey, and he was tellin' that th' ole +chap was gone reg'lar tottlin'-like, and can't tell thickee fra that; +and as for Joan Hocken, he says you wouldn't knaw her for the same. And +they's tooked poor foolish Jonathan, as is more mazed than iver, to live +with 'em; and Mrs. Tucker, as used to haggle with everybody so, tends on +'em all hand and foot, and her's given up praichin' 'bout religion and +that, and 's turned quite neighborly, and, so long as her can save her +daughter, thinks nothin's too hot nor too heavy." + +"Dear Joan!" sighed Eve: "she's started by the coach on her way up here +now." + +"Whether she hath or no!" exclaimed Triggs in surprise. "Then take my +word they's heerd that Jerrem's to be hanged, and Joan's comin' up to be +all ready to hand for 't." + +"No, not that," groaned Eve, for at the mere mention of the word the +vague dread seemed to shape itself into a certainty. "Oh, Captain +Triggs, don't say that if Adam gets off you don't think Jerrem's life +will be spared." + +"Wa-al, my poor maid, us must hope so," said the compassionate captain; +"but 'tis the warst o' they doin's that sooner or later th' endin, of +'em must come. 'Twould never do to let 'em prosper allays," he added +with impressive certainty, "or where 'ud be the use o' parsons praichin' +up 'bout heaven and hell? Why, now, us likes good liquor cheap to Fowey; +and wance 'pon a time us had it too, but that ha'n't bin for twenty +year. Our day's gone by, and so 'ull theirs be now; and th' excise 'ull +come, and revenoos 'ull settle down, and folks be foaced to take to +lousterin' for the bit o' bread they ates, and live quiet and paceable, +as good neighbors should. So try and take heart; and if so be that Adam +can give they Bailey chaps the go-by, tell un to come 'longs here, and +us 'ull be odds with any o' they that happens to be follerin' to his +heels." + +Charmed with this friendly promise, Eve said "Good-bye," leaving the +captain puzzled with speculations on women and the many curious +contradictions which seem to influence their actions; while, the hour +being now too late to return to the prison, she took her way to her own +room, thinking it best to begin the preparations which in case of Adam's +escape and any sudden departure it would be necessary to have completed. + +Perhaps it was her interview with Captain Triggs, the sight of the wharf +and the ships, which took her thoughts back and made them bridge the +gulf which divided her past life from her present self. Could the girl +she saw in that shadowy past--headstrong, confident, impatient of +suffering and unsympathetic with sorrow--be this same Eve who walked +along with all hope and thought of self merged in another's happiness +and welfare? Where was the vanity, where were the tricks and coquetries, +passports to that ideal existence after which in the old days she had so +thirsted? Trampled out of sight and choked beneath the fair blossoms of +a higher life, which, as in many a human nature, had needed sorrow, +humiliation and a great watering of tears before there could spring +forth the flowers for a fruit which should one day ripen into great +perfection. + +No wonder, then, that she should be shaken by a doubt of her own +identity; and having reached her room she paused upon the threshold and +looked around as if to satisfy herself by all those silent witnesses +which made it truth. There was the chair in which she had so often sat +plying her needle with such tardy grace while her impatient thoughts did +battle with the humdrum, narrow life she led. How she had beat against +the fate which seemed to promise naught but that dull round of +commonplace events in which her early years had passed away! How as a +gall and fret had come the thought of Reuben's proffered love, because +it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the life she then +most dreaded! To be courted and sought after, to call forth love, +jealousy and despair, to be looked up to, thought well of, praised, +admired,--these were the delights she had craved and these the longings +she had had granted. And a sigh from the depths of that chastened heart +rendered the bitter tribute paid by all to satiated vanity and outlived +desire. The dingy walls, the ill-assorted furniture (her mother's pride +in which had sometimes vexed her, sometimes made her laugh) now looked +like childhood's friends, whose faces stamp themselves upon our inmost +hearts. The light no longer seemed obscure, the room no longer gloomy, +for each thing in it now was flooded by the tender light of +memory--that wondrous gift to man which those who only sail along life's +summer sea can never know in all the heights and depths revealed to +storm-tossed hearts. + +"What! you've come back?" a voice said in her ear; and looking round Eve +saw it was Reuben, who had entered unperceived. "There's nothing fresh +gone wrong?" he asked. + +"No, nothing;" but the sad smile she tried to give him welcome with was +so akin to tears that Reuben's face assumed a look of doubt. "'Tis only +that I'm thinking how I'm changed from what I was," said Eve. "Why, once +I couldn't bear this room and all the things about it; but now--Oh, +Reuben, my heart seems like to break because perhaps 'twill soon now +come to saying good-bye to all of it for ever." + +Reuben winced: "You're fixed to go, then?" + +"Yes, where Adam goes I shall go too: don't you think I should? What +else is left for me to do?" + +"You feel, then, you'd be happy--off with him--away from all +and--everybody else?" + +"Happy! Should I be happy to know he'd gone alone--happy to know I'd +driven him away to some place where I wouldn't go myself?" and Eve +paused, shaking her head before she added, "If he can make another start +in life--try and begin again--" + +"You ought to help him to it," said Reuben promptly: "that's very plain +to see. Oh, Eve, do you mind the times when you and me have talked of +what we'd like to do--how, never satisfied with what went on around, we +wanted to be altogether such as some of those we'd heard and read about? +The way seems almost opened up to you, but what shall I do when all this +is over and you are gone away? I can't go back and stick to trade again, +working for nothing more but putting victuals in myself." + +For a moment Eve did not speak: then, with a sudden movement, she +turned, saying to Reuben, "There's something that before our lives are +at any moment parted I've wanted to say to you, Reuben. 'Tis that until +now, this time while we've been all together here, I've never known what +your worth is--what you would be to any one who'd got the heart to value +what you'd give. Of late it has often seemed that I should think but +very small of one who'd had the chance of your liking and yet didn't +know the proper value of such goodness." + +Reuben gave a look of disavowal, and Eve continued, adding with a little +hesitation, "You mustn't think it strange in me for saying this. I +couldn't tell you if you didn't know how everything lies between Adam +and myself; but ever since this trouble's come about all my thoughts +seem changed, and people look quite different now to what they did +before; and, most of all, I've learnt to know the friend I've got, and +always had, in you, Reuben." + +Reuben did not answer for a moment. He seemed struggling to keep back +something he was yet prompted to speak of. "Eve," he said at length, +"don't think that I've not made mistakes, and great ones too. When first +I fought to battle down my leaning toward you, why was it? Not because +of doubting that 'twould ever be returned, but 'cos I held myself too +good a chap in all my thoughts and ways to be taken up with such a +butterfly concern as I took you to be. I'd never have believed then that +you'd have acted as I've seen you act. I thought that love with you +meant who could give you the finest clothes to wear and let you rule the +roast the easiest; but you have shown me that you are made of better +woman's stuff than that. And, after all, a man thinks better of himself +for mounting high than stooping to pick up what can be had for asking +any day." + +"No, no, Reuben: your good opinion is more than I deserve," said Eve, +her memory stinging her with past recollections. "If you want to see a +dear, kind-hearted, unselfish girl, wait until Joan comes. I do so hope +that you will take to her! I think you will, after what you've been to +Jerrem and to Adam. I want you and Joan to like each other." + +"I don't think there's much fear of that," said Reuben. "Jerrem's spoke +so freely about Joan that I seem to know her before ever having seen +her. Let me see: her mind was at one time set on Adam, wasn't it?" + +"I think that she was very fond of Adam," said Eve, coloring: "and, so +far as that goes, I don't know that there is any difference now. I'm +sure she'd lay her life down if it would do him good." + +"Poor soul!" sighed Reuben, drawn by a friendly feeling to sympathize +with Joan's unlucky love. "Her cup's been full, and no mistake, of +late." + +"Did Jerrem seem to feel it much that Uncle Zebedee 'd been took so +strange?" asked Eve. + +"I didn't tell him more than I could help," said Reuben. "As much as +possible I made it out to him that for the old man to come to London +wouldn't be safe, and the fear of that seemed to pacify him at once." + +"I haven't spoken of it to Adam yet," said Eve. "He hasn't asked about +his coming, so I thought I'd leave the telling till another time. His +mind seems set on nothing but getting off, and by it setting Jerrem +free." + +But Reuben made no rejoinder to the questioning tone of Eve's words, and +after a few minutes' pause he waived the subject by reverting to the +description which Eve had given of Joan, so that, in case he had to meet +her alone, he might recognize her without difficulty. Eve repeated the +description, dwelling with loving preciseness on the various features +and points by which Joan might be known; and then Reuben, having some +work to do, got up to say good-bye. + +"Good-bye," said Eve, holding out her hand--"good-bye. Every time I say +it now I seem to wonder if 'tis to be good-bye indeed." + +"Why, no: in any way, you'd wait until the trial was over?" + +"Yes, I forgot: of course we should." + +"Well, then, do you think I'd let you go without a word? Ah, Eve, no! +Whatever others are, nobody's yet pushed you from your place, nor ever +will so long as my life lasts." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +At length the dreaded day was over, the trial was at an end, and, in +spite of every effort made, Jerrem condemned to die. The hopes raised by +the knowledge of Adam's escape seemed crowned with success when, to the +court's dismay, it was announced that the prisoner's accuser could not +be produced: he had mysteriously disappeared the evening before, and in +spite of a most vigorous search was nowhere to be found. But, with minds +already resolved to make this hardened smuggler's fate a warning and +example to all such as should henceforth dare the law, one of the +cutter's crew, wrought upon by the fear lest Jerrem should escape and +baffle the vengeance they had vowed to take, was got to swear that +Jerrem was the man who fired the fatal shot; and though it was shown +that the night was dark and recognition next to impossible, this +evidence was held conclusive to prove the crime, and nothing now +remained but to condemn the culprit. The judge's words came slowly +forth, making the stoutest there shrink back and let that arrow from the +bow of death glance by and set its mark on him upon whose face the crowd +now turned to gaze. + +"Can it be that he is stunned? or is he hardened?" + +For Jerrem stands all unmoved and calm while, dulled by the sound of +rushing waters, the words the judge has said come booming back and back +again. A sickly tremor creeps through every limb and makes it nerveless; +a sense of growing weight presses the flesh down as a burden on the +fainting spirit; one instant a thousand faces, crowding close, keep out +the air; the next, they have all receded out of sight back into misty +space, and he is left alone, with all around faded and grown confused +and all beneath him slipping and giving way. Suddenly a sound rouses him +back to life: a voice has smote his ear and cleaved his inmost soul; and +lifting his head his eyes are met by sight of Joan, who with a piercing +shriek has fallen back, deathlike and pale, in Reuben's outstretched +arms. + +Then Jerrem knows that hope is past and he must die, and in one flash +his fate, in all its misery and shame, stands out before him, and +reeling he totters, to sink down senseless and be carried off to that +dismal cell allotted to those condemned to death; while Reuben, as best +he can, manages to get Joan out of court and into the open air, where +she gradually comes back to life again and is able to listen to such +poor comfort as Reuben's sad heart can find to give her. For by reason +of those eventful circumstances which serve to cement friendships by +suddenly overthrowing the barriers time must otherwise gradually wear +away, Reuben May and Joan Hocken have (in the week which has intervened +between her arrival and this day of trial) become more intimate and +thoroughly acquainted than if in an ordinary way they had known each +other for years. A stranger in a large city, with not one familiar face +to greet her, who does not know the terrible feeling of desolation which +made poor Joan hurry through the crowded streets, shrinking away from +their bustle and throng toward Reuben, the one person she had to turn to +for sympathy, advice, assistance and consolation? With that spirit of +perfect trust which her own large heart gave her the certain assurance +of receiving, Joan placed implicit reliance in all Reuben said and did; +and seeing this, and receiving an inward satisfaction from the sight, +Reuben involuntarily slipped into a familiarity of speech and manner +very opposed to the stiff reserve he usually maintained toward +strangers. + +Ten days were given before the day on which Jerrem was to die, and +during this time, through the various interests raised in his behalf, no +restriction was put upon the intercourse between him and his friends; so +that, abandoning everything for the poor soul's welfare, Reuben, Joan +and Jerrem spent hour after hour in the closest intercourse. Happily, in +times of great extremity the power of realizing our exact situation is +mostly denied to us; and in the case of Joan and Jerrem, although +surrounded by the terrors and within the outposts of that dreaded end, +it was nothing unfrequent to hear a sudden peal of laughter, which often +would have as sudden an end in a great burst of tears. + +To point to hopes and joys beyond the grave when every thought is +centred and fixed on this life's interests and keen anxieties is but a +fruitless, vain endeavor; and Reuben had to try and rest contented in +the assurance of Jerrem's perfect forgiveness and good-will to all who +had shown him any malice or ill-feeling--to draw some satisfaction from +the unselfish love he showed to Joan and the deep gratitude he now +expressed to Uncle Zebedee. + +What would become of them? he often asked when some word of Joan's +revealed the altered aspect of their affairs; and then, overcome by the +helplessness of their forlorn condition, he would entreat Reuben to +stand by them--not to forget Joan, not to forsake her. And Reuben, +strangely moved by sight of this poor giddy nature's overwrought +emotion, would try to calm him with the ready assurance that while he +lived Joan should never want a friend, and, touched by his words, the +two would clasp his hands together, telling each other of all the +kindness he had showed them, praying God would pay him back in blessings +for his goodness. Nor were theirs the only lips which spoke of gratitude +to Reuben May: his name had now become familiar to many who through his +means were kept from being ignorant of the sad fate which awaited their +boon companion, their prime favorite, the once madcap, rollicking +Jerrem--the last one, as Joan often told Reuben, whom any in Polperro +would have fixed on for evil to pursue or misfortune to overtake, and +about whom all declared there must have been "a hitch in the block +somewheres, as Fate never intended that ill-luck should pitch upon +Jerrem." The repetition of their astonishment, their indignation and +their sympathy afforded the poor fellow the most visible satisfaction, +harassed as he was becoming by one dread which entirely swallowed up the +thought and fear of death. This ghastly terror was the then usual +consignment of a body after death to the surgeons for dissection; and +the uncontrollable trepidation which would take possession of him each +time this hideous recollection forced itself upon him, although +unaccountable to Reuben, was most painful for him to witness. What +difference could it make what became of one's body after death? Reuben +would ask himself, puzzled to fathom that wonderful tenderness which +some natures feel for the flesh which embodies their attractions. But +Jerrem had felt a passing love for his own dear body: vanity of it had +been his ruling passion, its comeliness his great glory--so much so that +even now a positive satisfaction would have been his could he have +pictured himself outstretched and lifeless, with lookers-on moved to +compassion by the dead grace of his winsome face and slender limbs. +Joan, too, was caught by the same infection. Not to lie whole and decent +in one's coffin! Oh, it was an indignity too terrible for contemplation; +and every time they were away from Jerrem she would beset Reuben with +entreaties and questions as to what could be done to avoid the +catastrophe. + +The one plan he knew of had been tried--and tried, too, with repeated +success--and this was the engaging of a superior force to wrest the body +from the surgeon's crew, a set of sturdy miscreants with whom to do +battle a considerable mob was needed; but, with money grown very scarce +and time so short, the thing could not be managed, and Reuben tried to +tell Joan of its impossibility while they two were walking to a place in +which it had been agreed they should find some one with a message from +Eve, who, together with Adam, was in hiding on board the vessel Captain +Triggs had spoken of. But instead of the messenger Eve herself arrived, +having ventured this much with the hope of hearing something that would +lessen Adam's despair and grief at learning the fate of Jerrem. + +"Ah, poor sawl!" sighed Joan as Eve ended her dismal account of Adam's +sad condition: "'tis only what I feared to hear of. But tell un, Eve, to +lay it to his heart that Jerrem's forgived un every bit, and don't know +what it is to hold a grudge to Adam; and if I speak of un, he says, +'Why, doan't I know it ain't through he, but 'cos o' my own headstrong +ways and they sneaks o' revenoo-chaps?' who falsely swored away his +blessed life." + +"Does he seem to dread it much?" asked Eve, the sickly fears which +filled her heart echoed in each whispered word. + +"Not _that_ he don't," said Joan, lifting her hand significantly to her +throat: "'tis after. Oh, Eve," she gasped, "ain't it too awful to think +of their cuttin' up his poor dead body into bits? Call theyselves +doctors!" she burst out--"the gashly lot! I'll never let wan o' their +name come nighst to me agen." + +"Oh, Reuben," gasped Eve, "is it so? Can nothing be done?" + +Reuben shook his head. + +"Nothing now," said Joan--"for want o' money, too, mostly, Eve; and the +guineas I've a-wasted! Oh, how the sight o' every one rises and chinks +in judgment 'gainst my ears!" + +"If we'd got the money," said Reuben soothingly, "there isn't time. All +should be settled by to-morrow night; and if some one this minute +brought the wherewithal I haven't one 'pon whom I dare to lay my hand to +ask to undertake the job." + +"Then 'tis no use harpin' 'pon it any more," said Joan; while Eve gave a +sigh, concurring in what she said, both of them knowing well that if +Reuben gave it up the thing must be hopeless indeed. + +Here was another stab for Adam's wounded senses, and with a heavy heart +and step Eve took her way back to him, while Reuben and Joan continued +to thread the streets which took them by a circuitous road home to +Knight's Passage. + +But no sooner had Eve told Adam of this fresh burden laid on poor Jerrem +than a new hope seemed to animate him. Something was still to be done: +there yet remained an atonement which, though it cost him his life, he +could strive to make to Jerrem. Throwing aside the fear of detection +which had hitherto kept him skulking within the little vessel, he set +off that night to find the Mary Jane, and, regardless of the terrible +shame which had filled him at the bare thought of confronting Triggs or +any of his crew, he cast himself upon their mercy, beseeching them as +men, and Cornishmen, to do this much for their brother-sailor in his sad +need and last extremity; and his appeal and the nature of it had so +touched these quickly-stirred hearts that, forgetful of the contempt and +scorn with which, in the light of an informer, they had hitherto viewed +Adam, they had one and all sworn to aid him to their utmost strength, +and to bring to the rescue certain others of whom they knew, by whose +help and assistance success would be more probable. Therefore it was +that, two days before the morning of his sentenced death, Eve was able +to put into Reuben's hand a scrap of paper on which was written Adam's +vow to Jerrem that, though his own life paid the forfeit for it, +Jerrem's body should be rescued and saved. + +Present as Jerrem's fears had been to Reuben's eyes and to his mind, +until he saw the transport of agitated joy which this assurance gave to +Jerrem he had never grasped a tithe of the terrible dread which during +the last few days had taken such complete hold of the poor fellow's +inmost thoughts. Now, as he read again and again the words which Adam +had written, a torrent of tears burst forth from his eyes: in an ecstasy +of relief he caught Joan to his heart, wrung Reuben's hand, and from +that moment began to gradually compose himself into a state of greater +ease and seeming tranquillity. Confident, through the unbroken trust of +years, that Adam's promise, once given, might be implicitly relied on, +Jerrem needed no further assurance than these few written words to +satisfy him that every human effort would be made on his behalf; and the +knowledge of this, and that old comrades would be near, waiting to unite +their strength for his body's rescue, was in itself a balm and +consolation. He grew quite loquacious about the crestfallen authorities, +the surprise of the crowd and the disappointment of the ruffianly mob +deprived of their certain prey; while the two who listened sat with a +tightening grip upon their hearts, for when these things should come to +be the life of him who spoke them would have passed away, and the +immortal soul have flown from out that perishable husk on which his +last vain thoughts were still being centred. + +Poor Joan! The time had yet to come when she would spend herself with +many a sad regret and sharp upbraiding that this and that had not been +said and done; but now, her spirit swallowed up in desolation and sunk +beneath the burden of despair, she sat all silent close by Jerrem's +side, covering his hands with many a mute caress, yet never daring to +lift up her eyes to look into his face without a burst of grief sweeping +across to shake her like a reed. Jerrem could eat and drink, but Joan's +lips never tasted food. A fever seemed to burn within and fill her with +its restless torment: the beatings of her throbbing heart turned her +first hot, then cold, as each pulse said the time to part was hurrying +to its end. + +By Jerrem's wish, Joan was not told that on the morning of his death to +Reuben alone admittance to him had been granted: therefore when the eve +of that morrow came, and the time to say farewell actually arrived, the +girl was spared the knowledge that this parting was more than the shadow +of that last good-bye which so soon would have to be said for ever. +Still, the sudden change in Jerrem's face pierced her afresh and broke +down that last barrier of control over a grief she could subdue no +longer. In vain the turnkeys warned them that time was up and Joan must +go. Reuben entreated too that they should say good-bye: the two but +clung together in more desperate necessity, until Reuben, seeing that +further force would be required, stepped forward, and stretching out his +hand found it caught at by Jerrem and held at once with Joan's, while in +words from which all strength of tone seemed to die away Jerrem +whispered, "Reuben, if ever it could come to pass that when I'm gone you +and she might find it some day in your minds to stand +together--_one_--say 'twas the thing he wished for most before he went." +Then, with a feeble effort to push her into Reuben's arms, he caught her +back, and straining her close to his heart again cried out, "Oh, Joan, +but death comes bitter when it means good-bye to such as you!" Another +cry, a closer strain, then Jerrem's arms relax; his hold gives way, and +Joan falls staggering back; the door is opened--shut; the struggle is +past, and ere their sad voices can come echoing back Jerrem and Joan +have looked their last in life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + +When Reuben found that to be a witness of Jerrem's death Joan must take +her stand among the lawless mob who made holiday of such sad scenes as +this, his decision was that the idea was untenable. Jerrem too had a +strong desire that Joan should not see him die; and although his +avoidance of anything that directly touched upon that dreaded moment had +kept him from openly naming his wishes, the hints dropped satisfied +Reuben that the knowledge of her absence would be a matter of relief to +him. But how get Joan to listen to his scruples when her whole mind was +set on keeping by Jerrem's side until hope was past and life was over? + +"Couldn't 'ee get her to take sommat that her wouldn't sleep off till +'twas late?" Jerrem had said after Reuben had told him that the next +morning he must come alone; and the suggestion made was seized on at +once by Reuben, who, under pretence of getting something to steady her +shaken nerves, procured from the apothecary near a simple draught, which +Joan in good faith swallowed. And then, Reuben having promised in case +she fell asleep to awaken her at the appointed hour, the poor soul, worn +out by sorrow and fatigue, threw herself down, dressed as she was, upon +the bed, and soon was in a heavy sleep, from which she did not rouse +until well into the following day, when some one moving in the room made +her start up. For a moment she seemed dazed: then, rubbing her eyes as +if to clear away those happy visions which had come to her in sleep, she +gazed about until Reuben, who had at first drawn back, came forward to +speak to her. "Why, Reuben," she cried, "how's this? Have I been +dreamin', or what? The daylight's come, and, see, the sun!" + +And here she stopped, her parched mouth half unclosed, as fears came +crowding thick upon her mind, choking her further utterance. One look at +Reuben's face had told the tale; and though she did not speak again, the +ashen hue that overspread and drove all color from her cheeks proclaimed +to him that she had guessed the truth. + +"'Twas best, my dear," he said, "that you should sleep while he went to +his rest." + +But the unlooked-for shock had been too great a strain on body and mind, +alike overtaxed and weak, and, falling back, Joan lay for hours as one +unconscious and devoid of life. And Reuben sat silent by her side, +paying no heed as hour by hour went by, till night had come and all +around was dark: then some one came softly up the stairs and crept into +the room, and Eve's whispered "Reuben!" broke the spell. + +Yes, all had gone well. The body, rescued and safe, was now placed +within a house near to the churchyard in which Eve's mother lay: there +it was to be buried. And there, the next day, the commonplace event of +one among many funerals being over, the four thus linked by fate were +brought together, and Adam and Joan again stood face to face. Heightened +by the disguise which in order to avoid detection he was obliged to +adopt, the alteration in Adam was so complete that Joan stood aghast +before this seeming stranger, while a fresh smart came into Adam's open +wounds as he gazed upon the changed face of the once comely Joan. + +A terrible barrier--such as, until felt, they had never dreaded--seemed +to have sprung up to separate and divide these two. Involuntarily they +shrank at each other's touch and quailed beneath each other's gaze, +while each turned with a feeling of relief to him and to her who now +constituted their individual refuge and support. Yes, strange as it +seemed to Adam and unaccountable to Joan, _she_ clung to Reuben, _he_ to +Eve, before whom each could be natural and unrestrained, while between +their present selves a great gulf had opened out which naught but time +or distance could bridge over. + +So Adam went back to his hiding-place, Reuben to his shop, and Joan and +Eve to the old home in Knight's Passage, as much lost amid the crowd of +thronged London as if they had already taken refuge in that far-off land +which had now become the goal of Adam's thoughts and keen desires. Eve, +too, fearing some fresh disaster, was equally anxious for their +departure, and most of Reuben's spare time was swallowed up in making +the necessary arrangements. A passage in his name for himself and his +wife was secured in a ship about to start. At the last moment this +passage was to be transferred to Adam and Eve, whose marriage would take +place a day or two before the vessel sailed. The transactions on which +the successful fulfilment of these various events depended were mostly +conducted by Reuben, aided by the counsels of Mr. Osborne and the +assistance of Captain Triggs, whose good-fellowship, no longer withheld, +made him a valuable coadjutor. + +Fortunately, Triggs's vessel, through some detention of its cargo, had +remained in London for an unusually long time, and now, when it did +sail, Joan was to take passage in it back to Polperro. + +"Awh, Reuben, my dear," sighed Joan one evening as, Eve having gone to +see Adam, the two walked out toward the little spot where Jerrem lay, +and as they went discussed Joan's near departure, "I wish to goodness +you'd pack up yer alls and come 'longs to Polperro home with me: 't 'ud +be ever so much better than stayin' to this gashly London, where there +ain't a blow o' air that's fresh to draw your breath in." + +"Why, nonsense!" said Reuben: "you wouldn't have me if I'd come." + +"How not have 'ee?" exclaimed Joan. "Why, if so be I thought you'd come +I'd never stir from where I be until I got the promise of it." + +"But there wouldn't be nothin' for me to do," said Reuben. + +"Why, iss there would--oceans," returned Joan. "Laws! I knaws clocks by +scores as hasn't gone for twenty year and more. Us has got two +ourselves, that wan won't strike and t' other you can't make tick." + +Reuben smiled: then, growing more serious, he said, "But do you know, +Joan, that yours isn't the first head it's entered into about going down +home with you? I've had a mind toward it myself many times of late." + +"Why, then, do come to wance," said Joan excitedly; "for so long as they +leaves me the house there'll be a home with me and Uncle Zebedee, and +I'll go bail for the welcome you'll get gived 'ee there." + +Reuben was silent, and Joan, attributing this to some hesitation over +the plan, threw further weight into her argument by saying, "There's the +chapel too, Reuben. Only to think o' the sight o' good you could do +praichin' to 'em and that! for, though it didn't seem to make no odds +before, I reckons there's not a few that wants, like me, to be told o' +some place where they treats folks better than they does down here +below." + +"Joan," said Reuben after a pause, speaking out of his own thoughts and +paying no heed to the words she had been saying, "you know all about Eve +and me, don't you?" + +Joan nodded her head. + +"How I've felt about her, so that I believe the hold she's got on me no +one on earth will ever push her off from." + +"Awh, poor sawl!" sighed Joan compassionately: "I've often had a feelin' +for what you'd to bear, and for this reason too--that I knaws myself +what 'tis to be ousted from the heart you'm cravin' to call yer own." + +"Why, yes, of course," said Reuben briskly: "you were set down for Adam +once, weren't you?" + +"Awh, and there's they to Polperro--mother amongst 'em, too--who'll tell +'ee now that if Eve had never shawed her face inside the place Adam 'ud +ha' had me, after all. But there! all that's past and gone long ago." + +There was another pause, which Reuben broke by saying suddenly, "Joan, +should you take it very out of place if I was to ask you whether after a +bit you could marry me? I dare say now such a thought never entered +your head before." + +"Well, iss it has," said Joan; 'and o' late, ever since that blessed +dear spoke they words he did, I've often fell to wonderin' if so be 't +'ud ever come to pass. Not, mind, that I should ha' bin put out if 't +had so happened that you'd never axed me, like, but still I thought +sometimes as how you might, and then agen I says, 'Why should he, +though?'" + +"There's many a reason why _I_ should ask _you_, Joan," said Reuben, +smiling at her unconscious frankness, "though very few why you should +consent to take a man whose love another woman has flung away." + +"Awh, so far as that goes, the both of us is takin' what's another's +orts, you knaw," smiled Joan. + +"Then is it agreed?" asked Reuben, stretching out his hand. + +"Iss, so far as I goes 'tis, with all my heart." Then as she took his +hand a change came to her April face, and looking at him through her +swimming eyes she said, "And very grateful too I'm to 'ee, Reuben, for I +don't knaw by neither another wan who'd take up with a poor heart-broke +maid like me, and they she's looked to all her life disgraced by others +and theyselves." + +Reuben pressed the hand that Joan had given to him, and drawing it +through his arm the two walked on in silence, pondering over the +unlooked-for ending to the strange events they both had lately passed +through. Joan's heart was full of a contentment which made her think, +"How pleased Adam will be! and won't mother be glad! and Uncle Zebedee +'ull have somebody to look to now and keep poor Jonathan straight and +put things a bit in order;" while Reuben, bewildered by the thoughts +which crowded to his mind, semed unable to disentangle them. Could it be +possible that he, Reuben May, was going down to live at Polperro, a +place whose very name he had once taught himself to abominate?--that he +could be willingly casting his lot amid a people whom he had but lately +branded as thieves, outcasts, reprobates? Involuntarily his eyes turned +toward Joan, and a nimbus in which perfect charity was intertwined with +great love and singleness of heart seemed to float about her head and +shed its radiance on her face; and its sight was to Reuben as the first +touch of love, for he was smitten with a sense of his own unworthiness, +and, though he did not speak, he asked that a like spirit to that which +filled Joan might rest upon himself. + +That evening Eve was told the news which Joan and Reuben had to tell, +and as she listened the mixed emotions which swelled within her +perplexed her not a little, for even while feeling that the two wishes +she most desired--Joan cared for and Reuben made happy--were thus +fulfilled, her heart seemed weighted with a fresh disaster: another +wrench had come to part her from that life soon to be nothing but a +lesson and a memory. And Adam, when he was told, although the words he +said were honest words and true, and truly he did rejoice, there yet +within him lay a sadness born of regret at rendering up that love so +freely given to him, now to be garnered for another's use; and +henceforth every word that Reuben spoke, each promise that he gave, +though all drawn forth by Adam's own requests, stuck every one a +separate thorn within his heart, sore with the thought of being an +outcast from the birthplace that he loved and cut off from those whose +faces now he yearned to look upon. + +No vision opened up to Adam's view the prosperous life the future held +in store--no still small voice then whispered in his ear that out of +this sorrow was to come the grace which made success sit well on him and +Eve; and though, as years went by and intercourse became more rare, +their now keen interest in Polperro and its people was swallowed up amid +the many claims a busy life laid on them both, each noble action done, +each good deed wrought, by Adam, and by Eve too, bore on it the unseen +impress of that sore chastening through which they now were passing. + +Out of the savings which from time to time Adam had placed with Mr. +Macey enough was found to pay the passage-money out and keep them from +being pushed by any pressing want on landing. + +Already, at the nearest church, Adam and Eve had been married, and +nothing now remained but to get on board the vessel, which had already +dropped down the river and was to sail the following morning, Triggs had +volunteered to put them and their possessions safely on board, and +Reuben and Joan, with Eve's small personal belongings, were to meet them +at the steps, close by which the Mary Jane's boat would be found +waiting. The time had come when Adam could lay aside his disguise and +appear in much the same trim he usually did when at Polperro. + +Joan was the first to spy him drawing near, and holding out both her +hands to greet the welcome change she cried, "Thank the Lord for lettin' +me see un his ownself wance more!--Awh, Adam! awh, my dear! 't seems as +if I could spake to 'ee now and know 'ee for the same agen.--Look to un, +Reuben! you don't wonder now what made us all so proud of un at home." + +Reuben smiled, but Adam shook his head: the desolation of this sad +farewell robbed him of every other power but that of draining to the +dregs its bitterness. During the whole of that long day Eve and he had +hardly said one word, each racked with thoughts to which no speech gave +utterance. Mechanically each asked about the things the other one had +brought, and seemed to find relief in feigning much anxiety about their +safety, until Triggs, fearing they might outstay their time, gave them a +hint it would not do to linger long; and, with a view to their +leavetaking being unconstrained, he volunteered to take the few +remaining things down to the boat and stow them safely away, adding that +when they should hear his whistle given it would be the signal that they +must start without delay. + +The spot they had fixed on for the starting-place was one but little +used and well removed from all the bustle of a more frequented landing. +A waterman lounged here and there, but seeing the party was another's +fare vouchsafed to them no further interest. The ragged mud-imps stayed +their noisy pranks to scrutinize the country build of Triggs's boat, +leaving the four, unnoticed, to stand apart and see each in the other's +face the reflection of that misery which filled his own. + +Parting for ever! no hopes, no expectations, no looking forward, nothing +to whisper "We shall meet again"! "Good-bye for ever" was written on +each face and echoed in each heart. Words could not soothe that +suffering which turned this common sorrow into an individual torture, +which each must bear unaided and alone; and so they stood silent and +with outward calm, knowing that on that brink of woe the quiver of an +eye might overthrow their all but lost control. + +The sun was sinking fast; the gathering mists of eventide were rising to +shadow all around; the toil of day was drawing to its close; labor was +past, repose was near at hand; its spirit seemed to hover around and +breathe its calm upon those worn, tried souls. Suddenly a shrill whistle +sounds upon their ears and breaks the spell: the women start and throw +their arms around each other's necks. Adam stretches his hand out, and +Reuben grasps it in his own. + +"Reuben, good-bye. God deal with you as you shall deal with those you're +going among!" + +"Adam, be true to her, and I'll be true to those you leave behind." + +"Joan!" and Adam's voice sounds hard and strained, and then a choking +comes into his throat, and, though he wants to tell her what he feels, +to ask her to forgive all he has made her suffer, he cannot speak a +word. Vainly he strives, but not a sound will come; and these two, whose +lives, so grown together, are now to be rent asunder, stand stricken and +dumb, looking from out their eyes that last farewell which their poor +quivering lips refuse to utter. + +"God bless and keep you, Eve!" Reuben's voice is saying as, taking her +hands within his own, he holds them to his heart and for a moment lets +them rest there.--"Oh, friends," he says, "there is a land where +partings never come: upon that shore may we four meet again!" + +Then for a moment all their hands are clasped and held as in a vice, and +then they turn, and two are gone and two are left behind. + +And now the two on land stand with their eyes strained on the boat, +which slowly fades away into the vapory mist which lies beyond: then +Reuben turns and takes Joan by the hand, and silently the two go back +together, while Adam and Eve draw near the ship which is to take them +to that far-off shore to which Hope's torch, rekindled, now is pointing. + +Good-bye is said to Triggs, the boat pushes off, and the two left +standing side by side watch it away until it seems a speck, which +suddenly is swallowed up and disappears from sight. Then Adam puts his +arm round Eve, and as they draw closer together from out their lips come +sighing forth the whispered words, "Fare-well! farewell!" + +_The Author of "Dorothy Fox"_. + + + + +OUR GRANDFATHERS' TEMPLES. + + +If on the fourteenth day of May, 1607, when the Rev. Robert Hunt +celebrated the first sacramental service of the Church of England on +American soil, there had suddenly sprung up at Jamestown the pillars and +arches of a fully-equipped cathedral, whose stones had remained to tell +us of the days when they first enshrined the worship of the earliest +colonists, our most ancient Christian church would still be less than +three hundred years old--a hopelessly modern structure in comparison +with many an abbey and cathedral of England and the Continent. + +[Illustration: THE OLD SOUTH, BOSTON.] + +In a comparative sense, we look in vain for old churches in a new +country, for in our architecture, if nowhere else, we are still a land +of yesterday, where age seems venerable only when we refuse to look +beyond the ocean, and where even a short two hundred years have taken +away the larger share of such perishable ecclesiastical monuments as we +once had. Our grandfathers' temples, whether they stood on the banks of +the James River or on the colder shores of Massachusetts Bay, were built +cheaply for a scanty population: their material was usually wood, +sometimes unshapen logs, and their sites, chosen before the people and +the country had become fitted to each other, were afterward often needed +for other uses. So long as London tears down historic churches, even in +the present days of fashionable devotion to the old and the quaint, and +so long as the Rome of 1880 is still in danger from vandal hands, we +need only be surprised that the list of existing American churches of +former days is so long and so honorable as it is. If we have no York +Minster or St. Alban's Abbey or Canterbury Cathedral, we may still turn +to an Old South, a St. Paul's and a Christ Church. It is something, +after all, to be able to count our most famous old churches on the +fingers of both hands, and then to enumerate by tens those other temples +whose legacy from bygone times is scarcely less rich. + +[Illustration: KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN 1872.] + +The American churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were +plain structures, unpretending without and unadorned within; and this +for other reasons than the poverty of the community, the lack of the +best building-materials, and the absence both of architects and of +artistic tastes. It was a simple ritual which most of them were to +house, and the absence of an ornate service demanded the absence of +ornamentation, which would be meaningless because it would symbolize +nothing. The influence of the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Baptists in +Rhode Island, the Dutch Reformed in New York, the Lutherans and +Presbyterians in the Middle and Southern colonies, and the Friends in +Pennsylvania, whatever their denominational differences, was a unit in +favor of the utmost simplicity consistent with decency and order; and +though there was a difference between Congregational churches like the +Old South in Boston and the Friends' meeting-houses in Philadelphia, the +difference was far less marked than that existing between the new and +old buildings of the Old South society, which the modern tourist may +compare at his leisure in the Boston of to-day. Even the Episcopalians +shared, or deferred to, the prevailing spirit of the time: they put no +cross upon their Christ Church in Cambridge, nearly a hundred and thirty +years after the settlement of the place, lest they should offend the +tastes of their neighbors. The Methodists, the "Christians," the +Swedenborgians, the Unitarians and the Universalists were not yet, and +the Moravians were a small and little-understood body in Eastern +Pennsylvania. + +[Illustration: KING'S CHAPEL BOSTON, IN 1872.] + +Nearly all the colonists, of whatever name, brought from Europe a +conscientious love of religious simplicity and unpretentiousness: for +the most part, the English-speaking settlers were dissenters from the +Church which owned all the splendid architectural monuments of the +country whence they came; and it was not strange that out of their +religious thought grew churches that symbolized the sturdy qualities of +a faith which, right or wrong, had to endure exile and poverty and +privation--privation not only from social wealth, but from the rich +store of ecclesiastical traditions which had accumulated for centuries +in cathedral choirs and abbey cloisters. + +[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON.] + +Therefore, the typical New England meeting-house of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries may perhaps be taken as the best original example +of what America has to show in the way of church-building. To be sure, +its cost was modest, its material was perishable wood, its architectural +design was often a curious medley of old ideas and new uses, and even +its few ornaments were likely to be devoid of the beauty their designers +fancied that they possessed. But it was, at any rate, an honest +embodiment of a sincere idea--the idea of "freedom to worship God;" and +it was adapted to the uses which it was designed to serve. It stood upon +a hill, a square box with square windows cut in its sides--grim without +and grim within, save as the mellowing seasons toned down its ruder +aspects, and green grass and waving boughs framed it as if it were a +picture. Within, the high pulpit, surmounted by a sounding-board, +towered over the square-backed pews, facing a congregation kept orderly +by stern tithing-man and sterner tradition. There was at first neither +organ nor stove nor clock. The shivering congregation warmed itself as +best it might by the aid of foot-stoves; the parson timed his sermon by +an hour-glass; and in the singing-seats the fiddle and the bass--viol +formed the sole link (and an unconscious one) between the simple +song-service of the Puritan meeting-house and the orchestral +accompaniments to the high masses of European cathedrals. The men still +sat at the end of the pew--a custom which had grown up in the days when +they went to the meeting-house gun in hand, not knowing when they should +be hastily summoned forth to fight the Indians. In the earliest days the +drum was the martial summons to worship, but soon European bells sent +forth their milder call. Behind the meeting-houses were the horse-sheds +for the use of distant comers--a species of ecclesiastical edifice still +adorning the greater number of American country churches, and not likely +to disappear for many a year to come. + +In the elder day there was no such difference as now between city and +country churches, for the limitations of money and material bore upon +both more evenly. But with growing wealth and the choice of permanent +locations for building came brick and stone; English architects received +orders; and the prevailing revival led by Sir Christopher Wren and his +followers dotted the Northern colonies with more pretentious churches, +boasting spires not wholly unlike those which were then piercing London +skies. With costlier churches of permanent material there came also the +English fashion of burial in churchyards and chancel-vaults, and mural +tablets and horizontal tombstones were laid into the mortar which has +been permitted, in not a few cases, to preserve them for our own eyes. + +[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS.] + +But our oldest churches, as a rule, have been made more notable by the +political events with which they have been associated than by the +honorable interments that have taken place beneath their shadow. Their +connection with the living has endeared them to our memories more than +their relations to the dead. Not because it is Boston's Westminster +Abbey or Temple Church has the Old South been permitted to come down to +us as the best example of the Congregational meeting-houses of the +eighteenth century, but because of the Revolutionary episodes of which +it was the scene, and which are commemorated in the stone tablet upon +its front. The Old South Church, built in 1729, belonged to the common +class of brick structures which replaced wooden ones; for, like +Solomon's temple, its predecessor had been built of cedar sixty years +before. The convenient location of the Old South and the capaciousness +of its interior brought to it the colonial meetings which preceded the +Revolution, and especially that famous gathering of December 13, 1773, +whence marched the disguised patriots to destroy the taxed tea in Boston +harbor. The convenient access and spacious audience-room of the old +church also led to its occupancy as a riding-school for British cavalry +in 1775. Even now, in the quiet days following the recent excitement +attending its escape from fire and from sale and demolition, the ancient +church still finds occasional use as a place for lectures and public +gatherings. Its chequered days within the past decade have at least +served to make its appearance and its part in colonial history more +familiar to us, and have done something to save other churches from the +destruction which might have overtaken them. + +As the Old South stands as the brick-and-mortar enshrinement of the best +Puritan thought of the eighteenth century, so King's Chapel in Boston, +built twenty-five years later, represents the statelier social customs +and the more conservative political opinions of the early New England +Episcopalians. Its predecessor, of wood, was the first building of the +Church of England in New England. The present King's Chapel, with its +sombre granite walls and its gently-lighted interior, suggests to the +mind an impression of independence of time rather than of age. One reads +on the walls, to be sure, such high-sounding old names as Vassall and +Shirley and Abthorp, and on a tomb in the old graveyard near by one sees +the inscriptions commemorating Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts +and his son John, governor of Connecticut. But King's Chapel seems the +home of churchly peace and gracious content; so that, as we sit within +its quaint three-sided pews, it is hard to remember the stormy scenes in +which it has had part. Its Tory congregation, almost to a man, fled from +its walls when the British general, Gage, evacuated Boston; the sterner +worshippers of the Old South occupied its Anglican pews for a time; and +later it was the scene of a theological movement which caused, in 1785, +the first Episcopal church in New England--or rather its remnant--to +become the first Unitarian society in America. + +In Salem street, Boston, left almost alone at the extreme north end of +the city, is Christ Church, built in 1723. Its tower contains the oldest +chime of bells in America, and from it, according to some antiquarians, +was hung the lantern which on April 18, 1775, announced to the waiting +Paul Revere, and through him to the Middlesex patriots in all the +surrounding country, that General Gage had despatched eight hundred men +to seize and destroy the military stores gathered at Concord by the +Massachusetts Committees of Safety and Supplies. Thus opened the +Revolutionary war, for the battles at Lexington and Concord took place +only the next day. + +The white-spired building at the corner of Park and Tremont streets, +Boston, known as the Park Street Church, is hardly so old as its +extended fame would lead one to suppose, for it dates no farther back +than the first quarter of the present century. Its position as the +central point of the great theological controversies of 1820 in the +Congregational churches of Eastern Massachusetts has made it almost as +familiar as the "Saybrook Platform." The meeting-house was built at the +time when the greater part of the Boston churches were modifying their +creeds, and when the Old South itself would have changed its +denominational relations but for the vote of a State official, cast to +break a tie. Its inelegance and rawness are excused in part by its +evident solidity and sincerity of appearance. In its shadow rest +Faneuil, Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. + +Boston has other churches which, like the Park Street, are neither +ancient nor modern, the Hollis Street Church and the First Church in +Roxbury being good examples. New England has hardly a better specimen of +the old-fashioned meeting-house on a hill than this old weather-beaten +wooden First Church in Roxbury, the home of a parish to which John +Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, once ministered. Another quaint +memorial of the old colonial days survives in the current name, +"Meeting-house Hill," of a part of the annexed Dorchester district of +Boston. + +[Ilustration: ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW YORK.] + +St. Paul's Church, on Boston Common, was the first attempt of the +Episcopalians of the city, after the loss of King's Chapel, +to build a temple of imposing appearance. Controversies theological and +architectural rose with its walls, and young Edward Everett, if report +is to be credited, was the author of a tract, still in circulation, in +which its design and its principles formed the text for a criticism on +the religion to whose furtherance it was devoted. Standing as it does +next the United States court-house, the uses of the two buildings seem +to have been confused in the builders' minds; for there is something +ecclesiastical in the appearance of the hall of justice, which was +originally a Masonic temple, and something judicial in the face of the +church. + +In Cambridge, three miles from Boston, the eighteenth-century +Episcopalians not only possessed a church, but also displayed to +unwilling eyes a veritable "Bishop's Palace"--the stately house of the +Rev. East Apthorp, "missionary to New England" and reputed candidate for +the bishopric of that region. Mr. Apthorp was rich and influential, but +his social and ecclesiastical lot was not an easy one, and he soon +returned to England discouraged, leaving his "palace" to come down to +the view of our own eyes, which find in it nothing more dangerous to +republican institutions than is to be discovered in a hundred other of +the three-story wooden houses which used so to abound in Massachusetts. +Christ Church, Cambridge, in which the bishop _in posse_ used to +minister, and which stands opposite Harvard College, was designed by the +architect of King's Chapel, and has always been praised for a certain +shapely beauty of proportion. For the last twenty years it has boasted +the only chime of bells in Cambridge, whose quiet shades of a Sunday +evening have been sweetly stirred by the music struck from them by the +hands of a worthy successor of the mediæval bell-ringers, to whom bells +are books, and who can tell the story of every ounce of bell-metal +within twenty miles of his tower. It was of this church, with its +Unitarian neighbor just across the ancient churchyard where so many old +Harvard and colonial worthies sleep, that Holmes wrote: + + Like sentinel and nun, they keep + Their vigil on the green: + One seems to guard, and one to weep, + The dead that lie between. + +The suburbs of Boston are not poor in churches of the eighteenth, or +even of the seventeenth, century. The oldest church in New England--the +oldest, indeed, in the Northern States--still standing in Salem, was +built in 1634, and its low walls and tiny-paned windows have shaken +under the eloquence of Roger Williams. It has not been used for +religious purposes since 1672. In Newburyport is one of the American +churches, once many but now few, in which George Whitefield preached, +and beneath it the great preacher lies buried. A curious little reminder +of St. Paul's, London, is found here in the shape of a whispering +gallery. Another landmark is the venerable meeting-house of the +Unitarian society in Hingham, popularly known as the "Old Ship." Built +in 1681, it was a Congregational place of worship for nearly a century +and a half. Its sturdiness and rude beauty form a striking illustration +of the lasting quality of good, sound wooden beams as material for the +sanctuary. Preparations have already been undertaken for celebrating the +second centennial of the ancient building. Nearly as old, and still more +picturesque with its quaint roof, its venerable hanging chandelier of +brass, its sober old reredos and its age-hallowed communion-service, is +St. Michael's, Marblehead, built in 1714, where faithful rectors have +endeavored to reach six generations of the fishermen and aristocracy of +the rocky old port. The antiquarian who has seen these old temples and +asks for others on the New England coast will turn with scarcely less +interest to St. John's, Portsmouth; the forsaken Trinity Church, +Wickford, Rhode Island, built in 1706; or Trinity, Newport, where Bishop +Berkeley used to preach. In Newport, indeed, one may also speculate +beneath the Old Mill on the fanciful theory that the curious little +structure was a baptistery long before the days of Columbus--the most +ancient Christian temple on this side the sea. + +It is not uncommon to find comparatively new American churches to which +their surroundings or their sober material or their quiet architecture +have given a somewhat exaggerated appearance of age. Such is the case +with the curious row of three churches--the North and Centre +Congregational and Trinity Episcopalstanding side by side on the New +Haven green in a fashion unknown elsewhere in our own country. Any one +of these three churches looks quite as old as that shapely memorial of +pre-Revolutionary days, St. Paul's Chapel, New York, built in 1766 in +the prevailing fashion of the London churches. As with St. Paul's, there +was also no marked appearance of antiquity in the North Dutch Church, +New York, removed in recent years. The poor old Middle Dutch Church in +the same city, with its ignoble modern additions and its swarm of busy +tenants, would have looked old if it could have done so, but for modern +New Yorkers it has no more venerable memory, in its disfigurement and +disguise, than that furnished by its use, for a time, as the city +post-office. + +[Illustration: OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.] + +New York is poor in old buildings, and especially poor in old churches. +Besides St. Paul's, the comparatively modern St. John's Chapel and the +John Street Methodist Church, it really has nothing to show to the +tourist in search of ancient places of worship. The vicinity can boast a +few colonial temples--the quaint old Dutch church at Tarrytown, dear to +the readers of Irving; the Tennent Church on the battle-ground of +Monmouth, New Jersey, with its blood-stains of wounded British soldiers; +and a charmingly plain little Friends' meeting-house, no bigger than a +small parlor, near Squan, New Jersey, being the most strikingly +attractive. In Newark one notes the deep-set windows and solid stone +walls of the old First Presbyterian Church, and the quiet plainness of +Trinity Episcopal Church, which looks like Boston's King's Chapel, with +the addition of a white wooden spire. + +Philadelphia is richer than any other American city in buildings of the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the older streets it is a +frequent sight to see quaint little houses of imported English brick +modestly laid in alternate red and black, curiously like the latest +modern fashion. The ample room for growth possessed by this +widespreading city has saved many an ancient house for present use as +dwelling or store. One is not surprised, therefore, to find on the old +streets near the Delaware three churches of weather-stained brick which +seem trying to make the piety of an elder age useful to the worshippers +of to-day. All three of these churches--Gloria Dei, Christ and St. +Peter's--now have their chief work among the poor people whom one always +finds in a business quarter near the river-front, but each attracts, by +its old-time associations and its modern missionary spirit, a goodly +circle of attendants from the western parts of the city. Gloria Dei +Church, the oldest of the three, was built in 1700 by Swedish Lutherans +on the spot where the Swedish predecessors of the Friends had located +their fortified log church twenty-three years earlier. Its bell and +communion-service and some of its ornamental woodwork were presented by +the king of Sweden. It is surrounded by the usual graveyard, in which +lies Alexander Wilson, the lover and biographer of birds, who asked to +be buried here, in a "silent, shady place, where the birds will be apt +to come and sing over my grave." The Old Swedes' Church retained its +Lutheran connection until recent years, when it became an Episcopal +parish. + +Christ Church and St. Peter's were formerly united in one parochial +government, and to the two parishes ministered William White, the first +Church-of-England minister in Pennsylvania, the friend and pastor of +Washington, the chaplain of Congress and one of the first two bishops of +the American Church. The present structure of Christ Church was begun in +1727, but not finished for some years. The parish is older, dating from +1695. Queen Anne gave it a communion-service in 1708. In 1754 came from +England its still-used chime of bells, which were laboriously +transferred during the Revolution to Allentown, Pennsylvania, lest they +should fall into British hands and be melted up for cannon. At Christ +Church a pew was regularly occupied by Washington during his frequent +residence in Philadelphia; and here have been seated Patrick Henry, +Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and many another patriot, besides +Cornwallis, Howe, André and others on the English side. Around and +beneath the church are many graves covered by weather-worn stones, and +on the walls of the interior there are a number of mural tablets. + +St. Peter's Church was begun in 1758, and completed three years later. +In quiet graciousness of appearance it is like another Christ Church, +and its interior arrangements are still more quaint, the chancel being +at the eastern end of the church, while the pulpit and lectern are at +the western. In the adjoining churchyard is a monument to Commodore +Decatur. + +One cannot find in all America sweeter and quainter memorials of a +gentle past--memorials still consecrated to the gracious work of the +present--than the churches and other denominational houses in the old +Moravian towns of Pennsylvania. At Bethlehem, as one stands in the +little three-sided court on Church street and looks up at the heavy +walls, the tiny dormer windows and the odd-shaped belfry which mark the +"Single Sisters' House" and its wings, one may well fancy one's self, as +a travelled visitor has said, in Quebec or Upper Austria. Still more +quaint and quiet is Willow Square, behind this curious house, where, +beneath drooping willow-boughs, one finds one's self beside the door of +the old German chapel, with the little dead-house, the boys' school and +the great and comparatively modern Moravian church near by. Through +Willow Square leads the path to the burying-ground, where lie, beneath +tall trees, long rows of neatly-kept graves, each covered with a plain +flat stone, the men and the women lying on either side of the broad +central path. Several of the ancient Moravian buildings date from the +middle of the last century. The Widows' House stands, opposite the +Single Sisters' Range, and across the street from the large church is +the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, established in 1749, and by far +the oldest girls' school in the United States. + +It was in 1778 that the Single Sisters gave to Pulaski that banner of +crimson, silk which is commemorated in Longfellow's well-known "Hymn of +the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem." The poem, however, written in the +author's early youth, and preserved for its rare beauty of language and +fine choice of subject, rather than for its historical accuracy, has +done much to perpetuate a wrong idea of the Moravian spirit and ritual. +Mr. Longfellow writes in his first stanza + + When the dying flame of day + Through the chancel shot its ray, + Far the glimmering tapers shed + Faint light on the cowled head, + And the censer burning swung, + When before the altar hung + That proud banner, which, with care, + Had been consecrated there; + And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, + Sung low in the dim, mysterious aisle. + +But the Moravians know nothing of chancels, tapers, cowled heads, +censers, altars or nuns. Their faith has always been the simplest +Protestantism, their churches are precisely such as Methodists or +Baptists use, and their ritual is plainer than that of the most +"evangelical" Episcopal parish. Their "single sisters' houses," "widows' +houses" and "single brethren's houses"--the last long disused--are +simply arrangements for social convenience or co-operative housekeeping. +Mr. Longfellow's poetic description applies to the Moravian ceremonial +no more accurately than to a Congregational prayer-meeting or a +Methodist "love-feast." + +[Illustration: THE MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.] + +Beside the deep and silent waters of the James River in Virginia, +undisturbed by any sound save the flight of birds and the rustle of +leaves, stands all that is left of the first church building erected by +Englishmen in America. A good part of the tower remains, the arched +doorways being still intact, and it seems a pitiable misfortune that the +honestly-laid bricks of the venerable building could not have come down +to our day. But, as it is, this ancient square block of brick forms our +one pre-eminent American ruin. Nothing could be a more solemn monument +of the past than the lonely tower, surrounded by thick branches and +underbrush and looking down upon the few crumbling gravestones still +left at its base. Jamestown, long abandoned as a village, has now become +an island, the action of the waters having at last denied it the +remaining solace of connection with the mainland of the Old Dominion, +of whose broad acres it was once the chief town and the seat of +government--the forerunner of all that came to America at the hands of +English settlers. + +In the slumberous old city of Williamsburg, three miles from Jamestown, +stands the Bruton parish church, two hundred and two years old, and +still the home of a parish of sixty communicants. Built of brick, with +small-paned windows and wooden tower, its walls have listened to the +eloquence of the learned presidents of the neighboring William and Mary +College, and its floor has been honored by the stately tread of many a +colonial governor, member of the legislature or Revolutionary patriot; +for Williamsburg was the capital and centre of Virginia until the end of +the eighteenth century, and shared whatever Virginia possessed of +political or personal renown. Washington, of course, was more than once +an attendant at Bruton Church, and so were Jefferson and Patrick Henry +and an honorable host. In the church and in the chapel of William and +Mary College--which the ambitious colonists used to think a little +Westminster Abbey--was the religious home of a good share of what was +stateliest or most honorable in the early colonial life of the South. + +Other old churches still dot the Virginia soil--St. John's, Richmond; +Pohick Church, Westmoreland county; Christ Church, Lancaster county; St. +Anne's, Isle of Wight county. Their antiquities, and those of other +ancient sanctuaries of the Old Dominion, have been painstakingly set +forth by Bishop Meade and other zealous chroniclers, and their +attractiveness is increased, in most cases--as at Jamestown--by the +loneliness of their surroundings. Another old church, left in the midst +of sweet country sights and gentle country sounds, is St. James's, Goose +Creek, South Carolina. St. Michael's and St. Philip's at Charleston in +the same State have heard the roar of hostile cannon, but have come +forth unscathed. The demolished Brattle Street Church in Boston was not +the only one of our sacred edifices to be wounded by cannonballs, for +the exigences of the fight more than once, during the Revolution and +the civil war, brought flame and destruction within the altar-rails of +churches North and South. + +The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in America has been so recent +that it can show but few historical landmarks. The time-honored +cathedral at St. Augustine, Florida, and the magnificent ruin of the San +José Mission near San Antonio, Texas, and one or two weather-stained +little chapels in the North-west, are nearly all the churches that bring +to us the story of the priestly work of the Roman ecclesiastics during +the colonial days. + +We have no State Church, and the different Presidents have made a wide +variety of choice in selecting their places of worship in Washington. +St. John's, just opposite the White House, has been the convenient +Sunday home of some of them: others have followed their convictions in +Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian and other churches. But the city of +Washington is itself too young to be able to boast any very ancient +associations in its churches, and few of its temples have been permitted +to record the names of famous occupants during a series of years. Our +whole country, indeed, is a land of many denominations and a somewhat +wandering population; and older cities than Washington have found one +church famous for one event in its history, and another for another, +rather than, in any single building, a series of notable occurrences +running through the centuries. The nearest approach to the record of a +succession of worthies occupying the same church-seats year after year +is to be found in the chronicles of our oldest college-chapels, as, for +instance, at Dartmouth, where the building containing the still-used +chapel dates from 1786. But though poverty and custom unite in making +our colleges conservative, their growth in numbers demands, from time to +time, new and more generous accommodations for public worship; and so +the little buildings of an earlier day are either torn down or kept for +other and more ignoble uses, like Holden Chapel at Harvard. This quaint +little structure was built in 1744, and is now used for +recitation-rooms, but at one period in its career it served as the +workshop of the college carpenter. + +[Illustration: RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA.] + +In the years since our grandfathers built their places of worship we +have seen strange changes in American church buildings--changes in +material, location and adaptation to ritual uses. We have had a revival +of pagan temple-building in wood and stucco; we have seen Gothic +cathedrals copied for the simplest Protestant uses, until humorists have +suggested that congregations might find it cheaper to change their +religion than their unsuitable new churches; we have ranged from four +plain brick walls to vast and costly piles of marble or greenstone; we +have constructed great audience-rooms for Sunday school uses alone, and +have equipped the sanctuary with all culinary attachments; we have built +parish-houses whose comfort the best-kept mediæval monk might envy, and +we have put up evangelistic tabernacles only to find the most noted +evangelists preferring to work in regular church edifices rather than in +places of easy resort by the thoughtless crowd of wonder-seekers. But +not all these doings have been foolish or mistaken: some of them have +been most hopeful signs, and the next century will find excellent work +in the church-building of our day. The Gothic and Queen Anne revivals, +at their best, have promoted even more than the old-time honesty in the +use of sound and sincere building-material; and not a few of our newer +churches prove that our ecclesiastical architects have something more to +show than experiments in fanciful "revivals" that are such only in name. +We shall continue to do well so long as we worthily perpetuate the best +material lesson taught by our grandfathers' temples--the lesson of +downright honesty of construction and of a union between the spirit of +worship and its local habitation. + +CHARLES F. RICHARDSON. + + + +WILL DEMOCRACY TOLERATE A PERMANENT CLASS OF NATIONAL OFFICE-HOLDERS? + + +It is no doubt a public misfortune that so much of that thoughtful +patriotism which, both on account of its culture and its independence, +must always be valuable to the country, should have been wasted, for +some time past, upon what are apparently narrow and unpractical, if not +radically unsound, propositions of reform in the civil service. There is +unquestionably need of reform in that direction: it would be too much to +presume that in the generally imperfect state of man his methods of +civil government would attain perfection; but it must be questioned +whether the subject has been approached from the right direction and +upon the side of the popular sympathy and understanding. At this time +propositions of civil-service reform have not even the recognition, much +less the comprehension, of the mass of the people. Their importance, +their limitations, their possibilities, have never been demonstrated: no +commanding intellectual authority has ever taken up the subject and +worked it out before the eyes of the people as a problem of our national +politics. It remains a question of the closet, a merely speculative +proposition as to the science of government. + +What, then, are the metes and bounds of this reform? How much is +demanded? How much is practicable? + +Not attempting a full answer to all of these questions, and intending no +dogmatic treatment of any, let us give them a brief consideration from +the point of view afforded by the democratic system upon which the whole +political fabric of the United States is established. We are to look at +_our_ civil-service reform from that side. Whatever in it may be +feasible, that much must be a work in accord with the popular feeling. +It may be set down at the outset, as the first principle of the problem, +that any practicable plan of organizing the public service of the United +States must not only be founded upon the general consent of the people, +but must also have, in its actual operation, their continual, easy and +direct participation. Any scheme, no matter by what thoughtful patriot +suggested, no matter upon what model shaped, no matter from what +experience of other countries deduced, which does not possess these +essential features can never be worth the serious attention of any one +who expects to accomplish practical and enduring results. + +(Possibly this may seem dogmatic, to begin with; but if we agree to +treat the question as one in democratic politics, the principle stated +becomes perfectly apparent.) + +It must be fair, then, and for the purposes of this article not +premature, to point out that the measure which is especially known as +"civil-service reform," and which has been occasionally recognized in +the party platforms along with other generalities, is one whose essence +is _the creation of a permanent office-holding class_. Substantially, +this is what it amounts to. A man looking forward to a place in the +public service is to regard it as a life occupation, the same as if he +should study for a professional career or learn a mechanical trade. Once +in office, after a "competitive examination" or otherwise, he will +expect to stay in: he will hold, as the Federal judges do, by a +life-tenure, "during good behavior." This is now substantially the +system of Great Britain, which, in the judgment of Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, +is so much better than our own as to actually reduce the rate of +criminality in that country, and which, he declares, only political +baseness can prevent us from imitating. A change of administration +there, Mr. Eaton adds, only affects a few scores of persons occupying +the highest positions: the great mass of the officials live and die in +their places, indifferent to the fluctuation of parliamentary +majorities or the rise and fall of ministries. + +We must ask ourselves does this system accord with American democracy? + +A little more than half a century has passed since John Quincy Adams, +unquestionably the best trained and most experienced American +administrator who ever sat in the Presidency, undertook to establish in +the United States almost precisely the same system as that which Great +Britain now has. Admission to the places was not, it is true, by means +of competitive examination, but the feature--the essential feature--of +permanent tenure was present in his plan. Mr. Adams took the government +from Mr. Monroe without considering any change needful: his Cabinet +advisers even included three of those who had been in the Cabinet of his +predecessor, and these he retained to the end, though at least one of +the three, he thought, had ceased to be either friendly or faithful to +him. Retaining the old officers, and reappointing them if their +commissions expired, selecting new ones, in the comparatively rare cases +of death, resignation or ascertained delinquency, upon considerations +chiefly relating to their personal capabilities for the vacant places, +Mr. Adams was patiently and faithfully engaged during the four years of +his Presidency in establishing almost the precise reform of the national +service which has been in recent times so strenuously urged upon us as +the one great need of the nation--the administrative purification which, +if effectually performed, would prove that our system of government was +fit to continue in existence. Mr. Adams's plan did, indeed, seem +excellent. It commanded the respect of honest but busy citizens absorbed +in their private affairs and desirous that the government might be +fixed, once for all, in settled grooves, so that its functions would +proceed like the steady progress of the seasons. It was an attempt to +run the government, as has been sometimes said, "on business +principles." The President was to proceed, and did proceed, as if he had +in charge some great estate which he was to manage and direct as a +faithful and exact trustee. This, no one can deny, had the superficial +look of most admirable administration. + +But President Adams had left out of account largely what we are +compelled to sedulously consider--public opinion. He had acquired most +of his experience abroad, and his principal service at home, as +Secretary of State, had been in a remarkably quiet time, when party +movements were neither ebbing nor flowing, so that he had forgotten how +strong and vigorous the democratic feeling was amongst the population of +these States. This is a forgetfulness to which all men are liable who +long occupy official position, and who seldom have to submit themselves +to that severe and rude competitive examination which the plan of +popular elections establishes. Unfortunately for him, he was not +responsible to a court of chancery for the management of his trust, but +to a tribunal composed of a multitude of judges. His accounts were to be +passed upon not by one learned and conservative auditor guided by +familiar precedents and rules of law, but a great, tumultuous popular +assembly, which would approve or disapprove by a majority vote. When, +therefore, it appeared to the people that he was forming a body of +permanent office-holders--was recruiting a civil army to occupy in +perpetuity the offices which they, the mass, had created and were taxed +to pay for--the fierce, and in many respects scandalous, partisan +assault which Jackson represented, if he did not direct, gathered +overwhelming force. It seemed to the popular view that a narrow, an +exclusive, an aristocratic system was being formed. The President +appeared to be, while honestly and carefully preserving their trust from +waste or loss, committing it to a control independent of them--an +official body which, having a permanent tenure, would be altogether +indifferent to their varying desires. Such a scheme of government was +therefore no more than an attempt to stand the pyramid on its apex: Mr. +Adams's administration, supported chiefly by those whose aspirations +were for an honest and capable bureaucracy, and who could not or would +not face the rude questionings of democracy, ended with his first four +years, and went out in such a whirlwind of partisan opposition as +brought in, by reaction, the infamous "spoils system" that at the end of +half a century we are but partially recovered from. + +To designate more particularly the great fact which had been disregarded +in this notable experiment of fifty years ago, and which is apparently +not sufficiently considered in the measures of reform that have been +more recently pressed upon us, we may declare that the government of the +United States is, as yet, the direct outcome of what may be called _the +political activity of the people_. Whether or not, having read history, +we must anticipate a time here when the many, weary of preserving their +own liberties, will resign their power to a few, it is certain that no +such inclination yet appears. The government is the product of the +public mind and will when these are moved with reference to the subject. +It is created freshly at short intervals, and the manner of the creation +is seldom languid or careless, but usually earnest, intense and heated. +Upon this point there has no doubt been much misapprehension. As it has +happened--perhaps rather oddly--that those of our thoughtful patriots +whose warnings and appeals have reached public notice have had their +experiences mostly in city life, surrounded by the peculiar conditions +which exist there, the conclusions they have drawn in some respects are +applicable only to their own surroundings. They have discovered persons +who had forgotten or did not believe that liberty could be bought only +with the one currency of eternal vigilance, and coupled with these +others who were too busy to attend to the active processes by which the +government is from time to time renewed; and they have concluded, with +fatal inaccuracy of judgment, that this exceptional disposition of a +small number of persons was a type of the whole population. Nothing +could be more absurdly untrue. Outside of a very limited circle no such +political fatigue exists. The people generally are deeply interested in +public affairs and willing to attend to their own public duties. Their +concern in regard to measures, methods and candidates is seldom laid +aside. The _political activity_ to which we have called attention thus +at some length is earnest, persistent and exacting. + +It will be useful for the reformer of the civil service to give some +study to the manifestations of this activity. He will find it one of the +most marked and characteristic features in the life of the American +people. If he will take the pains to examine the civil organization of +the country, he will find that its roots run to every stratum of +society. The number of persons interested in politics, not as a +speculative subject, but as a practical and personal one, is wonderfully +great. Thus, in most of the States there exists that modification of the +ancient Saxon system of local action by "hundreds"--the township +organization. This alone carries a healthy political movement into the +farthest nook and corner of the body politic: every citizen of common +sense may well be consulted in this primary activity, and every +household may be interested in the question whether its results are good +or bad. But besides this, simple and slightly compensated as are the +positions belonging to the township, there are in every community many +willing to fill them. To be a supervisor of the roads,[1] to be township +constable and collector of the taxes, to audit the township accounts, to +be a member of the school board, to be a justice of the peace, is an +inclination--it may be a desire--entertained by many citizens; and if +the ambition may seem to be a narrow one, its modesty does not make it +unworthy or discreditable. But these men alone, active in the politics +of townships, form a surprising array. If we consider that in +Pennsylvania there are sixty-seven counties, with an average of say +forty townships in each, here are twenty-six hundred and eighty +townships, having each not less than ten officials, and making nearly +twenty-seven thousand persons actually on duty at one time in a single +State in this fundamental branch of the service. And if we estimate that +besides those who are in office at least two persons are inclined and +willing, if not actually desirous, to occupy the place now filled by +each one--a very moderate calculation--we multiply twenty-six thousand +eight hundred by three, and have over eighty thousand persons whose minds +are quick and active in local politics on this one account. But we may +proceed further. There are the cities and boroughs, their official +business more complex and laborious, and in most cases receiving much +higher compensation. The competition for these is in many instances very +great: in the case of large cities we need not waste words in +elaborating the fact. It is difficult to estimate the number of persons +to whom the municipal corporations give place and pay compensation in +the State of Pennsylvania, but five thousand is not an extravagant +surmise, while it would be equally reasonable to presume that for each +place occupied at least three others would be willing to fill it, so +that on this account we may make a total of twenty thousand. But there +are also the county offices. Besides the judicial positions, altogether +honorable, held by long terms of election and receiving liberal +compensation, there are in each county an average of fifteen other +officials, making in the State, in round numbers, one thousand. These, +again, may be multiplied by four: there are certainly three waiting +aspirants for each place. But ascend now to the State system, with its +several executive departments, the legislature, the charitable and penal +institutions and the appointments in the gift of the governor. Great and +small, these may reach one thousand (the Legislature alone, with its +officers and employés, accounts for over three hundred), and certainly +there are at least five persons looking toward each of the several +places. + +Upon such an estimate, then, of the political activities of one State we +have such a showing as this: + +Citizens politically active as to townships, 80,000 +Citizens politically active as to cities and boroughs, 20,000 +Citizens politically active as to counties, 4,000 +Citizens politically active as to the State, 5,000 + Making a total of 109,000 + +Some allowance should be made, no doubt, for persons whose inclinations +for position cover all the different fields--who may be said to be +watching several holes. But we have not considered how many citizens of +Pennsylvania are inclined to national positions--the Presidency, seats +in Congress or some of the numerous places in the general service of the +Federal government. These two classes, it is probable, would offset each +other. + +Subtracting, however, the odd thousands from the total stated, we may +fix at one hundred thousand the number of citizens in the one State who, +by reason of occupying some position of public duty or of being inclined +to fill one, are actively interested in the subject of politics. This is +almost exactly one-seventh of the whole number of voters in the State: +it presents the fact that in every group of seven citizens there is one, +presumably of more than the average in capacity and intelligence, whose +mind is quick and sensitive to every question affecting political +organization. We are brought thus to the same point which we reached by +an observation of the township system--the fact that every part of +society is permeated by the general political circulation. It is like +the human organism: nerves and blood-vessels extend, with size and +capacity proportioned for their work, to the most remote extremity, and +the whole is alive. + +Let us, however, guard strictly, at this point, against a possible +misconception. It is not to be understood that these one hundred +thousand citizens are simply "office-seekers," using the ordinary and +offensive sense of the term. The activity in affairs which we describe +is distinct from a sordid desire to grab the emoluments of office. The +vast majority of the places, including all those in the +townships--which, with the aspirants to them, make four-fifths of the +whole--are either without any pay at all or have an amount so small as +to be beneath our consideration. But a small part of the offices which +we have enumerated carry emoluments sufficient to furnish a living for +the most economical incumbent. The inspiration of the political +interest evidenced by this one-seventh part of the citizenship is not an +unworthy one at all: on the contrary, it is that essential democratic +inclination without which our form of government must quickly stagnate. +It would be foolish to say that no selfish motive enters into this +tremendous manifestation of energy and effort (until humanity assumes a +higher form the moving power of the mercenary principle must be very +great), but it is fair and it is accurate to ascribe to the men in +affairs a much loftier and more honorable impulse--the aspiration to +share in the conduct of their own government, the unwillingness to be +ignored or excluded in the administration of what is universally +denominated a common trust. That they enjoy, if they do not covet, such +pecuniary advantage as their places bring is reasonable, but it is true, +to their credit, that they do appreciate more than this the honor that +attaches to the public station and the pleasure which may be experienced +in the discharge of its conspicuous duties. + +Let us presume that even this imperfect study of the political +activities of a single State may present some conception of the +tremendous force and energy that go to the making, year by year, of the +various branches of our government. Certainly, any student of this field +may accept with respect the admonition that there is no languor, no +fatigue, no feeling of genteel disgust with politics, in what has thus +been presented him. If, then, his plan of reorganization for the civil +service is intended to be set up without consulting the popular +inclination, or possibly even in opposition to it, he may well stand +hesitant as to his likelihood of success. The question may confront him +at once: Is the organization of a permanent official class in the +administration of the general government likely to accord with the +desires of the people? And we may add, Is it consistent with the general +character of our form of government? Is it not attended by conclusive +objections? + +It is not the purpose of this article to attempt answering these +questions fully. We do not propose to throw ourselves across the path +of those undoubtedly sincere, and probably wise, students of this +subject who have arrived at the positive conclusion that to establish a +permanent tenure for the great body of the national office-holders, and +to appoint to vacancies among them upon the tests of a competitive or +other examination, is the panacea for all our public disorders, the +regenerative process which will lift our whole system into a higher and +purer atmosphere. We do not say that these gentlemen may not be right, +but we are willing to examine the subject. + +Upon viewing, then, the tremendous popular activity in local and State +affairs--and we must reflect that there is "more politics to the square +foot" in some of the newer States than there is in Pennsylvania--the +inquiry is natural whether this stops short of all national politics. +Certainly it does not. The offices in the general government, though +their importance and their influence are usually overestimated, are a +great object of attention with the whole country. The vehement +democratic movement toward them that marked the time of Jackson is still +apparent, though it proceeds with diminished force and is regulated and +tempered by the strong protest which has been made against the scandals +of the "spoils system," and against the theory that government by +parties must be a continual struggle for plunder. It is noticeable that +no administration has ever really attempted the formation of an +irremovable body of officials. No party has ever yet explicitly declared +itself in favor of such a policy. No actual leader of any party, bearing +the responsibility of its success or failure in the elections, has ever +yet sincerely and persistently advocated the measure. None wish to +undertake so tremendous a task. He would indeed be a powerful orator who +could carry a popular gathering with him in favor of the proposition +that hereafter the holding of office was to be made more exclusive--that +the people were to put away from themselves, by a renunciation of their +own powers, the expectancy of occupying a great part of the public +places. Rare as may be the persuasive ability of the true stump-orator, +and serene as his confidence may be in his powers, there would be but +few volunteers to enter a campaign upon such a platform as that. It +would be a forlorn hope indeed. + +The view of the people undoubtedly is (1) that the public places are +common property; (2) that any one may aspire to fill them; and (3) that +the elevation to them is properly the direct or nearly direct result of +election. The elective principle is democratic. It has been, since the +beginning of the government, steadily consuming all other methods of +making public officers. In most States the appointing power of the +governor, which years ago was usually large, has been stripped to the +uttermost. It is thirty years in Pennsylvania since even the judiciary +became elective by the people. And in those States--of which Delaware +furnishes an example--where most of the county officers are still the +appointees of the governor, the tendency to control his action by a +display of the popular wish--such an array of petitions, etc. as amounts +to a polling of votes--is unmistakable. The governor is moved, +obviously, by the people. And if to some this general tendency toward +the elective idea seems dangerous, it must be answered that it is not +really so if the people are in fact capable of self-government. +Conceding this as the foundation of our system, we cannot, at this point +and that, expect to interpose a guardianship over their expression. + +To the permanency of tenure it is that we have given, and expect will +generally be given, most attention. This is the essence of the proposed +"reform." The manner of selecting new appointees is of no great +consequence if the vacancies are to occur so seldom as must be the case +where incumbents hold for life. Whether the new recruits come in upon +the certificates of a board of examiners, such as the British +Civil-Service Commission, or upon the scrutiny of the Executive and his +advisers, as now, is a consideration of minor importance. It is the idea +of an official class, an order of office-holders, which appears to throw +itself across the path of the democratic activity which we have +attempted to describe. This is the point of conflict--if any. We might, +it is true, take many measures to ensure the colorless and harmless +character of the system. Up to a recent time the government clerks in +England were deprived of the suffrage, in order that they might be +perfectly indifferent to politics. It is probable that in time our own +officials would lose the ordinary instincts of a democratic citizenship, +and would regard with coldness, if not contempt, the activities that +lead to a renewal of the government. But however smoothly they might +move in the pursuance of their clerical routine, however faultless they +might become in their round of prescribed duties, would they not still +obstruct the public purpose? Would not even this emasculate order of +placemen, standing apart a sacrificed though favored class, still +present themselves as unpardonable offenders? When it should be +discovered that they claimed the possession in perpetuity of the offices +in the national government, and had organized themselves as a standing +army of placemen, can it be believed that they would not be swept aside +by the same iconoclastic onset which ended the Adams administration? + +We do not pause here to represent the apparent inconsistency of desiring +to de-citizenize a large number of intelligent members of the community, +or the risk of creating a class in the republic forbidden to take any +active interest in the renewals of its organization, or the impolicy of +diminishing the force and courage of the popular will in its grapple +with the problem of self-government; but all these comments may suggest +themselves. + +Popular expectancy, it may fairly be declared, follows all the stations +of public life with a jealous if not an eager eye. There is abundant +evidence of this in the county and township systems. Taking, for +example, the administration of county affairs in any of the States, it +will be found that the officers, by a rule that seems generally +satisfactory, hold during short terms, and are seldom re-elected +immediately to the same place. The rule is rotation--giving a large +number of persons their "turn"--and changes are regularly made. A man +disappointed this year for a particular place waits until the time comes +to fill it again, and in many counties, other things being about equal, +the fact that he has waited patiently and now presents the oldest claim +governs the selection. The antipathy to one who seeks to hold on to his +place beyond the ordinary term--the dislike for a grabber who desires +more than is usually assigned--is a perfectly well-known feature in +politics. The county system of Pennsylvania will afford abundant proof +of the statements here made: the terms of the officers, who are all +elective, do not average more than four years, even including such +court-officials as the clerks and prothonotaries, whose duties are in +some particulars technical and difficult, requiring an acquaintance with +the forms of legal procedure. But it is further true that in the States +where county officers are appointed by the governor no protracted tenure +results. On the contrary, the pressure upon him of the public +expectation seldom permits the reappointment of an officer whose +commission is expiring. + +With this rule of change, primary as its application is, and within the +direct comprehension and control of the people, there does not appear to +be any general discontent. It is accepted, so far as we can discover, as +a just and proper system by which an equality of claims upon the common +favor is maintained. It is reasonable to presume, therefore, that +amongst a people fairly acquainted with their own business, and +possessing a fair education both of the schools and of experience in +life, many persons in every community are competent to serve as its +officials. At any rate, in the midst of these usages we discover no +demand that the terms of office be made permanent, and that the +place-holders be put beyond the reach of a removal. There is no apparent +realization that such a "reform" is demanded; and if it be difficult, as +has been stated, to awaken popular enthusiasm in behalf of a permanent +tenure in the national civil service, there seems to be nothing in the +rules of primary politics to help smooth the way. + +It may be asked now whether it is not almost certainly true that some +sound principle lies in the methods which an intelligent community, +unrestrained by ancient conventional ideas or repressive systems of law, +applies to its own political organization. Is not this instinctive +democratic plan an essential principle of a government founded upon +equal rights? _Is it not a law of Change which characterizes the civil +service of a democracy, and not a law of Permanence?_ + +We can hardly doubt that the facts which have been stated concerning the +disposition of the people toward the offices in their government are +capable of a philosophical explanation; and as they proceed with evident +freedom and naturalness from the very bosom of communities accustomed to +independent thought and action, the conclusion is irresistible that this +is the temper and the tendency of a free government. Startling as it may +be to propose change rather than permanency in the civil service, that +may prove to be best adapted to our wants. Consciously or not, such a +rule has been established by the people themselves; and while it has +scarcely found a formal presentation, much less had careful examination +and argument, there can be little doubt that such a principle, +substantially as we have described, lies close to the hearts of the +people. The right of election, the idea that public officers should be +elective, and the expectation that there will be a rotation of duties +and honors, are popular principles which are unmistakable. + +Apart from the consideration that whatever is fundamental in popular +government, whatever tends to the preservation of individual freedom and +equality of rights, must be a safe principle, there could be much said +from the most practical stand-point in favor of rotation in office. All +human experience proves the usefulness of change. Rest is the next thing +to rust. In physics things without motion are usually things without +life; and in government it is the bureaus least disturbed by change that +are most stagnated and most circumlocutory. The apparent misfortune of +having men experienced in public affairs make way, at intervals, for +others of less experience is itself greatly exaggerated. There are facts +so important in compensation that the assumed evil becomes one of very +moderate proportions. For it will be seen upon careful observation that +no important function of the government, not even in the national +service, calls for a character or qualification--sometimes, but rarely, +for any sort of special or technical skill--which is not being +continually formed and trained either in the movements of private life +and business experience or in the political schools which are furnished +by the State, the county and the township. The functions of the +government are substantially the guardianship of the same interests for +which the State, the county, the township and the individual exercise +concern. Government has lost its mystery: even diplomacy has somewhat +changed from lying and chicanery to common-sense dealing. The qualities +that are required in the government--industry, economy, integrity, +knowledge of men and affairs--are precisely those which are of value to +every individual citizen, and which are taught day by day everywhere--to +the lads in school and college and to the men in their occupations of +life. Such qualities a community fit to govern itself must abundantly +possess. There is nothing occult in the science of government. The +administration in behalf of the people of the organization which they +have ordered is nothing foreign to their own knowledge. They have ceased +to consider themselves unfit for self-rule: they no longer think of +calling in from other worlds a different order of beings to govern them. + +We may accept without fear principles which seem startling, but which +are proved to be rooted in democratic ground, so long as we have faith +in the democratic system itself. There is no road open for the doubter +and questioner of popular rights but that which leads back to abandoned +ground. We may proceed, then, with an attempt to explain the philosophy +of the rule of Change. Shall it not be stated thus: + +_That, due regard being had to the preservation of simplicity and +economy--forbidding thus the needless increase of offices and +expenses--it is then true that the active participation by the largest +number of persons in the practical administration of their own +government is an object highly to be desired in every democratic +republic._ + +The government must be the highest school of affairs. Shall it be +declared that to study there and to have its diploma is not desirable +for all? Is it not perfectly evident that the more who can learn to +actually discharge the duties belonging to their own social +organization, the better for them and the better for it? + +All these propositions necessarily imply the existence of an intelligent +and patriotic people, at least of such a majority. So always does every +plan of popular government. Whatever of disappointment presents itself +to the author of any scheme of "reform," upon finding that he has +constructed a system which is ridden down by the political activity of +the people, he must blame the plan upon which our fabric is built. If he +is chagrined to find that his _imperium in imperio_ is not practicable, +and that nothing can make here a power stronger than the source of +power, he must solace his hurt feelings with the reflection that the +system was never adapted to his contrivance, and that our fathers, when +in the beginning they resolved to establish a government by the people, +gave consent thereby to all the apparent risks and inconveniences of +having the people continually minding their own affairs. + +With a just comprehension of the democratic forces that give motion and +life to the governmental system of the United States, and of the manner +in which they affect the public service in all its departments, the wise +advocate of reform must approach his work. His patriotism and +thoughtfulness are both necessary. To proceed against the democratic law +is not practicable: to establish a new system which is inconsistent with +the abundant vitality and conscious strength of that already established +is a futile proposition indeed. + + + + +THE PRICE OF SAFETY. + + +Thirty-three years ago--that is, shortly before Christmas, 1847--I went +over to Paris to pass a few weeks with my family. The great railway +schemes of the two previous years in England had broken down a good many +men in our office--draughtsmen, surveyors and so on. I wonder if the +present public recollects those days, when the _Times_ brought out +double supplements to accommodate the advertisements of railroads, when +King Hudson was as much a potentate as Queen Victoria, when Brunel and +Stephenson were autocrats, and when everybody saw a sudden chance of +getting rich by shares or damages? Those days were the beginning of that +period of prosperity of which the recent "hard times" were the reaction. +_Then_ twenty guineas a night for office-work was sometimes paid to +youngsters not yet out of their teens. In the great offices the young +men worked all day and the alternate nights to get plans ready for +Parliament, sustained by strong coffee always on the tap, till some of +them went mad with the excitement and the strain. + +I had worked hard both in the field and office during the closing months +of 1847, but I broke down at last, and was sent to recover my health +under the care of my family. That family consisted of my father--a +half-pay English officer--my mother and three sisters, then living _au +troisième_ in the Rue Neuve de Berri, not far from the newly-erected +Russian church, and the windows of the _appartement_ commanded a side +view down the Champs Élysées. I only needed rest and recreation, both of +which my adoring family eagerly provided me. My sisters were three +lively, simple-hearted, honest English girls, who had a large +acquaintance in Paris, and took great pride and pleasure in introducing +to it their only brother. We were not only invited to our embassy and on +visiting terms with all the English Colony (that colony whose annals at +that period are written in _The Adventures of Philip_, and to which +Thackeray's mother and nearest relatives, like ourselves, belonged), but +we were, in virtue of some American connections, admitted to the +American embassy on the footing of semi-Americans. + +We enjoyed our American friends greatly. I formed the opinion then, +which I retain now, that cultivated Americans, the top-skimming of the +social cream, are some of the most charming people to be met with in +cultivated society. To all that constitutes "nice people" everywhere +they join a _soupçon_ of wild flavor which gives them individuality. +They are to society what their own wild turkeys and canvasbacks are to +the _menu_. + +One of my sisters, Amy, the eldest, had been ill that winter, and was +not equal to joining in the gayeties that the others enjoyed. Her +principal amusement was walking in the Gardens of Monceaux, a private +domain of King Louis Philippe in the Batignolles, a quiet, humdrum spot, +where she could set her foot upon green turf and gravel. The streets of +Paris, the Boulevards, and the Champs Élysées were too attractive to a +pleasure-seeker like myself to allow me to content myself with the pale +attractions of Monceaux, but I went there with my sister once or twice, +because French etiquette forbade her walking even in these quiet +garden-paths alone. + +One day it was proposed by her that we should go again. I could not, in +common humanity, refuse, and so consented. Poor Amy "put on her things," +as our girls called it, and we descended to the porte-cochère, intending +to engage the first passing citadine. As we stepped into the street, +however, a gay carriage with high-stepping gray horses, a chasseur with +knife and feathers, and a coachman in a modest livery on a hammer-cloth +resplendent with yellow fringes and embroideries, drew up at our door: a +pretty hand was laid upon the portière and a voice cried, "Amy! Amy! I +was coming for you." + +"My brother--Miss Leare," said Amy. + +Miss Leare bowed to me gracefully and motioned to her chasseur to open +the carriage-door. "Get in," she said. "_I_ have the carriage for two +hours: what shall we do with it? Mamma is at the dentist's.--Amy, I +thought you would enjoy a drive, and so I came for you." + +I helped Amy in, and was making my bow when Miss Leare stopped me. "Come +too," she said cordially: "Amy's brother surely need not be taboo. Shall +we drive to the Bois?" + +"I was going to Monceaux," said Amy. "Would it be quite the thing for us +to drive alone to the Bois?" + +"Oh-h-h!" said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the +vocative.--"You see," she added, turning to me, "I am so unprepared by +previous training that I shall never become _au fait_ in French +proprieties. Indeed, I hold them in great reverence, but they seem to be +for ever hedging me in; nor can I understand the meaning of half of +them. In America I was guided by plain right and wrong.--Why shall we +not outrage etiquette, Amy, by 'going alone,' as you call it, to +Monceaux? Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way +that we may walk there without a chaperon? I should have thought +seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that there be any danger +at all.--In America, Mr. Farquhar, your escort would be enough for us, +and the fact that Amy is your sister would give a sort of double +security to your protection." + +"Oh, dear Miss Leare--" began Amy. + +"Hermie, Amy--Hermione, which is English and American for Tasso's +Erminia.--Do you like my name, Mr. Farquhar? We have strange names in +America, English people are pleased to say.--Victor!" she went on, +calling to the chasseur without pausing for any reply, "stop at some +place where they sell candy. Mr. Farquhar will get out and buy us some." + +Obediently to her order, we stopped at a confectioner's. I was directed +to put my hand into the carriage-pocket, where I should find some +"loose change," kept there for candy and the hurdy-gurdy boys. Then I +was directed to go into the "store" and choose a pound of all sorts of +"mixed candy." + +I had not more than made myself intelligible to a young person behind +the counter when the carriage-door was opened and both the girls came +in, Miss Hermione declaring that she knew I should be embarrassed by the +multitude of "sweeties," and that I should need their experience to know +what I was about. + +With dawdling, laughing and good-comradeship we chose our bonbons, and +getting back into the barouche we proceeded to crunch them as we drove +on to Monceaux. It was like being children over again, with a slight +sense of being out of bounds. I had never seen confectionery eaten +wholesale in that fashion. Such bonbons were expensive, too. Trained in +the personal economy of English middle-class life, it would never have +occurred to me to buy several francs' worth of sugar-plums and to eat +them by the handful. But as the fair American sat before me, smiling, +laughing, petting Amy and saying fascinating impertinences to myself, I +thought I had never seen so bewitching a creature. Her frame, though +_svelte_ and admirably proportioned, gave me an idea of vigor and +strength not commonly associated at that time with the girls of America. +Her complexion, too, was healthy: she was not so highly colored as an +English country girl, but her skin was bright and clear. Her face was a +perfect oval, her hair glossy and dark, her eyes expressive hazel. Her +points were all good: her ears, her hands, her feet, her upper lip and +nostrils showed blood, and the daintiness and taste of her rich dress +seemed to denote her good taste and fine breeding. My sisters, could not +tie their bonnet-strings as she tied hers, nor were their dresses +anything like hers in freshness, fit or daintiness of trimming. + +We alighted at last at old Monceaux, and walked about its solemn alleys. +Sometimes Miss Leare talked sense, and talked it well. Those were +exciting days in Paris. It was February, 1848, and a great crisis was +nearer at hand in politics than we suspected; besides which there had +been several events in private life which had increased the general +excitement of the period--notably the murder of Marshal Sebastiani's +daughter, the poor duchesse de Praslin. Hermione could talk of these +things with great spirit, but sometimes relapsed into her grown-up +childishness. She talked, too, with animation of the freedom and +happiness of her American girlhood. My sister Amy had always taken life +_au grand sérieux_; Ellen was a little too prompt to flirt with officers +and gay young men, and needed repression; Lætitia went in for +book-learning, and measured every one by what she called their +"educational opportunities." My sisters were as different as possible +from this butterfly creature, who seemed to sip interest and amusement +out of everything. + +At the end of two hours we drove back to Mrs. Leare's hôtel, which was +opposite our own apartment in the Rue Neuve de Berri, the hôtel that a +few weeks later was occupied by Prince Jerome. Here Hermione insisted +upon our coming in while the carriage drove to the dentist's for her +mother. + +The reception-rooms in Mrs. Leare's hôtel were very showy. They were +filled with buhl and knick-knacks gathered on all parts of the +Continent, and lavishly displayed, not always in good keeping. A little +sister, Claribel, came running up to us when we entered, and clung +fondly to Hermione, who sat down at the Erard grand piano and sang to +us, without suggestion, a gay little French song. She was taking +lessons, Amy afterward told me, of the master most in vogue in Paris and +of all others the most expensive. Amy, who could sing well herself, +disparaged Hermione's voice to me, and sighed as she thought of the +waste of those inestimable lessons. + +Then Miss Hermione lifted the top of an ormolu box on the chimney-piece +of a boudoir and showed Amy and me, under the rose as it were, some +cigarettes, with a laugh. "Mamma's," she said: "she has a _faiblesse_ +that way." + +"Oh, Hermione! you don't?" cried Amy. + +"No, _I_ don't," said Hermione more gravely. + +I was so amused by her, so fascinated, so completely at my ease with +her, that I could have stayed on without taking note of time had not Amy +remembered that it was our dinner-hour. We took our leave, and met Mrs. +Leare on the staircase ascending to her apartment. She greeted Amy with +as much effusion as was compatible with her ideas of fashion, and said +she was "right glad" to hear we had been passing the morning with +Hermione. + +"I wish you would come very often. I like her to see English girls: you +do her so much good, Amy.--Mr. Farquhar, we shall hope to see you often +too. I have a little reception here every Sunday evening." + +With that she continued her course up stairs, and we descended to the +porte-cochère. + +She was a faded woman, "dressed to death," as Amy phrased it, and none +of my people had a good word for her. + +"The Leares are rolling in riches, I believe," remarked my father, "and +an American who is rich has no hereditary obligations to absorb his +wealth, so that it becomes all 'spending-money,' as Miss Hermione says. +The head of the family--King Leare I call him--stays at home in some +sort of a counting-room in New York and makes money, giving Mrs. Leare +and Miss Hermione _carte blanche_ to spend it on any follies they +please. I never heard anything exactly wrong concerning Mrs. Leare, but +she does not seem to me the woman to be trusted with that very nice +young daughter. I feel great pity for Miss Leare." + +"Miss Leare has plenty of sense and character," said my mother: "I do +not think her mother's queer surroundings seem to affect her in any way. +She moves among the Frenchmen, Poles and Italians of her mother's court +like that lady Shakespeare--or was it Spenser?--wrote about among the +fauns and satyrs. With all her American freedom she avoids improprieties +by instinct. I have no fears for her future if she marries the right +man." + +"Indeed, mamma," said Amy, "I wish she would keep more strictly within +the limit of the proprieties. She makes me nervous all the time we are +together." + +"My dear, you never heard her breathe a really unbecoming word or saw +her do an immodest thing?" said my mother interrogatively. + +"Oh no, of course not," said Amy. + +"They say Mrs. Leare wants to marry her to that Neapolitan marquis who +is so often there," put in Ellen. "_On dit_, she will have a _dot_ of +two millions of francs, or, as they call it, half a million of dollars." + +"Such a rumor," I broke in, rather annoyed by this turn in the +conversation, "may well buy her the right to be a marchioness if she +will." + +"Indeed it won't, then," said Ellen sharply, "for she thinks Americans +should not 'fix' themselves permanently abroad. She says she means to +marry one of her own folks, as she calls her countrymen." + +"She knows an infinite variety of things, and has had all kinds of +masters," sighed Lætitia: "she speaks all the languages in Europe. I +believe Americans have a peculiar facility for pronunciation, like the +Russians, and she learned at her school in America philosophy, rhetoric, +logic, Latin, algebra, chemistry." + +"I wonder she should be so sweet a woman," said my father. "She seems a +good girl--I never took her for a learned one--but her mother is a fool, +and I should think her father must be that or worse. I wonder what he +can be like? It seems to an Englishman so strange that a man should stay +at home alone for years, and suffer his wife and family to travel all +over the Continent without protection." + +Though my father, mother and sisters declined the Sunday invitation of +Mrs. Leare, I went to her reception. The guests were nearly all +Italians, Poles, Spaniards or Frenchmen. There was no Englishman +present, but myself, and only one or two Americans. I felt at once how +out of place my mother, the country matron, and my father, _ce +respectable viellard,_ would have been in such a circle. But Mrs. +Leare's guests were not the _jeunesse dorée_ nor the dubious nobility I +had expected to meet in her _salon_. The Frenchmen among them were all +men whose names were familiar in French political circles--men of +revolutionary tendencies and of advanced opinions. I afterward +discovered they had taken advantage of Mrs. Leare's desire to be the +head of a salon to use her rooms as a convenient rendezvous. It was safe +ground on which to simmer their revolutionary cauldron. It was seething +and bubbling that night, although neither the Leares nor myself were +aware of what was brewing. The talk was all about the Banquets, +especially the impending reform banquet in the Rue Chaillot. The +gentlemen present were not exactly conspirators: they were for the most +part political reformers, who, being cut off from the usual modes of +expressing themselves through a recognized parliamentary opposition or +by the medium of petition, had devised a system of political banquets, +some fifty of which had already been held in the departments, and they +were now engaged in getting one up in Paris in the Twelfth +arrondissement. + +At that time, in a population of thirty-five millions, there were but a +quarter of a million of French voters, and as in France all places (from +that of a railroad guard to a seat on the bench) were disposed of by the +government, it was very easy for ministers to control the legislature. A +reform, really needed in the franchise, was the object proposed to +themselves by the original heads of the Revolution of 1848, though when +they had set their ball in motion they could neither control it nor keep +up with it as it rolled downward. + +The prevalent idea in Mrs. Leare's salon was that the banquet of the Rue +Chaillot would go off quietly, that the prefect of police would protest, +and that the affair would then pass into the law-courts, where it would +remain until all interest in the subject had passed away. One was +sensible, however, that there was a general feeling of excitement in the +atmosphere. Paris swarmed with troops, evidently under stricter +discipline than usual. People looked into each other's faces +interrogatively and read the daily papers with an anxious air. + +Though I did not at the time fully appreciate what I saw, I was struck +by the business-like character of the men about me. The guests, I +thought, took very little notice of the lady of the house. I did not +then suspect that they were using her hospitality for their own +purposes, and that they felt secure in her total incapacity to +understand what they were doing. She, meantime, intent on filling her +reception-rooms with celebrities and titled persons, was charmed to have +collected so many distinguished men around her. + +Hermione appeared bewildered, uncomfortable and restless, like a +spectator on the edge of a great crowd. "There are too many strangers +here to-night," she said: "mamma and I do not know one half of them. +They have been brought here by their friends. To have a salon is mamma's +ambition, but this is not my idea of it. I feel as if we were out of +place among these men, who talk to each other and hardly notice us at +all." + +We sat together and exchanged our thoughts in whispers. It was one of +those crowds that create a solitude for lovers. Not that we talked +sentiment or that we were lovers. We conversed about the excitements of +the day--of the Leste affair, in which the king and the king's ministry +were accused of protecting dishonesty; of the Beauvallon and +D'Equivilley duel and the Praslin murder, in connection with both of +which the royal family and the ministry were popularly accused of +protecting criminals--and at last the conversation strayed away from +France to Hermione's own girlhood. She told me of her happy country home +in Maryland with her grandmother, and sighed. I asked her if she was +going to the English ball to be given on Wednesday night at the +beautiful Jardin d'Hiver in the Champs Élysées. + +"I suppose so," she replied, "but I don't care for large assemblies: I +feel afraid of the men I meet. I wish your mother could chaperon me: it +would be much nicer to be with her than with my own. Mamma understands +nothing about looking after me; she wants to have a good time herself, +and I am only in her way. Do you know, Mr. Farquhar, I have a theory +that when women have missed anything they ought to have enjoyed in early +life, they always want to go back and pick it up. Mamma had no pleasures +in her youth, no attentions, no gayety. If I am to be chaperoned, I like +the real thing. If I were at home in Maryland, where my father came +from, I should need no one to protect me: _you_ could take me to the +ball." + +"I, Miss Hermione?" + +"Yes, you. You would call for me, and wait till I was ready to come +down. Then you and I would go _alone_," she added, enjoying my look of +incredulity. "It is the custom: no harm could come of it," she added. +"We would walk to our ball." + +"No harm in the case that you have supposed, but in some other cases--" + +"You suppose a good deal," she interrupted. "You suppose a girl without +self-respect or good sense, and perhaps a man without honor. Here, of +course, things cannot be like that. Society seems founded upon different +ideas from those prevalent with us about men and women. _Here_, I admit, +a girl finds comfort and protection and ease of mind in a good chaperon. +Yet it seemed strange to me to put on leading-strings when I came out +here: I had been used to take care of myself for so many years." + +"Why, Miss Leare," I said, laughing, "you cannot have been many years in +society." + +"I am twenty," she said frankly, "and we came to Europe about three +years ago. But before that time I had been in company a good deal. Not +in the city, for I was not 'out,' but in the hotels at Newport, at the +Springs and in the country. In America one has but to do what one knows +is kind and right, and no one will think evil: here one may do, without +suspecting it, so many compromising things." + +"Does the instinct that you speak of to be kind and right always guide +the young American lady?" + +"I suppose so--so far as I know. It _must_. She walks by it, and sets +her feet down firmly. Here I feel all the time as if I were walking +among traps blindfolded." + +The ball of the Jardin d'Hiver in the Champs Élysées was a superb +success. The immense glass-house was fitted up for dancing, and all went +merry as a marriage-bell, with a crater about to open under our feet, as +at the duchess of Richmond's ball at Brussels. + +Miss Leare was there, but quiet and dignified. There was not the +smallest touch of vulgarity about her. The coarse readiness to accept +publicity which distinguishes the underbred woman, whether in England or +America, the desire to show off a foreign emancipation from what appear +ridiculous French rules, were not in her. + +Yet she might have amused herself as she liked with complete impunity, +for Mrs. Leare appeared to leave her entirely alone. I danced with her +as often as she would permit me, and my heart was no longer in my own +possession when I put-her into her carriage about dawn. + +Two or three days after I called, but the ladies were not in, so that +except at church at the Hôtel Marboeuf on Sunday morning I saw nothing +of Miss Hermione. Monday, February 21st, was sunny and bright. The +public excitement was such that an unusual number of working-men were +keeping their St. Crispin. The soldiers, however, were confined to their +quarters: not a uniform was to be seen abroad. Our night had been +disturbed by the continuous rumble of carts and carriages. + +"Is it a fine day for the banquet?" I heard Amy say as our maid opened +her windows on Tuesday morning. + +"There is to be no banquet," was the answer. "_Voyez done_ the +proclamation posted on the door of the barrack at the corner of the Rue +Chaillot." + +I sprang from my bed and looked out of my window. A strange change had +taken place in the teeming little caserne at the corner. Instead of the +usual groups of well-behaved boy-soldiers in rough uniforms, the barrack +looked deserted, and its lower windows had been closed up to their top +panes with bags of hay and mattresses. Not a soldier, not even a sentry, +was to be seen. + +I dressed myself and went out to collect news. The carts that had +disturbed us during the night had been not only employed in removing all +preparations for the banquet, but in taking every loose paving-stone out +of the way. I found the Place de la Madeleine full of people, all +looking up at the house of Odillon Barrot, asking "What next?" and "What +shall we do?" Odillon Barrot was the hero of the moment--literally _of +the moment_. In forty-eight hours from that time his name had faded from +the page of history. In the Place de la Concorde there was more +excitement, for threats were being made to cross the bridge and to +insult the Chambers. The Pont de l'Institut, notwithstanding the efforts +of the garde municipale or mounted police, was greatly crowded. A party +of dragoons, on sorrel ponies barely fourteen hands high, rode up and +began to clear the bridge, but gently and gradually. The crowd was +retiring as fast as its numbers would permit, when some of the municipal +guard rode through the ranks of the dragoons and set themselves, with +ill-judged roughness, to accelerate the operation. The crowd grew angry, +and stones began to be thrown at the guard and soldiers. + +Growing anxious for the women I had left in the Rue Neuve de Berri, I +returned home by side-streets. A crowd had collected on the Champs +Élysées about thirty yards from the corner of our street, and was +forming a barricade. All were shouting, all gesticulating. Citadines at +full speed were driving out of reach of requisition; horses were going +off disencumbered of their vehicles; the driver of a remise was seated +astride his animal, the long flaps of his driving-coat covering it from +neck to tail; a noble elm was being hewn down by hatchets and even +common knives. An omnibus, the remise, a few barrels and dining-tables, +a dozen yards of _pave_ torn up by eager hands, a sentry-box, some +benches and the tree, formed the barricade. _Gamins_ and _blouses_ +worked at it. The respectables looked on and did not trouble the +workers. Suddenly there was a general stampede among them. A squadron of +about fifty dragoons charged up the Champs Élysées. One old +peasant-woman in a scanty yellow-and-black skirt, which she twitched +above her knees, led the retreat. But soon they stopped and turned +again, while the dragoons rode slowly back, breathing their horses. +Nobody was angry, for nobody had been hurt, but they were frightened +enough. + +At this moment, stealing from a porte-cochère where she had taken refuge +during the fright and _sauve gui peut_, came a figure wrapped in dark +drapery. Could it be possible? Hermione Leare! In a moment I was at her +side. She was very pale and breathless, and she was glad to take my arm. +"What brings you here?" I whispered. + +"Our servants have all run away: they think mamma is compromised. +Victor, our chasseur, broke open mamma's secretary and took his wages. +She is almost beside herself. She wanted to send a letter to the post, +and as it is steamer-day I thought papa had better know that thus far +nothing has happened to us. There was nobody to take the letter: I said +I would put it in the box in the Rue Ponthieu." + +"And did you post it?" + +"No: I could not get to the Rue Ponthieu. They were firing down the +street, and now I dare not." + +"Trust it to me, Miss Leare, and promise me to send for me if you have +any more such errands. You must never run such risks again." + +"I have to be the man of the family," she answered, almost with an +apologetic air. + +"Do not say that again. I shall come over three times a day while this +thing lasts to see if you have any commissions." + +She smiled and pressed my hand as she turned into her own porte-cochère. +Frightened servants and their friends were in the porter's lodge, who +gazed after her with exclamations as she went up the common stair. + +The remainder of that day passed with very little fighting. Up to that +time it had been a riot apropos of a change of ministry, but in the +night the secret societies met and flung aside the previous question. + +When we awoke on Wednesday morning, February 23d, we were struck by the +strange quiet of the streets. No provisions entered Paris through the +barrier, no vehicles nor venders of small wares. The absolute silence, +save when "Mourir pour la Patrie" sounded hoarsely in the distance, was +as strange as it was unexpected. I had always connected an insurrection +with noise. It was rumored that Guizot the Unpopular had been dismissed, +and that Count Mole, a man of half measures, had been called to the +king's councils. The affair looked to me as if it were going to die out +for want of fuel. But I was mistaken: the blouses, who had not had one +gun to a hundred the day before, had been all night arming themselves by +domiciliary requisitions. The national guard was not believed to be +firm. + +The night before, an hour after I had parted with Miss Hermione, I had +made an attempt to see her and Mrs. Leare, without any success. Not even +bribery would induce the concierge to let me in. His orders were +peremptory: "_Pas un seul, monsieur, personne_"--madame received nobody. + +Early on Wednesday morning I again presented myself: the ladies were not +visible. Later in the day I called again, and was again refused. But +several times Amy had seen Hermione at a window, and they had made signs +across the street to one another. I began to understand that Mrs. Leare +was overwhelmed by the responsibility she had incurred in opening her +salon to men whom she now perceived to have been conspirators, and that +she was obstinately determined not to compromise herself further by +giving admittance to any one. + +Our bonne had been able to ascertain from the concierge of the Leare +house that madame was hysterical, and could hardly be controlled by +mademoiselle. + +I was in the streets till five o'clock on Wednesday, when, concluding +all was over, I came home, intending to make another effort to see the +Leares, and if possible to take Miss Hermione, with Ellen and Lætitia, +to view the debris of the two days' fight--to let them get their first +glimpse of real war in the Place de la Concorde, where a regiment was +littering down its horses for the night, and a peep into the closed +gardens of the Tuileries. + +When I got up to our rooms I found my sisters at a window overlooking +the courtyard of Mrs. Leare's hotel, and they all cried out with one +voice, "Mrs. Leare's carriage is just ready to drive away." + +I looked. A travelling-equipage stood in the courtyard. On it the +concierge was hoisting trunks, and into it was being heaped a +promiscuous variety of knick-knackery and wearing apparel. A country +postilion--who, but for his dirt, would have looked more like a +character in a comedy than a real live, serviceable post-boy--was +standing in carpet slippers (having divested himself of his boots of +office) harnessing three undersized gray Normandy mares to an elegant +travelling-carriage. + +Hermione herself, Claribel her little sister, Mrs. Leare and the old +colored nurse got quickly in. Mrs. Leare was in tears, with her head +muffled in a yard or two of green _barège_, then the distinctive mark of +a travelling American woman. The child's-nurse had long gold ear-drops +and a head-dress of red bandanna. There was not a man of any kind with +them except the postilion. The concierge opened the gates of the +courtyard. + +"Stop! stop!" I cried, and rushed down our own staircase and out of our +front door. + +As I ran past their entrance a woman put a paper into my hand. I had no +time to glance at it, for the carriage had already turned into the Rue +Ponthieu. For some distance I ran after it, encountering at every step +excited groups of people, some of whom seemed to me in search of +mischief, while some had apparently come out to gather news. There were +no other carriages in the streets, and that alone enabled me to track +the one I was in chase of, for everybody I met had noticed which way it +had turned. It wound its way most deviously through by-streets to avoid +those in which paving-stones had been torn up or barricades been formed, +and the postilion made all possible speed, fearing the carriage might be +seized and detached from his horses. But the day's work was finished and +the disorders of the night were not begun. + +Forced at last to slacken my speed and to take breath, I glanced at the +paper that I still held in my hand. It contained a few words from +Hermione: "Thank you for all the kindness you have tried to show us, +dear sir. My mother has heard that all the English in Paris are to be +massacred at midnight by the mob, and directs me to give you notice, +which is the reason I address this note to you and not to Amy. Mamma is +afraid of being mistaken for an Englishwoman. We have secured +post-horses and are setting out for Argenteuil, where we shall take the +railway. Again, thank you: your kindness will not be forgotten by H. +LEARE." + +This note reassured me. I no longer endeavored to overtake the carriage, +but I pushed my way as fast as possible beyond the nearest barrier. Once +outside the wall of Paris, I was in the Banlieu, that zone of rascality +whose inhabitants are all suspected by the police and live under the +ban. Of course on such a gala-day of lawlessness this hive was all +astir. At a village I passed through I tried to hire a conveyance to +Argenteuil. I also tried to get some railway information, but nobody +could tell me anything and all were ravenous for news. I secured, +however, without losing too much time, a seat with a stout young +country-man who drove a little country cart with a powerful gray horse, +and was going in the direction I wanted to travel. + +"What will be the result of this affair?" I said to him when he had got +his beast into a steady trot. + +He shrugged his shoulders. A French workingman has a far larger +vocabulary at his command than the English laborer. "Bon Dieu!" he +exclaimed: "who knows what will come of it? A land without a master is +no civilized land. We shall fall back into barbarism. What there is +certain is, that we shall all be ruined." + +At length, to my great relief, we saw a carriage before us; and we drove +into the railway-station at the same moment as the Leares. + +Before the ladies could alight I was beside the window of their +carriage. + +"You here, Mr. Farquhar?" cried Hermione. "How good of you! You cannot +guess the relief. Help me to get them out, these helpless ones." + +We lifted Mrs. Leare on to the platform of the railway, weeping and +trembling. The old colored nurse could not speak French, and seemed to +think her only duty was to hold the hand of little Claribel and to stand +where her young mistress placed her. All looked to Hermione. She carried +a canvas bag of five-franc pieces and paid right and left. I tried to +interfere, as she was giving the postilion an exorbitant sum. + +"No, hush!" she whispered: "we can afford to pay, but in our situation +we cannot afford to dispute." + +She then deputed me to see after the "baggage," as she called the +luggage of the party, and went with her mother into the glass cage that +the French call a _salle d'attente_ at a railway-station. + +We had come from the seat of war, and every one crowded around us asking +for news. I had little to tell, but replied that I believed the affair +was nearly over. I did not foresee that two hours later a procession +roaring "Mourir pour la Patrie" under the windows of the Hôtel des +Affaires Étrangères would be fired into by accident, and that the +_émeute_ of February, 1848, would be converted into a revolution. + +It was nine o'clock in the evening. The lamps were lighted in the +station. The night was cloudy, but far off on the horizon we could see a +gleam of radiance, marking the locality of the great city. + +After an hour of very anxious waiting, during which Mrs. Leare was +beside herself with nervous agitation, the locked doors of our prison +were flung open and we were permitted to seat ourselves in a +railway-carriage. + +Hermione's tender devotion to her mother, the old servant and the child +was beautiful to witness. Now that Mrs. Leare was helpless on her +daughter's hands, they seemed to have found their natural relations. +Hermione said few words to me, but a glance now and then thanked me for +being with them. The train started. For about three miles all went on +well, although we travelled cautiously, fearing obstructions. Suddenly +the speed of our train was checked, and there was a cry of consternation +as we rounded a sharp curve. The bridge over the Seine at its third bend +was ablaze before us! + +All the men upon the train sprang out upon the track as soon as the +carriage-doors were opened, and in a few moments we were surrounded by +ruffians refusing to let us go on. + +"Back the train!" cried the railroad official in charge. + +No, they were not willing to let us go back to Paris. Conspirators +against the people might be making their escape. They had set fire to +the bridge, they said, to prevent the train from passing over. It must +remain where it was. If we passengers desired to return to Paris, we +must walk there. + +"Walk?" I exclaimed: "it is ten miles! Women--delicate +ladies--children!" + +My remonstrance was drowned in the confusion. Suddenly the party of +women under my charge stood at my elbow: Mrs. Leare was leaning on +Hermione's arm; Mammy Christine and Claribel cowered close and held her +by her drapery. + +"Make no remonstrances," she said in a low voice: "let us not excite +attention. An Englishman never knows when not to complain: an American +accepts his fate more quietly. These people mean to sack the train. We +had better get away as soon as possible." + +"But how?" I cried. + +"I can walk. We must find some means of transporting mamma, Mammy Chris +and Clary." + +As Hermione said this she turned to an official and questioned him upon +the subject. He thought that there was a little cart and horse which +might be hired at a neighboring cottage. + +"Let us go and see about it, Mr. Farquhar," said Hermione. + +"I will." + +"No: I put greater trust in my own powers of persuasion.--Mammy dear, +take good care of mamma: we shall be back directly." + +Her _we_ was very sweet to me, and I shared her mistrust of my French +and my diplomacy. + +The glare of the burning bridge lighted our steps: the air was full of +falling flakes of fire. The cottage was a quarter of a mile off. +Hermione refused my arm, but, holding her skirts daintily, stepped +bravely at my side. She exhibited no bashfulness, no excitement, no +confusion, no fear: she was simply bent on business. We reached the +peasant's farmyard. He and his family were outside the house. We like to +say a Frenchman has no word for _home_. But the conclusion that the man +of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces from this lack in his vocabulary is false: +no man cares more for the domicile that shelters him. Hermione made her +request with sweet persuasiveness. I saw at once it would have been +refused if I had made it, but to her they made excuses. The old horse, +they said, was very old, the old cart was broken. + +"Let me look at it," said Hermione. At this they led us into an +outhouse, where she assisted me to make a careful inspection. I might +have rejected the old trap at once, but she offered a few suggestions, +which she told me in an aside were the fruit of her experiences in +Maryland and Virginia, and the cart was pronounced safe enough to be +driven slowly with a light load. + +A half-grown son of the house was put in charge of it. Hermione +suggested he should bring the family clothes-line in case of a +breakdown, and prevailed upon the farmer's wife to put in plenty of +fresh straw, a blanket and a pillow. She made a bargain, less +extravagant than I expected, with the peasant proprietor, promising, +however, a very handsome _pourboire_ to his son in the event of our good +fortune. The farmer stipulated, in his turn, that cart, horse and lad +were not to pass the barrier, that the boy should walk at the horse's +head, and that the cart was to contain only two women and little +Claribel. + +It was harnessed up immediately. Hermione and I followed it on foot back +to the little band of travellers waiting beside the railway. + +"Can we not get some of your trunks out?" I said to her. + +"No," she answered: "leave them to their fate. I dare not overload the +cart, and I doubt whether those men with hungry eyes would let us take +them. Mamma," she whispered, "has her diamonds." + +"You will get into the cart, Miss Leare?" I said as I saw her motioning +to the old colored woman to take the place beside her mother. + +"No indeed," she replied: "our contract stipulated only for mamma, Mammy +and Clary: Mammy is crippled with rheumatism. If you have no objection I +will walk with you." + +"Objection? No. But it is ten miles." + +"A long stretch," she said with a half sigh, "but I am young, strong, +and excitement counts for something: besides, there is no remedy. We +must consider them." + +There had been about fifteen other persons on the train. A dozen of +these, finding we were going to walk back to Paris, proposed to join us. +The night was growing dark, and we pushed on. There was no woman afoot +but Hermione. "Madame" they called her, evidently taking her for my +wife, but by no word or smile did she notice the blunder. After a while +she accepted my arm, drawing up her skirts by means of loops or pins. We +had one lantern among us, and from time to time its glare permitted me +to see her dainty feet growing heavy with mud and travel. + +It was not what could be called a lovers' walk, tramping in the dark +through mud and water, on a French country road, at a cart's tail, and +hardly a word was exchanged between us; yet had it not been for fears +about her safety it would have been the most delightful expedition I had +ever known. + +From time to time Mrs. Leare and the old nurse in the cart complained of +their bones. Hermione was always ready with encouragement, but she said +little else to any one. She appeared to be reserving all her energies to +assist her physical endurance and to strengthen her for her task of +taking care of the others. + +I had always seen my sisters and other girls protected, sheltered, cared +for: it gave me a sharp pang to see this beautiful and dainty creature +totally unthought of by those dependent on her. Nor did Mrs. Leare seem +to feel any anxiety about my comradeship with her daughter. I could +fully appreciate Hermione's remark about her chaperonage being very +unsatisfactory. + +Every now and then we passed through villages along whose straggling +streets the population was aswarm, eager for news and wondering at our +muddy procession. In one of the villages I suggested stopping, but Mrs. +Leare was now as frantic to get home again as she had been to get away. +She said, and truly, that it had been a wild plan to start from +Paris--that if she had seen me and had heard that I thought the émeute +was at an end and that the report about the English was untrue, she +should never have left her apartment. She had been frightened out of her +senses by some men _en blouse_ who had made their way into her rooms and +had carried off her pistol and a little Turkish dagger. Victor's theft +of his own wages had upset her. She had insisted upon setting out. +Hermione had got post-horses somehow: Hermione ought never to have let +her come away. + +About three in the morning we reached a larger village than we had +hitherto passed. The inhabitants had been apprised of the events in the +Rue Neuve des Capucines before the ministry of the Affaires Étrangères, +and the revolutionary element had increased in audacity. A crowd of +turbulent-looking working-men dressed in blouses, armed with muskets, +old sabres and all kinds of miscellaneous weapons, stopped our way. Some +seized the head of the old horse, some gathered round the cart and +lifted lanterns into the faces of the ladies. The French workman is a +much more athletic man than the French soldier. I own to a sensation of +deadly terror for a moment when I saw the ladies in the midst of a +lawless rabble whose brawny arms were bared as if prepared for butchery +of any kind. Far off, too, a low rattle of distant musketry warned us +that the tumult in Paris was renewed. + +"Mourir pour la Patrie" appeared to come from every throat, and many of +the crowd were the worse for liquor. Indeed, these patriots had +rendezvoused at a cabaret at the entrance of the village, and swarmed +from its tables to intercept us. The ladies, they insisted, must alight +and be examined. Mammy Chris was drawn out of the cart, looking as if +her face had been rubbed in ashes: Mrs. Leare was nervously excited, +Hermione went up to her, supported her and drew her bag of diamonds out +of her hand. I took Claribel in my arms. + +"Vos passeports," they demanded. + +"Here are our American passports," said Hermione: "we are Americans." + +"Yes, Americans, republicans!" cried Mrs. Leare: "we fraternize with all +republicans in France." + +"Aristos," said a man between his teeth, glancing at her dress and at +that of Hermione. + +"What does he say?" cried Mrs. Leare, who did not catch the word. + +"Hush, mother!" said Hermione. + +"But what did he say?" she shrieked. "Tell me at once: do not keep it +from me." + +Hermione replied (unwilling to use the word "aristocrat") by an American +idiom: "He said we belonged to the Upper Ten." + +"But we don't! Oh, Hermie, your father belongs to a good family in +Maryland, but _my_ grandfather made shoes. I was quite poor when he +married me. I was only sixteen." + +"What you say?" said a railroad-hand who knew a little English. "You say +you are not some aristos?" + +"No, sir," said I: "these ladies claim to be Americans and republicans." + +"Vive la République!" cried the man. + +"Vive la République!" quickly echoed Hermione. + +"C'est bien! c'est bien!" cried another, raising his lantern to her +blanched and beautiful face. + +"You will let us all pass, monsieur?" she said persuasively: "you will +even be our escort a little way. We will pay handsomely for your +protection." + +Before he could answer her two or three fellows, more drunk than the +rest, burst out with a proposition: "She says they are not aristos, but +republicans. Let her prove it. She cannot, if she be a true republican, +refuse to kiss her fellow-patriots." + +I started and was about to knock the rascal down with the bag of +diamonds. + +But Hermione laid a restraining hand upon my arm. "Gentlemen," she said +in clear tones and perfect French, "it is quite true that we are +Americans and republicans. We wish you well, and if it be for the good +of France to be free under a republican form of government, no one can +wish her prosperity more than ourselves. But in our free country, +messieurs, a woman is held free to give her kiss to whom she will, and +according to our custom she gives it only to her betrothed or to her +husband." Here stooping she picked up a little boy who had worked +himself into the forefront of the crowd, and before I knew what she was +about to do she had lifted him upon the cart beside her. She looked a +moment steadily at the men around her, holding the boy's hand in both +her own, then turning toward him and pressing her lips upon his face, +she said, "Messieurs, I kiss your representative: I cannot embrace a +multitude;" and placed a piece of money in the gamin's hand. + +For a moment there was some doubt what view the crowd might take of +this, but her beauty, her fearlessness, and, above all, the awe inspired +by her womanliness, prevailed. They shouted "Vive la République!" + +"With all my heart," replied Hermione. "Now shout for me, gentlemen: +Vive la République des États Unis!" + +They were completely won. A French crowd is never dangerous or +unmanageable till it has tasted blood, and besides it has--or at least +in those days it used to have--_sentiments_, to which it was possible +with a little tact to appeal successfully. + +The opposition to our progress came to an end. Mrs. Leare and old Mammy +were helped back into the cart, and a man offered them some wine. They +brought some also to Hermione. I pressed her to drink it, which she did +to their good health, and giving back the glass placed in it a napoleon. +"Do me the favor, messieurs," she said, "to drink your next toast to our +American republic." + +Cheers rose for her. There was no longer any talk of detaining us: the +old horse was urged forward. Hermione took my arm. We marched on, +escorted by the rabble. At the end of the village-street they all gave +us an unsteady cheer and turned back to their wine-tables. Hermione +proceeded in silence a little farther. Then I felt her slipping from my +arm, and was just in time to catch her. + +Without compunction I requested Mammy Chris to get out of the cart and +put her young lady in her place, pillowing her head as carefully as I +could on my own coat, and proceeding in my shirtsleeves. + +We were then not half a mile from the Banlieu, which we passed without +adventure, much to my surprise, its inhabitants having taken advantage +of the confusion to pour into Paris and infest its richer quarters. + +The ladies were obliged to get out at the barrier and to send back the +cart to its proprietor. Again I had the happiness of supporting Hermione +while I carried little Claribel, and Mrs. Leare and Mammy walked on +ahead. + +"I feel humiliated," I said, "that the whole burden of those dreadful +moments should have fallen upon you." + +"And to avoid that feeling you were ready to knock down a drunken blouse +in English style?" she said, smiling. "No, Mr. Farquhar, nothing but the +power that a woman finds in her own womanhood could have brought us +through safely. Those men had all had mothers, and each man had some +sort of womanly ideal. I could not have managed a crowd of _poissardes_, +but, thank Heaven, there is yet a chord that a woman may strike in the +hearts of men." + +The dawn of Thursday, February 24, 1848, was breaking at the eastward +when I arrived with Mrs. Leare, Hermione, the nurse and child at their +own apartment. I went up stairs with them. All was cold and cheerless in +the rooms. There were no servants. Mrs. Leare sat down; the old nurse +bemoaned her rheumatism and her aching bones; Hermione, with the +assistance of the concierge's wife, lighted a fire, made some tea and +waited on her mother. + +For several days afterward she was very ill. She knew nothing of passing +events--of the king's flight, of the triumphal and victorious +processions that passed up the Champs Élysées, of the sudden +impossibility of procuring supplies of change, and of the consequent +difficulty of paying household bills with _billets de mille francs_ +without gold or silver. + +Each day I went several times to make inquiries, and twice I saw Mrs. +Leare in bed, but Hermione was invisible. + +My father, an honorable British officer of the old school, perceived how +things were with me. "My son," he said one clay, "there are two courses +open to you. You have nothing but your profession. Your education and +the premium on your admittance to the office of the great man for whom +you work have been my provision for you: the little property I have to +leave must support your sisters. You cannot under such circumstances +address Miss Leare. You must either go back at once to your work in +England and forget this episode, or you may go out to America and see +her father. You can tell him you have nothing on which to support his +daughter, and ask if he will give you leave to address the young lady. +No son of mine, situated like yourself, shall offer himself in any other +way to an heiress whose father is three thousand miles away, and who is +supposed to have two millions of francs for her dowry." + +I saw he was right, but, forlorn as the hope was of any appeal to Mr. +Leare, I would not relinquish it. I resolved to go out to America and +see him, and wrote to England to secure letters of introduction to the +chief engineers in the United States and Canada. Meantime, my father +proposed that we should go together and call upon Mrs. and Miss Leare. + +Hermione received us in the boudoir, looking like a bruised lily: her +mother came in afterward. + +"We are going right straight home," she said, "the moment we can get +money to get away. I have written to Mr. Leare that he must find some +means to send me some." + +"I am glad to hear you say this, madame," said my father. "My son has +just made up his mind to go out to America and seek employment on one of +your railways." + +Hermione looked up with a question in her eyes: so did her mother. + +"Why, Mr. Farquhar, that will suit us exactly," cried Mrs. +Leare.--"Hermione, won't it be lovely if Mr. Farquhar takes care of us +on the voyage?--You will engage your passage--won't you?--in the same +steamer as we do?--No one was ever so good a squire of dames as your +son, Captain Farquhar. Hermione and I shall never forget our obligations +to him." + +"No, madame," said my father; and he got up and walked to the fireplace, +where in his embarrassment he laid his hand upon the ornamented box +which held the cigarettes of the fast lady. + +She rose up too and went hastily toward him, anxious he should not +surprise her little frailty. + +"The truth is, madame," whispered my father, who never could restrain +his tongue from any kindly indiscretion, "the poor fellow is suffering +too much from the attractions of Miss Leare. He has nothing but his +profession, and I tell him he must not dare to address her in her +father's absence." + +"My dear captain, what does that matter? And I believe Hermione would +have him too," said her mother. + +"Disparity of means--" began my father. + +"Oh, no matter," interrupted Mrs. Leare: "her father always told her +just to please herself. Mr. Farquhar is an Englishman and of good +family. He has his profession to keep him out of mischief, and Hermie +will more than pay her own expenses. Indeed, I dare not go home without +a gentleman to look after us on the passage: my nerves have been too +shattered, and I never again shall trust a courier. Do let your son go +back with us," she implored persuasively; and added, as she saw that he +still hesitated, "Besides, what rich man in America knows how long he +may be rich? 'Spend your money and enjoy yourself' has always been my +motto." + +Thus urged, what could my father do but suppose that Mrs. Leare knew Mr. +Leare's views better than he did? He no longer held out on the point of +honor. + +In twenty-four hours Hermione and I were engaged to be married. + +During the voyage to New York I learned to understand her father's +character, and when he met us on the wharf I was no longer afraid of +him. + +Hermione's choice in marriage seemed to be wholly left to herself. Mr. +Leare told me, when I had that formidable talk with him dreaded by all +aspirants to the hand of a man's daughter, that Hermione had too much +good sense, self-respect and womanliness to give herself away to a man +unworthy of her. "That she can love you, sir," he said, "is sufficient +recommendation." + +That it might be sufficient in my case I hoped with all my soul, but +felt, as Hermione had expressed it early in our acquaintance, that +society in America must be founded upon very different opinions than our +own in regard to the relations of men and women. + +E.W. LATIMER. + + + + +THE AUTHORS OF "FROUFROU." + + +No doubt it will surprise some theatre-goers who are not special +students of the stage to be told that the authors of _Froufrou_ are the +authors also of the _Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein_ and of _La Belle +Hélène_, of _Carmen_ and of _Le Petit Duc_. There are a few, I know, who +think that _Froufrou_ was written by the fertile and ingenious M. +Victorien Sardou, and who, without thinking, credit M. Jacques Offenbach +with the composition of the words as well as the music of the _Grande +Duchesse_; and as for _Carmen_, is it not an _Italian_ opera, and is not +the book, like the music, the work of some Italian? As a matter of fact, +all these plays, unlike as they are to each other, and not only these, +but many more--not a few of them fairly well known to the American +play-goer--are due to the collaboration of M. Henri Meilhac and M. +Ludovic Halévy. + +Born in 1832, M. Henri Meilhac, like M. Émile Zola, dealt in books +before he began to make them. He soon gave up trade for journalism, and +contributed with pen and pencil to the comic _Journal pour Rire_. He +began as a dramatist in 1855 with a two-act play at the Palais Royal +Theatre: like the first pieces of Scribe and of M. Sardou, and of so +many more who have afterward abundantly succeeded on the stage, this +play of M. Meilhac's was a failure; and so also was his next, likewise +in two acts. But in 1856 the _Sarabande du Cardinal_, a delightful +little comedy in one act, met with favor at the Gymnase. It was followed +by two or three other comediettas equally clever. In 1859, M. Meilhac +made his first attempt at a comedy in five acts, but the _Petit fils de +Mascarille_ had not the good fortune of his ancestor. In 1860, for the +first time, he was assisted by M. Ludovic Halévy, and in the twenty +years since then their names have been linked together on the +title-pages of two score or more plays of all kinds--drama, comedy, +farce, opera, operetta and ballet. M. Meilhac's new partner was the +nephew of the Halévy who is best known out of France as the composer of +the _Jewess_, and he was the son of M. Léon Halévy, poet, philosopher +and playwright. Two years younger than M. Henri Meilhac, M. Ludovic +Halévy held a place in the French civil service until 1858, when he +resigned to devote his whole time, instead of his spare time, to the +theatre. As the son of a dramatist and the nephew of a popular composer, +he had easy access to the stage. He began as the librettist-in-ordinary +to M. Offenbach, for whom he wrote _Ba-ta-clan_ in 1855, and later the +_Chanson de Fortunio_, the _Pont des Soupirs_ and _Orphée aux Enfers_. +The first very successful play which MM. Meilhac and Halévy wrote +together was a book for M. Offenbach; and it was possibly the good +fortune of this operetta which finally affirmed the partnership. Before +the triumph of the _Belle Hélène_ in 1864 the collaboration had been +tentative, as it were: after that it was as though the articles had been +definitely ratified--not that either of the parties has not now and then +indulged in outside speculations, trying a play alone or with an +outsider, but this was without prejudice to the permanent partnership. + +This kind of literary union, the long-continued conjunction of two +kindred spirits, is better understood amongst us than the indiscriminate +collaboration which marks the dramatic career of M. Eugène Labiche, for +instance. Both kinds were usual enough on the English stage in the days +of Elizabeth, but we can recall the ever-memorable example of Beaumont +and Fletcher, while we forget the chance associations of Marston, +Dekker, Chapman and Ben Jonson. And in contemporary literature we have +before us the French tales of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian and the English +novels of Messrs. Besant and Rice. The fact that such a union endures is +proof that it is advantageous. A long-lasting collaboration like this of +MM. Meilhac and Halévy must needs be the result of a strong sympathy and +a sharp contrast of character, as well as of the possession by one of +literary qualities which supplement those of the other. + +One of the first things noticed by an American student of French +dramatic literature is that the chief Parisian critics generally refer +to the joint work of these two writers as the plays of M. Meilhac, +leaving M. Halévy altogether in the shade. At first this seems a curious +injustice, but the reason is not far to seek. It is not that M. Halévy +is some two years the junior of M. Meilhac: it lies in the quality of +their respective abilities. M. Meilhac has the more masculine style, and +so the literary progeny of the couple bear rather his name than his +associate's. M. Meilhac has the strength of marked individuality, he has +a style of his own, one can tell his touch; while M. Halévy is merely a +clever French dramatist of the more conventional pattern. This we detect +by considering the plays which each has put forth alone and unaided by +the other. In reading one of M. Meilhac's works we should feel no doubt +as to the author, while M. Halévy's clever pictures of Parisian society, +wanting in personal distinctiveness, would impress us simply as a +product of the "Modern French School." + +Before finally joining with M. Halévy, M. Meilhac wrote two comedies in +five acts of high aim and skilful execution, and two other five-act +pieces have been written by MM. Meilhac and Halévy together. The _Vertu +de Célimène_ and the _Petit fils de Mascarille_ are by the elder +partner--_Fanny Lear_ and _Froufrou_ are the work of the firm. Yet in +these last two it is difficult to see any trace of M. Halévy's +handiwork. Allowing for the growth of M. Meilhac's intellect during the +eight or ten years which intervened between the work alone and the work +with his associate, and allowing for the improvement in the mechanism of +play-making, I see no reason why M. Meilhac might not have written +_Fanny Lear_ and _Froufrou_ substantially as they are had he never met +M. Halévy. But it is inconceivable that M. Halévy alone could have +attained so high an elevation or have gained so full a comic force. +Perhaps, however, M. Halévy deserves credit for the better technical +construction of the later plays: merely in their mechanism the first +three acts of _Froufrou_ are marvellously skilful. And perhaps, also, +his is a certain softening humor, which is the cause that the two later +plays, written by both partners, are not so hard in their brilliance as +the two earlier comedies, the work of M. Meilhac alone. + +It may seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals, but I think +M. Halévy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's plays a fuller ethical +richness. To the younger writer is due a simple but direct irony, as +well as a lightsome and laughing desire to point a moral when occasion +serves. Certainly, I shall not hold up a play written to please the +public of the Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all +the virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of all the +cardinal sins. The frequenters of the Palais Royal Theatre are not +babes; young people of either sex are not taken there; only the +emancipated gain admittance; and to the seasoned sinners who haunt +theatres of this type these plays by MM. Meilhac and Halévy are +harmless. Indeed, I do not recall any play of theirs which could hurt +any one capable of understanding it. Most of their plays are not to be +recommended to ignorant innocence or to fragile virtue. They are not +meant for young men and maidens. They are not wholly free from the taint +which is to be detected in nearly all French fiction. The mark of the +beast is set on not a little of the work done by the strongest men in +France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too clever ever to delve in +indecency from mere wantonness: he has no liking for vice, but his +virtue sits easily on him, and though he is sound on the main question, +he looks upon the vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halévy, it +seems to me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff. He raises a warning +voice now and then--in _Fanny Lear_, for instance, the moral is pointed +explicitly--and even where there is no moral tagged to the fable, he who +has eyes to see and ears to hear can find "a terrible example" in almost +any of these plays, even the lightest. For the congregation to which it +was delivered there is a sermon in _Toto chez Tata_, perhaps the piece +in which, above all others, the Muse seems Gallic and _égrillarde_. That +is a touch of real truth, and so of a true morality, where Tata, the +fashionable courtesan, leaning over her stairs as Toto the school-boy +bears off her elderly lover, and laughing at him, cries out, "Toi, mon +petit homme, je te repincerai dans quatre ou cinq ans!" And a cold and +cutting stroke it is a little earlier in the same little comedy where +Toto, left alone in Tata's parlor, negligently turns over her basket of +visiting-cards and sees "names which he knew because he had learnt them +by heart in his history of France." Still, in spite of this truth and +morality, I do not advise the reading of _Toto chez Tata_ in young +ladies' seminaries. Young ladies in Paris do not go to hear Madame +Chaumont, for whom _Toto_ was written, nor is the Variétés, where it was +played, a place where a girl can take her mother. + +It was at the Variétés in December, 1864, that the _Belle Hélène_ was +produced: this was the first of half a score of plays written by MM. +Meilhac and Halévy for which M. Jacques Offenbach composed the music. +Chief among these are _Barbe-bleue_, the _Grande Duchesse de +Gérolstein_, the _Brigands_ and _Périchole_. When we recall the fact +that these five operas are the most widely known, the most popular and +by far the best of M. Offenbach's works, there is no need to dwell on +his indebtedness to MM. Meilhac and Halévy, or to point out how +important a thing the quality of the opera-book is to the composer of +the score. These earlier librettos were admirably made: they are models +of what a comic opera-book should be. I cannot well imagine a better bit +of work of its kind than the _Belle Hélène_ or the _Grande Duchesse_. +Tried by the triple test of plot, characters and dialogue, they are +nowhere wanting. Since MM. Meilhac and Halévy have ceased writing for M. +Offenbach they have done two books for M. Charles Lecoq--the _Petit Duc_ +and the _Grande Demoiselle_. These are rather light comic operas than +true _opéras-bouffes_, but if there is an elevation in the style of the +music, there is an emphatic falling off in the quality of the words. +From the _Grande Duchesse_ to the _Petit Duc_ is a great descent: the +former was a genuine play, complete and self-contained--the latter is a +careless trifle, a mere outline sketch for the composer to fill up. The +story--akin in subject to Mr. Tom Taylor's fine historical drama +_Clancarty_--is pretty, but there is no trace of the true poetry which +made the farewell letter of Périchole so touching, or of the true comic +force which projected Général Bourn. _Carmen_, which, like _Périchole_, +owes the suggestion of its plot and characters to Prosper Mérimée, is +little more than the task-work of the two well-trained play-makers: it +was sufficient for its purpose, no more and no less. + +Of all the opera-books of MM. Meilhac and Halévy, that one is easily +first and foremost which has for its heroine the Helen of Troy whom +Marlowe's Faustus declared + + Fairer than the evening air, + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. + +In the _Belle Hélène_ we see the higher wit of M. Meilhac. M. Halévy had +been at the same college with him, and they had pored together over the +same legends of old time, but working without M. Meilhac on _Orphée aux +Enfers_, M. Halévy showed his inferiority, for _Orphée_ is the +old-fashioned anachronistic skit on antiquity--funny if you will, but +with a fun often labored, not to say forced--the fun of physical +incongruity and exaggeration. But in the _Belle Hélène_ the fun, easy +and flowing, is of a very high quality, and it has root in mental, not +physical, incongruity. Here indeed is the humorous touchstone of a whole +system of government and of theology. And, allowing for the variations +made with comic intent, it is altogether Greek in spirit--so Greek, in +fact, that I doubt whether any one who has not given his days and nights +to the study of Homer and of the tragedians, and who has not thus taken +in by the pores the subtle essence of Hellenic life and literature, can +truly appreciate this French farce. Planché's _Golden Fleece_ is in the +same vein, but the ore is not as rich. Frere's _Loves of the Triangles_ +and some of his _Anti-Jacobin_ writing are perhaps as good in quality, +but the subjects are inferior and temporary. Scarron's vulgar burlesques +and the cheap parodies of many contemporary English play-makers are not +to be mentioned in the same breath with this scholarly fooling. There is +something in the French genius akin to the Greek, and here was a Gallic +wit who could turn a Hellenic love-tale inside out, and wring the +uttermost drop of fun from it without recourse to the devices of the +booth at the fair, the false nose and the simulation of needless +ugliness. The French play, comic as it was, did not suggest hysteria or +epilepsy, and it was not so lacking in grace that we could not recall +the original story without a shudder. There is no shattering of an +ideal, and one cannot reproach the authors of the _Belle Hélène_ with +what Theophrastus Such calls "debasing the moral currency, lowering the +value of every inspiring fact and tradition." + +Surpassed only by the _Belle Hélène_ is the _Grande Duchesse de +Gérolstein_. It is nearly fifteen years since all the world went to +Paris to see an Exposition Universelle and to gaze at the "sabre de mon +père," and since a Russian emperor, going to hear the operetta, said to +have been suggested by the freak of a Russian empress, sat incognito in +one stage-box of the little Variétés Theatre, and glancing up saw a +Russian grand duke in the other. It is nearly fifteen years since the +tiny army of Her Grand-ducal Highness took New York by storm, and since +American audience after audience hummed its love for the military and +walked from the French Theatre along Fourteenth street to Delmonico's to +supper, sabring the waiters there with the venerated weapon of her sire. +The French Theatre is no more, and Delmonico's is no longer at that +Fourteenth-street corner, and Her Highness Mademoiselle Tostée is dead, +and M. Offenbach's sprightly tunes have had the fate of all over-popular +airs, and are forgotten now. _Où sont les neiges d'antan?_ + +It has been said that the authors regretted having written the _Grande +Duchesse_, because the irony of history soon made a joke on Teutonic +powers and principalities seem like unpatriotic satire. Certainly, they +had no reason to be ashamed of the literary quality of their work: in +its class it yields only to its predecessor. There is no single figure +as fine as Calchas--Général Boum is a coarser outline--but how humorous +and how firm is the drawing of Prince Paul and Baron Grog! And Her +Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch of youthful femininity +than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard to judge the play now. Custom +has worn its freshness and made it too familiar: we know it too well to +criticise it clearly. Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action +with over-much "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits +of the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can be +remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best bits of +exposition on the modern French stage. + +Besides these plays for music, and besides the more important five-act +comedies to be considered later, MM. Meilhac and Halévy are the authors +of thirty or forty comic dramas--as they are called on the English +stage--or farce-comedies in one, two, three, four, and even five acts, +ranging in aim from the gentle satire of sentimentality in _La Veuve_ to +the outspoken farce of the _Réveillon_. Among the best of the longer of +these comic plays are _Tricoche et Cacolet_ and _La Boule_. Both were +written for the Palais Royal, and they are models of the new dramatic +species which came into existence at that theatre about twenty years +ago, as M. Francisquc Sarcey recently reminded us in his interesting +article on the Palais Royal in _The Nineteenth Century_. This new style +of comic play may be termed realistic farce--realistic, because it +starts from every-day life and the most matter-of-fact conditions; and +farce, because it uses its exact facts only to further its fantasy and +extravagance. Consider _La Boule_. Its first act is a model of accurate +observation; it is a transcript from life; it is an inside view of a +commonplace French household which incompatibility of temper has made +unsupportable. And then take the following acts, and see how on this +foundation of fact, and screened by an outward semblance of realism, +there is erected the most laughable superstructure of fantastic farce. I +remember hearing one of the two great comedians of the Théâtre Français, +M. Coquelin, praise a comic actor of the Variétés whom we had lately +seen in a rather cheap and flimsy farce, because he combined "la vérité +la plus absolue avec la fantasie la plus pure." And this is the merit of +_La Boule_: its most humorous inventions have their roots in the truth. + +Better even than _La Boule_ is _Tricoche et Cacolet_, which is the name +of a firm of private detectives whose exploits and devices surpass those +imagined by Poe in America, by Wilkie Collins in England, and by +Gaboriau in France. The manifold disguises and impersonations of the two +partners when seeking to outwit each other are as well-motived and as +fertile in comic effect as any of the attempts of Crispin or of some +other of Regnard's interchangeable valets. Is not even the _Légataire +Universel_, Regnard's masterpiece, overrated? To me it is neither higher +comedy nor more provocative of laughter than either _La Boule_ or +_Tricoche et Cacolet_; and the modern plays, as I have said, are based +on a study of life as it is, while the figures of the older comedies are +frankly conventional. Nowhere in Regnard is there a situation equal in +comic power to that in the final act of the _Réveillon_--a situation +Molière would have been glad to treat. + +Especially to be commended in _Tricoche et Cacolet_ is the satire of the +hysterical sentimentality and of the forced emotions born of luxury and +idleness. The parody of the amorous intrigue which is the staple of so +many French plays is as wholesome as it is exhilarating. Absurdity is a +deadly shower-bath to sentimentalism. The method of Meilhac and Halévy +in sketching this couple is not unlike that employed by Mr. W.S. Gilbert +in _H.M.S. Pinafore_ and _The Pirates of Penzance_. Especially to be +noted is the same perfectly serious pushing of the dramatic commonplaces +to an absurd conclusion. There is the same kind of humor too, and the +same girding at the stock tricks of stage-craft--in _H.M.S. Pinafore_ at +the swapping of children in the cradle, and in _Tricoche et Cacolet_ at +the "portrait de ma mère" which has drawn so many tears in modern +melodrama. But MM. Meilhac and Halévy, having made one success, did not +further attempt the same kind of pleasantry--wiser in this than Mr. +Gilbert, who seems to find it hard to write anything else. + +As in the _Château à Toto_ MM. Meilhac and Halévy had made a modern +perversion of _Dame Blanche_, so in _La Cigale_ did they dress up afresh +the story of the _Fille du R'egiment_. As the poet asks-- + + Ah, World of ours, are you so gray, + And weary, World, of spinning, + That you repeat the tales to-day + You told at the beginning? + For lo! the same old myths that made + The early stage-successes + Still hold the boards, and still are played + With new effects and dresses. + +I have cited _La Cigale_, not because it is a very good play--for it is +not--but because it shows the present carelessness of French +dramatists in regard to dramatic construction. _La Cigale_ is a very +clever bit of work, but it has the slightest of plots, and this made out +of old cloth; and the situations, in so far as there are any, follow +each other as best they may. It is not really a play: it is a mere +sketch touched up with Parisianisms, "local hits" and the wit of the +moment. This substitution of an off-hand sketch for a full-sized picture +can better be borne in a little one-act play than in a more ambitious +work in three or four acts. + +And of one-act plays Meilhac and Halévy have written a score or +more--delightful little _genre_ pictures, like the _Été de +Saint-Martin_, simple pastels, like _Toto chez Tata_, and vigorous +caricatures, like the _Photographe_ or the _Brésilien_. The Frenchman +invented the ruffle, says Emerson: the Englishman added the shirt. These +little dramatic trifles are French ruffles. In the beginning of his +theatrical career M. Meilhac did little comedies like the _Sarabande_ +and the _Autographe_, in the Scribe formula--dramatized anecdotes, but +fresher in wit and livelier in fancy than Scribe's. This early work was +far more regular than we find in some of his latest, bright as these +are: the _Petit Hôtel_, for instance, and _Lolotte_ are etchings, as it +were, instantaneous photographs of certain aspects of life in the city +by the Seine or stray paragraphs of the latest news from Paris. + +It is perhaps not too much to say that Meilhac and Halévy are seen at +their best in these one-act plays. They hit better with a single-barrel +than with a revolver. In their five-act plays, whether serious like +_Fanny Lear_ or comic like _La Vie Parisienne_, the interest is +scattered, and we have a series of episodes rather than a single story. +Just as the egg of the jelly-fish is girt by circles which tighten +slowly until the ovoid form is cut into disks of independent life, so if +the four intermissions of some of Meilhac and Halévy's full-sized plays +were but a little longer and wider and deeper they would divide the +piece into five separate plays, any one of which could fairly hope for +success by itself. I have heard that the _Roi Candaule_ was originally +an act of _La Boule_, and the _Photographe_ seems as though it had +dropped from _La Vie Parisienne_ by mistake. In M. Meilhac's earlier +five-act plays, the _Vertu de Celimène_ and the _Petit fils de +Mascarille_, there is great power of conception, a real grip on +character, but the main action is clogged with tardy incidents, and so +the momentum is lost. In these comedies the influence of the new school +of Alexandre Dumas _fils_ is plainly visible. And the inclination toward +the strong, not to say violent, emotions which Dumas and Angier had +imported into comedy is still more evident in _Fanny Lear_, the first +five-act comedy which Meilhac and Halévy wrote together, and which was +brought out in 1868. The final situation is one of truth and immense +effectiveness, and there is great vigor in the creation of character. +The decrepit old rake, the Marquis de Noriolis, feeble in his folly and +wandering in helplessness, but irresistible when aroused, is a striking +figure; and still more striking is the portrait of his wife, now the +Marquise de Noriolis, but once Fanny Lear the adventuress--a woman who +has youth, beauty, wealth, everything before her, if it were not for the +shame which is behind her: gay and witty, and even good-humored, she is +inflexible when she is determined; hers is a velvet manner and an iron +will. The name of Fanny Lear may sound familiar to some readers because +it was given to an American adventuress in Russia by a grand-ducal +admirer. + +After _Fanny Lear_ came _Froufrou_, the lineal successor of _The +Stranger_ as the current masterpiece of the lachrymatory drama. Nothing +so tear-compelling as the final act of _Froufrou_ had been seen on the +stage for half a century or more. The death of Froufrou was a watery +sight, and for any chance to weep we are many of us grateful. And yet it +was a German, born in the land of Charlotte and Werther,--it was Heine +who remarked on the oddity of praising the "dramatic poet who possesses +the art of drawing tears--a talent which he has in common with the +meanest onion." It is noteworthy that it was by way of Germany that +English tragedy exerted its singular influence on French comedy. +Attracted by the homely power of pieces like _The Gamester_ and _Jane +Shore_, Diderot in France and Lessing in Germany attempted the _tragédie +bourgeoise_, but the right of the "tradesmen's tragedies"--as Goldsmith +called them--to exist at all was questioned until Kotzebue's pathetic +power and theatrical skill captured nearly every stage in Europe. In +France the bastard offspring of English tragedy and German drama gave +birth to an equally illegitimate _comédie larmoyante_. And so it happens +that while comedy in English literature, resulting from the clash of +character, is always on the brink of farce, comedy in French literature +may be tinged with passion until it almost turns to tragedy. In France +the word "comedy" is elastic and covers a multitude of sins: it includes +the laughing _Boule_ and the tearful _Froufrou_: in fact, the French +Melpomene is a sort of _Jeanne qui pleure et Jeanne qui rit_. + +So it happens that _Froufrou_ is a comedy. And indeed the first three +acts are comedy of a very high order, full of wit and rich in character. +I mentioned _The Stranger_ a few lines back, and the contrast of the +two plays shows how much lighter and more delicate French art is. The +humor to be found in _The Stranger_ is, to say the least, Teutonic; and +German humor is like the simple Italian wines: it will not stand export. +And in _The Stranger_ there is really no character, no insight into +human nature. _Misanthropy and Repentance_, as Kotzebue called his play +(_The Stranger_ was Sheridan's title for the English translation he +revised for his own theatre), are loud-sounding words when we capitalize +them, but they do not deceive us now: we see that the play itself is +mostly stalking sententiousness, mawkishly overladen with gush. But in +_Froufrou_ there is wit of the latest Parisian kind, and there are +characters--people whom we might meet and whom we may remember. Brigard, +for one, the reprobate old gentleman, living even in his old age in that +Bohemia which has Paris for its capital, and dyeing his few locks +because he feels himself unworthy to wear gray hair,--Brigard is a +portrait from life. The Baron de Cambri is less individual, and I +confess I cannot quite stomach a gentleman who is willing to discuss the +problem of his wife's virtue with a chance adorer. But the cold Baronne +herself is no commonplace person. And Louise, the elder daughter of +Froufrou, the one who had chosen the better part and had kept it by much +self-sacrifice,--she is a true woman. Best, better even than Brigard, is +Gilberte, nicknamed "Froufrou" from the rustling of her silks as she +skips and scampers airily around. Froufrou, when all is said, is a real +creation, a revelation of Parisian femininity, a living thing, breathing +the breath of life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet. +Marrying a reserved yet deeply-devoted husband because her sister bid +her; taking into her home that sister, who had sacrificed her own love +for the husband; seeing this sister straighten the household which she +in her heedless seeking for idle amusement had not governed, then +beginning to feel herself in danger and aware of a growing jealousy, +senseless though it be, of the sister who has so innocently supplanted +her by her hearth, and even with her child; making one effort to regain +her place, and failing, as was inevitable,--poor Froufrou takes the +fatal plunge which will for ever and at once separate her from what was +hers before. What a fine scene is that at the end of the third act, in +which Froufrou has worked herself almost to a frenzy, and, hopeless in +her jealousy, gives up all to her sister and rushes from the house to +the lover she scarcely cares for! And how admirably does all that has +gone before lead up to it! These first three acts are a wonder of +constructive art. Of the rest of the play it is hard to speak so highly. +The change is rather sudden from the study of character in the first +part to the demand in the last that if you have tears you must prepare +to shed them now. The brightness is quenched in gloom and despair. Of a +verity, frivolity may be fatal, and death may follow a liking for +private theatricals and the other empty amusements of fashion; but is it +worth while to break a butterfly on the wheel and to put a humming-bird +to the question? To say what fate shall be meted out to the woman taken +in adultery is always a hard task for the dramatist. Here the erring and +erratic heroine comes home to be forgiven and to die, and so after the +fresh and unforced painting of modern Parisian life we have a finish +full of conventional pathos. Well, death redeems all, and, as Pascal +says, "the last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy there may +have been in the rest of life. We must all die alone." + +J. BRANDER MATTHEWS. + + + + +THE KING'S GIFTS. + + + Cyrus the king in royal mood + Portioned his gifts as seemed him good: + To Artabasus, proud to hold + The priceless boon, a cup of gold-- + A rare-wrought thing: its jewelled brim + Haloed a nectar sweet to him. + No flavor fine it seemed to miss; + But when the king stooped down, a kiss + To leave upon Chrysantas' lips, + The jewels paled in dull eclipse + To Artabasus: hard and cold + And empty grew the cup of gold. + "Better, O Sire, than mine," cried he, + "I deem Chrysantas' gift to be." + Yet the wise king his courtiers knew, + And unto each had given his due. + + To all who watch and all who wait + The king will come, or soon or late. + Choose well: thy secret wish is known, + And thou shalt surely have thine own-- + A golden cup thy poor wealth's sign, + Or on thy lips Love's seal divine. + + EMILY A. BRADDOCK. + + + + +BAUBIE WISHART. + + +"I have taken you at your word, you see, Miss Mackenzie. You told me not +to give alms in the street, and to bring the begging children to you. So +here is one now." + +Thus introduced, the begging child was pushed forward into the room by +the speaker, a lady who was holding her by one shoulder. + +She was a stunted, slim creature, that might have been any age from nine +to fourteen, barefooted and bareheaded, and wearing a Rob Roy tartan +frock. She entered in a sidelong way that was at once timid and +confidently independent, and stared all round her with a pair of large +brown eyes. She did not seem to be in the least frightened, and when +released by her guardian stood at ease comfortably on one foot, tucking +the other away out of sight among the not too voluminous folds of her +frock. + +It was close on twelve o'clock of a March day in the poor sewing-women's +workroom in Drummond street. The average number of women of the usual +sort were collected together--a depressed and silent gathering. It +seemed as if the bitter east wind had dulled and chilled them into a +grayer monotony of look than usual, so that they might be in harmony +with the general aspect which things without had assumed at its grim +bidding. A score or so of wan faces looked up for a minute, but the +child, after all, had nothing in her appearance that was calculated to +repay attention, and the lady was known to them all. So "white seam" +reasserted its old authority without much delay. + +Miss Mackenzie laid down the scissors which she had been using on a bit +of coarse cotton, and advanced in reply to the address of the newcomer. +"How do you do? and where did you pick up this creature?" she asked, +looking curiously at the importation. + +"Near George IV. Bridge, on this side of it, and I just took hold of her +and brought her off to you at once. I don't believe"--this was said +_sotto voce_--"that she has a particle of clothing on her but that +frock." + +"Very likely.--What is your name, my child?" + +"Baubie Wishart, mem." She spoke in an apologetic tone, glancing down at +her feet, the one off duty being lowered for the purpose of inspection, +which over, she hoisted the foot again immediately into the recesses of +the Rob Roy tartan. + +"Have you a father and mother?" + +"Yes, mem." + +"What does your father do?" + +Baubie Wishart glanced down again in thought for an instant, then raised +her eyes for the first time directly to her questioner's face: "He used +to be a Christy man, but he canna be that any longer, sae he goes wi' +boords." + +"Why cannot he be a Christy man any longer?" + +Down came the foot once more, and this time took up its position +permanently beside the other: "Because mother drinks awfu', an' pawned +the banjo for drink." This family history was related in the most +matter-of-fact, natural way. + +"And does your father drink too?" asked Miss Mackenzie after a short +pause. + +Baubie Wishart's eyes wandered all round the room, and with one toe she +swept up a little mass of dust before she answered in a voice every tone +of which spoke unwilling truthfulness, "Just whiles--Saturday nichts." + +"Is _he_ kind to you?" + +"Ay," looking up quickly, "excep' just whiles when he's fou--Saturday +nichts, ye ken--and then he beats me; but he's rale kind when he's +sober." + +"Were you ever at school?" + +"No, mem," with a shake of the head that seemed to convey that she had +something else, and probably better, to do. + +"Did you ever hear of God?" asked the lady who had brought her. + +"Ay, mem," answered Baubie quite readily: "it's a kind of a bad word I +hear in the streets." + +"How old are you?" asked both ladies simultaneously. + +"Thirteen past," replied Baubie, with a promptness that made her +listeners smile, suggesting as it did the thought that the question had +been put to her before, and that Baubie knew well the import of her +answer. + +She grew more communicative now. She could not read, but, all the same, +she knew two songs which she sang in the streets--"Before the Battle" +and "After the Battle;" and, carried away by the thought of her own +powers, she actually began to give proof of her assertion by reciting +one of them there and then. This, however, was stopped at once. "Can +knit too," she added then. + +"Who taught you to knit?" + +"Don' know. Wis at a Sunday-schuil too." + +"Oh, you were? And what did you learn there?" + +Baubie Wishart looked puzzled, consulted her toes in vain, and then +finally gave it up. + +"I should like to do something for her," observed her first friend: "it +is time this street-singing came to an end." + +"She is intelligent, clearly," said Miss Mackenzie, looking curiously at +the child, whose appearance and bearing rather puzzled her. There was +not a particle of the professional street-singer about Baubie Wishart, +the child of that species being generally clean-washed, or at least +soapy, of face, with lank, smooth-combed and greasy hair; and usually, +too, with a smug, sanctimonious air of meriting a better fate. Baubie +Wishart presented none of these characteristics: her face was simply +filthy; her hair was a red-brown, loosened tangle that reminded one +painfully of oakum in its first stage. And she looked as if she deserved +a whipping, and defied it too. She was just a female arab--an arab +_plus_ an accomplishment--bright, quick and inconsequent as a sparrow, +and reeking of the streets and gutters, which had been her nursery. + +"Yes," continued the good lady, "I must look after her." + +"Poor little atom! I suppose you will find out where the parents live, +and send the school-board officer to them. That is the usual thing, is +it not? I must go, Miss Mackenzie. Good-bye for to-day. And do tell me +what you settle for her." + +Miss Mackenzie promised, and her friend took her departure. + +"Go and sit by the fire, Baubie Wishart, for a little, and then I shall +be ready to talk to you." + +Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the end of the +fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the on-goings about her +with the stoicism of a red Indian. She showed no symptom of wonder at +anything, and listened to the disquisitions of Miss Mackenzie and the +matron as to the proper adjustment of parts--"bias," "straights," +"gathers," "fells," "gussets" and "seams," a whole new language as it +unrolled its complexities before her--with complacent indifference. + +At last, all the web of cotton being cut up, the time came to go. Miss +Mackenzie buttoned up her sealskin coat, and pulling on a pair of warm +gloves beckoned Baubie, who rose with alacrity: "Where do your father +and mother live?" + +"Kennedy's Lodgings, in the Gressmarket, mem." + +"I know the place," observed Miss Mackenzie, to whom, indeed, most of +these haunts were familiar. "Take me there now, Baubie." + +They set out together. Baubie trotted in front, turning her head, +dog-fashion, at every corner to see if she were followed. They reached +the Grassmarket at last, and close to the corner of the West Bow found +an entry with the whitewashed inscription above it, "Kennedy's +Lodgings." Baubie glanced round to see if her friend was near, then +vanished upward from her sight. Miss Mackenzie kilted her dress and +began the ascent of the stairs, the steps of which, hollowed out as they +were by the tread of centuries of human feet, afforded a not too safe +footing. + +Arrived at the third floor, she found Baubie waiting for her, +breathless and panting. + +"It's here," she said--"the big kitchen, mem." + +A long, narrow passage lay before them, off which doors opened on all +sides. Precipitating herself at one of these doors, Baubie Wishart, who +could barely reach the latch, pushed it open, giving egress to a +confusion of noises, which seemed to float above a smell of cooking, in +which smell herrings and onions contended for the mastery. + +It was a very large room, low-ceilinged, but well enough lighted by a +couple of windows, which looked into a close behind. The walls had been +whitewashed once upon a time, but the whitewash was almost lost to view +under the decorations with which it was overlaid. These consisted of +pictures cut out of the illustrated weekly papers or milliners' books. +All sorts of subjects were represented: fashion-plates hung side by side +with popular preachers and statesmen, race-horses and Roman Catholic +saints; red-and white-draped Madonnas elbowed the "full-dress" heroines +of the penny weeklies. It was a curious gallery, and a good many of the +works of art had the merit of being antique. Generations of flies had +emblazoned their deeds of prowess on the papers: streaks of +candle-grease bore witness to the inquiring turn of mind, attracted by +the letter-press, or the artistic proclivities of Kennedy's lodgers. It +was about two, the dinner-hour probably, which accounted for the +presence of so many people in the room. Most, but not all, seemed to be +of the wandering class. They were variously employed. Some were sitting +on the truckle-beds that ran round the walls; one or two were knitting +or sewing; a cripple was mending baskets in one of the windows; and +about the fire a group were collected superintending the operations +which produced, though not unaided, the odors with which the room was +reeking. + +Miss Mackenzie stood for a few minutes, unnoticed apparently, looking +about her at the motley crowd. Baubie on entering the room had raised +herself for a second on tiptoe to look into a distant corner, and then, +remarking to herself, half audibly, "His boords is gane," subsided, and +contented herself with watching Miss Mackenzie's movements. + +There seemed to be no one to do the honors. The inmates all looked at +each other for a moment hesitatingly, then resumed their various +occupations. A young woman, a sickly, livid-faced creature, rose from +her place behind the door, and, advancing with a halting step, said to +Miss Mackenzie, "Mistress Kennedy's no' in, an' Wishart's oot wi's +boords." + +"I wanted to see him about this child, who was found begging in the +streets to-day." + +Miss Mackenzie looked curiously at the woman, wondering if she could +belong in any way to the Wishart family. She was a miserable object, +seemingly in the last stage of consumption. + +"Eh, mem," she answered hurriedly, and drawing nearer, "ye're a guid +leddy, I ken, an' tak' t' lassie away oot o' this. The mither's an awfu' +wuman: tak' her away wi' ye, or she'll sune be as bad. She'll be like +mysel' and the rest o' them here." + +"I will, I will," Miss Mackenzie said, shocked and startled, recoiling +before the spirit-reeking breath of this warning spectre. "I will, I +will," she repeated hastily. There was no use remaining any longer. She +went out, beckoning to Baubie, who was busy rummaging about a bed at the +top of the room. + +Baubie had bethought her that it was time to take her father his dinner. +So she slipped over to that corner of the big kitchen which was allotted +to the Wishart family and possessed herself of a piece of a loaf which +was hidden away there. As she passed by the fire she profited by the +momentary abstraction of the people who were cooking to snap up and make +her own a brace of unconsidered trifles in the shape of onions which +were lying near them. These, with the piece of bread, she concealed on +her person, and then returned to Miss Mackenzie, who was now in the +passage. + +"Baubie," said that lady, "I will send some one here about you. Now, +don't let me hear of your singing in the streets or begging again. You +will get into trouble if you do." + +She was descending the stairs as she spoke, and she turned round when +she had reached the entry: "You know the police will take you, Baubie." + +"Yes, mem," answered Baubie, duly impressed. + +"Well, now, I am going home. Stay: are you hungry?" + +Without waiting for her answer, Miss Mackenzie entered a tiny shop close +by, purchased a mutton-pie and handed it to Baubie Wishart, who received +it with wondering reverence. Miss Mackenzie took her way home westward +up the Grassmarket. She turned round before leaving it by way of King's +Stables, and caught sight of Bauble's frock by the entry of Kennedy's +Lodgings--a tiny morsel of color against the shadow of the huge gray +houses. She thought of the big kitchen and its occupants, and the face +and words of the poor girl, and promised herself that she would send the +school-board officer to Kennedy's Lodgings that very night. + +Baubie waited till her friend was well out of sight: then she hid her +mutton-pie in the same place with the onions and the piece of bread, and +started up the Grassmarket in her turn. She stopped at the first shop +she passed and bought a pennyworth of cheese. Then she made her way to +the Lothian road, and looked up and down it anxiously in search of the +walking advertisement-man. He was not there, so she directed her course +toward Princes street, and after promenading it as far east as the +Mound, she turned up into George street, and caught sight of her father +walking along slowly by the curbstone. It was not long before she +overtook him. + +"Od, lassie, I wis thinkin' lang," he began wearily as soon as he +realized her apparition. Baubie did not wait for him to finish: with a +peremptory nod she signified her will, and he turned round and followed +her a little way down Hanover street. Then Baubie selected a flight of +steps leading to a basement store, and throwing him a look of command +flitted down and seated herself at the bottom. It was sheltered from +the cold wind and not too much overlooked. Wishart shifted the boards +from about his shoulders, and, following her, laid them against the wall +at the side of the basement-steps, and sat down heavily beside her. He +was a sickly-looking man, sandy-haired, with a depressed and shifty +expression of face--not vicious, but weak and vacillating. Baubie seemed +to have the upper hand altogether: every gesture showed it. She opened +the paper that was wrapped about her fragment of rank yellow cheese, +laid it down on the step between them, and then produced, in their order +of precedence, the pie, the onions and the bread. + +"Wha gied ye that?" asked Wishart, gazing at the mutton-pie. + +"A leddy," replied Baubie, concisely. + +"An' they?" pointing to the onions. + +A nod was all the answer, for Baubie, who was hungry, was busy breaking +the piece of loaf. Wishart with great care divided the pie without +spilling much more than half its gravy, and began on his half of it and +the biggest onion simultaneously. Baubie ate up her share of pie, +declined cheese, and attacked her onion and a great piece of crust. The +crust was very tough, and after the mutton-pie rather dry and tasteless, +and she laid it down presently in her lap, and after a few minutes' +passive silence began: "That," nodding at the cheese, or what was left +of it rather, "wis all I got--ae penny. The leddy took me up till a +hoose, an' anither are that wis there came doon hame and gaed in ben, +an' wis speirin' for ye, an' says she'll gie me till the polis for +singin' an' askin' money in t' streets, an' wants you to gie me till her +to pit in schuil." + +She stopped and fixed her eyes on him, watching the effect of her words. +Wishart laid down his bread and cheese and stared back at her. It seemed +to take some time for his brain to realize all the meaning of her +pregnant speech. + +"Ay," he said after a while, and with an effort, "I maun tak' ye to +Glasgae, to yer aunt. Ye'll be pit in schuil if yer caught." + +"I'll no bide," observed Baubie, finishing off her onion with a +grimace. The raw onion was indeed strong and hot, even for Bauble's not +too epicurean palate, but it had been got for nothing--a circumstance +from which it derived a flavor which many people more dainty than Bauble +Wishart find to be extremely appetizing. + +"Bide!" echoed her father: "they'll mak' ye bide. Gin I had only the +banjo agen!" sighed the whilom Christy man, getting up and preparing to +adjust the boards once more. + +The last crumb of the loaf was done, and Bauble, refreshed, got up too. +"Whenll ye be hame?" she questioned abruptly when they had reached the +top of the steps. + +"Seven. Gaeway hame wi' ye, lassie, noo. Ye didna see _her_?" he +questioned as he walked off. + +"Na," replied Bauble, standing still and looking about her as if to +choose which way she should take. + +He sighed deeply, and moved off slowly on his way back to his post, with +the listless, hopeless air that seems to belong to the members of his +calling. + +Bauble obeyed her parent's commands in so far as that she did go home, +but as she took Punch and Judy in her course up the Mound, and diverged +as far as a football match in the Meadows, it was nearly seven before +Kennedy's Lodgings saw her again. + +The following morning, shortly after breakfast, Miss Mackenzie's butler +informed her that there was a child who wanted to speak with her in the +hall. On going down she found Bauble Wishart on the mat. + +"Where is your father? and why did he not come with you?" asked Miss +Mackenzie, puzzled. + +"He thoucht shame to come an' speak wi' a fine leddy like you." This +excuse, plausible enough, was uttered in a low voice and with downcast +eyes, but hardly was it pronounced when she burst out rapidly and +breathlessly into what was clearly the main object of her visit: "But +please, mem, he says he'll gie me to you if ye'll gie him the three +shillin's to tak' the banjo oot o' the pawn." + +This candid proposal took Miss Mackenzie's breath away. To become the +owner of Baubie Wishart, even at so low a price, seemed to her rather a +heathenish proceeding, with a flavor of illegality about it to boot. +There was a vacancy at the home for little girls which might be made +available for the little wretch without the necessity of any preliminary +of this kind; and it did not occur to her that it was a matter of any +moment whether Mr. Wishart continued to exercise the rôle of +"sandwich-man" or returned to his normal profession of banjo-player. +Baubie was to be got hold of in any case. With the muttered adjuration +of the wretched girl in Kennedy's Lodgings echoing in her ears, Miss +Mackenzie determined that she should be left no longer than could be +helped in that company. + +How earnest and matter of fact she was in delivering her extraordinary +errand! thought Miss Mackenzie to herself, meeting the eager gaze of +Baubie Wishart's eyes, looking out from beneath her tangle of hair like +those of a Skye terrier. + +"I will speak to your father myself, Baubie--tell him so--to-morrow, +perhaps: tell him I mean to settle about you myself. Now go." + +The least possible flicker of disappointment passed over Baubie's face. +The tangled head drooped for an instant, then she bobbed by way of adieu +and vanished. + +That day and the next passed before Miss Mackenzie found it possible to +pay her long-promised visit to Mr. Wishart, and when, about eleven in +the forenoon, she once more entered the big kitchen in Kennedy's +Lodgings, she was greeted with the startling intelligence that the whole +Wishart family were in prison. + +The room was as full as before. Six women were sitting in the middle of +the floor teasing out an old hair mattress. There was the same odor of +cooking, early as it was, and the same medley of noises, but the people +were different. The basket-making cripple was gone, and in his place by +the window sat a big Irish beggar-woman, who was keeping up a +conversation with some one (a compatriot evidently) in a window of the +close behind. + +The mistress of the house came forward. She was a decent-looking little +woman, but had rather a hard face, expressive of care and anxiety. On +recognizing her visitor she curtsied: "The Wisharts, mem? Yes, they're +a' in jail." + +"All in jail?" echoed Miss Mackenzie. "Will you come outside and speak +to me? There are so many people--" + +"Eh yes, mem: I'm sure ye fin' the room closs. Eh yes, mem, the Wisharts +are a' in the lock-up." + +They were standing outside in the passage, and Mrs. Kennedy held the +door closed by the latch, which she kept firmly grasped in her hand. It +struck Miss Mackenzie as being an odd way to secure privacy for a +privileged communication, to fasten the door of their room upon those +inside. It was expressive, however. + +"Ye see, mem," began the landlady, "Wishart's no a very bad man--jist +weak in the heid like--but's wife is jist something awfu', an' I could +not let her bide in a decent lodging-house. We hae to dra' the line +somewhere, and I dra' it low enough, but she wis far below that. Eh, +she's jist terrible! Wishart has a sister in Glasgae verra weel to do, +an' I h'ard him say he'd gie the lassie to her if it wer na for the +wife. The day the school-board gentleman wis here she came back: she'd +been away, ye ken, and she said she'd become a t'otaller, an' so I sed +she micht stay; but, ye see, when nicht came on she an' Wishart gaed out +thegither, an' jist to celebrate their bein' frien's again she an' him +gaed intil a public, an' she got uproarious drunk, an' the polis took +her up. Wishart wis no sae bad, sae they let him come hame; but, ye see, +he had tasted the drink, an' wanted mair, an' he hadna ony money. Ye +see, he'd promised the gentleman who came here that he widna send Baubie +oot to sing again. But he _did_ send her oot then to sing for money for +him, an' the polis had been put to watch her, an' saw her beg, an' took +her up to the office, an' came back here for Wishart. An' so before the +day was dune they were a' lockit up thegither." + +Such was the story related to Miss Mackenzie. What was to be done with +Baubie now? It was hardly fair that she should be sent to a reformatory +among criminal children. She had committed no crime, and there was that +empty bed at the home for little girls. She determined to attend the +sheriff-court on Monday morning and ask to be given the custody of +Baubie. + +When Monday morning came, ten o'clock saw Miss Mackenzie established in +a seat immediately below the sheriff's high bench. The Wisharts were +among the first batch tried, and made their appearance from a side-door. +Mrs. Wishart came first, stepping along with a resolute, brazen bearing +that contrasted with her husband's timid, shuffling gait. She was a +gypsy-looking woman, with wandering, defiant black eyes, and her red +face had the sign-manual of vice stamped upon it. After her came Baubie, +a red-tartan-covered mite, shrinking back and keeping as close to her +father as she could. Baubie had favored her mother as to complexion: +that was plain. The top of her rough head and her wild brown eyes were +just visible over the panel as she stared round her, taking in with +composure and astuteness everything that was going on. She was the most +self-possessed of her party, for under Mrs. Wishart's active brazenness +there could easily be seen fear and a certain measure of remorse hiding +themselves; and Wishart seemed to be but one remove from imbecility. + +The charges were read with a running commentary of bad language from +Mrs. Wishart as her offences were detailed; Wishart blinked in a +helpless, pathetic way; Baubie, who seemed to consider herself as +associated with him alone in the charge, assumed an air of indifference +and sucked her thumb, meantime watching Miss Mackenzie furtively. She +felt puzzled to account for her presence there, but it never entered her +head to connect that fact with herself in any way. + +"Guilty or not guilty?" asked the sheriff-clerk. + +"There's a kin' lady in coort," stammered Wishart, "an' she kens a' +aboot it." + +"Guilty or not guilty?" reiterated the clerk: "this is not the time to +speak." "She kens it a', an' she wis to tak' the lassie." + +"Guilty or not guilty? You must plead, and you can say what you like +afterward." Wishart stopped, not without an appealing look at the kind +lady, and pleaded guilty meekly. A policeman with a scratched face and +one hand plastered up testified to the extravagances Mrs. Wishart had +committed on the strength of her conversion to teetotal principles. + +Baubic heard it all impassively, her face only betraying anything like +keen interest while the police-officer was detailing his injuries. Three +months' imprisonment was the sentence on Margaret Mactear or Wishart. +Then Wishart's sentence was pronounced--sixty days. + +He and Baubie drew nearer to each other, Wishart with a despairing, +helpless look. Baubie's eyes looked like those of a hare taken in a gin. +Not one word had been said about her. She was not to go with her father. +What was to become of her? She was not long left in doubt as to her +fate. + +"I will take the child, sheriff," said Miss Mackenzie eagerly and +anxiously. "I came here purposely to offer her a home in the refuge." + +"Policeman, hand over the child to this lady at once," said the +sheriff.-- + +"Nothing could be better, Miss Mackenzie. It is very good of you to +volunteer to take charge of her." + +Mrs. Wishart disappeared with a parting volley of blasphemy; her +husband, casting, as he went, a wistful look at Miss Mackenzie, shambled +fecklessly after the partner of his joys and sorrows; and the child +remained alone behind. The policeman took her by an arm and drew her +forward to make room for a fresh consignment of wickedness from the +cells at the side. Baubie breathed a short sigh as the door closed upon +her parents, shook back her hair, and looked up at Miss Mackenzie, as if +to announce her readiness and good will. Not one vestige of her internal +mental attitude could be gathered from her sun-and wind-beaten little +countenance. There was no rebelliousness, neither was there guilt. One +would almost have thought she had been told beforehand what was to +happen, so cool and collected was she. + +"Now, Baubie, I am going to take you home. Come, child." + +Pleased with her success, Miss Mackenzie, so speaking, took the little +waif's hand and led her out of the police-court into the High street. +She hardly dared to conjecture that it was Baubie Wishart's first visit +to that place, but as she stood on the entrance-steps and shook out her +skirts with a sense of relief, she breathed a sincere hope that it might +be the child's last. + +A cab was waiting. Baubie, to her intense delight and no less +astonishment, was requested to occupy the front seat. Miss Mackenzie +gave the driver his order and got in, facing the red tartan bundle. + +"Were you ever in a cab before?" asked Miss Mackenzie. + +"Na, niver," replied Baubie in a rapt tone and without looking at her +questioner, so intent was she on staring out of the windows, between +both of which she divided her attention impartially. + +They were driving down the Mound, and the outlook, usually so +far-reaching from that vantage-ground, was bounded by a thick sea-fog +that the east wind was carrying up from the Forth and dispensing with +lavish hands on all sides. The buildings had a grim, black look, as if a +premature old age had come upon them, and the black pinnacles of the +Monument stood out sharply defined in clear-cut, harsh distinctness +against the floating gray background. There were not many people +stirring in the streets. It was a depressing atmosphere, and Miss +Mackenzie observed before long that Baubie either seemed to have become +influenced by it or that the novelty of the cab-ride had worn off +completely. They crossed the Water of Leith, worn to a mere brown thread +owing to the long drought, by Stockbridge street bridge, and a few yards +from it found themselves before a gray stone house separated from the +street by a grass-plot surrounded by a stone wall: inside the wall grew +chestnut and poplar trees, which in summer must have shaded the place +agreeably, but which this day, in the cold gray mist, seemed almost +funereal in their gloomy blackness. The gate was opened from within the +wall as soon as Miss Mackenzie rang, and she and Baubie walked up the +little flagged path together. As the gate clanged to behind them Baubie +looked back involuntarily and sighed. + +"Don't fear, lassie," said her guide: "they will be very kind to you +here. And it will be just a good home for you." + +It may be questioned whether this promise of a good home awoke any +pleasing associations or carried with it any definite meaning to Baubie +Wishart's mind. She glanced up as if to show that she understood, but +her eyes turned then and rested on the square front of the little +old-fashioned gray house with its six staring windows and its front +circumscribed by the wall and the black poplars and naked chestnuts, and +she choked down another sigh. + +"Now, Mrs. Duncan," Miss Mackenzie was saying to a comfortably-dressed +elderly woman, "here's your new girl, Baubie Wishart." + +"Eh, ye've been successful then, Miss Mackenzie?" + +"Oh dear, yes: the sheriff made no objection. And now, Mrs. Duncan, I +hope she will be a good girl and give you no trouble.--Come here, +Baubie, and promise me to do everything you are told and obey Mrs. +Duncan in everything." + +"Yes, mem," answered Bauble reverently, almost solemnly. + +There seemed to be no necessity for further exhortation. Baubie's +demeanor promised everything that was hoped for or wanted, and, +perfectly contented, Miss Mackenzie turned her attention to the minor +details of wardrobe, etc.: "That frock is good enough if it were washed. +She must get shoes and stockings; and then underwear, too, of some sort +will be wanted." + +"That will it," responded the matron; "but I had better send her at +once to get a bath." + +A big girl was summoned from a back room and desired to get ready a tub. +It was the ceremony customary at the reception of a neophyte--customary, +and in general very necessary too. + +Baubie's countenance fell lower still on hearing this, and she blinked +both eyes deprecatingly. Nevertheless, when the big girl--whom they +called Kate--returned, bringing with her a warm whiff of steam and soap, +she trotted after her obediently and silently. + +After a while the door opened, and Kate's yellow head appeared. "Speak +with ye, mem?" she said. "I hae her washen noo, but what for claes?" + +"Eh yes.--Miss Mackenzie, we can't put her back into those dirty +clothes." + +"Oh no.--I'll come and look at her clothes, Kate." As she spoke Miss +Mackenzie rose and followed the matron and Kate into a sort of kitchen +or laundry. + +In the middle of the floor was a tub containing Miss Wishart mid-deep in +soapsuds. Her thick hair was all soaking, and clung fast to her head: +dripping locks hung clown over her eyes, which looked out through the +tangle patient and suffering. She glanced up quickly as Miss Mackenzie +came in, and then resigned herself passively into Kate's hands, who with +a piece of flannel had resumed the scrubbing process. + +Miss Mackenzie was thinking to herself that it was possibly Baubie +Wishart's first experience of the kind, when she observed the child +wince as if she were hurt. + +"It's yon' as hurts her," said Kate, calling the matron's attention to +something on the child's shoulders. They both stooped and saw a long +blue-and-red mark--a bruise all across her back. Nor was this the only +evidence of ill-treatment: other bruises, and even scars, were to be +seen on the lean little body. + +"Puir thing!" said the matron in a low tone, sympathizingly. + +"Baubie, who gave you that bruise?" asked Miss Mackenzie. + +No answer from Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching the drops +running off the end of her little red nose, which played the part of a +gargoyle to the rest of her face. + +Miss Mackenzie repeated the question, sternly almost: "Bauble Wishart, I +insist upon knowing who gave you that bruise." + +"A didna gie't to mysel', mem." was the answer from the figure in the +soapsuds. There was a half sob in the voice as of terror, and her manner +had all the appearance of ingenuousness. + +The matron and Miss Mackenzie looked at each other significantly, and +agreed tacitly that there was no use in pushing the question. + +"Od!" said Kate, who had paused in the act of taking a warm towel from +the fireplace to listen, "a'body kens ye didna gie it till yoursel', +lassie." + +"Where are her clothes?" said the matron. "Oh, here. Yon frock's good +enough if it was washed; but, losh me! just look at these for clothes!" +She was exhibiting some indescribable rags as she spoke. + +"Kate," said Miss Mackenzie, "dress her in the lassie Grant's clothes: +they are the most likely to fit her. Don't lose time: I want to see her +again before I go." + +Kate fished up her charge, all smoking, from the soapsuds and rubbed her +down before the fire. Then the tangled wet hair was parted evenly and +smoothed into dark locks on either side of her face. Raiment clean, but +the coarsest of the coarse, was found for her. A brown wincey dress +surmounted all. Shoes and stockings came last of all, probably in the +order of importance assigned to them by Kate. + +From the arm-chair of the matron's sitting-room Miss Mackenzie surveyed +her charge with satisfaction. Baubie looked subdued, contented, perhaps +grateful, and was decidedly uncomfortable. Every vestige of the +picturesque was gone, obliterated clean by soap and water, and Kate's +hair-comb, a broken-toothed weapon that had come off second best in its +periodic conflicts with her own barley-mow, had disposed for ever of the +wild, curly tangle of hair. Her eyes had red rims to them, caused by +superfluous soap and water, and in its present barked condition, when +all the dirt was gone, Baubie's face had rather an interesting, wistful +expression. She seemed not to stand very steadily in her boots, which +were much too big for her. + +Miss Mackenzie surveyed her with great satisfaction. The brown wincey +and the coarse apron seemed to her the neophyte's robe, betokening +Baubie's conversion from arab nomadism to respectability and from a +vagabond trade to decorous industry. + +"Now, Baubie, you can knit: I mean to give you needles and worsted to +knit yourself stockings. Won't that be nice? I am sure you never knitted +stockings for yourself before." + +"Yes, mem," replied Baubie, shuffling her feet. + +"Now, what bed is she to get, Mrs. Duncan? Let us go up stairs and see +the dormitory." + +"I thought I would put her in the room with Kate: I changed the small +bed in there. If you will just step up stairs, Miss Mackenzie?" + +The party reached the dormitory by a narrow wooden staircase, the +whiteness of which testified to the scrubbing powers of Kate's red arms +and those of her compeers. All the windows were open, and the east wind +came in at its will, nippingly cold if airy. They passed through a +large, low-ceilinged room into a smaller one, in which were only four +beds: a small iron stretcher beside the window was pointed out as +Baubie's. Miss Mackenzie turned down the red-knitted coverlet and looked +at the blankets. They were perfectly clean, like everything else, and, +like everything else too, very coarse and very well worn. + +"This will do very nicely.--Baubie, this is to be your bed." + +Baubie, fresh from the lock-up and Kennedy's Lodgings, might have been +expected to show some trace of her sense of comparison, but not a +vestige of expression crossed her face: she looked up in civil +acknowledgment of having heard: that was all. + +"I shall look in again in the course of a week," announced Miss +Mackenzie.--"Good-bye, Baubie: do everything Mrs. Duncan tells you." + +With this valedictory Miss Mackenzie left the matron, and Kate attended +her down stairs; and Baubie was at last alone. + +She remained standing stock-still when they left her by the +bedside--when the door, shut by Kate, who went out last, hid them from +her view. She listened in a stupid kind of way to the feet tramping on +the bare boards of the outer dormitory and down the stairs: then all was +still, and Baubie Wishart, clean, clothed and separated from her father +for the first time in her life, was left alone to consider how she liked +"school." She felt cold and strange and lonely, and for about three +minutes' space she abandoned herself without reserve to the sensation. +Then the heavy shoes troubled her, and in a fit of anger and impatience +she suddenly began to unlace one. Some far-off sound startled her, and +with a furtive, timorous look at the door she fastened it up again. No +one came, but instead of returning to the boot she sprang to the window, +and, mounting the narrow sill, prepared to survey the domain that lay +below it. There was not much to see. The window looked out on the back +green, which was very much like the front, save that there was no +flagged walk. A few stunted poplars ran round the walls: the grass was +trodden nearly all off, and from wall to wall were stretched cords from +which fluttered a motley collection of linen hung out to dry. There was +no looking out of it. Baubie craned her adventurous small neck in all +directions. One side of the back green was overlooked by a +tenement-house; the other was guarded by the poplars and a low stone +wall; at the bottom was a dilapidated outhouse. The sky overhead was all +dull gray: a formless gray sea-mist hurried across it, driven by the +east wind, which found time as well to fill, as it passed, all the +fluttering garments on the line and swell them into ridiculous +travesties of the bodies they belonged to, tossing them the while with +high mockery into all manner of weird contortions. + +Baubie looked at them curiously, and wondered to herself how much they +would all pawn for--considerably more than three shillings no doubt. +She established that fact to her own satisfaction ere long, although she +was no great arithmetician, and she sighed as she built and demolished +an air-castle in her own mind. Though there was but little attraction +for her in the room, she was about to leave the window when her eye fell +on a large black cat crouched on the wall, employed in surveillance of +the linen or stalking sparrows or in deadly ambush for a hated rival. +Meeting Baubie's glance, he sat up and stared at her suspiciously with a +pair of round yellow, unwinking orbs. + +"Ki! ki! ki!" breathed Baubie discreetly. She felt lonely, and the cat +looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to the house doubtless, +for he stared at her with an interested, questioning look. Presently he +moved. She repeated her invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his +feet, humped his back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round, +facing the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail tucked +in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the cold wind as little +purchase as possible. Baubie felt snubbed and lonely, and drawing back +from the window she sat down on the edge of her bed to wait events. + +Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the last few +days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves than hers, and the +unwonted bodily sensations caused by the bath and change of garments +seemed to intensify her consciousness of novelty and restraint. There +was another not very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had +not taken account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly +enough. It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the parting +from her father. Baubie herself would have been greatly puzzled had any +person designated her feelings by these names. There were many things in +that philosophy of the gutter in which Baubie Wishart was steeped to the +lips undreamt of by her. What she knew she knew thoroughly, but there +was much with which most children, even of her age and class in life, +are, it is to be hoped, familiar, of which Baubie Wishart was utterly +ignorant. Her circumstances were different from theirs--fortunately for +them; and amongst the poor, as with their betters, various conditions +breed various dispositions. Baubie was an outer barbarian and savage in +comparison with some children, although they perhaps went barefooted +also; but, like a savage too, she would have grown fat where they would +have starved. And this she knew well. + +Kate's yellow head, appearing at the door to summon her to dinner, put +an end to her gloomy reverie. And with this, her first meal, began +Baubie's acquaintance with the household of which she was to form an +integral portion from that hour. + +They gave her no housework to do. Mrs. Duncan, whom a very cursory +examination satisfied as to the benighted ignorance of this latest +addition to her flock, determined that Baubie should learn to read, +write and sew as expeditiously as might be. In order that she might +benefit by example, she was made to sit by the lassie Grant, the child +whose clothes had been lent to her, and her education began forthwith. + +It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still: "white seam" +was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in which she had beforehand +believed herself an adept, was found fault with. The lassie Grant, as +was pointed out to her, could knit more evenly and possessed a superior +method of "turning the heel." + +Baubie Wishart listened with outward calmness and seeming acquiescence +to the comparison instituted between herself and her neighbor. Inwardly, +however, she raged. What about knitting? Anybody could knit. She would +like to see the lassie Grant earn two shillings of a Saturday night +singing in the High street or the Lawnmarket. Baubie forgot in her flush +of triumphant recollection that there had always been somebody to take +the two shillings from her, and beat her and accuse her of malversation +and embezzlement into the bargain. Artist-like, she remembered her +triumphs only: she could earn two shillings by her braced of songs, and +for a minute, as she revelled in this proud consciousness, her face lost +its demure, watchful expression, and the old independent, confident +bearing reappeared. Baubie forgot also in her present well-nourished +condition the never-failing sensation of hunger that had gone hand in +hand with these departed glories. But even if she had remembered every +circumstance of her former life, and the privations and sufferings, she +would still have pined for its freedom. + +The consequence of her being well fed was simply that her mind was freed +from what is, after all, the besetting occupation of creatures like her, +and was therefore at liberty to bestow its undivided attention upon the +restraints and irksomeness of this new order of things. Her gypsy blood +began to stir in her: the charm of her old vagabond habits asserted +itself under the wincey frock and clean apron. To be commended for +knitting and sewing was no distinction worth talking about. What was it +compared with standing where the full glare of the blazing windows of +some public-house fell upon the Rob Roy tartan, with an admiring +audience gathered round and bawbees and commendations flying thick? She +never thought then, any more than now, of the cold wind or the day-long +hunger. It was no wonder that under the influence of these cherished +recollections "white seam" did not progress and the knitting never +attained to the finished evenness of the lassie Grant's performance. + +None the less, although she made no honest effort to equal this model +proposed for her example, did Baubie feel jealous and aggrieved. Her +nature recognized other possibilities of expression and other fields of +excellence beyond those afforded by the above-mentioned useful arts, and +she brooded over her arbitrary and forcedly inferior position with all +the intensity of a naturally masterful and passionate nature. It was all +the more unbearable because she had no real cause of complaint: had she +been oppressed or ill-treated in the slightest degree, or had anybody +else been unduly favored, there would have been a pretext for an +outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her discontent. But it was not so. +The matron dispensed even-handed justice and motherly kindness +impartially all round. And if the lassie Grant's excellences were +somewhat obtrusively contrasted with Baubie's shortcomings, it was +because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to +rouse thereby a spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any +pharisaical self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a +sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in the +refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair any +comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught Baubie. + +Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in the refuge, +when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise, called to inquire how her +_protégée_ was getting on. + +The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie. "She's just no +trouble--a quiet-like child. She knows just nothing, but I've set her +beside the lassie Grant, and I don't doubt but she'll do well yet; but +she is some dull," she added. + +"Are you happy, Baubie?" asked Miss Mackenzie. "Will you try and learn +everything like 'Lisbeth Grant? See how well she sews, and she is no +older than you." + +"Ay, mem," responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up. She was +still wearing 'Lisbeth Grant's frock and apron, and the garments gave +her that odd look of their real owner which clothes so often have the +power of conveying. Baubie's slim figure had caught the flat-backed, +square-shoulder form of her little neighbor, and her face, between the +smooth-laid bands of her hair, seemed to have assumed the same +gravely-respectable air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the +time, could they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed +lips and studied pose. + +That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance from the +wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and shrunken in size, as +was the nature of its material for one reason, and for another because +it had parted, in common with its owner when subjected to the same +process, with a great deal of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar +garb again with joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction. + +That same night, when the girls were going to bed--whether the +inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock, +and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the +prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her +of late--Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of +consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock in trade. + +The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of the house when +the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder, hastened up to know what was +the meaning of this departure from the regular order of things. Baubie +heard their approach, and only sang the louder. She had a good and by no +means unmusical voice, which the rest had rather improved; and by the +time the authorities arrived on the scene there was an audience gathered +round the daring Baubie, who, with shoes and stockings off and the Rob +Roy tartan half unfastened, was standing by her bed, singing at the +pitch of her voice. The words could be heard down the stairs: + +Hark! I hear the bugles sounding: 'tis the signal for the fight. +Now, may God protect us, mother, as He ever does the right. + +"Baubie Wishart," cried the astonished mistress, "what do you mean?" + +The singer was just at the close of a verse: + +Hear the battle-cry of Freedom! how it swells upon the air! +Yes, we'll rally round the standard or we'll perish nobly there. + +She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes and flushed +face toward the speaker. + +"Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart," went on the angry matron, "to make +yon noise? You ought to think shame of such conduct, singing your +good-for-nothing street-songs like a tinkler. One would think ye would +feel glad never to hear of such things again. Let me have no more of +this, do ye hear? I just wonder what Miss Mackenzie would say to +ye!--Kate, stop here till they are all bedded and turn off yon gas." + +Long before the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into darkness +beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification swelling her small +heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs! Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan's scornful +epithets rang in her ears and cut her to the quick. She lay awake, +trembling with anger and indignation, until long after Kate had followed +the younger fry to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears +listened for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the +weary occupants were safely asleep: then she sat up in bed. The +moonlight was streaming into the room through the uncurtained window, +and lit up her tumbled head and hot face. After a cautious pause she +stepped out on the floor and went round the foot of her bed to the +window. She knelt down on the floor, as if she were in search of +something, and began feeling with her hand on the lower part of the +shutter. Then, close to the floor, and in a place where they were likely +to escape detection, she marked clearly and distinctly eight deep, short +scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She ran her +fingers over them until she could feel each scratch distinctly. Eight! +She counted them thrice to make sure, then jumped back into bed, and in +a few minutes was as fast asleep as her neighbors. + +The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a month, and time, +as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter and more diligent--diligent +apparently at least, for the knitting, though it advanced, showed no +sign of corresponding improvement, and the rest of her work was simply +scamped. March had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at +last began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown +glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks became +covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like branches of the +poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began to knot and swell; the +Water of Leith overflowed, and ran bubbling and mud-colored under the +bridge; and the grass by its banks, and even that in the front green of +the refuge, showed here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer +and longer, and of a mild evening the thrush's note was to be heard +above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean Terrace +Gardens. + +Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more docile and +demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her tally on the +window-shutter behind her bed. + +May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their goal, now +close; on reaching which they return slowly and unwillingly, but just as +surely; and to her joy, about, the third week in May, Baubie Wishart +counted one warm, clear night fifty-nine scratches on the shutter. +Fifty-nine! She knew the number well without counting them. + +Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but the next +morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather more simple toilette +than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash herself, brush her hair or +put on her shoes and stockings. Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she +had come, she went. She stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer +dormitory, passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not +without a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival, +Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare feet +waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room, which looked +out on the front green. She opened the window easily, hoisted herself on +the sill, crept through and let herself drop on the grass below. To +scramble up the trunk of one of the chestnuts and swing herself over the +wall was quickly done, and then she was once more on the flagged path of +the street, and the world lay before her. + +As she stood for one moment, breathless with her haste and excitement, +she was startled by the sudden apparition of the house cat, who was on +his way home as surreptitiously as she was on hers abroad. He had one +bloody ear and a scratched nose, and stared at her as he passed: then, +probably in the hope of finding an open door after her, he jumped over +the wall hurriedly. Baubie was seized with a sudden panic lest the cat +should waken some one in the house, and she took to her heels and ran +until she reached the bridge. The morning sun was just beginning to +touch the tall tops of the houses, and the little valley through which +the Water of Leith ran lay still in a kind of clear grayish light, in +which the pale tender hues of the young leaves and the flowering trees +were all the more vividly beautiful. The stream was low, and it hurried +along over its stony bed, as if it too were running away, and in as +great a hurry to be free of all restraints as truant Baubie Wishart, +whose red frock was now climbing the hilly gray street beyond. + +She could hear, as she strained herself to listen for pursuing voices, +the rustle and murmur of the water with an odd distinctness as it rose +upon the still air of the summer morning. + +Not a creature was to be seen as she made her way eastward, shaping her +course for Princes street, and peering, with a gruesome fear of the +school-board officer, round every corner. That early bird, however, was +not so keenly on the alert as she gave him the credit of being, and she +reached her goal unchallenged after coasting along in parallel lines +with it for some time. + +The long beautiful line of Princes street was untenanted as the Rob Roy +tartan tacked cautiously round the corner of St. David street and took a +hasty look up and down before venturing forth. + +The far-reaching pale red beams of the morning sun had just touched and +kindled as with a flame the summit of the Rock, and the windows of the +Castle caught and flashed back the greeting in a dozen ruddy +reflections. The gardens below lay partly veiled in a clear transparent +mist, faintly blue, that hovered above the trees and crept up the banks, +and over which the grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its +head majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond. + +Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as Baubie +darted along. Fixing her eye on that portion of the High School which is +visible from Princes street, she pushed along at a pace that was almost +a run, and a brief space saw her draw up and fall exhausted on the steps +that lead up to the Calton Hill. + +Right before her was the jail-gate. + +The child's feet, unused now for some time to such hardships, were hot +and bruised, for she had not stopped to pick her footing in her hasty +course, and she was so out of breath and heated that it seemed to her as +if she would never get cool or her heart cease fluttering as if it would +choke her. She shrank discreetly against the stone wall at her side, and +there for three long hours she remained crouched, watching and waiting +for the hour to chime when the grim black gate opposite would open. + +The last tinge of crimson and purple had faded before the golden glories +of the day as the sun climbed higher and higher in the serene blue sky. +The red cliffs of Salisbury Crags glared with a hot lustre above the +green slopes of the hill, and in the white dust of the high-road a +million tiny stars seemed to sparkle and twinkle most invitingly to +Baubie's eyes. The birds had long been awake and busy in the bushes +above her head, and from where she sat she could see, in the distant +glitter of Princes street, all the stir of the newly-raised day. + +It was a long vigil, and her fear and impatience made it seem doubly +longer. At last the clock began to chime eight, and before it was half +done the wicket in the great door opened with a noisy clang after a +preliminary rattle. + +First came a boy, who cast an anxious look round him, then set off at a +run; next a young woman, for whom another was waiting just out of sight +down the road; last of all (there were only three released), Baubie, +whose heart was beginning to beat fast again with anxiety, saw the +familiar, well-known figure shamble forth and look up and down the road +in a helpless, undecided way. The next moment the wicket had clapped to +again. Wishart glanced back at it, sighed once or twice, and blinked his +eyes as though the sunlight were too strong for them. + +Baubie, scarce breathing, watched him as a cat watches just before she +springs. + +After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward, obeying some +sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow those who had gone on +before. Baubie saw this, and, just waiting to let him get well under way +and settle into his gait, she gathered herself up and sprang across the +road upon him with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash. + +He fairly staggered with surprise. There she was, exactly as he had left +her, dusty, barefooted and bareheaded. The wind had tossed up her hair, +which indeed was only too obedient to its will, and it clustered all the +more wildly about her face because of having been cropped to the +regulation length of the refuge. + +"Lassie, is't you?" he ejaculated, lost in astonishment. Then, realizing +the fact, he gave expression to his feeling by grinning in a convulsive +kind of way and clapping her once or twice on the shoulder next him. +"Od! I niver! Didna the leddy--" + +Baubie cut him short. "Sed I widna bide," she observed curtly and +significantly. + +Gestures and looks convey, among people like the Wisharts, far more +meaning than words, and Baubie's father perfectly understood from the +manner and tone of her pregnant remark that she had run away from +school, and had severed the connection between herself and the "kind +leddy," and that in consequence the situation was highly risky for both. +They remained standing still for a moment, looking at each other. The +boy and the woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty +high-road seemed all their own domain. + +Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the direction +of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It was for her, as +usual, to decide. Baubie had been his Providence for as long as he had +memory for--no great length of time. He was conjecturing in his own mind +vaguely whether his Providence had, by any chance, got the desiderated +three shillings necessary for the redemption of the banjo hidden away in +the Rob Roy tartan. He would not have been surprised had it been so, and +he would have asked no questions. + +Seeing that her eyes followed the direction of his with a forbidding +frown, he said tentatively, "Ye didn'--didna--" + +"What?" snapped Baubie crossly: she divined his meaning exactly. "Come +awa' wi' ye!" she ordered, facing right round countryward. + +"We'll gae awa' til Glasgae, Baubie, eh? I'm thinkin' to yer auntie's. +_She_"--with a gesture of his head backward at the prison--"will no' be +oot this month; sae she'll niver need to ken, eh?" + +Baubie nodded. He only spoke her own thoughts, and he knew it. + +The first turn to the right past the High School brought them out on the +road before Holyrood, which lay grim and black under the sun-bathed +steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange and all round the +south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was +a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between +Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they +struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued +their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a +word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of +the horizon received into itself the two quaint figures, and Baubie +Wishart and the Rob Roy tartan faded together out of sight. + +_The Author of "Flitters, Tatters and the Counsellor_." + + + + +GAS-BURNING, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. + + +"It is remarkable what attention has been attracted all over the country +by the recent experiments with Edison's inventions," observed my friend +the traveller as our host turned a fuller flow of gas in the chandelier. +"Even in the little villages out West, of only one bank and _not_ one +good hotel, the topics which last spring generally excited most interest +in all circles were Edison's electric light and Bell's telephone." + +"Very likely," replied our host, an elderly gentleman of fortune. "If we +had such impure gas as is found in many of the villages and small cities +not so very far West, I'd never light a burner in my library again. As +it is, I do so very rarely. The products of gas combustion act on the +bindings until firm calf drops in pieces, and even law-sheep loses its +coherency, as the argument of the opposing counsel does when your own +lawyer begins to talk." + +"The effect on the upholstery and metallic ornaments is as bad as upon +the books," added our hostess. "This room will have to be refurnished in +the spring--all on account of the changes in color both of the paper and +the silk and cotton fabrics; and the bronze dressing on those statuettes +is softening, so that there are lines and spots of rust all over them." + +"Perhaps, my dear, they would have suffered equally from the atmosphere +without gas," replied the old gentleman, looking at his wife over his +glasses. + +"Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock than he had a +year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear in the market," said his +neighbor a chemist, who had just dropped in. + +"If I lose I shall lay it to your advice." + +"You did well to buy--if you sell at once," said the traveller, who was +interested in the electric light to some unknown extent: "gas stock will +finally have to go down." + +"When the sun shines in the night, not before," asserted a young +accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a private talk with +the daughter of the house at the other corner of the room. + +"Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly," said the +chemist. + +"But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the electric-light +boom for the temporary respite you have had from poor gas at high +prices." + +"Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they could +manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a time when people +almost believed that Edison's light would prove a success." + +"But it _was_ a success. It proved an excellent light, displayed a neat +lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the atmosphere or the eyes; +and the perfect carbons showed a surprising endurance. The only +difficulty is that the invention is not yet perfected so as to go +immediately into use." + +"But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with deposited carbon," +returned the chemist. "If carbons could be made to last long enough to +render the lamps cheap, this smoking of the globes would set a limit at +which the lamps would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the +exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive." + +"That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow dearer." + +"That isn't likely within a century. Besides, by the fault of the +consumer gas-light costs now one-third more than it should for the same +light. The best English authorities state this to be the case in Great +Britain, and I have no question that such is the fact here." + +"How would you remedy the evil of waste?" + +"By the use of economical burners and of governors to regulate the flow +of gas." + +"That is very easily said. What is the name of your economical burner?" + +"I am not an advocate of any special burner, but of all that are +constructed on right principles." + +"There are many kinds of burners. Do you not have some classification +for them?" inquired the young lady, who was fresh from Wellesley. + +"The usual forms of the burner," replied the chemist "--or, more +properly, the forms of the tip--are the fishtail, the batwing and the +argand. In the first the gas issues through two holes which come +together at the top, so that the two jets of gas impinge and form a flat +flame; in the batwing the gas issues in a thin sheet through a slit in a +hollow knob; while in the argand the gas enters a short cylinder or +broad ring, escaping thence through numerous holes at the upper edge. +There are many varieties of each of these, differing in the construction +of the part below the tip. The argand has long been the favorite burner +for the table and desk. Its advantages are a strong, steady light, but, +as you know, it is apt to smoke at every slight increase in the pressure +of the gas, though there are recent improved forms in which this fault +is in a measure corrected. A properly-made argand burner will give a +light equal to three whole candles (spermaceti, of the standard size and +quality) for every foot of gas burned. Of the argand burners, Guise's +shadowless argand has been considered the best, but of late years Sugg's +Letheby burner has carried off the palm. Wood's burner has been a +favorite, as, being a fishtail, it could be used with a short chimney, +which gives the flame steadiness. By the arms on the chimney-frame the +flame is broadened at the bottom, with a smaller dark space at the base +than in any other flat-flame burner. It is so constructed that the +quantity of gas passing is regulated by turning a tap in the lower part +of the burner, which changes the size of the orifice in the tube. Ten +years ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally +thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is now little +used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can be used in any +common burner except the argand. The old brass and iron tips are mostly +superseded by those of "lava," being liable to an early change of the +orifice from incrustation and rust. In the flat-flame burners there are +differences in the internal arrangement. Perhaps our young +gas-manufacturer here can tell us what is now the most approved burner." + +The young man confessed that he had specimens of the best kinds of +flat-flame burners in his pocket. He quickly brought from his overcoat +in the hall a small paper parcel from which he produced several bright +little brass tubes, explaining that he carried them because somebody was +always inquiring about the best kind of burner. "These save talk," said +he. + +With a small wrench he removed one of the old burners, and the several +kinds were successively tested in its place. Some gave a better light, +but it was objected that they might consume more gas. Whereupon the +chemist tore a strip from his well-worn handkerchief, and, having damped +it, wound the ribbon several times around the top of the old burner +(which had been replaced), leaving the orifice uncovered. The new burner +was screwed down over this, making a gas-tight connection. "There," said +he, "we have a gauge. The new burner will receive the same amount of gas +that the old one consumed--no more, no less--but the current is slightly +checked." + +The burner gave the same amount of light as before, so far as the eye +could perceive. + +"In the combustion of gas for heating purposes," continued the chemist, +"seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through small holes. For +light you want something different. Suppose you send a current of gas up +into this sewing-thimble: it can find an exit only by turning backward. +Then suppose it escapes from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity +above it, whence it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of +the usual size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken. +It will be seen that only the expansive force of the gas, together with +its buoyancy, acts upon the jets, instead of a direct current. Now, it +will always be found that the burner which best carries out the +principles just illustrated--other points being equal--will give more +light with a less quantity of gas than any other. This also exhibits +the chief principle of most of the governors or regulators. + +"You will observe that this checking of the current is attained in +various ways in different burners," continued the chemist as he +unscrewed and dissected the samples before him. "In some it is done by a +perforated metal disk in the orifice; in others, by a bit of wool, which +checks slightly a slow current, and by the pressure of a strong one +becomes compacted and forms a more effective obstacle. In most cases, +however, it soon becomes solid with condensed matters from the gas. +Another form of check is a small cap having perpendicular slits at the +sides. The cylinder of the cap, being smaller than the orifice of the +burner, screws down into it; the openings being shortened or lengthened +according as the cylinder is screwed up or down. One objection to this +is the trouble required in regulating. Here is another burner, in which +the orifice ends in a cap whose sides, near the bottom, are pierced with +four pin-holes directed downward. This reverses the direction of the +current of gas, which then escapes through the pin-holes downward into a +chamber, then turns upward along its sides to the tip, on entering which +it again turns. Each burner is able to consume economically a flow of +gas peculiar to itself, which can be ascertained by a minute's +experiment, and then regulated by the tap in the pipe. But this requires +much care, and is apt to be neglected. A very small tap in the burner +(as in the Wood and Ellis burners), which can be adjusted so as to +require no further attention, seems the best method of effecting this +graduation." + +The chemist now pulled a manuscript from his pocket and read from it as +follows: "The quantity of light decreases with disproportionate rapidity +by reduced consumption; for, as experiments have shown, when consuming +only two feet per hour, eighty-five per cent. of the gas is lost; with +two and a half feet the loss is sixty per cent.; and with three and a +half feet it is thirty-four per cent. of that derived from the gas when +burning the full quantity for which the burner is constructed. In some +experiments made upon this matter under the direction of referees +appointed by the London Board of Trade the loss at the other extreme is +given. They report: 'Instead of the gas giving increased light as the +rate of consumption is increased, it will be seen that _in every case_ +there is a point beyond which the _light decreases_ relatively to the +proportion of gas consumed. In every case, too, this point lies far +below the maximum of gas-consumption, observing the turning-points in +the case of the different burners.' Again, every burner has a certain +amount of gas which it will consume to the greatest advantage as to both +light and economy; which in a completely-regulated burner is quickly +found, and the delivery fixed by the small tap. When the gas is issuing +from the burner at so low a pressure that the flame is just on the point +of smoking, the maximum effect for the quantity of gas consumed in that +particular burner is attained, because in that case the quantity and +intensity of the light are most advantageously balanced. For the same +reason, the burner best suited for light is one in which the +jet-openings are proportionately large, so as to prevent as much as +possible too great contact with the air in the lower part of the flame. +In case the air-currents disturb the light, it is necessary to turn on a +stronger flow, which secures steadiness, but sets economy at naught." + +"It would be a good thing," said the young fellow, interrupting him, "if +some person would invent a burner that should heat the gas before its +discharge. We could then get a perfect combustion of the carbon, and so +greater brilliancy and economy." + +"That is a very common error. Mr. Leslie's burner was designed on that +very theory: the result was contrary to expectation." + +"What was the form of the burner?" inquired our host. + +"Leslie's burner is a form of the argand. The gas, instead of issuing +from holes pierced in a solid ring, is conducted to the flame in +separate small tubes upward of an inch long. Twenty-eight of these tubes +are inserted in a ring two inches in diameter, and converge to one inch +at the ends, where the gas escapes. These tubes become hot very quickly +when the gas is lighted, and it issues at a high temperature. Here is +the result of a test made by Mr. Clegg, and given on page 344 of his +valuable work on coal gas: + + COMMON ARGAND, FIFTEEN HOLES. + Consumption per hour in cubic feet: + 6 feet, light = 17.4 standard candles. + 5 feet, light = 13.64 standard candles + + LESLIE'S BURNER, TWENTY-EIGHT HOLES. + 6 feet, light = 14.73 standard candles. + 5 feet, light = 11.28 standard candles. + +"In experimenting with common burners, argand and others, it is found +that, if the aperture in the tip is too small for the orifice in the +body of the burner, the escaping gas is too highly heated and is +consumed too quickly. So with Leslie's burner in an increased degree. +Theories brought to the test of experiment are often disappointing." + +The chemist now proceeded to illustrate his harangue with the argand +upon the table, which he lighted and turned on full, without replacing +the chimney. The dull-red flame streamed up to a height of eight inches +or more, waving and smoking slightly. He now turned down the gas and +replaced the chimney, then set the tap at the same angle as before. +"Here," said he, "we have a flame barely four inches high--of brilliant +white--which gives more light than the taller flame did. The cause of +the shortening of the flame is the more rapid combustion of the gas, +owing to the increased draught or air-supply in the chimney. From the +greater intensity of this flame a much larger quantity of light is +produced than by the longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the +flame is shortened still more and its brilliancy increased, but not to a +degree sufficient to compensate for the diminished surface. The light, +you are doubtless aware, comes from the incandescence of the carbon, +heated by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with a portion of the +oxygen of the air." + +The chemist now read from his manuscript again: "Carburetted hydrogen of +a passably good quality requires two volumes of pure oxygen for its +complete combustion and conversion into carbonic acid and water. +Atmospheric air contains, in its pure state, about twenty per cent. of +oxygen; therefore, one cubic foot of gas requires for its perfect +combustion ten cubic feet of air. If less be admitted to the flame, a +quantity of free carbon will escape, and be deposited in the form of +black smoke. If an excess of air be admitted, we shall find that the +quantity of nitrogen accompanying this excess has a tendency to +extinguish the flame, while it takes no part in the elective affinity +constantly going on between the other elements--namely, hydrogen, oxygen +and the vapor of carbon. + +"Again," said he, turning down the gas, "if the flame be reduced to a +consumption of two feet per hour, its light will be equal to that of one +candle only; but on raising the chimney, thus, about half an inch from +the gallery or support the light is greatly increased, or by simply +placing a disk on top of the chimney the light is increased ninefold; +both of which effects seem to result from a diminished current of air, +while at the same time there is an ample supply. Lastly, with the +ordinary glass moon-globe so generally used in dwellings with the +fishtail burner little difference can be perceived between the light +given from the flame by four feet and that from six feet of gas per +hour, in consequence of the strong current of air passing up through the +globe; but if the top of the glass be enclosed by a talc cover having an +orifice in the centre about an inch in diameter, then the conditions of +the burner are completely changed. The light is greatly increased, +because the highest economical advantage is then approached."[2] + +"Smoke from the aperture and lamp-black on the cover must result from +such an arrangement," objected the old gentleman. + +"There need be very little of either," responded the chemist. "From some +burners there is little light without smoke. A smoky flame may arise +from too much carbon, but the gas companies in this part of the country +are not apt to make their product too rich; and such a condition is not +likely to occur except with vapor-gas when warm weather quickly succeeds +to a cold spell in the winter season. The consumer's immediate remedy in +any case is to use a smaller tip with the fishtail and batwing burners, +and a taller chimney with the argand; which devices will give a quicker +movement to the gas in one case and to the air in the other. The +smoking, however, may be caused by carbonic acid, which checks +combustion. There is always more or less of this in gas, arising from a +partial combustion in the retorts when charging them with coal or while +withdrawing the exhausted charge. But it is only by excessively slow and +careless work that this can happen to a serious extent. Only an expert +can tell when this condition exists, though if the symptoms do not yield +to manipulations of the chimney and tap, it may be suspected. There is +no effective remedy for this adulteration which can be applied by the +consumer except a vigorous complaint against the company which supplies +the stuff. + +"There remains one burner or lamp to be mentioned, contrived with +special reference to health," he continued--"the ventilating standard +lamp of Doctor Faraday, used in the House of Lords. In this there is an +outer glass by which the vitiated air passes away through the pipe +communicating with the external air. The lamp is interesting, but there +is a question whether there is any practical advantage in its use. +Rutter's ventilating lamp is of different form, having a globe instead +of an outer cylinder, the gas and air coming in from above. Some of the +best dwellings now being erected in the vicinity of New York are +provided with tin pipes leading from the burners to the open air. In +some the pipe receives the foul air from an open metallic or mineral +shade over the burner; others have a larger pipe enclosing the gas-pipe +for ventilation, the tops of the two pipes (including the burner) being +enclosed by a globe pierced with holes for fresh air. There is said to +result a good ventilation, with economy of gas, an increased steadiness +of the flame and power of light. A better arrangement is a third pipe +enclosing the gas-pipe and enclosed in the ventilating-pipe, opening to +the air, instead of the holes in the globe, which in this case should be +air-tight. This plan is said to have reached its perfection when the +three pipes are filled with wire gauze to some extent. This, being +heated by the escape of hot gases in the ventilating-pipe, sends both +the air and the gas to the flame already highly heated. The result is +said to be admirable as regards ventilation, steadiness and power of the +light and economy of gas. + +"With these lamps the pressure of the gas-current is of great +importance; and I now turn to that subject. It is a general complaint in +buildings whose rooms are high that the flow of gas on the lower floor +is deficient, while on the upper floors there is a greater supply than +is necessary. This inconvenience arises from the upper stories being +subjected to less atmospheric pressure than the lower, every rise of ten +feet making a difference in the pressure of about one-tenth of an inch +of water; and, consequently, a column of gas acquires that amount of +pressure additional. The following table, recording an experiment of Mr. +Richards, will show the result in respect to light: + + Gas issuing from the burner at a pressure of-- + 1/10 inch of water gave the light of 12 candles, + 5/10 " " " " " " " 6 " + 10/10 " " " " " " " 2 " + 40/10 " " " " no appreciable light. + +Suppose a building of six floors is supplied from the gas-mains at a +pressure of six-tenths, and that the difference of altitude between the +highest and lowest light is equal to fifty feet: the gas in the highest +or sixth floor will issue from the burners at a pressure of +eleven-tenths; the fifth floor, at ten-tenths; and so on. In order to +secure an entirely equable flow and economical light a regulator is +necessary on each floor above the first. The gas companies are +frequently obliged to supply mills at a much greater pressure than is +stated above as necessary, in order that the ground floors may have +sufficient light." + +"How about incorrect meters?" asked the traveller. + +"Little need be said of them, as they fall within the domain of the +companies and the public inspector of gas. Under favorable conditions +gas-meters will remain in order for ten years or more; and when they +become defective they as often favor the consumer, probably, as they do +the gas company. Their defects do not often occasion inconvenience; and +when they once get out of order they run so wild that their condition is +soon detected, when the errors in previous bills should be corrected by +estimate of other seasons." + +"You haven't mentioned the apparatus (carburetters) for increasing the +richness of the gas, which can be applied by the consumer upon his own +premises," said the old gentleman. + +"There is little need. The burners should be adjusted to the quality of +gas furnished. If there were any real gain in this method of enrichment, +the gas companies are the parties who could make the most of it: indeed, +many of them do to such an extent as can be made profitable. But +whenever the temperature of the atmosphere falls, the matter added to +the gas is deposited in the pipes, sometimes choking them entirely at +the angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas that +is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law and the +contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give all gas-improving +machines the go-by.[3] + +"Light having, perhaps, been sufficiently considered for the present +needs, we have now to note the effects of the combustion of gas upon the +atmosphere, and through this upon the furnishing of rooms and the health +of the persons living therein," said the chemist, again taking up his +manuscript. "The usual products from the combustion of common +illuminating gas are carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and +water-vapor. Every burner consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour +spoils as much air as two full-grown men: it is therefore evident that +the air of a room thus lighted would soon become vitiated if an ample +supply of fresh air were not frequently admitted. + +"Remember," said he, looking up from the paper, "that nearly the same +effects proceed from the combustion of candles and lamps of every kind +when a sufficient number of these are burned to give an equal amount of +light. Carbonic acid is easily got rid of, for the rooms where gas is +burned usually have sufficient ventilation near the floor by means of a +register, or even the slight apertures under the doors--together with +their frequent opening--to carry off the small quantity emitted by one +or two burners. But there are other gases which must have vent at the +upper part of the room, while fresh air should be admitted to supply the +place of that which is chemically changed." + +Returning to his manuscript, he continued: "The burners which give the +least light, burning instead with a low, blue flame, form the most +carbonic acid and free the most nitrogen. Such are all the burners for +heat rather than light. But the formation of sulphuric acid gas may be +the same in each. In the yellow flame the carbon particles escape to +darken the light colors of the room, not being heated sufficiently to +combine with the oxygen. This product of the combustion of gas (free +carbon) might be regarded as rather wholesome than otherwise (as its +nature is that of an absorbent) were it not the worst kind of dust to +breathe--in fact, clogging the lungs to suffocation. In vapor gas--made +at low heat--the carbon is in a large degree only mechanically mixed +with the hydrogen, and is liable, especially in cold weather, to be +deposited in the pipes. This leaves only a very poor, thin gas, mainly +hydrogen, which burns with a pale blue flame, as seen in cold spells in +winter. High heats and short charges in the retorts of the manufactory +give a purer gas and a larger production. Gas made at high heat will +reach the consumer in any weather very nearly as rich as when it leaves +the gas-holder; for, thus made, the hydrogen and carbon are chemically +combined, instead of the hydrogen merely bearing a quantity of +carbon-vapor mechanically mixed and liable to deposit with every +reduction of temperature. To relieve the atmosphere of the gases and +vapors proceeding from combustion is, of course, the purpose of +ventilation. The sulphuric acid gas and ammonia will be largely in +combination with the water-vapor, which also proceeds from combustion, +so that all will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries +to counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which causes +leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, would be of +doubtful utility, since it might only serve to carry into the porous +leather still more of the gases just mentioned. The action of both +sulphuric acid and ammonia is, undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of +leather, so that it crumbles to meal or falls apart in flakes. + +"In a very interesting paper read by Professor William R. Nichols of the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the American Association of +Science at its Saratoga meeting in 1879, the results of many analyses of +leather bindings were given, showing the presence of the above-named +substances in old bindings in many times greater quantity than in new. +Still, their presence did not prove them to be the cause of the decay; +and Professor Nichols proposes to ascertain the fact by experiments +requiring some years for demonstration. + +"In the hope of deciding the question with reasonable certainty at once, +I have made careful examinations of the books in the three largest +libraries of Boston and Cambridge, each differing from the others in age +and atmosphere. The bindings of the volumes examined bore their own +record in dates and ownership, by which the conditions of their +atmosphere in respect to gas and (approximately) to heat were made +known for periods varying from current time to over two hundred years. +In the Public Library the combined influences of gas, heat and effluvium +have wrought upon the leather until many covers were ready to drop to +pieces at a touch. The binding showed no more shrinkage than in the +other libraries, but in proportion to the time the books had been upon +the shelves the decay of the leather was about the same as in the +Athenæum. I am informed that many of the most decayed have from time to +time been rebound, so that a full comparison cannot be made between this +and the others. In the Athenæum less gas has been used, and there is +very little effluvium, but the mealy texture of the leather is general +among the older tenants of the shelves. Numbers of volumes in the +galleries were losing their backs, which were more or less broken off at +the joints from the shrinkage and brittleness of the leather. The plan +has been proposed of introducing the vapor of water to counteract the +effects of dryness upon the bindings. In this library the atmosphere has +the usual humidity of that out of doors, being warmed by bringing the +outer air in over pipes conveying hot water, while the other libraries +have the higher heat of steam-pipes. If, therefore, its atmosphere +differs from that of the other libraries in respect to moisture, the +variation is in the direction of greater humidity, without any +corresponding effect on the preservation of bindings. In fact, proper +ventilation and low shelves seem to be the true remedies for these +evils, or, rather, the best means of amelioration, since there is no +complete antidote to the decay common to all material things. The last +condition involves the disuse of galleries and of rooms upon more than +one flat, unless the atmosphere in the upper portions of the lower rooms +be shut off from the higher, as it should be. Another precaution which +might be taken with advantage is to use the higher shelves for cloth +bindings. + +"In the Harvard College Library no gas has ever been used, nor any other +artificial illuminator to much extent. Neither had any large number of +the volumes been exposed to the products of gas-combustion, except for +a brief time before they were placed here. The bindings in this library +showed very little crumbling, but many covers were breaking at the +joints from the shrinking which arises from excessive dryness. In common +with many other substances, leather yields moisture to the air much more +readily than it receives it from that medium. Cloth bindings showed no +decay at all here--very little in any of the libraries, except in the +loss of color. It should be stated that the volumes which I examined at +Harvard College were generally older than those inspected in the other +libraries. There are parchment bindings in each of the libraries +hundreds of years old, apparently just as perfect in texture as when +first placed upon the shelves of the original owner. The parchment was +often worn through at the angles, but there was no breakage from +shrinking, the material having been shrunken as much as possible when +prepared from the skin. At Harvard College I examined an embossed calf +binding stretched on wooden sides which was above a hundred years old. +It was in almost perfect preservation, and not much shrunken. This +volume, being very large, was on a shelf next the ground floor--a +position which it had probably held ever since the erection of the +building. + +"Professor Nichols does not mention morocco in his tables of analyses. +Indeed, morocco was so little used for bookbindings until within about +thirty years that it affords a less ample field for investigation than +any other of the leathers now in common use. My attention was therefore +directed specially to this material, of which I found some specimens +having a record of nearly fifty years. My observation was, that in all +the libraries these were less affected by decay, in proportion to their +age, than other leathers. In Harvard College Library the best Turkey +morocco, with forty years of exposure, showed no injury except from +chafing. The outer integument was often worn away, exposing the texture +of the skin, which was still of strong fibre. In the Athenæum, on the +contrary, many of the moroccos showed the same decay as the calf, +russia and sheep. There was, however, a wide difference in the condition +of moroccos of the same age--some showing as much decay as the calf, +while others had scarcely any of the disintegration common to the older +calf bindings. The same might, indeed, be said of all leathers, those +tanned by the quick modern methods, with much more acid than is used in +old processes, in which time is a large factor, showing always a more +rapid deterioration. But, the methods being the same, morocco, the +oiliest of the common leathers and the one having the firmest cuticle, +endures the best. + +"The order of endurance of leather (as observed by librarians) against +atmospheric effects is as follows, descending from the first to the last +in order: Parchment, light-colored morocco, sheep, russia, calf. Cloth +wears out quickly by use, but appears--the linen especially--to be +affected by the atmosphere only in loss of color. These observations all +refer to the ordinary humidity of the air in frequented rooms. + +"This, then, is the result of my inquiries: I found the shrinking and +breaking resulting from heat much the same in all the libraries, but +most in that where the heating is from the outer air brought in over +hot-water pipes, the two other libraries examined being warmed by +steam-pipes having a higher temperature. I found the mealy structure--or +instead thereof flakiness--to prevail most in the Athenæum, next in the +Public Library: in the latter, however, many volumes have been rebound, +thus raising the average of condition. In the Harvard College Library no +gas--in fact, little if any artificial light--is used, and here, too, +the mealy structure and disintegration are mostly absent. I conclude, +therefore, from these limited observations, that heat is responsible for +a large part of the damage to leather bindings, its effects being +evidently supplemented and hastened by gas-combustion. + +"The ventilating lamps before described, though rather cumbrous to eyes +accustomed to the small and simple apparatus commonly used, might prove +valuable in rooms containing fabrics liable; to be injured by the gases +from open burners." + +As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked to the +somewhat weary listeners, "You now see the vast amount of study and care +required to use gas with economy and safety. I could not have argued the +cause of a new, clean, gasless and vaporless light like electricity any +better myself." + +"It will be found," responded the chemist, "that there are more troubles +and dangers connected with the electric light--besides the larger +expense--than are thought of now." + +"That is so!" ejaculated the young fellow. + +"At any rate," said the old gentleman, "gas stock won't go lower for +twenty years than it has been this winter." + +"You are all wedded to your idols," was the final protest of the +traveller. + +"I wish I was," murmured the young fellow, with a side-glance at his +fair neighbor, who immediately removed to another part of the room. + +GEORGE J. VARNEY. + + + + +THE "_???? ??G?????_ IN SHAKESPEARE. + + +When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first strikes us is +its copiousness. His characters are countless, and each one speaks his +own dialect. His little fishes never talk like whales, nor do his whales +talk like little fishes. Those curious in such matters have detected in +his works quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin +alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two. + +Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of words is +multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics. Mrs. Cowden Clarke has +counted those words one by one, and ascertained their sum to be not less +than fifteen thousand. The total vocabulary of Milton's poetical remains +is no more than eight thousand, and that of Homer, including the _Hymns_ +as well as both _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, is about nine thousand. In the +English Bible the different words are reckoned by Mr. G.P. Marsh in his +lectures on the English language at rather fewer than six thousand. +Those in the Greek Testament I have learned by actual count to be not +far from five thousand five hundred. + +Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they could teach +Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning Greek moods and tenses, +even as the ancient Athenians, according to the fable of Phædrus, +contended that they understood squealing better than a pig. However this +may be, any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke +and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard to +Shakespeare's use of language which Shakespeare himself cannot have +known. One particular as to which he must have been ignorant, while we +may have knowledge, is concerning his employment of terms denominated +_apa? ?e??µe?a_. + +The phrase _apa? ?e??µe?a_--literally, _once spoken_--may be traced +back, I think, to the Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, +who invented it to describe those words which they observed to occur +once, and _only once_, in any author or literature. It is so convenient +an expression for statistical commentators on the Bible, and on the +classics as well, that they will not willingly let it die. + +The list of _apa? ?e??µe?a_--that is, words used once and _only +once_--in Shakespeare is surprisingly long. It embraces a greater +multitude than any man can easily number. Nevertheless, I have counted +those beginning with two letters. The result is that the apa? ?e??µe?a +with initial _a_ are 364, and those with initial _m_ are 310. There is +no reason, that I know of, to suppose the census with these initials to +be proportionally larger than that with other letters. If it is not, +then the words occurring only once in all Shakespeare cannot be less +than five thousand, and they are probably a still greater legion. + +The number I have culled from one hundred and forty-six pages of Schmidt +is 674. At this rate the total on the fourteen hundred and nine pages of +the entire Lexicon would foot up 6504. It is possible, then, that +Shakespeare discarded, after once trying them, more different words than +fill and enrich the whole English Bible. The old grammarians tell us +that a certain part of speech was called _supine_, because it was very +seldom needed, and therefore almost always lying _on its back_--i.e. +in Latin, _supinus_. The supines of Shakespeare outnumber the employés +of most authors. + +The array of Shakespearian _apa? ?e??µe?a_ appears still vaster if we +compare it with expressions of the same nature in the Scriptures and in +Homer. In the English Bible words with the initials _a_ and _m_ used +once only are 132 to 674 with the same initials in Shakespeare. The +scriptural _once-onlys_ would be more than twice as many as we find them +were they as frequent in proportion to their total vocabulary as his +are. + +The Homeric _apa? ?e??µe?a_ with initial _m_ are 78, but were they as +numerous in proportion to Homer's whole world of words as Shakespeare's +are, they would run up to 186; that is, to more than twice as many as +their actual number. + +In the Greek New Testament I have enumerated 63 _apa? ?e??µe?a_ +beginning with the letter _m_--a larger number than you would expect, +for it is as large as that in both English Testaments beginning with +that same letter, which is also exactly 63. It indicates a wider range +of expression in the authors of the Greek original than in their English +translators. + +The 310 Shakespearian words with initial _m_ used _once only_ I have +also compared with the whole verbal inventory of our language so far as +it begins with that letter. They make up one-fifth almost of that +entire stock, which musters in Webster only 1641 words. You will at once +inquire, "What is the _nature_ of these rejected Shakespearian vocables, +which he seems to have viewed as milk that would bear no more than one +skimming?" + +The percentage of _classical_ words among them is great--greater indeed +than in the body of Shakespeare's writings. According to the analysis of +Weisse, in an average hundred of Shakespearian words one-third are +classical and two-thirds Saxon. But then all the classical elements have +inherent meaning, while half of the Saxon have none. We may hence infer +that of the significant words in Shakespeare one-half are of classical +derivation. Now, of the apa? ?e??µe?a with initial _a_, I call 262 words +out of 364 classical, and with initial _m_, 152 out of 310; that is, 414 +out of 674, or about four-sevenths of the whole Shakespearian host +beginning with those two letters. In doubtful cases I have considered +those words only as classical the first etymology of which in Webster is +from a classical or Romance root. In the biblical words used once only +the classical portion is enormous--namely, not less than sixty-nine per +cent.--while the classical percentage in Shakespearian words of the same +class is no more than sixty-one. + +Among the 674 _a_ and _m_ Shakespearian words occurring once only the +proportion of words now _obsolete_ is unexpectedly small. Of 310 such +words with initial _m_, only one-sixth, or 51 at the utmost, are now +disused, either in sense or even in form. Of this half-hundred a few are +used in Shakespeare, but not at present, as verbs; thus, to _maculate_, +to _miracle_, to _mud_, to _mist_, to _mischief_, to _moral_--also +_merchandized_ and _musicked_. Another class now wellnigh unknown are +_misproud, misdread, mappery, mansionry, marybuds, masterdom, +mistership, mistressship._ + +Then there are slight variants from our modern orthography or meanings, +as _mained_ for maimed, _markman_ for marksman, _make_ for mate, +_makeless_ for mateless, _mirable, mervaillous, mess_ for mass, +_manakin, minikin, meyny_ for many, _momentarry_ for momentary, +_moraler, mountainer, misgraffing, misanthropos, mott_ for motto, to +_mutine, mi'nutely_ for every minute. + +None seem wholly dead words except the following eighteen: To _mammock_, +tear; _mell_, meddle; _mose_, mourn; _micher_, truant; _mome_, fool; +_mallecho_, mischief; _maund_, basket; _marcantant_, merchant; _mun_, +sound of wind; _mure_, wall; _meacock_, henpecked; _mop_, grin; +_militarist_, soldier; _murrion_, affected with murrain; _mammering_, +hesitating; _mountant_, raised up; _mered_, only; _man-entered_, grown +up. + +About one-tenth of the remaining _apa? ?e??µe?a_ with initial _m_ are +descriptive compounds. Among them are the following adjectives: +_Maiden-tongued, maiden-widowed, man-entered_ (before noted as +obsolete), _many-headed, marble-breasted, marble-constant, +marble-hearted, marrow-eating, mean-apparelled, merchant-marring, +mercy-lacking, mirth-moving, moving-delicate, mock-water, more-having, +mortal-breathing, mortal-living, mortal-staring, motley-minded, +mouse-eaten, moss-grown, mouth-filling, mouth-made, muddy-mettled, +momentary-swift, maid-pale_. From this list, which is nearly complete, +it is evident that such compounds as may be multiplied at will form but +a small fraction of the words that are used _once only_ by Shakespeare. + +The words used _once only_ by Shakespeare are often so beautiful and +poetical that we wonder how they could fail to be his favorites again +and again. They are jewels that might hang twenty years before our eyes, +yet never lose their lustre. Why were they never shown but once? They +remind me of the exquisite crystal bowl from which I saw a Jewess and +her bridegroom drink in Prague, and which was then dashed in pieces on +the floor of the synagogue, or of the Chigi porcelain painted by +Raphael, which as soon as it had been once removed from the Farnesina +table was thrown into the Tiber. To what purpose was this waste? Why +should they be used up with once using? Specimens of this sort, which +all poets but Shakespeare would have paraded as pets many a time, are +multifarious. Among a hundred others never used but once, we have +_magical, mirthful, mightful, mirth-moving, moonbeams, moss-grown, +mundane, motto, matin, mural, multipotent, mourningly, majestically, +marbled, martyred, mellifluous, mountainous, meander, magnificence, +magnanimity, mockable, merriness, masterdom, masterpiece, monarchize, +menaces, marrowless_. + +Again, a majority of Shakespearian _apa? ?e??µe?a_ being familiar to us +as household words, it seems impossible that he who had tried them once +should have need of them no more. Instances--all with initial _m_--are +as follows: _mechanics, machine, maxim, mission, mode, monastic, marsh, +magnify, malcontent, majority, manly, malleable, malignancy, maritime, +manna, manslaughter, masterly, market-day-folks, maid-price, mealy, +meekly, mercifully, merchant-like, memorial, mercenary, mention, +memorandums, mercurial, metropolis, miserably, mindful, meridian, medal, +metaphysics, ministration, mimic, misapply, misgovernment, misquote, +misconstruction, monstrously, monster-like, monstrosity, mutable, +moneyed, monopoly, mortise, mortised, muniments_, to _moderate_, and +_mother-wit_ These words, and five thousand more equally excellent, +which have remained part of the language of the English-speaking world +for three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue to +belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have worn in +their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he as shy of +repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was of showing his +wit?-- + + Who bore it about, + As if afraid to wear it out + Except on holidays or so, + As men their best apparel do. + +This question, why a full third of Shakespeare's verbal riches was never +brought to light more than once, is probably one which nobody can at +present answer even to his own satisfaction. Yet the phenomenon is so +remarkable that every one will try after his own fashion to account for +it. My own attempt at a provisional explanation I will present in the +latter part of this paper. + +Let us first, however, notice another question concerning the _apa? +?e??µe?a_--namely, that which respects their _origin_. Where did they +come from? how far did Shakespeare make them? and how far were they +ready to his hand? No approach to answering this inquiry can be made for +some years. Yet as to this matter let us rejoice that the unique +dictionary of the British Philological Society is now near publication. +This work, slowly elaborated by thousands of co-workers in many devious +walks of study on both sides of the Atlantic, aims to exhibit the first +appearance in a book of every English word. In regard to the great bulk +of Shakespeare's diction it will enable us ten years hence to determine +how much of it was known to literature before him, and how much of it he +himself gathered or gleaned in highways and byways, or caused to ramify +and effloresce from Saxon or classical roots and trunks, thus "endowing +his purposes with words to make them known." Meantime, we are left to +conjectures. As of his own coinage I should set down such vocables as +_motley-minded, mirth-moving, mockable, marbled, martyred, merriness, +marrowless, mightful, multipotent, masterdom, monarchize_, etc. etc. + +But, however much of his linguistic treasury Shakespeare shall be proved +to have inherited ready-made--whatever scraps he may have stolen at the +feast of languages--it is clear that he was an imperial creator of +language, and lived while his mother-tongue was still plastic. Having a +mint of phrases in his own brain, well might he speak with the contempt +he does of those "fools who for a tricksy word defy the matter;" that +is, slight or disregard it. He never needed to do that. Words were +"correspondent to his command, and, Ariel-like, did his spiriting +gently." + +In a thousand cases, however, Shakespeare cannot have rejected words +through fear lest he should repeat them. It has taken three centuries +for the world to ferret out his _apa? ?e??µe?a_: can we believe that he +knew them all himself? Unless he were the Providence which numbers all +hairs of the head, he had not got the start of the majestic world so far +as that, however myriad-minded we may consider him. An instinct which +would have rendered him aware of each and every individual of five +thousand that he had employed once only would be as inconceivable as +that of Falstaff, which made him discern the heir-apparent in Prince Hal +when disguised as a highwayman. In short, Shakespeare could not be +conscious of all the words he had once used, more than Brigham Young +could recognize all the wives he had once wedded. + +In the absence of other theories concerning the reasons for +Shakespeare's _apa? ?e??µe?a_ being so abundant, I throw out a +suggestion of my own till a better one shall supplant it. + +Shakespeare's forte lay in characterization, and that endlessly +diversified. But when he sketched each several character it seems that +he was never content till he had either found or fabricated the aptest +words possible for representing its form and pressure most true to life. +No two characters being identical in any particular more than two faces +are, no two descriptions, as drawn by his genius, could repeat many of +the selfsame characterizing words. Each of his vocables thus became like +each of the seven thousand constituents of a locomotive, which fits the +one niche it was ordained to fill, but everywhere else is out of place, +and even _dislocated_. The more numerous his ethical differentiations, +the more his language was differentiated. + +His personages were as multifarious as have been portrayed by the whole +band of Italian painters; but, as a wizard in words, he resembled the +magician in mosaic, who can delineate in stone every feature of those +portraits because he can discriminate and imitate shades of color more +numberless than even Shakespeare's words. + +It is hard to believe that the Shakespearian characters were born, like +Athene from the brain of Zeus, in panoplied perfection. They grew. The +play of _Troilus_ was a dozen years in growth. According to the best +commentators, "Shakespeare, after having sketched out a play on the +fashion of his youthful taste and skill, returned in after years to +enlarge it, remodel it, and enrich it with the matured fruits of years +of observation and reflection. _Love's Labor Lost_ first appeared in +print with the annunciation that it was 'newly corrected and augmented,' +and _Cymbeline_ was an entire _rifacimento_ of an early dramatic +attempt, showing not only matured fulness of thought, but laboring +intensity of compressed expression." So speaks Verplanck, and his +utterance is endorsed by Richard Grant White. + +Such being the facts, it is clear that Shakespeare treated his dramas as +Guido did the _Cleopatra_, which he would not let leave his studio till +ten years after the non-artistic world deemed that portrait fully +finished. Meantime, the painter in moments of inspiration was pencilling +his canvas with curious touches, each approximating nearer his ideal. So +the poet sought to find out acceptable words, or what he terms "an army +of good words." He poured his new wine into new bottles, and never was +at rest till he had arrayed his ideas in that fitness of phrase which +comes only by fits. + +Had he survived fifty years longer, I suppose he would to the last have +been perfecting his phrases, as we read in Dionysius of Halicarnassus +that Plato up to the age of eighty-one was "combing and curling, and +weaving and unweaving, his writings after a variety of fashions." +Possibly, the great dramatist would at last have corrected one of his +couplets as a modern commentator has done for him, so that it would +stand, + + Find _leaves_ on trees, _stones_ in the running brooks, + Sermons in _books_, and _all_ in everything. + +To speak seriously with a writer in the _Encyclopædia Britannica:_ "His +manner in diction was progressive, and this progress has been deemed so +clearly traceable in his plays that it can enable us to determine their +chronological sequence." The result is, that while other authors satiate +and soon tire us, Shakespeare's speech for ever "breathes an +indescribable freshness." + + Age cannot wither + Nor custom stale his infinite variety. + +In the last line I have quoted there is a apa? ?e??µe?a but it is a word +which I think you would hardly guess. It is the last word--_variety_. + +On every average page of Shakespeare you are greeted and gladdened by at +least five words that you never saw before in his writings, and that you +never will see again, speaking once and then for ever holding their +peace--each not only rare, but a nonsuch--five gems just shown, then +snatched away. Each page is studded with five stars, each as unique as +the century-flower, and, like the night-blooming cereus, "the perfume +and suppliance of a minute"--_ipsa varietate variora_. The mind of +Shakespeare was bodied forth as Montezuma was apparelled, whose costume, +however gorgeous, was never twice the same. Hence the Shakespearian +style is fresh as morning dew and changeful as evening clouds, so that +we remain for ever doubtful in relation to his manner and his matter, +which of them owes the greater debt to the other. The Shakespearian +plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael, the characters to the +drawing of Michael Angelo, but the word-painting superadds the coloring +of Titian. Accordingly, in studying Shakespeare's diction I should long +ago have said, if I could, what I read in Arthur Helps, where he treats +of a perfect style--that "there is a sense of felicity about it, +declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that you feel it +will not happen again to that man who writes the sentence, nor to any +other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely, +mellifluously and completely." + +In the central court of the Neapolitan Museum I saw grape-clusters, +mouldings, volutes, fingers and antique fragments of all sorts wrought +in rarest marble, lying scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and +rain, cast down the wrong side up, and as it were thrown away, as when +the stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street. +Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like this apparent +wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can afford to make +nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy of shrines. We say to +ourselves, "If such be the things she throws away, what must be her +jewels?" A similar feeling rises in me while exploring Shakespeare's +prodigality in apa? ?e??µe?a. His exchequer appears more exhaustless +than the Bank of England. + +James D. Butler. + + + + +AN EPISODE OF SPANISH CHIVALRY. + + +Don Quijote's readers are aware of the enormous popularity of the +romances of chivalry, but they are apt to imagine that these represent a +purely ideal state of things. This is undoubtedly the case as far as +knight-errantry is concerned, but certain distinctive habits and customs +of chivalry prevailed in Spain and elsewhere long after the feudal +system and the earlier and original form of chivalry had passed away. +One of the most curious instances of this survival of chivalry occurred +in Spain in the first half of the fifteenth century, and after +commanding the admiration of Europe furnished Don Quijote with an +admirable argument for the existence of Amadis of Gaul and his long line +of successors. The worthy knight had been temporarily released from his +confinement in the Enchanted Cage, and had begun his celebrated reply to +the canon's statement that there had never been such persons as Amadis +and the other knights-errant, nor the absurd adventures with which the +romances of chivalry abound. Don Quijote's answer is a marvellous +mixture of sense and nonsense: the creations of the romancer's brain are +placed side by side with the Cid, Juan de Merlo and Gutierre Ouijada, +whose names were household words in Spain: "Let them deny also that Don +Fernando de Guerara went to seek adventures in Germany, where he did +combat with Messer George, knight of the household of the duke of +Austria. Let them say that the jousts of Sucro de Quiñones, him of the +Pass, were a jest." + +It is to these jousts, as one of the most characteristic episodes of the +reign of John II. and of the times, that we wish to call attention.[4] + +On the evening of Friday, the 1st of January, 1434, while the king and +his court were at Medina del Campo and engaged in the rejoicings +customary on the first day of the New Year, Suero de Quiñones and nine +knights clad in white entered the saloon, and, coming before the throne, +kissed the hands and feet of the king, and presented him through their +herald with a petition of which the following is the substance: + +"It is just and reasonable for those who are in confinement or deprived +of their freedom to desire liberty; and since I, your vassal and +subject, have long been in durance to a certain lady--in witness whereof +I bear this chain about my neck every Thursday--now, therefore, mighty +sovereign, I have agreed upon my ransom, which is three hundred lances +broken by myself and these knights, as shall more clearly hereafter +appear--three with every knight or gentleman (counting as broken the +lance which draws blood) who shall come to a certain place this year; to +wit, fifteen days before and fifteen days after the festival of the +apostle St. James, unless my ransom shall be completed before the day +last mentioned. The place shall be on the highway to Santiago, and I +hereby testify to all strange knights and gentlemen that they will +there be provided with armor, horses and weapons. And be it known to +every honorable lady who may pass the aforesaid way that if she do not +provide a knight or gentleman to do combat for her, she shall lose her +right-hand glove. All the above saving two things--that neither Your +Majesty nor the constable Don Alvaro de Luna is to enter the lists." + +After the reading of this petition the king took counsel with his court +and granted it, for which Quiñones humbly thanked him, and then he and +his companions retired to disarm themselves, returning shortly after in +dresses more befitting a festal occasion. + +After the dancing the regulations for the jousts, consisting of +twenty-two chapters, were publicly read. In addition to the declarations +in the petition, it is provided that in case two or more knights should +come to ransom the glove of any lady, the first knight only will be +received, and no one can ransom more than one glove. In the seventh +chapter Quiñones offers a diamond to the first knight who appears to do +combat for one of three ladies to be named by him, among whom shall not +be the one whose captive he is. No knight coming to the Pass of Honor +shall select the defender with whom to joust, nor shall he know the name +of his adversary until the combat is finished; but any one after +breaking three lances may challenge by name any one of the defenders, +who, if time permits, will break another lance with him. If any knight +desires to joust without some portion of his armor named by Quiñones, +his request shall be granted if reason and time permit. No knight will +be admitted to the lists until he declare his name and country. If any +one is injured, "as is wont to happen in jousts," he shall be treated as +though he were Quiñones himself, and no one in the future shall ever be +held responsible for any advantage or victory he may have gained over +any of the defenders of the Pass. No one going as a pilgrim to Santiago +by the direct road shall be hindered by Quiñones unless he approach the +aforesaid bridge of Orbigo (which was somewhat distant from the +highway). In case, however, any knight, having left the main road, +shall come to the Pass, he shall not be permitted to depart until he has +entered the lists or left in pledge a piece of his armor or right spur, +with the promise never to wear that piece or spur until he shall have +been in some deed of arms as dangerous as the Pass of Honor. Quiñones +further pledges himself to pay all expenses incurred by those who shall +come to the Pass. + +Any knight who, after having broken one or two lances, shall refuse to +continue, shall lose his armor or right spur as though he had declined +to enter the lists. No defender shall be obliged to joust a second time +with any one who had been disabled for a day in any previous encounter. + +The twenty-first chapter provides for the appointment of two knights, +"_caballeros anliguos è probados en annas è dignas de fè_," and two +heralds, all of whom shall swear solemnly to do justice to all who come +to the Pass, and who shall decide all questions which may arise. + +The last chapter provides "that if the lady whose I [Quiñones] am shall +pass that way, she shall not lose her glove, and no one but myself shall +do combat for her, for no one in the world could do it so truly as I." + +When the preceding provisions had been read, Quiñones gave to the +king-at-arms a letter signed and sealed, which invited to the Pass all +knights so disposed, granting safe conduct to those of other kingdoms, +and declaring the cause of said trial of arms. Copies of the above +letter were also given to other heralds, who were provided with +everything necessary for long journeys, and in the six months that +intervened before the day fixed for the jousts the matter had been +proclaimed throughout all Christendom. Meanwhile, Quiñones provided +horses and arms and everything necessary for "such an important +enterprise." + +In the kingdom of Leon, about ten miles east of Astorga and on the +highway from that city to the capital, is the bridge of Orbigo. Suero de +Quiñones did not select Orbigo with reference to convenience of access +from the Castiles, but because it must be passed by pilgrims to +Santiago; and that year (1434) was especially sacred to the saint, whose +festival, on the 25th of July, has always been celebrated with great +pomp. The Spaniards having been forbidden to go to Jerusalem as +crusaders, and being too much occupied at home with the Moors to make +such a long pilgrimage, wisely substituted Santiago, where the remains +of St. James, the patron of Spain, is supposed to rest. His body is said +to have floated in a stone coffin from Joppa to Padron (thirteen miles +below Santiago) in seven days, and for nearly eight centuries lay +forgotten in a cave, but was at length miraculously brought to light by +mysterious flames hovering over its resting-place, and in 829 was +removed to Santiago. In 846 the saint made his appearance at the +celebrated battle of Clavijo, where he slew sixty thousand Moors, and +was rewarded by a grant of a bushel of grain from every acre in Spain. +His shrine was a favorite resort for pilgrims from all Christendom until +after the Reformation, and the saint retained his bushel of grain (the +annual value of which had reached the large sum of one million dollars) +until 1835. + +It was near the highway, in a pleasant grove, that Quiñones erected the +lists, a hundred and forty-six paces long and surrounded by a palisade +of the height of a lance, with various stands for the judges and +spectators. At the opposite ends of the lists were entrances--one for +the defenders of the Pass--and there were hung the arms and banners of +Quiñones, as well as at the other entrance, which was reserved for the +knights who should come to make trial of their arms. In order that no +one might mistake the way, a marble king-at-arms was erected near the +bridge, with the right arm extended and the inscription, "To the Pass." + +The final arrangements were not concluded until the 10th of July, the +first day of the jousts. Twenty-two tents had been erected for the +accommodation of those engaged in the enterprise as well as for mere +spectators, and Quiñones had provided all necessary servants and +artisans, among whom are mentioned kings-at-arms, heralds, trumpeters +and other musicians, notaries, armorers, blacksmiths, surgeons, +physicians, carpenters, lance-makers, tailors, embroiderers, etc. In the +midst of the tents was erected a wooden dining--hall, hung with rich +French cloth and provided with two tables--one for Quiñones and the +knights who came to the Pass, and the other for those who honored the +jousts with their presence. A curious fact not to be omitted is that the +king sent one of his private secretaries to prepare daily accounts of +what happened at the Pass, which were transmitted by relays to Segovia +(where he was engaged in hunting), so that he should receive them within +twenty-four hours. + +On Saturday, the 10th of July, 1434, all the arrangements having been +completed, the heralds proceeded to the entrance of the lists and +announced to Quiñones that three knights were at the bridge of Orbigo +who had come to make trial of their arms--one a German, Messer Arnoldo +de la Floresta Bermeja of the marquisate of Brandenburg, "about +twenty-seven years old, blond and well-dressed;" the others two brothers +from Valencia, by name Juan and Per Fabla. Quiñones was greatly +delighted at their coming, and sent the heralds to invite them to take +up their quarters with him, which they did, and were received with honor +at the entrance of the lists in the presence of the judges. It being +Saturday, the jousting was deferred until the following Monday, and the +spurs of the three knights were hung up in the judges' stand as a sort +of pledge, to be restored to their owners when they were ready to enter +the lists. + +The next morning the trumpets sounded, and Quiñones and his nine +companions heard mass in the church of St. John at Orbigo, and took +possession of the lists in the following fashion: First came the +musicians with drums and Moorish fifes, preceded by the judge, Pero +Barba. Then followed two large and beautiful horses drawing a cart +filled with lances of various sizes pointed with Milan steel. The cart +was covered with blue and green trappings embroidered with bay trees and +flowers, and on every tree was the figure of a parrot. The driver of +this singular conveyance was a dwarf. Next came Quiñones on a powerful +horse with blue trappings, on which were worked his device and a chain, +with the motto _Il faut deliberer_[5] He was dressed in a quilted jacket +of olive velvet brocade embroidered in green, with a cloak of blue +velvet, breeches of scarlet cloth and a tall cap of the same color. He +wore wheel-spurs of the Italian fashion richly gilt, and carried a drawn +sword, also gilt. On his right arm, near the shoulder, was richly +embroidered his device in gold two fingers broad, and around it in blue +letters, + + Si a vous ne plait de avoyr me sure, + Certes ie clis, + Que ie suis, + Sans venture.[6] + +With Quiñones were his nine companions in scarlet velvet and blue cloaks +bearing Quiñones' device and chain, and the trappings of their horses +blue, with the same device and motto. Near Quiñones were many knights on +foot, some of whom led his horse to do him honor. Three pages +magnificently attired and mounted closed the procession, which entered +the lists, and after passing around it twice halted before the judges' +stand, and Quiñones exhorted the judges to decide impartially all that +should happen, giving equal justice to all, and especially to defend the +strangers in case they should be attacked on account of having wounded +any of the defenders of the Pass. + +The next day, Monday, at dawn the drums beat the reveille, and the +judges, with the heralds, notaries and kings-at-arms, took their places +in their stands. The nine defenders meanwhile heard mass in a large tent +which served as a private chapel for Quiñones, and where mass was said +thrice daily at his expense by some Dominicans. After the defenders were +armed they sent for the judges to inspect their weapons and armor. The +German knight, Arnoldo, had a disabled hand, but he declared he would +rather die than refrain from jousting. His arms and horse were approved, +although the latter was superior to that of Quiñones. The judges had +provided a body of armed soldiers whose duty it was to see that all had +fair play in the field, and had a pile of lances of various sizes placed +where each knight could select one to suit him. + +Quiñones and the German now entered the lists, accompanied by their +friends and with "much music." The judges commanded that no one should +dare to speak aloud or give advice or make any sign to any one in the +lists, no matter what happened, under penalty of having the tongue cut +out for speaking and a hand cut off for making signs; and they also +forbade any knight to enter the lists with more than two servants, one +mounted and the other on foot. The spur taken from the German the +previous Saturday was now restored to him, and the trumpets sounded a +charge, while the heralds and kings-at-arms cried _Legeres allér! +legeres allér! é fair son deber_. + +The two knights charged instantly, lance in rest, and Quiñones +encountered his antagonist in the guard of his lance, and his weapon +glanced off and touched him in the armor of his right hand and tore it +off, and his lance broke in the middle. The German encountered him in +the armor of the left arm, tore it off and carried a piece of the border +without breaking his lance. In the second course Quiñones encountered +the German in the top of his plastron, without piercing it, and the +lance came out under his arm-pit, whereupon all thought he was wounded, +for on receiving the shock he exclaimed _Olas!_ and his right vantbrace +was torn off, but the lance was not broken. The German encountered +Quiñones in the front of his helmet, breaking his lance two palms from +the iron. In the third course Quiñones encountered the German in the +guard of his left gauntlet, and passed through it, and the head of the +lance stuck in the rim without breaking, and the German failed to +encounter. In the fourth course Quiñones encountered the German in the +armor of his left arm without breaking his lance, and the German failed +to encounter. In the next course both failed to encounter, but in the +sixth Quiñones encountered the German in the joint of his left +vantbrace, and the iron passed half through without breaking, while the +shaft broke in the middle, and the German failed to encounter. After +this last course they went to the judges' stand, where their jousting +was pronounced finished, since they had broken three lances between +them. Quiñones invited the German to supper, and both were accompanied +to their quarters by music, and Quiñones disarmed himself in public. + +The two Valencian knights did not delay to challenge Quiñones, since he +had remained uninjured; and, as they had the right to demand horses and +arms, they chose those which Quiñones had used in the last joust. The +chronicler adds: "It seems to me that they did not ask it so much for +their honor as for the safety of their skins." The judges decided that +Quiñones was not bound to give his own armor, as there were other suits +as good: nevertheless, he complied, and sent in addition four horses to +choose from. He was also anxious to joust with them, but Lope de +Estuñiga refused to yield his place, and cited the chapter of the +regulations which provided that no one should single out his adversary. +Quiñones offered him a very fine horse and a gold chain worth three +hundred doubloons, but Estuñiga answered that he would not yield his +turn although he were offered a city. + +At vespers Estuñiga and Juan Fabla were armed and the judges examined +their arms, and although Fabla had the better horse, they let it pass. +At the sound of the trumpet Estuñiga entered the lists magnificently +attired, and attended by two pages in armor bearing a drawn sword and a +lance. Juan Fabla followed immediately, and at the given signal they +attacked each other lance in rest. Fabla encountered Estuñiga in the +left arm, tearing off his armor, but neither of them broke his lance. In +the four following courses they failed to encounter. In the sixth Fabla +encountered his adversary in the breastplate, breaking his lance in the +middle, and the head remained sticking in the armor. They encountered in +the seventh course, and Estuñiga's servant, who was in the lists, cried +out, "At him! at him!" The judges commanded his tongue to be cut out, +but at the intercession of those present the sentence was commuted to +thirty blows and imprisonment. They failed to encounter in the eighth +course, but in the ninth Estuñiga broke his lance on Fabla's left arm: +the latter failed to encounter, and received a great reverse. After this +they ran nine courses without encountering, but in the nineteenth +Estuñiga met Fabla in the plastron, and his lance slipped off on to his +helmet, but did not break, although it pierced the plastron and the iron +remained sticking in it. By this time it had grown so dark that the +judges could not distinguish the good from the bad encounters, and for +this reason they decided that the combat was finished the same as though +three lances had been broken. Estuñiga invited Fabla to sup with +Quiñones, "and at table there were many knights, and after supper they +danced." + +That same day there arrived at the Pass nine knights from Aragon, who +swore that they were gentlemen without reproach. Their spurs were taken +from them, according to the established custom, and hung up in the +judges' stand until they should enter the lists. + +The succeeding combats were but repetitions, with trifling variations, +of those just described. From dawn, when the trumpet sounded for battle, +until the evening grew so dark that the judges could not distinguish the +combatants, the defenders maintained the Pass against all comers with +bravery and honor. + +The third day there passed near Orbigo two ladies, and the judges sent +the king-at-arms and the herald to ascertain whether they were of noble +birth and provided with knights to represent them in the lists and win +them a passage through Orbigo, and also to request them to give up their +right-hand gloves. The ladies answered that they were noble and were on +a pilgrimage to Santiago; their names were Leonora and Guiomar de la +Vega; the former was married and accompanied by her husband; the latter +was a widow. The king-at-arms then requested their gloves to be kept as +a pledge until some knight should ransom them. Frances Davio, an +Aragonese knight, immediately offered to do combat for the ladies. The +husband of Doña Leonora said that he had not heard of this adventure, +and was unprepared to attempt it then, but if the ladies were allowed to +retain their gloves, as soon as he had accomplished his pilgrimage he +would return and enter the lists for them. The gloves, however, were +retained and hung in the judges' stand. The matter caused some +discussion, and finally the judges decided that the gloves should not be +kept, for fear it should seem that the defenders of the Pass were +interfering with pilgrims, and also on account of Juan de la Vega's +chivalrous response. So the gloves were sent on to Astorga to be +delivered to their owners, and Juan de la Vega was absolved from all +obligation to ransom them, "and there was strife among many knights as +to who should do battle for the sisters." + +On the 16th of July, Frances Davio jousted with Lope de Estuñiga, and +when the trial of arms was ended with great honor to both, Davio swore +aloud, so that many knights heard him, "that never in the future would +he have a love-affair with a nun, for up to that time he had loved one, +and it was for her sake that he had come to the Pass; and any one who +had known it could have challenged him as an evil-doer, and he could not +have defended himself." Whereat Delena, the notary and compiler of the +original record of the Pass, exclaims, "To which I say that if he had +had any Christian nobleness, or even the natural shame which leads every +one to conceal his faults, he would not have made public such a +sacrilegious scandal, so dishonorable to the religious order and so +injurious to Christ." + +The same day the king-at-arms and herald announced to Quiñones that a +gentleman named Vasco de Barrionuevo, servant of Ruy Diaz de Mendoza, +mayor-domo of the king, had come to make trial of his arms, but as he +was not a knight he prayed Quiñones to confer that honor on him. +Quiñones consented, and commanded him to wait at the entrance of the +lists, whither he and the nine defenders went on foot accompanied by a +great crowd. Quiñones asked Vasco if he desired to become a knight, and +on his answering in the affirmative he drew his gilt sword and said, +"Sir, do you promise to keep and guard all the things appertaining to +the noble order of chivalry, and to die rather than fail in any one of +them?" He swore that he would do so, and Quiñones, striking him on the +helmet with his naked sword, said, "God make thee a good knight and aid +thee to live and act as every good knight should do!" After this +ceremony the new knight entered the lists with Pedro de los Rios, and +they ran seven courses and broke three lances. + +On the festival of St. James (July 25th) Quiñones entered the lists +without three of the principal pieces of his armor--namely, the visor of +his helmet, the left vantbrace and breastplate--and said, "Knights and +judges of this Passo Honroso, inasmuch as I announced through Monreal, +the king's herald, that on St. James's Day there would be in this place +three knights, each without a piece of his armor, and each ready to run +two courses with every knight who should present himself that day, know, +therefore, that I, Suero de Quiñones, alone am those three knights, and +am prepared to accomplish what I proclaimed." The judges after a short +deliberation answered that they had no authority to permit him to risk +his life in manifest opposition to the regulations which he had sworn to +obey, and declared him under arrest, and forbade all jousting that day, +as it was Sunday and the festival of St. James. Quiñones felt greatly +grieved at their decision, and told them that "in the service of his +lady he had gone into battle against the Moors in the kingdom of Granada +with his right arm bared, and God had preserved him, and would do so +now." The judges, however, were inflexible and refused to hear him. + +The last day of July, late in the afternoon, there arrived at the Pass +a gentleman named Pedro de Torrecilla, a retainer or squire of Alfonso +de Deza, but no one was willing to joust with him, on the ground that he +was not an hidalgo. The generous Lope de Estuñiga, hearing this, offered +to dub him a knight, but Torrecilla thanked him and said he could not +afford to sustain in becoming manner the honor of chivalry, but he would +make good the fact that he was an hidalgo. Lope de Estuñiga was so much +pleased by this discreet answer that he believed him truly of gentle +blood, and to do him honor entered the lists with him. It was, however, +so late that they had only time to run three courses, and then the +judges pronounced their joust finished. Torrecilla esteemed so highly +the fact that so renowned a knight as Lope de Estuñiga should have +condescended to enter the lists with him that he swore it was the +greatest honor he had ever received in his life, and he offered him his +services. Estuñiga thanked him, and affirmed that he felt as much +honored by having jousted with him as though he had been an emperor.[7] + +A few days after the above events an incident occurred which shows how +contagious the example of Quiñones and his followers was, and to what +amusing imitations it led. A Lombard trumpeter made his appearance at +the Pass, and said that he had been to Santiago on a pilgrimage, and +while there had heard that there was at the Passo Honroso a trumpeter of +the king of Castile named Dalmao, very celebrated in his line, and he +had gone thirty leagues out of his way in order to have a trial of skill +with him; and he offered to stake a good trumpet against one of +Dalmao's. The latter took the Lombard's trumpet and blew so loud and +skilfully that the Italian, in spite of all his efforts, was obliged to +confess himself conquered, and gave up his trumpet. | + +So far, the encounters, if not entirely bloodless, had not been +attended by any fatal accident. The defenders had all been wounded, more +or less severely: once Quiñones concealed the fact until the end of the +joust in which his antagonist had been badly hurt, and it was only when +the knights were disarmed that it was discovered that Quiñones was +bleeding profusely. On another occasion his helmet was pierced by his +adversary's lance, the fragment of which he strove in vain to withdraw. +All believed him mortally wounded, but he cried, "It is nothing! it is +nothing! Quiñones! Quiñones!" and continued as though nothing had +occurred. After three encounters the judges descended from their stands +and made him remove his helmet to see whether he was wounded. When it +was found that he was not, "every one thought that God had miraculously +delivered him." Quiñones was also wounded in his encounter with Juan de +Merlo, and again concealed the fact until the end of the combat, when he +asked the judges to excuse him from jousting further that day, as his +right hand, which he had previously sprained, was again dislocated, and +caused him terrible suffering; and well it might, for the flesh was +lacerated and the whole arm seemed paralyzed. + +The wounds received the 28th of July were, unfortunately, sufficiently +healed by the 6th of August to enable him to enter the lists with the +unhappy Esberte de Claramonte, an Aragonese. "Would to God," exclaims +the chronicler, "he had never come here!" In the ninth encounter +Quiñones' lance entered his antagonist's left eye and penetrated the +brain. The luckless knight broke his lance in the ground, was lifted +from his saddle by the force of the blow, and fell dead without uttering +a word; "and his face seemed like the face of one who had been dead two +hours." The Aragonese and Catalans present bewailed his death loudly, +and Quiñones was grieved in his soul at such a great misfortune. Every +possible honor was shown the dead knight, and the welfare of his soul +was not forgotten. Master Anton, Quiñones' confessor, and the other +priests were sent for to administer the sacraments, and Quiñones begged +them to chant the _Responsorium_[8] over the body, as was customary in +the Church, and do in all respects as though he himself were the dead +man. The priest replied that the Church did not consider as sons those +who died in such exercises, for they could not be performed without +mortal sin, neither did she intercede for their souls; in proof whereof +he referred to the canonical law, cap. _de Torneamentis_.[9] However, at +the earnest request of Quiñones, Messer Anton went with a letter to the +bishop of Astorga to ask leave to bury Claramonte in holy ground, +Quiñones promising if it were granted to take the dead knight to Leon +and bury him in his own family chapel. Meanwhile, they bore the body to +the hermitage of Santa Catalina, near the bridge of Orbigo, and there it +remained until night, when Messer Anton returned without the desired +license; so they buried Claramonte in unconsecrated ground near the +hermitage, with all possible honor and amid the tears of the assembled +knights. This mournful event does not seem, however, to have made a very +deep impression, for that same afternoon the jousting was continued. + +The remaining days were marked by no unusual occurrence: several were +seriously but not fatally wounded, and one by one the defenders of the +Pass were disabled; so that when the 9th of August, the last day of the +jousts, arrived, Sancho de Ravenal was the only one of the ten defenders +who was able to enter the lists. He maintained the Pass that day against +two knights, and then the jousts were declared ended. When the decision +was known there was great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, and the +lists were illuminated with torches. The judges returned the spurs which +still hung in the stand to the owners who through lack of time had not +been able to joust. Quiñones and eight of his companions (Lope de Aller +was confined to his bed by his wounds) entered the lists in the same +manner and order as on the first day, and halting before the judges +Quiñones addressed them as follows: "It is known to Your Honors how I +presented myself here thirty days ago with these companions, and the +cause of my so doing was to terminate the captivity in which until this +moment I was to a very virtuous lady, in token of which I have worn this +iron collar continually every Thursday. The condition of my ransom was, +as you know, three hundred lances broken or guarding this Pass thirty +days, awaiting knights and gentlemen who should free me from said +captivity; and whereas I believe, honorable sirs, that I have fulfilled +everything according to the terms set down at the beginning, I therefore +beg you will command me to remove this iron collar in testimony of my +liberty." + +The judges answered briefly as follows: "Virtuous gentleman and knight, +after hearing your declaration, which seems just and true, we hereby +declare your enterprise completed and your ransom paid; and be it known +to all present that of the three hundred lances mentioned in the +agreement but few remain yet to be broken, and these would not have +remained unbroken had it not been for lack of adversaries. We therefore +command the king-at-arms and the herald to remove the collar from your +neck and declare you from this time henceforth free from your enterprise +and ransom." | The king-at-arms and the herald then descended from the +stand, and in the presence of the notaries with due solemnity took the +collar from Quiñones' neck in fulfilment of the judges' command. + +During the thirty days' jousting sixty-eight knights had entered the +lists: of these, one, Messer Arnoldo de la Floresta Bermeja (Arnold von +Rothwald?), was a German; one an Italian, Messer Luis de Aversa; one +Breton,[10] three Valencians, one Portuguese, thirteen Aragonese, four +Catalans, and the remaining forty-four were from the Castiles and other +parts of Spain. The number of courses run was seven hundred and +twenty-seven, and one hundred and sixty-six lances were broken. Quiñones +was afterward killed by Gutierre Quijada, one of the knights who took +part in the Passo Honroso, and with whom he seems to have had some kind +of a feud. Quiñones' sword may still be seen at Madrid in the Royal +Armory, No. 1917. + +T.F. CRANE. + + + + +AUTOMATISM. + +CONCLUDING PAPER. + + +A few months ago, walking along Fifteenth street, I came up behind a +friend and said, "Good-morning." No answer. "Good-morning, sir," a +little louder.--"Oh, excuse me: I did not hear you the first time."--" +How then did you know that I had spoken twice?" My friend was +nonplussed, but what had happened was this: on my first speaking the +impulse of the voice had fallen upon his ear and started a nerve-wave +which had struggled up as far as the lower apparatus at the base of the +brain, and, passing through this, had probably even reached the higher +nerve-centres in the surface of the cerebrum, near to which +consciousness resides, but not in sufficient force to arouse +consciousness. When, however, the attention was excited by my second +address, it perceived the first faint impulse which had been registered +upon the protoplasm of the nerve-centres, although unfelt. Probably most +of my readers have had a similar experience. A word spoken, but not +consciously heard, has a moment afterward been detected by an effort as +distinctly conscious as that made by the man who is attempting to +decipher some old faint manuscript. This incident and its explanation +will serve to illustrate the relation which seems to exist between +consciousness and sensation, and also between consciousness and the +general mental actions. + +It will perhaps render our thinking more accurate if we attempt to get a +clear idea just here as to what consciousness is and what it is not. +Various definitions of the term have been given, but the simplest and +truest seems to be that it is a knowledge of the present existence of +self, and perhaps also of surrounding objects, although it is +conceivable that a conscious person might be shut off from all contact +with the external world by abolition of the senses. Consciousness is +certainly not what the philosopher and the theologian call the Ego, or +the personality of the individual. A blow on the head puts an end for +the time being to consciousness, but not to the man's personality. +Neither is consciousness the same as the sense of personal identity, +although it is closely connected with it. The conviction of a man that +he is the same person through the manifold changes which occur in him as +the successive years go on is evidently based on consciousness and +memory. This is well illustrated by some very curious cases in which the +sense or knowledge of personal identity has been completely lost. Not +long ago an instance of such complete loss was recorded by Doctor +Hewater (_Hospital Gazette_, November, 1879). The gentleman who was the +subject of this loss found himself standing upon the dépôt-platform in +Belaire City, Ohio, utterly ignorant of who he was or where he came from +or where he was going to. He had a little money in his pocket, and in +his hand a small port-manteau which contained a pair of scissors and a +change of linen. He was well dressed, and on stating at the nearest +hotel his strange condition and asking for a bed, was received as a +guest. In the evening he went out and attended a temperance lecture. +Excited by the eloquence of the speaker, he was seized with an +uncontrollable impulse, rushed from the room and began to smash with a +club the windows of a neighboring tavern. The roughs ran out of the +saloon and beat him very badly, breaking his arm: this brought him to +the police-station, and thence to the hospital. For months every effort +was made to identify him, but at the date of reporting without avail. He +was known in the hospital as "Ralph," that name having been found on his +underclothing. His knowledge upon all subjects unconnected with his +identity is correct: his mental powers are good, and he has shown +himself expert at figures and with a pen. For a long time it was thought +that he was feigning, but every one about him was finally convinced that +he is what he says he is--namely, a man without knowledge of his +personal identity. This curious case, which is by no means unparalleled +in the annals of psychological medicine, shows how distinct memory is +from consciousness. Memory of the past was in Ralph entirely abolished +so far as concerned his own personality, but consciousness was perfect, +and the results of previous mental training remained, as is shown by his +use of figures. It was as though there was a dislocation between +consciousness and the memory of self. + +The distinctness of consciousness from memory is also shown by dreams. +Events which have passed are often recalled during the unconsciousness +of sleep. The curious although common carrying of the memory of a dream +over from the unconsciousness of sleep to the consciousness of waking +movements further illustrates the complete distinction between the two +cerebral functions. + +If memory, then, be not part of consciousness, what is its nature? There +is a law governing nervous actions both in health and disease which is +known as that of habitual action. The curious reflex movements made by +the frog when acid is put upon its foot, as detailed in my last paper, +were explained by this law. The spinal cord, after having frequently +performed a certain act under the stimulus of conscious sensation, +becomes so accustomed to perform that act that it does it when the +oft-felt peripheral impulse comes again to it, although the cerebral +functions and consciousness are suspended. A nerve-centre, even of the +lowest kind, once moulded by repeated acts, retains their +impression--i.e. remembers them. Learning to walk is, as was shown in +the last paper, training the memory of the lower nerve-centres at the +base of the brain until at last they direct the movements of walking +without aid from consciousness. The musician studies a piece of music. +At first the notes are struck in obedience to a conscious act of the +will founded upon a conscious recognition of the printed type. By and by +the piece is so well known that it is played even when the attention is +directed to some other subject; that is, the act of playing has been +repeated until the lower nerve-centres, which preside over the movements +of the fingers during the playing, have been so impressed that when once +the impulses are started they flow on uninterruptedly until the whole +set has been gone through and the piece of music is finished. This is +the result of memory of the lower nerve-centres. At first, the child +reads only by a distinct conscious effort of memory, recalling painfully +each word. After a time the words become so impressed upon the lower +nerve-centres that we may read on when our attention is directed to some +other thing. Thus, often we read aloud and are unconscious of what we +have read, precisely as the compositor habitually sets up pages of +manuscript without the faintest idea of what it is all about. This law +of habitual action applies not only to the lower nerve-centres in their +healthy condition, but with equal force in disease. It is notorious that +one of the great difficulties in the cure of epilepsy is the habit which +is acquired by the nerve-centres of having at intervals attacks of +convulsive discharge of nerve-force. Some years since I saw in +consultation a case which well illustrates this point. A boy was struck +in the head with a brick, and dropped unconscious. On coming to be was +seized with an epileptic convulsion. These convulsions continually +recurred for many months before I saw him. He never went two hours +without them, and had usually from thirty to forty a day--some, it is +true, very slight, but others very severe. Medicines had no influence +over him, and with the idea that there might be a point of irritation in +the wound itself causing the epilepsy, the scar was taken out. The +result was that the seizures were the same day reduced very much in +frequency, and in a short time became amenable to treatment, so that +finally complete recovery occurred. He had, however, probably fifty +convulsions in all after the removal of the scar before this result was +achieved. Undoubtedly, in this case the point of irritation was removed +by the operation. The cause of the convulsions having been taken away, +they should have stopped at once. But here the law of habitual action +asserted itself, and it was necessary to overcome the remembrance of the +disease by the nerve-centres. It is plain that the higher nerve-centre +remembers the idea or fact because it is impressed by ideas and facts, +precisely as the lower spinal nerve-centres in the frog remember +irritations and movements which have impressed them. The faculty of +memory resides in all nerve-centres: the nature of that which is +remembered depends upon the function of the individual centre. A +nerve-cell which thinks remembers thought--a nerve-cell which causes +motion remembers motion. + +The so-called cases of double consciousness are perfectly simple in +their explanation when the true nature of memory is borne in mind. In +these cases the subject seems to lead a double life. The attacks usually +come on suddenly. In the first attack all memory of the past is lost. +The person is as an untaught child, and is forced to begin re-education. +In some of these cases this second education has gone on for weeks, and +advanced perhaps beyond the stage of reading, when suddenly the patient +passes back to his original condition, losing now all memory of events +which had occurred and all the knowledge acquired in what may be called +his second state, but regaining all that he had originally possessed. +Weeks or months afterward the second state reoccurs, the individual now +forgetting all memory of the first or natural condition. It is usually +found that events happening and knowledge acquired during the first +attack of what we have called the second state are remembered in +subsequent returns, so that the second education can be taken up at the +point at which it was lost, and progress be made. This alternation of +conditions has in some instances gone on for years, the patient living, +as it were, two lives at broken intervals. This condition, usually +called double consciousness, is not double consciousness at all, but, if +the term may be allowed, double memory. It is evidently allied in its +nature to the loss of the sense of personal identity. Certain phenomena +of remembrance seen frequently in exhausting diseases, and especially in +old age, show the permanence of impressions made upon the higher +nerve-centres, and are also very similar in their nature to this +so-called double consciousness. Not long since a very aged lady of +Philadelphia, who was at the point of death, began to talk in an unknown +tongue, soon losing entirely her power of expressing herself in English. +No one could for a time make out the language she was speaking, but it +was finally found to be Portuguese; and in tracing the history of the +octogenarian it was discovered that until four or five years of age she +had been brought up in Rio Janeiro, where Portuguese is spoken. There is +little difference between the nature of such a case and that of the +so-called double consciousness, both involving the forgetting of that +which has been known for years. + +There is a curious mental condition sometimes produced by large doses of +hasheesh which might be termed double consciousness more correctly than +the state to which the name is usually applied. I once took an enormous +dose of this substance. After suffering from a series of symptoms which +it is not necessary here to detail, I was seized with a horrible +undefined fear, as of impending death, and began at the same time to +have marked periods when all connection seemed to be severed between the +external world and myself. During these periods I was unconscious in so +far that I was oblivious of all external objects, but on coming out of +one it was not a blank, dreamless void upon which I looked back, a mere +empty space, but rather a period of active but aimless life, full, not +of connected thought, but of disjointed images. The mind, freed from the +ordinary laws of association, passed, as it were, with lightning-like +rapidity from one idea to another. The duration of these attacks was but +a few seconds, but to me they seemed endless. Although I was perfectly +conscious during the intermissions between the paroxysms, all power of +measuring time was lost: seconds appeared to be hours--minutes grew to +days--hours stretched out to infinity. I would look at my watch, and +then after an hour or two, as I thought, would look again and find that +scarcely a minute had elapsed. The minute-hand appeared motionless, as +though graven in the face itself: the laggard second-hand moved so +slowly that it seemed a hopeless task to watch it during its whole +infinite round of a minute, and I always gave up in despair before the +sixty seconds had elapsed. When my mind was most lucid there was a +distinct duplex action in regard to the duration of time. I would think +to myself, "It has been so long since a certain event!"--an hour, for +example, since the doctor was summoned--but Reason would say, "No, it +has been only a few minutes: your thoughts and feelings are caused by +the hasheesh." Nevertheless, I was not able to shake off, even for a +moment, this sense of the almost indefinite prolongation of time. +Gradually the periods of unconsciousness became longer and more +frequent, and the oppressive feeling of impending death more intense. It +was like a horrible nightmare: each successive paroxysm was felt to be +the longest I had suffered. As I came out of it a voice seemed +constantly saying, "You are getting worse; your paroxysms are growing +longer and deeper; they will overmaster you; you will die." A sense of +personal antagonism between my will-power and myself, as affected by the +drug, grew very strong. I felt as though my only chance was to struggle +against these paroxysms--that I must constantly arouse myself by an +effort of will; and that effort was made with infinite toil and pain. It +seemed to me as if some evil spirit had the control of the whole of me +except the will, and was in determined conflict with that, the last +citadel of my being. Once or twice during a paroxysm I felt myself +mounting upward, expanding, dilating, dissolving into the wide confines +of space, overwhelmed by a horrible, unutterable despair. Then by a +tremendous effort I seemed to break loose and to start up with the +shuddering thought, "Next time you will not be able to throw this off; +and what then?" The sense of double consciousness which I had to some +extent is often, under the action of hasheesh, much more distinct. I +have known patients to whom it seemed that they themselves sitting upon +the chair were in continual conversation with a second self standing in +front of them. The explanation of this curious condition is a difficult +one. It is possible that the two sides of the brain, which are +accustomed in health to work as one organ, are disjoined by the poison, +so that one half of the brain thinks and acts in opposition to the other +half. + +From what has already been said it is plain that memory is entirely +distinct from consciousness, and that it is in a certain sense +automatic, or at least an attribute of all nerve-centres. If this be so, +it would seem probable, _a priori_, that other intellectual acts are +also distinct from consciousness. For present purposes the activities of +the cerebrum may be divided into the emotional and the more +strictly-speaking intellectual acts. A little thought will, I think, +convince any of my readers that emotions are as purely automatic as the +movements of the frog's hind leg. The Irishman who said that he was +really a brave man, although he had a cowardly pair of legs which always +ran away with him, was far from speaking absurdly. It is plain that +passion is something entirely beyond the conscious will, because it is +continually excited from without, and because we are unable to produce +it by a mere effort of the will without some external cause. The common +phrase, "He is working himself up into a passion," indicates a +perception of the fact that consciousness sometimes employs memories, +thoughts, associations, etc. to arouse the lower nerve-centres that are +connected with the emotion of anger. It is so also with various other +emotions. The soldier who habitually faces death in the foremost rank of +the battle, and yet shrinks in mortal fear or antipathy from a mouse, is +not an unknown spectacle. It is clear that his fear of the little animal +is based not upon reason, but upon an uncontrollable sensitiveness in +his nervous system acquired by inheritance or otherwise. It does not +follow from this that conscious will is not able to affect emotion. As +already pointed out, it can arouse emotion by using the proper means, +and it undoubtedly can, to a greater or less extent, directly subdue +emotion. The law of inhibition, as it is called by the physiologist, +dominates the whole nervous system. Almost every nerve-centre has above +it a higher centre whose function it is directly to repress or subdue +the activity of the lower centre. A familiar instance of this is seen in +the action of the heart: there are certain nerve-centres which when +excited lessen the rate of the heart's beat, and are even able to stop +it altogether. The relation of the will-power to the emotions is +directly inhibitory. The will is able to repress the activity of those +centres which preside over anger. In the man with red hair these centres +may be very active and the will-power weak; hence the inhibitory +influence of the will is slight and the man gets angry easily. In the +phlegmatic temperament the anger-centres are slow to action, the +will-power strong, and the man is thrown off his balance with +difficulty. It is well known that power grows with exercise, and when we +habitually use the will in controlling the emotional centres its power +continually increases. The man learning self-control is simply drilling +the lower emotional centres into obedience to the repressive action of +the higher will. Without further demonstration, it is clear that emotion +is distinct from conscious will, and is automatic in the sense in which +the term has been used in this article. + +Imagination also is plainly distinct from consciousness. It acts during +sleep. Often, indeed, it runs riot during the slumbers of the night, but +at times it works with an automatic regularity exceeding its powers +during the waking moments. It is also true that judgment is exercised in +sleep, and that reason sometimes exerts its best efforts in that state. +But not only do the intellectual nets go on without consciousness during +sleep, but also while we are awake. Some years since I was engaged in +working upon a book requiring a good deal of thought. Very frequently I +would be unable to solve certain problems, but leaving them would find a +day or two afterward, on taking pen in hand, that the solution traced +itself without effort on the paper clearly and logically. During the +sleeping hours, or during the waking hours of a busy professional life, +the brain had, without my consciousness, been solving the difficulties. +This experience is by no means a peculiar one. Many scientific workers +have borne testimony to a similar habit of the cerebrum. The late Sir W. +Rowan Hamilton, the discoverer of the mathematical method known as that +of the quaternions, states that his mind suddenly solved that problem +after long work when he was thinking of something else. He says in one +place: "Tomorrow will be the fifteenth birthday of the quaternions. They +started into life or light full grown on the 16th of October, 1843, as I +was walking with Lady Hamilton to Dublin and came up to Brougham Bridge; +that is to say, I then and there felt the galvanic circle of thought +closed, and the sparks which fell from it were the fundamental equations +between _I, F_ and _K_ exactly as I have used them ever since. I felt +the problem to have been at that moment solved--an intellectual want +relieved which had haunted me for at least fifteen years before." Mr. +Appolo, a distinguished scientific inventor, stated in the Proceedings +of the Royal Society that it was his habit to get the bearings and facts +of a case during the day and go to bed, and wake the next morning with +the problem solved. If the problem was a difficult one he always passed +a restless night. Examples might be multiplied. Sir Benjamin Brodie, +speaking of his own mental action, states that when he was unable to +proceed further in some investigation he was accustomed to let the +matter drop. Then "after an interval of time, without any addition to my +stock of knowledge, I have found the obscurity and confusion in which +the subject was originally enveloped to have cleared away. The facts +have seemed all to settle themselves in their right places, and their +mutual relations to have become apparent, although I have not been +sensible of having made any distinct effort for that purpose." + +Not only is there such a thing, then, as unconscious thought, but it is +probable that the best thinking is rarely, if ever, done under the +influence of consciousness. The poet creates his work when the +inspiration is on him and he is forgetful of himself and the world. +Consciousness may aid in pruning and polishing, but in creating it often +interferes with, rather than helps, the cerebral action. I think any one +of my readers who has done any literary or scientific writing will agree +that his or her best work is performed when self and surrounding objects +have disappeared from thought and consciousness scarcely exists more +than it does in a dream. Sometimes the individual is conscious of the +flow of an undercurrent of mental action, although this does not rise to +the level of distinct recognition. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a +business-man of Boston who, whilst considering a very important +question, was conscious of an action going on in his brain so unusual +and painful as to excite his apprehension that he was threatened with +palsy; but after some hours his perplexity was all at once cleared up by +the natural solution of the problem which was troubling him, worked out, +as he believed, in the obscure and restless interval. "Jumping to a +conclusion," a process to which the female sex is said to be especially +prone, is often due to unconscious cerebration, the reasoning being so +rapid that the consciousness cannot follow the successive steps. It is +related that Lord Mansfield once gave the advice to a younger friend +newly appointed to a colonial judgeship, "Never give reasons for your +decisions. Your judgments will very probably be right, but your reasons +will almost certainly be wrong." The brain of the young judge evidently +worked unconsciously with accuracy, but was unable to trace the steps +along which it really travelled. + +We are not left to the unaided study of our mental processes for proof +that the human brain is a mechanism. In the laboratory of Professor +Goltz in Strasburg I saw a terrier from which he had removed, by +repeated experiments, all the surface of the brain, thereby reducing the +animal to a simple automaton. Looked at while lying in his stall, he +seemed at first in no wise different from other dogs: he took food when +offered to him, was fat, sleek and very quiet. When I approached him he +took no notice of me, but when the assistant caught him by the tail he +instantly became the embodiment of fury. He had not sufficient +perceptive power to recognize the point of assault, so that his keeper, +standing behind him, was not in danger. With flashing eyes and hair all +erect the dog howled and barked furiously, incessantly snapping and +biting, first on this side and then on that, tearing with his fore legs +and in every way manifesting rage. When his tail was dropped by the +attendant and his head touched, the storm at once subsided, the fury was +turned into calm, and the animal, a few seconds before so rageful, was +purring like a cat and stretching out its head for caresses. This +curious process could be repeated indefinitely. Take hold of his tail, +and instantly the storm broke out afresh: pat his head, and all was +tenderness. It was possible to play at will with the passions of the +animal by the slightest touches. + +During the Franco-German contest a French soldier was struck in the head +with a bullet and left on the field for dead, but subsequently showed +sufficient life to cause him to be carried to the hospital, where he +finally recovered his general health, but remained in a mental state +very similar to that of Professor Goltz's dog. As he walked about the +rooms and corridors of the soldiers' home in Paris he appeared to the +stranger like an ordinary man, unless it were in his apathetic manner. +When his comrades were called to the dinner-table he followed, sat down +with them, and, the food being placed upon his plate and a knife and +fork in his hands, would commence to eat. That this was not done in +obedience to thought or knowledge was shown by the fact that his dinner +could be at once interrupted by awakening a new train of feeling by a +new external impulse. Put a crooked stick resembling a gun into his +hand, and at once the man was seized with a rage comparable to that +produced in the Strasburg dog by taking hold of his tail. The fury of +conflict was on him: with a loud yell he would recommence the skirmish +in which he had been wounded, and, crying to his comrades, would make a +rush at the supposed assailant. Take the stick out of his hand, and at +once his apathy would settle upon him; give him a knife and fork, and, +whether at the table or elsewhere, he would make the motions of eating; +hand him a spade, and he would begin to dig. It is plain that the +impulse produced by seeing his comrades move to the dining-room started +the chain of automatic movements which resulted in his seating himself +at the table. The weapon called into new life the well-known acts of the +battle-field. The spade brought back the day when, innocent of blood, he +cultivated the vineyards of sunny France. + +In both the dog and the man just spoken of the control of the will over +the emotions and mental acts was evidently lost, and the mental +functions were performed only in obedience to impulses from +without--i.e. were automatic. The human brain is a complex and very +delicate mechanism, so uniform in its actions, so marvellous in its +creation, that it is able to measure the rapidity of its own processes. +There are scarcely two brains which work exactly with the same rapidity +and ease. One man thinks faster than another man for reasons as purely +physical as those which give to one man a faster gait than that of +another. Those who move quickly are apt to think quickly, the whole +nervous system performing its processes with rapidity. This is not, +however, always the case, as it is possible for the brain to be +differently constructed, so far as concerns its rapidity of action, from +the spinal cord of the same individual. Our power of measuring time +without instruments is probably based upon the cerebral system of each +individual being accustomed to move at a uniform rate. Experience has +taught the brain that it thinks so many thoughts or does so much work in +such a length of time, and it judges that so much time has elapsed when +it has done so much work. The extraordinary sense of prolongation of +time which occurs in the intoxication produced by hasheesh is probably +due to the fact that under the influence of the drug the brain works +very much faster than it habitually does. Having produced a multitude of +images or thoughts in a moment, the organ judges that a corresponding +amount of time has elapsed. Persons are occasionally seen who have the +power of waking at any desired time: going to bed at ten o'clock, they +will rouse themselves at four, five or six in the morning, as they have +made up their minds to do the previous night. The explanation of this +curious faculty seems to be that in these persons the brain-functions go +on with so much regularity during sleep that the brain is enabled to +judge, though unconsciously, when the time fixed upon has arrived, and +by an unconscious effort to recall consciousness. + +Of course the subject of automatism might have been discussed at far +greater length than is allowable in the limits of two magazine articles, +but sufficient has probably been said to show the strong current of +modern physiological psychology toward proving that all ordinary mental +actions, except the exercise of the conscious will, are purely physical, +produced by an instrument which works in a method not different from +that in which the glands of the mouth secrete saliva and the tubules of +the stomach gastric juice. Some of my readers may say this is pure +materialism, or at least leads to materialism. No inquirer who pauses to +think how his investigation is going to affect his religious belief is +worthy to be called scientific. The scientist, rightly so called, is a +searcher after truth, whatever may be the results of the discovery of +the truth. Modern science, however, has not proved the truth of +materialism. It has shown that the human organism is a wonderful +machine, but when we come to the further question as to whether this +machine is inhabited by an immortal principle which rules it and directs +it, or whether it simply runs itself, science has not, and probably +cannot, give a definite answer. It has reached its limit of inquiry, and +is unable to cross the chasm that lies beyond. There are men who +believe that there is nothing in the body save the body itself, and that +when that dies all perishes: there are others, like the writer, who +believe that they feel in their mental processes a something which they +call "will," which governs and directs the actions of the machine, and +which, although very largely influenced by external surroundings, is +capable of rising above the impulses from without, leading them to +believe in the existence of more than flesh--of soul and God. The +materialist, so far as natural science is concerned, stands upon logical +ground, but no less logical is the foundation of him who believes in +human free-will and immortality. The decision as to the correctness of +the beliefs of the materialist or of the theist must be reached by other +data than those of natural science. + +H.C. WOOD, M.D. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM AND DEMOCRATIC IDEAS. + + +A movement which appeals not to the emotions, but to the +intellect--whose advocates aim at enlightening-the public mind and +convincing it of the truth of some new or disregarded principle, and the +necessity of enforcing it--needs above all things open and active +opposition, both as a stimulant to its supporters and as a means of +arousing general attention. It has been very unfortunate for our +Civil-Service Reformers that they have never been able to provoke +discussion. They have had the field of argument all to themselves. Their +repeated challenges have been received only with silent respect, +scornful indifference, or expressions of encouragement still more +depressing. Those whose hostility they were prepared to encounter have +been the readiest to acknowledge the truth of their propositions-- +considered as pure abstractions--and have even invited +them to apply their system--in conjunction with that which it seeks to +supplant. Meanwhile, the popular interest has been kept busily absorbed +by issues of a different nature; and the Reformers, snubbed in quarters +where they had confidently counted on aid, and hustled from the arena in +which they had fondly imagined they were to play a prominent part and +exert a decisive influence, are now, it is announced, about to devote +their energies to the quiet propagation of their views by means of +tracts and other publications, abstaining from any appearance in the +domain of actual politics either as a distinct party or as an organized +body of independent voters appealing to the hopes and fears of existing +parties, and ready to co-operate with one or the other according to the +inducements offered for their support. + +We heartily wish them success in this new enterprise, and it is as a +contribution to their efforts that we publish in this number of the +Magazine an article which, so far as our observation extends, is the +first direct argumentative attack upon their doctrines and open defence +of the system they have assailed. We shall not undertake to anticipate +their reply, but I shall content ourselves with pointing out, on the +principle of _fas est ab hoste doceri,_ what they may learn from this +attack, and especially what hints may be derived from it in regard to +the proper objective point of their proposed operations. Hitherto, if we +mistake not, they have been led to suppose that the only obstacles in +their way are the interested antagonism of the "politicians" and the +ignorant apathy of the great mass of the people, and it is because they +have found themselves powerless to make head against the tactics of the +former class that they intend to confine themselves henceforth to the +work of awaking and enlightening the latter. There is always danger, +however, when we are expounding our pet theories to a group of silent +listeners, of ignoring their state of mind in regard to the +subject-matter and mistaking the impression produced by our eloquence. +George Borrow tells us that when preaching in Rommany to a congregation +of Gypsies he felt highly flattered by the patient attention of his +hearers, till he happened to notice that they all had their eyes fixed +in a diabolical squint. Something of the same kind would, we fear, be +the effect on a large number of persons of well-meant expositions of the +English civil-service reform and its admirable results. Nor will any +appeals to the moral sense excite an indignation at the workings of our +present system sufficiently deep and general to demand its overthrow. +Civil-service reform had a far easier task in England than it has here, +and forces at its back which are here actively or inertly opposed to it. +There the system of patronage was intimately connected with +oligarchical rule; official positions were not so much monopolized by a +victorious party as by a privileged class; the government of the day had +little interest in maintaining the system, the bulk of the nation had a +direct interest in upsetting it, and its downfall was a natural result +of the growth of popular power and the decline of aristocracy. Our +system, however similar in its character and effects, had no such +origin; it does not belong to some peculiar institution which we are +seeking to get rid of: on the contrary, it has its roots in certain +conceptions of the nature of government and popular freedom--of the +relations between a people and those who administer its affairs--which +are all but universally current among us. + +It is this last point which is clearly and forcibly presented in the +article of our contributor, and which it will behoove the Reformers not +to overlook. Nothing is more characteristic of the American mind, in +reference to political ideas, than its strong conservatism. This fact, +which has often puzzled foreign observers accustomed to connect +democracy with innovating tendencies and violent fluctuations, is yet +easily explained. Though ours is a new country, its system of government +is really older than that of almost any other civilized country. In the +century during which it has existed intact and without any material +modification the institutions of most other nations have undergone a +complete change, in some cases of form and structure, in others of +theory and essence. Even England, which boasts of the stability of its +government and its immunity from the storms that have overturned so many +thrones and disorganized so many states, has experienced a fundamental, +though gradual and peaceable, revolution. There, as elsewhere, the +centre of power has changed, the chain of tradition has been broken, and +new conceptions of the functions of government and its relations to the +governed have taken the place of the old ones. But in America nothing of +this kind has occurred: the "old order" has not passed away, nor have +its foundations undergone the least change; the municipal and colonial +institutions under which we first exercised the right of +self-government, and the Constitution which gave us our national +baptism, are still the fountain of all our political ideas; and our +party struggles are not waged about new principles or animated by new +watch words, but are fenced and guided by the maxims transmitted by the +founders of the republic. This is our strength and our safeguard against +wild experiments, but it is also an impediment to every suggestion of +improvement. It binds us to the letter of tradition, leads us to +confound the accidental with the essential, and gives to certain notions +and certain words a potency which must be described as an anachronism. +We still use the language of the Revolutionary epoch, recognize no +perils but those against which our ancestors had to guard, and put faith +in the efficacy of methods that have no longer an object, and of phrases +that have lost their original significance. Because George III. +distributed offices at his pleasure as rewards, and bound the holders to +party services in conformity with his will, the sovereign people is to +do the same. "Rotation in office" having been the means in the +eighteenth century of dispelling political stagnation and checking +jobbery and corruption, it is still the only process for correcting +abuses and getting the public service properly performed. The prime duty +of all good citizens is to emulate the incessant political activity of +their patriotic forefathers, and it is owing solely to a too general +neglect of this duty that ballot-stuffing and machine-running, and all +the other evils unknown in early days and in primitive communities, have +come into existence and gained sway throughout the land. These and +similar views, according to our observation, characterize what we may +without disrespect, and without confining the remark to the rural +districts, term the provincial mind, and wherever they exist the ideas +of the Civil-Service Reformers are not only not understood or treated as +visionary, but are regarded with aversion and distrust as foreign, +monstrous and inconsistent with popular freedom and republican +government. + + +AN UNFINISHED PAGE OF HISTORY. + +I can easily understand why educated Americans cross the Atlantic every +year in shoals in search of the picturesque; and I can understand, too, +all that they say of the relief which ivied ruins and cathedrals and +galleries, or any other reminders of past ages, give to their eyes, +oppressed so long by our interminable rows of store-box houses, our +pasteboard villas, the magnificence of our railway accommodations for +Ladies and Gents, and all the general gaseous glitter which betrays how +young and how rich we are. But I cannot understand why it is that their +eyes, thus trained, should fail to see the exceptional picturesqueness +of human life in this country. The live man is surely always more +dramatic and suggestive than a house or a costume, provided we have eyes +to interpret him; and this people, as no other, are made up of the +moving, active deposits and results of world-old civilizations and +experiments in living. + +Outwardly, if you choose, the country is like one of the pretentious +houses of its rich citizens--new, smug, complacently commonplace--but +within, like the house again, it is filled with rare bits gathered out +of every age and country and jumbled together in utter confusion. If you +ride down Seventh street in a horse-car, you are in a psychological +curio-shop. On one side, very likely, is a Russian Jew just from the +Steppes; on the other, a negro with centuries of heathendom and slavery +hinting themselves in lip and eye; the driver is a Fenian, with the +blood of the Phoenicians in his veins; in front of you is a gentleman +with the unmistakable Huguenot nose, and chin; while an almond-eyed +pagan, disguised behind moustache and eye-glasses, courteously takes +your fare and drops it for you in the Slawson box. Nowhere do all the +elements of Tragedy and Comedy play so strange a part as on the +dead-level of this American stage. It is because it is so dead a level +that we fail to see the part they play--because "furious Goth and fiery +Hun" meet, not on the battle-field, but in the horse-car, dropping their +cents together in a Slawson box. + +For example, as to the tragedy. + +I met at dinner not long ago a lady who was introduced to me under a +French name, but whose clear olive complexion, erect carriage and +singular repose of manner would indicate her rather to be a Spaniard. +She wore a red rose in the coils of her jetty hair, and another fastened +the black lace of her corsage. Her eyes, which were slow, dark and +brilliant, always rested on you an instant before she spoke with that +fearless candor which is not found in the eyes of a member of any race +that has ever been enslaved. I was told that her rank was high among her +own people, and in her movements and voice there were that quiet +simplicity and total lack of self-consciousness which always belong +either to a man or woman of the highest breeding, or to one whose +purpose in life is so noble as to lift him above all considerations of +self. Although a foreigner, she spoke English with more purity than most +of the Americans at the table, but with a marked and frequent recurrence +of forcible but half-forgotten old idioms; which was due, as! learned +afterward, to her having had no book of English literature to study for +several years but Shakespeare. I observed that she spoke but seldom, and +to but one person at a time; but when she did, her casual talk was the +brimming over of a mind of great original force as yet full and unspent. +She was, besides, a keen observer who had studied much, but seen more. + +This lady, in a word, was one who would deserve recognition by the best +men and women in any country; and she received it here, as many of the +readers of _Lippincott_, who will recognize my description, will +remember. She was caressed and feted by literary and social celebrities +in Washington and New York; Boston made much of her; Longfellow and +Holmes made verses in her honor; prying reporters gave accounts of her +singular charm and beauty to the public in the daily papers. + +She was accompanied by two of the men of her family. They did not speak +English, but they were men of strong practical sense and business +capacity, with the odd combination in their character of that +exaggerated perception of honorable dealing which we are accustomed to +call chivalric. They had, too, a grave dignity and composure of bearing +which would have befitted Spanish hidalgos, and beside which our pert, +sociable American manner and slangy talk were sadly belittled. These men +(for I had a reason in making particular inquiries concerning them) were +in private life loyal friends, good citizens, affectionate husbands and +fathers--in a word, Christian men, honest from the marrow to the +outside. + +Now to the strange part of my story, revolting enough to our republican +ears. This lady and her people, in the country to which they belong, are +held in a subjection to which that of the Russian serf was comparative +freedom. They are held legally as the slaves not of individuals, but of +the government, which has absolute power over their persons, lives and +property. Its manner of exercising that power is, however, peculiar. +They are compelled to live within certain enclosures. Each enclosure is +ruled by a man of the dominant race, usually of the lower class, who, as +a rule, gains the place by bribing the officer of government who has +charge of these people. The authority of this man within the limits of +the enclosure is literally as autocratic as that of the Russian czar. He +distributes the rations intended by the government for the support of +these people, or such part of them as he thinks fit, retaining whatever +amount he chooses for himself. There is nothing to restrain him in these +robberies. In consequence, the funds set aside by the government for the +support of its wretched dependants are stolen so constantly by the +officers at the capital and the petty tyrants of the separate enclosures +that the miserable creatures almost yearly starve and freeze to death +from want. Their resource would be, of course, as they are in a +civilized country, to work at trades, to farm, etc. But this is not +permitted to them. Another petty officer is appointed in each enclosure +to barter goods for the game or peltry which they bring in or crops that +they manage to raise. He fixes his own price for both his goods and +theirs, and cheats them by wholesale at his leisure. There is no appeal: +they are absolutely forbidden to trade with any other person. The men of +my friend's family--educated men and shrewd in business as any merchant +of Philadelphia--when at home were liable to imprisonment and a fine of +five hundred dollars if they bought from or sold to any other person +than this one man. They are, too, taught no trade or profession. Each +enclosure has its appointed blacksmith, carpenter, etc. of the dominant +class, who, naturally, will not share their profits by teaching their +trade to the others. + +Within the enclosures my friend and her people, no matter how +enlightened or refined they may be, are herded, and under the same +rules, as so many animals. They cannot leave the enclosure without +passes, such as were granted to our slaves before the war when they +wished to go outside of the plantation. This woman, when seated at +President Hayes's table, the equal in mind and breeding of any of her +companions, was, by the laws of her country, a runaway, legally liable +to be haled by the police back to her enclosure, and shot if she +resisted. She and her people are absolutely unprotected by any law. It +is indeed the only case, so far as I know, in any Christian country, in +which a single class are so set aside, unprotected by any law. When our +slaves were killed or tortured by inhuman masters, there was at least +some show of justice for them. The white murderer went through some form +of trial and punishment. The slave, though a chattel, was still a human +being. But these people are not recognized by the law as human beings. +They cannot buy nor sell; they cannot hold property: if with their own +hands they build a house and gather about them the comforts of +civilization and the wife and children to which the poorest negro, the +most barbarous savage, has a right, any man of the dominant class can, +without violating any law, take possession of the house, ravage the +wife and thrust the children out to starve. The wrong-doer is subject to +no penalty. The victim has no right of appeal to the courts. Hence such +outrages are naturally of daily occurrence. Not only are they +perpetrated on individuals, but frequently there is a raid made upon the +whole of the inmates of one enclosure--whenever, in fact, the people in +the neighborhood fancy they would like to take possession of their land. +The kinsmen of my friend, with their clan numbering some seven hundred +souls--a peaceable, industrious Christian community, living on land +which had belonged to their ancestors for centuries--were swept off of +it a few years ago at the whim of two of their rulers: their houses and +poor little belongings were all left behind, and they were driven a +thousand miles into a sterile, malarious region where nearly half of +their number died. The story of their sufferings, their homesickness and +their despair on the outward journey, and of how still later some thirty +of them returned on foot, carrying the bones of those who had died to +lay them in their old homes, is one of the most dramatic pages in +history. De Quincey's "Flight of a Tartar Clan" does not equal it in +pathos or as a story of heroism and endurance. At the end of their +homeward journey, when almost within sight of their homes, the heroic +little band were seized by order of the ruler of their enclosure and +committed to prison. The tribe are still in the malarious swamps to +which they were exiled. Strangers hold their farms and the houses which +they built with their own hands. + +The anomalous condition of a people legally ranking as animals, and not +human beings, would naturally produce unpleasant consequences when they +are criminally the aggressors. When they steal or kill they cannot be +tried, sent to jail or hung as if they were human in the eye of the law. +The ruler of each enclosure is granted arbitrary power in such cases to +punish at his discretion. He is judge, jury, and often executioner. He +has a control over the lives of these people more absolute than that of +any Christian monarch over his subjects. If he thinks proper to shoot +the offender, he can call upon the regular army of the country to +sustain him. If the individual offender escapes, the whole of the +inmates of the enclosure are held responsible, and men, women and +children are slaughtered by wholesale and without mercy. + +My readers understand my little fable by this time. It is no fable, but +a disgraceful truth. + +The government under which a people--many of whom are educated, +enlightened Christian gentlemen--are denied the legal rights of human +beings and all protection of law is not the absolute despotism of Siara +or Russia, but the United States, the republic which proclaims itself +the refuge for the oppressed of all nations--the one spot on earth where +every man is entitled alike to life, liberty and the pursuit of +happiness. The only people in the world to whom it denies these rights +are not its quondam slaves, not pagans, not runaway convicts, not the +offscourings of any nation however degraded, but the original owners of +the country. + +The legal disability under which the Indian is held is as much of an +outrage on human rights, and as bald a contradiction of the doctrines on +which our republic is based, as negro slavery was. + +R.H.D. + + + + +A LITTLE IRELAND IN AMERICA. + + +The humorous side of life was never more vividly brought before me than +while living a few years ago in the vicinity of an Irish settlement in +one of the suburbs of New York. What we call "characters" were to be +found in every cottage--the commonplace was the exception. Indeed, I do +not remember that it existed at all in "The Lane," as this locality was +called. + +Perhaps among the inhabitants of The Lane none more deserved distinction +than Mary Magovern. The grandmother of a numerous family, she united all +the masculine and feminine virtues. About the stiff, spotless and +colossal frill of her cap curled wreaths of smoke from her stout +dhudeen as she sat before the door blacking the small boots of her +grandchildren, stopping from time to time to remove the pipe from her +mouth, that she might deliver in her full bass voice a peremptory order +to the large yellow dog that lay at her feet. It was usually on the +occasion of a carriage passing, when the dog would growl and rise. Very +quickly out came the pipe, and immediately followed the words, "Danger, +lay by thim intintions;" and the pipe was used as an indicator for the +next movement--namely, to patiently lie down again upon the ground. + +Mary Magovern kept a drinking-shop behind the living-rooms of her +cottage, and the immense prestige she had in The Lane must have had some +foundation in the power which this thriving business gave her, many of +her neighbors being under the obligation of debt to her. + +Mike Quinlan would have been her most frequent visitor had it not been +for the ever-open eye of Mrs. Quinlan, which caused her husband to seek +his delights by stealth at a village a mile away. Mike was an elderly +and handsome man, but his wits had ebbed out as the contents of the +wine-cup flowed in, and the beauty that had won so remarkable a person +as Mrs. Quinlan in its first glow was somewhat marred. He was the owner +of a small cart and a mule, and those who had stones or earth to move +usually remembered to employ poor Mike. But it was on foot, as a more +inconspicuous method of eluding the watchfulness of Mrs. Quinlan, that +Mike slipped away to the neighboring village of an afternoon, and it was +on foot that I one night saw Mrs. Quinlan going over the same road with +an invincible determination in her countenance and a small birch rod in +her hand. Mrs. Quinlan was somewhat younger than her lord and master: +she had a clear, bright-blue eye, a roseate color in her little slender +face, and gray hair tidily smoothed back beneath the dainty ruffles of +her cap, about which a black ribbon was tied. She wore short petticoats +and low shoes, and as she walked briskly along she smoothed her apron +with the disengaged hand, as if, the balance of the family +respectability having so wholly fallen upon her own shoulders, she would +not disturb it by permitting a disorderly wrinkle. Half an hour later +she passed again over the road, her face turned homeward and wearing an +even greater austerity, the birch rod grasped firmly in her hand, and +her worser half preceding her with a foolish smile upon his lips, half +of concession, half of pride in the power to which he stooped. + +Another of Mrs. Magovern's occasional visitors was Old Haley, who had +regular employment upon our own place. Like Mike Quinlan, he rejoiced in +a wife who was an ornament to her sex--a most respectable, handsome and +intelligent woman, though education had done little to sharpen her wits +or widen her experience. She could tell a one from a five dollar bill, +as her husband would proudly inform you, and she could cook a dinner, do +up a skirt or a frilled cap, keep a house or tend a sick friend, as well +as any woman in the land. "Maggie's a janeous!" her husband would remark +with a look of intense admiration. + +One evening Mrs. Haley made her appearance at our house, asking for an +audience of my mother. The object was to inform her--these sympathetic +people like to be advised in all their affairs--that being in need of +various household supplies she proposed on the following day to go to +the city and purchase them at the Washington Market. + +"I suppose you have been to the city before, Mrs. Haley?" remarked my +mother. + +"I have not, ma'am," said Mrs. Haley. + +"Had you not better take some friend with you who has been there before, +lest you should get lost?" + +"Faith, I had, ma'am: I had a right to have moor sinse an' think o' +that." + +So Mrs. Haley departed, returning again in company with Mary Magovern: +"Here's Mary Magovern, ma'am: she's goin' along wid me." + +"Ah, that's very well.--You know the city, Mary? you've been there?" + +"I have not, ma'am." + +"Why, what, then, is the use of your going with Mrs. Haley?" + +"We'll make a shtrict inquiry, ma'am." + +The next morning they started, and at four o'clock Old Haley came in +much anxiety of mind to seek comfort of my mother: "Maggie's not come, +ma'am. Faith, I'm throubled, for the city is a quare place." + +When it grew late Haley returned again and again, in ever-increasing +anxiety, to be reassured. At last, when the family were retiring to bed, +came Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Magovern to report their arrival. In spite of +the lateness of the hour my mother received them, and in spite of their +wearied and worn faces administered a gentle rebuke for the anxiety that +Mrs. Haley had caused her spouse. + +"Well, indade it's no wonder he was throubled," said Mrs. Haley, "an' +it's a wonder we got here at all. We got nothing at the Washington +Market, for we couldn't find it at all: I think they tuk it away to +Washington. It was in the mornin' airly that we got to the city, ma'am, +an' there was a koind of a carr, an' a gintleman up on the top of it, +an' anuther gintleman at the dure of it, wid the dure in his hand, an' +he sez, sez he, 'Git in, ladies,' sez he.--'We're goin' to the +Washington Market, sur,' sez I.--That's where I'll take yez, ladies,' +sez he. 'Pay yer fares, ladies.' An' we got in, ma'am, an' wint up to +the top of the city, an' paid tin cints, the both of us. An' there was a +great many ladies an' gintlemen got in an' done the same, ma'am, an' +some got out one place an' some another. An' whin we got up to the top +of the city, 'Mrs. Magovern,' sez I,' this isn't the Washington Market,' +sez I.--' It is not, Mrs. Haley,' sez she.--'We'll git out, Mrs. +Magovern,' sez I.--'We will, Mrs. Haley,' sez she. An' thin, ma'am, +there was a small bit of a howl in the carr, and it was through the howl +the ladies an' gintlemen would cry out to the gintleman on the top o' +the carr, and he'd put his face down forninst it an' spake wid thim; an' +I cried up through the howl to him, an' sez I, 'Me an' Mrs. Magovern +will git out, sur,' sez I, 'for this isn't the Washington Market at +all.'--'It is not, ma'am,' sez he, 'but that's where I'll take yez,' sez +he. 'Sit down, ladies,' sez he, 'and pay me the money,' sez he. 'I had a +great many paple to lave,' sez he. An' indade he had, ma'am. An' we paid +the money agin, an' we wint down to the bottom o' the city. 'This is not +the Washington Market, Mrs. Magovern,' sez I.--'It is not, Mrs. Haley,' +sez she.--'We'll git out, Mrs. Magovern,' sez I.--'We will, Mrs. Haley,' +sez she. Thin came the gintleman that first had the dure in his hand. +'What's the matther, ladies?' sez he.--'This isn't the Washington +Market, sur,' sez I.--'It is not, ma'am,' sez he, 'but the city is a +great place,' sez he, 'an' it's not aisy to go everywhere at wonst,' sez +he; 'an' if yez will have patience,' sez he, 'ye'll git there,' sez he. +'Git in, ladies,' sez he, 'an' pay yer fares.' Wid all the houses +there's in the city, an' all the sthrates there's in it, faith, it was +no good at all to thry to foind our way alone; but thim wur false +paple--they niver took us to the Washington Market at all; an' it was +all the day we wint up to the top o' the city and down to the bottom o' +the city, and spinding our money at it. An' sez I, 'Mrs. Magovern, it +would be better for us if we wint home,' sez I.--'It would, Mrs. Haley,' +sez she; an' we come down to the boat, an' it was two hours agin befoor +the boat would go, an' thin we come home; an' it's toired we are, an' +it's an' awful place, the city is." + +Haley's statements could seldom be relied on, but his untruth fulness +was never a matter of self-interest, but rather of amiability. He +desired to tell you whatever you desired to know, and to tell it as you +would like to hear it, even if facts were so perverse as to be contrary. + +One day I wanted to do an errand in the village, and called for the +horse and carriage. Haley brought them to the door. As I took the reins +I remembered that it was noon and the horse's dinner-time: "Did the +horse have his dinner, Haley?" + +"I just gave it to him, ma'am; and an ilegint dinner he had." + +"Why did you feed him just when I was about to drive him?" + +"Oh, well, it's not much he got." + +"He should have had nothing." + +"Faith, me lady, I ownly showed it to him." + +There were no more respectable people in The Lane than John Godfrey and +his family. His pretty little wife with an anxious face tenderly watched +over an ever-increasing family of daughters, till on one most +providential occasion the expected girl turned out to be a boy, and I +went with my sisters to congratulate the happy mother. "What will you +name the little fellow, Mrs. Godfrey?" I asked, sympathetically. + +The poor woman looked up with a smile, saying weakly, "John Pathrick, +miss--John afther the father, an' Pathrick afther the saint." + +The following year the same unexpected luck brought another boy, and +again we young girls, being much at leisure, carried our +congratulations: "What will be the name of this little boy, Mrs. +Godfrey?" + +"Pathrick John, miss--Pathrick afther the saint, an' John afther the +father." + +A confused sense of having heard that sentence before came over me. +"Why, Mrs. Godfrey," I said, "was not that the name of your last child?" + +"To be shure, miss. Why would I be trating one betther than the other?" + +A member of this same family, upon receiving a blow with a stone in the +eye, left her somewhat overcrowded paternal home for the quieter +protection of her widowed aunt, Mrs. King, and one day my sister and +myself knocked at Mrs. King's door to inquire about the state of the +injured organ. + +"Troth, miss, it's very bad," said Mrs. King. + +"What do you do for it, Mrs. King?" + +"Do?" said Mrs. King, suddenly applying the corner of her apron to her +overflowing eyes--"Do?" she continued in a broken voice. "I've been +crying these three days." + +"But what do you do to make it better?" + +Mrs. King took heart, folded her arms, and thus applied herself to the +setting forth of her humane exertions: "In comes Mistress Magovern, +an', 'Mrs. King,' sez she, 'put rar bafesteak to the choild's oye;' an' +that minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak wint to it. Thin comes Mrs. Haley. +'Is it rar bafesteak ye'd be putting to it, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Biling +clothes, Mrs. King,' sez she. That minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak come +afif an' the biling clothes wint to it. In comes Mrs. Quinlan. 'Will ye +be destryin' the choild's oye intirely, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Cowld ice, +Mrs. King.' An' that minit, ma'am, the biling clothes come aff an' the +cowld ice wint to it. Oh, I do be doin' iverything anybody do tell me." + +It was a memorable sight to see the Gunning twins wandering down The +Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had gone out washing for +the day and taken the door-key with her. "Thim lads is big enough to +take care of thimsilves," she would remark, though "the lads" were not +yet capable of coherent speech. No doubt they wandered into some +neighbor's at meal-time and received a willingly-given potato or a drink +of milk. They seemed happy enough, and their funny, ugly little faces +were defaced by no tears. They grew in time old enough to explain their +position to inquiring passers-by and to pick up and eat an amazing +quantity of green apples. A lady passing one day stopped and +remonstrated with one of them. "Barney," she said, "it will make you ill +if you eat those green apples."--"I do be always atin' of them, ma'am," +replied Barney, stolidly. + +Perhaps it may have been the green apples, but from whatever cause +Barney fell ill, and all that the doctor prescribed made him no better. +"It's no matther, stir," said Mrs. Gunning one morning: "yer needn't +come ag'in. I'll just go an' ask Mrs. ------" (my mother). + +The next morning the doctor, meeting my mother, laughingly remarked +that it was very plain that they couldn't practise in the same +district: he had just met Mrs. Gunning, who informed him that "what +Mrs. ------ gave her the night befoor done the choild a power of good." + +The day preceding our departure from the place my sister and I passed +through The Lane, and received the most amiable farewells, accompanied +with blessings, and even tears. The figure I best remember is that of +Mrs. Regan, who, bursting out from her doorway, stood in our path, and, +dissolving in tears, sobbed out, "Faith, I'm sorry yez be goin'. I don't +know what I'll do at all widout yez;" and, seizing my sister's hand, +gave her this unique recommendation: "Ye were always passing by +mannerly--niver sassy nor impidint, nor nothing." + +The Lane has changed to-day. A Chinese grocer has, I hear, set up a shop +in its midst. Some of its most noted characters have passed away, and +the younger generation have taken on habits more American than those of +their predecessors. + +M.R.O. + + + + +A CHILD'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. + + +A quaint and charming volume, which has fallen in our way, is _Little +Charlie's Life_, "the autobiography of a child between six and seven +years of age, written with his own hand and without any assistance +whatever." It was at the urgent request of the gentleman who acted as +editor, Rev. W.R. Clark--thus rescuing an inimitable little work from +comparative oblivion--that the parents of the youthful author +reluctantly consented to the publication of this curious delineation of +child-life. From the date of his birth (1833), Charlie must have written +his work some forty years ago. How long he was engaged in its +composition is not stated, but from the internal evidence yielded by the +spelling and the handwriting (for the work is lithographed in exact +imitation of the manuscript) we should infer that it occupied two or +three years, the handwriting of the first seven chapters being in +imitation of ordinary printing, while the remaining chapters appear in +an ordinary schoolboy's hand. We may add that it is copiously +illustrated by himself, and that the illustrations are worth their +weight in gold, supplementing as they do, in a superfluously exact and +curiously quaint manner, this most unique work. + +He starts with this account of himself: "My name is Charles John Young, +and I was born in Amfort, a pretty village in Hampshire, 1833 in July, +that pleasant time when the birds sing merrily and flowers bloom +sweetly. My father and mother are the kindest in the world, and I love +them dearly and both alike. I shall give a description of them by and +by. In the mean time I shall just say that my papa is a clergyman." + +The earlier chapters describe the various migrations of the family from +one parish to another, and from them we have no difficulty in +recognizing in "papa" the Rev. Julian Young, who possessed no small +share of the talents that distinguished _his_ father, the celebrated +tragedian, Charles Young, and which seem to have been transmitted to our +author, who, we understand, has honorably served his country in Her +Majesty's army. From his earliest years Charlie seems to have been +strongly influenced by religious feelings. His creed was a bright and +trustful one, a realization of God's presence and of the need of +speaking to Him as to one who could always hear and help. When he was +about three years old, we are told in the editor's interesting preface, +he was often heard offering up little petitions for the supply of his +child-like wants. Once, when, his nurse left him to fetch some more +milk, his father overheard him saying, "O God, please let there be +enough milk in the jug for me to have some more, for Jesus Christ's +sake. Amen." Many quaint little religious reflections and scriptural +allusions are interspersed throughout the book. In one place he declares +that "without papa and mamma the garden would be to me what the +wilderness was to John the Baptist;" while again he offers up a pathetic +prayer for a baby-brother; and throughout we are struck by the fact that +his religion was pre-eminently one of love. Charlie's educational +advantages were of the noblest and best, home-training largely +predominating. In the ninth chapter he refers in a simple matter-of-fact +way to his early studies: "Mamma devotes her time in teaching me and in +reading instructive books with me. Papa tells me about the productions +of the earth, rivers, mountains, valleys, mines, and, most wonderful of +all, the formation of the human body." Further on we read: "Nothing of +any great importance occurred now for some time. My life was spent +quietly in the country, as the child of a Wiltshire clergyman ought, +mamma devoting her time in teaching me, and my daily play going on the +same, till at last papa and mamma took me to the splendid capital of +England." However much this brilliant transition may have dazzled him, +he still prefers his quiet country home, arguing thus: "As to living +there [in London], I should not like it. The reason why--because its +noisy riots in the streets suit not my mood like the tranquil streams +and the waving trees I love in England's country.... 'Tis true--oh, how +true!--in the poetic words of Mr. Shakespeare, 'Man made the town, God +made the country.'" + +Despite the stilted style and absurdly pompous descriptions, with an +occasional terrible breakdown, Charlie's love of Nature, and especially +of the animal creation, seems to have been most genuine. He speaks of +"the wide ocean which when angry roars and clashes over the beach, but +when calm crabs are seen crawling on the shore and the sun shines bright +over the waves," and of "the billows rolling over each other and foaming +over the rough stones," with an apparently real enthusiasm. The softer +emotions of his nature were engrossed in this way, as we infer from the +negative evidence afforded by his autobiography that he reached his +seventh year without any experience of the tender passion. + +His physiological ideas in the speculations regarding the origin of a +baby-brother are naïvely expressed: "One day I was told that a baby was +born [this was when he was three years and a half old], and upon going +into mamma's bedroom I saw a red baby lying in an arm-chair wrapped in +swaddling-clothes. It puzzled me very much to think how he came into the +world: it was mysterious, very, and I cannot make it out now. My first +thought was, that he must have had airy wings, and after he had come +they had disappeared. My second thought was that he was so very little +as to be able to come through the keyhole, and increased rapidly in +size, just as it says in the Bible that a grain of mustard-seed springs +to be so large a tree that the fowls of the air can roost upon it." + +In his sixth year Charlie evinced poetic tendencies. We have in one of +his poems a description of his grandpapa, "a venerable old gentleman +with dark eyes, gray hair, noble features, and altogether very generous +aspect." Here is "a song appropriate to him:" + + Oh, venerable is our old ancestor-- + Cloud on his brow, + Lightning in his eyes, + His gray hair streaming in the wind. + To children ever kind, + To merit never blind,-- + Oh, such is our old ancestor, + With hair that streameth wild. + +At the head of this poem is a picture of the old ancestor, consisting of +a hat, a head, a walking-stick, one arm and two legs, one of +which--whether the right or left is doubtful, as their origin is +concealed by the aforesaid arm--is much longer than the other, and +walking in a contrary direction. The most wonderful feature of this +sketch is the "hair streaming in the wind," the distance from the poll +to the end of the flowing locks being longer than the longest leg. + +We cannot conclude without an extract describing a "dreadful accident" +which happened to our youthful author; "perhaps," as he solemnly says, +"for a punishment of my sins, or to show me that Death stands ready at +the door to snatch my life away:" "One night papa had been conjuring a +penny, and I thought _I_ should like to conjure; so I took a round brass +thing with a verse out of the Bible upon it that I brought into bed with +me. I thought it went down papa's throat, so _I_ put it down _my_ throat, +and I was pretty near choked. I called my nurse, who was in the next +room. She fetched up papa, and then my nurse brought the basin. Papa +beat my back, and I was sick. _Lo! there was the counter!_ Papa said, +'Good God!' and my nurse fainted, but soon recovered. Don't you think +papa was very clever when he beat my back? Papa then had a long talk +afterward with me about it--a very serious one." + +The above pathetic story is accurately illustrated, but we especially +regret that we cannot transfer to these pages some of the marvellous +delineations of the animals in the Clifton Zoological Garden. + +M.S.D. + + + + +WANTED--A REAL GAINSBOROUGH. + + +I am an unmarried man of twenty-four. After that confession it is hardly +necessary to add that I am in the habit of thinking a great deal about a +person not yet embodied into actual existence--i.e. my future wife. I +have not yet met her--she is a purely ideal being--but at the same time +I so often have a vivid conception of her looks, her air, her walk, her +tones even, that she seems to be present. My misery is that I cannot +find her in real life. + +No one need fancy that I am an imaginative man: quite the contrary is +the fact. I am a lawyer, and have an office in Bond street. Every +morning at eight o'clock I take the Sixth Avenue horse-cars and ride +down to Fourteenth street. I have a fancy for walking the rest of the +way, and toward evening I saunter back homeward along Broadway and Union +Square. + +Prosaic as these journeys may seem, they are nevertheless the +inspiration of my hopes, the feeders of my visions. It is at such times +that I enjoy my glimpses of the lady I long to meet. I jostle gentle +creatures at every step: feminine shapes and feminine tones are on every +side presented to eyes and ears. I trust nobody will be prejudiced +against me when I confess that I see the fair one of my dreams in the +shop-windows. Once having seen her, I become immeasurably happy, and go +on dreaming about her until we meet again. It may seem a curious +admission, but this beautiful although impalpable being is suggested by +the charming dresses, hats and bonnets displayed on the milliners' +blocks. None of our artists can paint portraits now-a-days: Art seems to +have withdrawn her gifts from them and endowed the dressmakers and +milliners instead. + +It was at first difficult for me to decide on the personality of my +beloved. My earliest fancy was for a blond: at least the dress was of +pale blue silk with a profusion of lace trimmings. Her hat was of straw +faced with azure velvet, and the crown surrounded by a long plume, also +of ciel blue. I knew by heart the features of this fair young creature, +invisible although she was to others. They seemed to belong more to a +flower than to a face: her eyes were large and blue, full of appealing +love; her hair was of course golden; her smile was angelic; and her +whole expression was one of sweetness and goodness. She was my first +dream: little although she belonged to actual life, she used to trip +about by my side and sit with me in my room at home. Suddenly, however, +I became enamored of a different creature, and my dream changed. I began +to think of my lovely blond regretfully as of a beautiful creature too +good for earth who died young. It is the habit of the shopkeepers to +change the figures in their windows, and one morning I fell in love with +quite a different creature. She wore when I first saw her a long dress +of black silk and velvet sparkling with jet; over her shoulders was +thrown carelessly a mantle of cream-colored cloth; on her head was a +plush hat--what they call a Gainsborough--trimmed with a long graceful +plume, also of cream-color. Although only her back was toward me, I knew +by instinct exactly what her face was. She was dark of course, with a +low broad forehead, about which clustered little short curls; her eyes +were superb, at once laughing and melancholy; her features suggested +rather pride than softness; but her smile was enchanting, open, sunny, +like a burst of light from behind a cloud. Nothing could be more real +than this vision. At first the discovery of this magnificently-endowed +woman rendered me happy: I used to walk past the shop half a dozen +times a day to look at her. Her costumes varied, but they always +suggested the same dark but brilliant lineaments, the same graceful +movements, the same peculiarly lovely tones. She often looked back at me +over her shoulder, but had an air of evading me. All at once, with +surprise and delight, I remembered that she might be found in actual +existence, in real flesh and blood. I deserted the image for a week in +the hope of finding the reality. I paced Fifth Avenue; I went to the +dry-goods stores; I attended the theatres. Often I seemed to see her +before me--the picturesque hat, the long plume, the rich mantle and +dress. At such moments while I pressed forward my heart beat. When the +cheek turned toward me and the eyes lighted up with surprise at my +disappointed stare, it was easy enough to see that I had made a mistake. +There was the hat, the cloak, the bewitching little frippiness of lace +and net and ribbon about the bust. She had, however, copied the +masterpiece without investing herself with its soul: her face was vague +and characterless, her whole personality void of that eloquent +womanliness which had so wrought upon me. This experience was so many +times repeated that I was frightfully tormented by it. The familiar +dress seemed to reveal with appalling truthfulness the lack of those +qualities of heart and soul which I demanded. Those lovely, picturesque +outlines suggest not only rounded cheeks colored with girlish bloom, but +something more; and the graceful draping is not a meaningless husk. + +I have gone back to my shop-window image. She never disappoints me. She +is as beautiful, as magnificently endowed, as full of fascinating life +and spirit, as ever. I sometimes think, unless I find her actual +prototype, of buying that Gainsborough hat, that cloth mantle and velvet +dress, and hanging them up in my room. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + + History of the English People. By John Richard Green. New York: + Harper & Brothers. + +Most readers interested in English history have long felt the need of +such a work as this, in which the results of recent research among +original sources and of the critical examination of earlier labors are +gathered up and summarized in a narrative at once clear and concise, +free from disquisition, minuteness of detail and elaborate descriptions, +without being meagre or superficial, devoid of suggestiveness or of +animation. In calling his work a _History of the English People_, Mr. +Green has not undertaken to deviate from the beaten track, devoting his +attention to social development and leaving political affairs in the +background. What he has evidently had in view is the fact that English +history is in a special sense that of the rise and growth of free +institutions, exhibiting at every stage the mutual influence or combined +action of different classes, permeated even when the Crown or the +aristocracy was most powerful by a popular spirit, and contrasting in +this respect with that of France and Spain, in which during many +centuries the mass of the people lost instead of gaining ground, +representative bodies analogous to the English Parliament were deprived +of their rights or swept out of existence, and liberty was sacrificed to +national consolidation and unity. Whence this difference came need +hardly be pointed out. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were neither freer +nor more enterprising than the Franks and other Teutonic families; but +the fortune which carried them to Britain saved them from inheriting any +onerous share of the great legacy of the Roman Empire--with the task of +absorbing and transmitting its language and civilization--secured them +against the risk of being either merged in a more numerous race or +submerged by a new influx, and thus preserved an identity and continuity +which link their latest achievements with their earliest exploits, and +stamp their whole career with the same character. + +With such a subject, Mr. Green has had no difficulty in so marking its +divisions as to concentrate attention on successive epochs without +dropping the thread that runs through the whole. The earlier portions of +his work are naturally the most instructive and the fullest of interest. +The last volume, indeed, which covers the ground from the Revolution to +the battle of Waterloo, besides including the index to the whole work, +gives far too rapid a survey of momentous and familiar events to afford +profit or satisfaction. One feels that, while the style retains its +fluency, the tone has lost its warmth, and that much of the writing must +have been perfunctory: the reading, at all events, cannot but be so. But +scarcely any one, however well acquainted with the ground, can follow +without pleasure and an enlargement of view Mr. Green's account of +"Early England," "England under Foreign Kings," "The Charter" and "The +Parliament" (from 1307 to 1461), which form the subjects of the first +four books; while the next four, occupying the second and third volumes, +and entitled "The Monarchy," "The Reformation," "Puritan England" and +"The Revolution," are marked by a grasp of thought, a fine sense of +proportion, a thorough knowledge and well-balanced judgment of men and +events, and not unfrequently a dramatic force, which sustain the +interest throughout, and which make them a valuable addition, and +sometimes a necessary corrective, to the fuller and more brilliant +narratives in which the same periods and subjects have been separately +treated. + +Mr. Green does not appear to have gone deeply into the study of original +sources, but it is only in his incidental treatment of continental +history that his deficiencies in this respect become palpable. Here he +is often inaccurate, and even when his facts are correct his mode of +stating them shows that he is not master of the whole field, and has +little appreciation of mingled motives and attendant circumstances. Such +a sentence as this: "The restoration of the towns on the Somme to +Burgundy, the cession of Normandy to the king's brother, Francis, the +hostility of Brittany, not only detached the whole western coast from +the hold of Lewis, but forced its possessors to look for aid to the +English king who lay in their rear," could not have been written with +any clear ideas of either the political or the geographical relations +of the places mentioned. What is meant by the "western coast"? Not, +certainly, the towns on the Somme, which lie in the north-east, nor +Normandy, which has indeed a western coast of its own, but cannot be +said to form part of the western coast of France. Nor does Brittany +include "the _whole_ western coast," or even the larger portion of it, +while it could not have been "detached from the hold of Lewis," inasmuch +as he had never held it. As little will that remark apply to the other +provinces on the western coast, as these were still in his possession. +Who are meant, therefore, by the "possessors" of this misty coast, and +why the English king is said to have lain "in their rear," can only be +conjectured. It is a small blunder that the French king's brother is +called "Francis" instead of Charles, since we must not suspect Mr. Green +of confounding him with the duke of Brittany, who bore the former name. +But the whole passage, in connection with what follows it, indicates +that the author has mixed up the state of affairs at two very close, but +very distinct, conjunctures. Many similar instances of defective +knowledge might be cited, nor are they confined to this early period. +The remark, in regard to Charles of Austria (the emperor Charles V.), +that "the madness of his mother left him _next heir_ of Castille" is +nonsense: he was her heir in any case, while through her madness he +became nominally joint, and virtually sole, ruler of the kingdom. His +son Philip had not been "twice a widower" when he married Mary of +England, and the assertion that "he owed his victory at Gravelines +mainly to the opportune arrival of ten English ships of war" is +patriotic, but foolish. That "Catholicism alone united the burgher of +the Netherlands to the noble of Castille, or Milanese and Neapolitan to +the Aztec of Mexico and Peru," would be an incomprehensible statement +even if Peru had been inhabited by the Aztecs. Such errors, however, +cannot seriously impair the value of Mr. Green's work. Its merits, as +regards both matter and form, are solid and varied. The scale on which +it was planned adapts it admirably to the gap which it was intended to +fill, and, except in the latter portions, its comparative brevity of +treatment excludes neither important facts nor modifying views. No +shorter work could give the reader any adequate knowledge or conceptions +in regard to English history, and no longer work is needed to make him +fully acquainted with its essential features. + + White Wings: A Yachting Romance. By William Black. New York: Harper + & Brothers.--Roy and Viola. By Mrs. Forrester. Philadelphia: J.B. + Lippincott & Co.--The Wellfields. By Jessie Fothergill. + (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Holt & Co.--Troublesome Daughters. + By L.B. Walford. (Leisure--Hour Series.) New York: Holt & + Co.--Brigitta. By Berthold Auerbach. (Leisure--Hour Series.) New + York: Holt & Co. + +There is a time appointed to read novels--a time which belongs, like +that of other good things, to youth, when the real and the ideal merge +into each other, and even the most practical beliefs turn upon the +notion that the world was created for ourselves, and that the general +system of things is bound to furnish circumstances and incidents which +shall flatter our unsatisfied desires. It seems a pity that it should +not fall to the lot of the critic to write down his impression of new +books at this epoch, when he is most fitted to enjoy them. When romance +and other delights have blankly vanished--"gone glimmering through the +dreams of things that were"--he is scarcely fitted to trust the worth of +his own impressions. Reading from mere idle curiosity or with critical +intentions, and reading with delight, with eager absorption in the story +and an eager desire to know how it turns out, are two different matters. +The loss of this capacity for enjoyment of the every-day novel is not a +subject for self-gratulation, coming as it does from our own absence of +imagination and from narrowing instead of increasing powers. That period +of our existence when we could read anything which offered should be +looked back upon with a feeling of purely admiring regret, and in our +efforts to master the novel of to-day we should endeavor to bring back +the glory and the sweetness of the early dream. + +It is not so very long ago that Mr. William Black's novels began to +charm us. He did not take Fame at a single leap, but wooed her +patiently, and suffered many a repulse. His first book, _Ion; or, +Marriage_, was probably the very worst novel ever written by a man who +was finally to make a great success. _The Daughter of Heth_ achieved +this result, and _The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, A Princess of +Thule_ and _Macleod of Dar_ deepened, one by one, the witchery the +first threw over us. The author's power was especially shown in +investing his maidens with glamour and piquancy: Coquette and Sheila led +their captives away from the suffocating dusts and the burning heats of +life. Then his backgrounds were so well chosen--those mysterious reaches +of the far northern seas, the slow twilights over the heaving ocean, the +swift dawns, the storms and the lightnings, and the glad blue skies. +Even the music of the bagpipes inspired lamentations only less sweet +than notes of joy. Mr. Black still has lovely girls; his yachts still +pitch and roll and scud over the tossed and misty Hebridean seas; there +are the same magical splendors of air and sky and water and shores; the +wail of the pibroch is heard as of yore-- + + Dunvegan! oh, Dunvegan! + +Why, then, is it that his last book fails to do more than arouse dim +memories of some previous enjoyment? Why are his violets without +perfume? Why is his music vacant of the old melodies? + +In _Roy and Viola_, on the contrary, Mrs. Forrester is seen at her best, +and has given us a book of lively interest. The situation in some +respects suggests that of _Daniel Deronda:_ D'Arcy is a sort of +Grandcourt cheapened and made popular, acting out his instincts of +tyranny and brutality with more ostentation and less good taste. What is +subtly indicated by George Eliot is given with profuse effect by the +present writer. Viola, if not a Gwendolen, is yet an unloving wife. Sir +Douglas Roy plays a somewhat difficult rôle--that of friend to the +husband and undeclared lover to the wife--without losing our respect. He +is in many ways a successful hero, and acts his part without either +insipidity or priggishness. A genial optimist like Mrs. Forrester, as +her old readers may well believe, sacrifices to a hopelessly unhappy +marriage no lot which interests us. Disagreeable husbands die at an +auspicious moment, and everybody is finally made happy in his or her own +way, which includes the possession of plenty of money. The conversations +are piquant, and the interest of the story is well kept up. + +_The Wellfields_ is a falling off from _Probation_, which in its turn +was a distinct falling-off from Miss Fothergill's initial story, _The +First Violin_. The characters are dim, intangible, remote, possessing no +reality even at the outset, and as they progress becoming even more +estranged from our belief and sympathy. Jerome is too feeble to arouse +even our resentment, which we mildly expend on Sara instead for +displaying grief for so poor a creature. When an author publishes one +successful book, it should be a matter of serious thought whether it is +not worth while to make such a triumph the crowning event of his or her +destiny, lest Fate should have in reserve the tedious trials which await +those who are compelled to hear that their sun has set. + +Mrs. Walford's last book has, in a measure, retrieved a certain +reputation for interest which her _Cousins_ had lost. In _Troublesome +Daughters_, however, one looks in vain for the fulfilment of the promise +of _Mr. Smith_ and her delightful _Van: A Summer Romance_. + +In _Brigitta_ we find enough of Auerbach's charm to like the story, +simple as it is. It recalls his greater books only by the fidelity of +the tone and the clearness of the pictures. Xander is well drawn, and +the tragedy of his life, portrayed as it is by those few strong touches +which reveal the real artist, is profoundly impressive. + +------ + +_New Books Received._ + +Geo. P. Rowell & Co.'s American Newspaper Directory, containing Accurate +Lists of all the Newspapers and Periodicals published in the United +States, Territories and the Dominion of Canada, together with a +description of the towns and cities in which they are published. New +York: George P. Rowell & Co. + +The Skin in Health and Disease. By L. Duncan Bulkley, M.D. (American +Health Primers.) Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. + +The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl. Edited by Robert Grant. Vignette +Illustrations. Boston: A. Williams & Co. + +The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield. By Major J.M. Bundy. +New York: A.D. Barnes & Co. + +The Mystery of Allanwold. By Mrs. Elizabeth Van Loon. Philadelphia: T. +B. Peterson & Brothers. + +Political and Legal Remedies for War. By Sheldon Amos, M.A. New York: +Harper & Brothers. + +Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale. By R.D. Blackmore. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +A Selection of Spiritual Songs, with Music for the Sunday-school. New +York: Scribner & Co. + +[Footnote 1: I use here the official nomenclature of Pennsylvania: by +whatever title the local officials are known in the various States, the +general fact is of course the same in all.] + +[Footnote 2: In some tests given in Richards' _Treatise on Coal Gas_ (p. +293) the following results were shown: Obstruction of light by-- + + A clear glass globe, about 12 per cent. + An engraved " " " 24 " + Obscured all over " " " 40 " + Opal " " " " " 60 " + Painted " " " " " 64 " ] + +[Footnote 3: There is a recent method of adding carbon to the gas which +is not liable to the objection of clogging the pipes. By a small +apparatus a stick of naphthaline is attached to the burner so as to be +slowly vaporized. It is not yet in the hands of dealers in +gas-fixtures.] + +[Footnote 4: Our narrative is drawn from the _Libra del Passo Honroso, +defendido por el excelente caballero Suero de Quiñones, copilado de un +libro antiguo de mano por Fr. Juan de Pineda, Religiose de la orden de +San Francisco. Segunda edicion_. Madrid, 1783, in the _Crónicas +españolas_, vol. v.] + +[Footnote 5: In modern French, _Il faut délivrer_--"It is necessary to +release," referring to the chain worn by Quiñones.] + +[Footnote 6: "If it does not please you to show moderation, I say, in +truth, that I am unfortunate."] + +[Footnote 7: Prosper Mérimée, in a note to his _History of Peter the +Cruel_ (London, 1849, vol. i., p. 35), says, referring to the above +episode, "I do not think that at that period an example of similar +condescension could be found anywhere except in Spain. A century later +the _chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_, the valiant Bayard, refused +to mount a breach in company with lansquenets."] + +[Footnote 8: Beginning, "Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna," etc.] + +[Footnote 9: The Church as early as 1131 (Council of Rheims) endeavored +to prevent these dangerous amusements by denying burial in consecrated +ground with funeral rites to those who were killed in tournaments.] + +[Footnote 10: Puymaigre explains this almost total absence of Frenchmen +by the fact that in 1434 the wars between Charles VII and the English +were being waged. The English pilgrims to Santiago (the large number of +whom we have previously mentioned) were probably non-combatants.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 16124-8.txt or 16124-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/1/2/16124/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +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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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 24, 2005 [EBook #16124] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + <div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and List of + Illustrations were added by the transcriber. + </div> + + <h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> + + <h3>OF</h3> + + <h3><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE</i>.</h3> + + <p> </p> + + <h3>DECEMBER, 1880.<br /> + Vol. XXVI.</h3><br /> + <br /> + + + <p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by + J.B. LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of + Congress, at Washington.</p> + + <p> </p> + + <p> </p> + + <h3>CONTENTS</h3> + + <p><a href="#AN_HISTORICAL_ROCKY_MOUNTAIN_OUTPOST">AN + HISTORICAL ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST.</a><br /> + <a href="#LOST">LOST.</a><br /> + <a href="#ADAM_AND_EVE">ADAM AND EVE.</a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"> CHAPTER + XXXVI.</a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"> CHAPTER + XXXVII.</a><br /> + <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"> CHAPTER + XXXVIII.</a><br /> + <a href="#WILL_DEMOCRACY_TOLERATE_A_PERMANENT_CLASS_OF_NATIONAL_OFFICE_HOLDERS"> + WILL DEMOCRACY TOLERATE A PERMANENT CLASS OF NATIONAL OFFICE + HOLDERS?</a><br /> + <a href="#OUR_GRANDFATHERS_TEMPLES">OUR GRANDFATHERS' + TEMPLES.</a><br /> + <a href="#THE_PRICE_OF_SAFETY">THE PRICE OF SAFETY.</a><br /> + <a href="#THE_AUTHORS_OF_FROUFROU">THE AUTHORS OF + "FROUFROU."</a><br /> + <a href="#THE_KINGS_GIFTS">THE KING'S GIFTS.</a><br /> + <a href="#BAUBIE_WISHART">BAUBIE WISHART.</a><br /> + <a href="#GAS-BURNING_AND_ITS_CONSEQUENCES">GAS-BURNING, AND + ITS CONSEQUENCES.</a><br /> + <a href="#SHAKESPEARE">THE ΑΡΑΞ + ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑ IN + SHAKESPEARE.</a><br /> + <a href="#AN_EPISODE_OF_SPANISH_CHIVALRY">AN EPISODE OF + SPANISH CHIVALRY.</a><br /> + <a href="#AUTOMATISM">AUTOMATISM.</a><br /> + <a href="#OUR_MONTHLY_GOSSIP">OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</a><br /> + <a href="#LITERATURE_OF_THE_DAY">LITERATURE OF THE + DAY.</a></p><br /> + <br /> + <br /> + + + <h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> + + <p><a href="#GOING_TO_THE_JUDGES">GOING TO THE + JUDGE'S.<br /></a> + <a href="#GENERAL_VIEW_OF_PUEBLO_COLORADO_LOOKING_NORTH_WEST_PIKES_PEAK_IN_THE_DISTANCE"> + GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING + NORTH-WEST—PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.<br /></a> + <a href="#THE_JUDGE">THE JUDGE.<br /></a> + <a href="#OLD_ADOBE_FORT">OLD ADOBE FORT.<br /></a> + <a href="#MEXICAN_INTERIOR">MEXICAN INTERIOR.<br /></a> + <a href="#OLD_BRIDGE">OLD BRIDGE.<br /></a> + <a href="#SANTA_FE_AVENUE_PUEBLO_COLORADO">SANTA FÉ AVENUE, + PUEBLO, COLORADO.<br /></a> <a href="#OLD_SI_SMITH">OLD SI + SMITH.<br /></a> <a href="#UNTITLED">UNTITLED.<br /></a> + <a href="#THE_OLD_SOUTH">THE OLD SOUTH, BOSTON.<br /></a> + <a href="#KINGS_CHAPEL">KINGS CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN + 1872.<br /></a> <a href="#CHRIST_CHURCH">CHRIST CHURCH, + BOSTON.<br /></a> <a href="#ST_MICHAELS">ST. MICHAELS, + MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS.<br /></a> <a href="#ST_PAULS">ST. + PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW YORK.<br /></a> + <a href="#OLD_SWEDES_CHURCH">OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, + PHILADELPHIA.<br /></a> <a href="#MORAVIAN_CEMETERY">THE + MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.<br /></a> + <a href="#RUINS_OF_THE_OLD_CHURCH_TOWER">RUINS OF THE OLD + CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA.<br /></a></p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="AN_HISTORICAL_ROCKY_MOUNTAIN_OUTPOST" + id="AN_HISTORICAL_ROCKY_MOUNTAIN_OUTPOST"></a>AN HISTORICAL + ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST.</h2> + + <p><a name="GOING_TO_THE_JUDGES" + id="GOING_TO_THE_JUDGES"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/0001-tb.jpg" + alt="GOING TO THE JUDGES." + title="GOING TO THE JUDGES." /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>GOING TO THE JUDGE'S.</p> + + <p>The day might have graced the month of June, so balmy was + the air, so warmly shone the sun from a cloudless sky. But the + snow-covered mountain-range whose base we were skirting, the + leafless cottonwoods fringing the Fontaine qui Bouille and the + sombre plains that stretched away to the eastern horizon told a + different story. It was on one of those days elsewhere so rare, + but so common in Colorado, when a summer sky smiles upon a + wintry landscape, that we entered a town in whose history are + to be found greater contrasts than even those afforded by earth + and sky. Today Pueblo is a thriving and aggressive city, + peopled with its quota of that great pioneer army which is + carrying civilization over the length and breadth of our land. + Three hundred and forty years ago, as legend hath it, Coronado + here stopped his northward march, and on the spot where Pueblo + now stands established the farthermost outpost of New + Spain.</p> + + <p>The average traveller who journeys westward from the + Missouri River imagines that he is coming to a new country. + "The New West" is a favorite term with the agents of + land—companies and the writers of alluring + railway-guides. These enterprising advocates sometimes indulge + in flights of rhetoric that scorn the trammels of grammar and + dictionary. Witness the following impassioned utterances + concerning the lands of a certain Western railroad: "They + comprise a section of country whose possibilities are simply + <i>infinitesimal</i>, and whose developments will be revealed + in glorious realization through the horoscope of the near + future." This verbal architect builded wiser than he knew, for + what more fitting word could the imagination suggest wherewith + to crown the possibilities of alkali wastes and barren, + sun-scorched plains?</p> + + <p>A considerable part of the New West of to-day was explored + by the Spaniards more than three centuries ago. Before the + English had landed at Plymouth Rock or made a settlement at + Jamestown they had penetrated to the Rocky Mountains and given + to peak and river their characteristic names. Southern + Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have been the theatres wherein + were enacted deeds of daring and bravery perhaps unsurpassed by + any people and any age; and that, too, centuries before they + became a part of our American Union. The whole country is + strewn over with the ruins of a civilization in comparison with + which our own of to-day seems feeble. And he who journeys + across the Plains till he reaches the Sangre del Cristo + Mountains or the blue Sierra Mojadas enters a land made famous + by the exploits of Coronado, De Vaca and perhaps of the great + Montezuma himself.</p> + + <p>In the year 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was sent by + the Spanish viceroy of Mexico to explore the regions to the + north. Those mountain-peaks, dim and shadowy in the distance + and seeming to recede as they were approached, had ever been an + alluring sight to the gold-seeking Spaniards. But the coveted + treasure did not reveal itself to their cursory search; and + though they doubtless pushed as far north as the Arkansas + River, they returned to the capital from what they considered + an unsuccessful expedition. The way was opened, however, and in + 1595 the Spaniards came to what is now the Territory of New + Mexico and founded the city of Santa Fé. They had found, for + the most part, a settled country, the inhabitants living in + densely-populated villages, or <i>pueblos</i>, and evincing a + rather high degree of civilization. Their dwellings of mud + bricks, or <i>adobes</i>, were all built upon a single plan, + and consisted of a square or rectangular fort-like structure + enclosing an open space. Herds of sheep and goats grazed upon + the hillsides, while the bottom-lands were planted with corn + and barley. Thus lived and flourished the Pueblo Indians, a + race the origin of which lies in obscurity, but connected with + which are many legends of absorbing interest. All their + traditions point to Montezuma as the founder and leader of + their race, and likewise to their descent from the Aztecs. But + their glory departed with the coming of Cortez, and their + Spanish conquerors treated them as an inferior race. Revolting + against their oppressors in 1680, they were reconquered + thirteen years later, though subsequently allowed greater + liberty. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 they became + citizens of the United States. From one extreme of government + to another has drifted this remnant of a stately race, till now + at last it finds itself safely sheltered in the arms of our + great republic.</p> + + <p>Such is the romantic history of a portion of our so-called + "New West;" but it was with a view of ascertaining some facts + concerning occurrences of more recent date, as well as of + seeing some of the actors therein, that we paid a visit to + Pueblo. We found it a rather odd mixture of the old and the + new, the adobe and the "dug-out" looking across the street upon + the imposing structure of brick or the often gaudily-painted + frame cottage. It looked as though it might have been indulging + in a Rip Van Winkle sleep, except that the duration might have + been a century or two. High <i>mesas</i> with gracefully + rounded and convoluted sides almost entirely surround it, and + rising above their floor-like tops, and in fine contrast with + their sombre brown tints, appear the blue outlines of the + distant mountains. Pike's Peak, fifty miles to the north, and + the Spanish Peaks, the Wawatoyas, ninety to the south, are + sublime objects of which the eye never grows weary; while the + Sierra Mojadas bank up the western horizon with a frowning + mountain-wall. A notch in the distant range, forty miles to the + north-west, indicates the place where the Arkansas River breaks + through the barriers that would impede its seaward course, + forming perhaps the grandest cañon to be found in all this + mighty mountain-wilderness. Truly a striking picture was that + on which Coronado and his mail-clad warriors gazed.</p> + + <p> + <a name="GENERAL_VIEW_OF_PUEBLO_COLORADO_LOOKING_NORTH_WEST_PIKES_PEAK_IN_THE_DISTANCE" + id="GENERAL_VIEW_OF_PUEBLO_COLORADO_LOOKING_NORTH_WEST_PIKES_PEAK_IN_THE_DISTANCE"> + </a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0005.jpg"><img src="images/0005-tb.jpg" + alt="GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING NORTH-WEST—PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE." + title="GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING NORTH-WEST—PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE." /> + </a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING + NORTH-WEST—PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.</p> + + <p>A motley throng compose the inhabitants of Pueblo. The + dark-hued Mexican, his round face shaded by the inevitable + <i>sombrero</i>, figures conspicuously. But if you value his + favor and your future peace of mind have a care how you allude + to his nationality. He is a Spaniard, you should know—a + pure Castilian whose ancestor was some old hidalgo with as long + an array of names and titles as has the Czar of All the Russias + himself. Though he now lives in a forsaken-looking adobe hut + with dirt floor and roof of sticks and turf that serves only to + defile the raindrops that trickle through its many + gaps—though his sallow wife and ill-favored children + huddle round him or cook the scanty meal upon the mud oven in a + corner of the room—he is yet a Spaniard, and glories in + it. The tall, raw-boned man, straight as a young cottonwood, + whose long black hair floats out from beneath his hat as he + rides into town from his ranch down the river, may be a + half-breed who has figured in a score of Indian fights, and + enjoys the proud distinction of having killed his man. There is + the hungry-looking prospector, waiting with ill-disguised + impatience till he can "cross the Range" and follow again, as + he has done year after year, the exciting chase after the + ever-receding mirage—the visions of fabulous wealth + always going to be, but never quite, attained. The time-honored + symbol of Hope must, we think, give place to a more forcible + representation furnished by the peculiar genius of our times; + for is not our modern Rocky-Mountain prospector the complete + embodiment of that sublime grace? His is a hope that even + reverses the proverb, for no amount of deferring is able to + make him heartsick, but rather seems to spur him on to more + earnest endeavor. Has he toiled the summer long, endured every + privation, encountered inconceivable perils, only to find + himself at its close poorer than when he began? Reluctantly he + leaves the mountain-side where the drifting snows have begun to + gather, but seemingly as light-hearted as when he came, for his + unshaken hope bridges the winter and feeds upon the limitless + possibilities of the future. Full of wonderful stories are + these same hope-sustained prospectors—tales that are + bright with the glitter of silver and gold. Not a single one of + them who has not discovered "leads" of wonderful richness or + "placers" where the sands were yellow with gold; but by some + mischance the prize always slipped out of his grasp, and left + him poor in all but hope. And in truth so fascinating becomes + the occupation that men who in other respects seem cool and + phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the + horde rushing toward some unexplored district, impelled by the + ever-flying rumors of untold wealth just brought to light. The + golden goal this season is the great Gunnison Country; and soon + trains of <i>burros</i>, packed with pick and shovel, tent and + provisions, will be climbing the Range.</p> + + <p>Pueblo has likewise its business-men, its men of to-day, who + manage its banks, who buy and sell and get gain as they might + do in any well-ordered city, though, truth to tell, there are + very few of them who do not sooner or later catch the + prevailing infection—a part of whose assets is not + represented by some "prospect" away up in the mountains or + frisking about the Plains in herds of cattle and sheep. But + perhaps the most curiously-original character in all the town + is Judge Allen A. Bradford, of whose wonderful memory the + following good story is told: Years ago he, with a party of + officers, was at the house of Colonel Boone, down the river. + While engaged in playing "pitch-trump," of which the judge was + very fond—and in fact the only game of cards with which + he was acquainted—a messenger rushed in announcing that a + lady had fallen from her horse and was doubtless much injured. + The players left their cards and ran to render assistance, and + the game thus broken up was not resumed. Some two years later + the same parties found themselves together again, and + "pitch-trump" was proposed. To the astonishment of all, the + judge informed them how the score stood when they had so + hurriedly left the game, and with the utmost gravity insisted + that it be continued from that point!</p> + + <p>On a bright sunny morning we sought out the judge's office, + only to learn that he had not yet for the day exchanged the + pleasures of rural life across the Fontaine for less romantic + devotions at the shrine of the stern goddess. Later we were + informed, upon what seemed credible authority, that upon the + morning in question he was intending to sow oats. Though cold + March still claimed the calendar, and hence such action on the + part of the judge might seem like forcing the season, yet + reflections upon his advanced years caused us to suppress the + rising thought that perhaps some allusions to <i>wild</i> oats + might have been intended. Hence we looked forward to a rare + treat—judicial dignity unbending itself in pastoral + pursuits, as in the case of some Roman magistrate. "A little + better'n a mile" was the answer to our interrogatory as to how + far the judge's ranch might be from town; but having upon many + former occasions taken the dimensions of a Colorado mile, we + declined the suggestion to walk and sought some mode of + conveyance. There chanced to be one right at hand, standing + patiently by the wayside and presided over by an ancient + colored gentleman. The coach had been a fine one in its day, + but that was long since past, and now its dashboard, bent out + at an angle of forty-five degrees, the faded trimmings and the + rusty, stately occupant of the box formed a complete and + harmonious picture of past grandeur seldom seen in the Far + West. Two dubious-looking bronchos, a bay and a white, + completed this unique equipage, in which we climbed the + <i>mesa</i> and then descended into the valley of the Fontaine. + The sable driver was disposed to be communicative, and ventured + various opinions upon current topics. He had been through the + war, and came West fourteen years ago.</p> + + <p>"You have had quite an adventurous life," we remarked.</p> + + <p>"Why, sah," he returned, "if the history ob my life was + wrote up it would be wuth ten thousand dollars."</p> + + <p>While regarding the valuation as somewhat high, we yet + regretted our inability to profit by this unexpected though + promising business-opportunity, and soon our attention was + diverted by a glimpse of the judge's adobe, and that person + himself standing by his carriage and awaiting our by no means + rapid approach. He was about to go to town, and the oats were + being sown by an individual of the same nationality as our + driver, to whom the latter addressed such encouraging remarks + as "Git right 'long dere now and sow dat oats. Don't stand + roostin' on de fence all day, like as you had the consumshing. + You look powerful weak. Guess mebbe I'd better come over dere + and show you how."</p> + + <p><a name="THE_JUDGE" + id="THE_JUDGE"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/0009.jpg" + alt="THE JUDGE" + title="THE JUDGE" /> + </div> + + <p class='center'>THE JUDGE.</p> + + <p>Judge Bradford's career has been a chequered one, and it has + fallen to his lot to dispense justice in places and under + circumstances as various as could well be imagined. Born in + Maine in 1815, he has lived successively in Missouri, Iowa, + Nebraska and Colorado, and held almost every position open to + the profession of the law. From the supreme bench of Colorado + he was twice called to represent the Territory as delegate to + Congress. In 1852, when he was judge of the Sixth Judicial + District of Iowa, his eccentricities of character seem to have + reached their full development. He exhibited that supreme + disregard for dress and the various social amenities which not + infrequently betray the superior mind. Never were his clothes + known to fit, being invariably too large or too small, too + short or too long. As to his hair, the external evidences were + of a character to disprove the rumor that he had a brush and + comb, while the stubby beard frequently remained undisturbed + upon the judicial chin for several weeks at a time. The + atrocious story is even told that once upon a time, when half + shaven, he chanced to pick up a newspaper, became absorbed in + its contents, forgot to complete his task, and went to court in + this most absurdly unsymmetrical condition. But, despite these + personal eccentricities, a more honest or capable judge has + rarely been called upon to vindicate the majesty of the law. + Upon the bench none could detect a flaw in his assumption of + that dignity so intimately associated in all minds with the + judiciary, but, the ermine once laid aside for the day, he was + as jolly and mirthful as any of his frontier companions. Judge + Bradford was no advocate, but by the action of a phenomenal + memory his large head was stored so full of law as to + emphasize, to those who knew him, the curious disproportion + between its size and that of his legs and feet. These latter + were of such peculiarly modest dimensions as to call to mind + Goldsmith's well-known lines, though in this case we must, of + necessity, picture admiring frontiersmen standing round + while</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i6">Still the wonder grew<br /></span> + <span class="i0">That two small feet could carry all he + knew.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>The judge's mind is of the encyclopædical type, and facts + and dates are his especial "strong holt." But his countenance + fails to ratify the inward structure when, pausing from a + recital, he gazes upon your reception of the knowledge conveyed + with a kindly smile—a most innocent smile that acts as a + strong disposer to belief. Whether it has been a simple tale of + the early days enlivened with recollections of pitch-trump and + other social joys, or whether the performances of savage + Indians and treacherous half-breeds send a chill through the + listener, it is all the same: at its close the judge's amiable + features wear the same belief-compelling smile. Under its + influence we sit for hours while our entertainer ranges through + the stores of his memory, pulling out much that is dust-covered + and ancient, but quickly renovated for our use by his ready + imagination and occasional wit. With a feeling akin to + reverence we listen—a reverence due to one who had turned + his face toward the Rocky Mountains before Colorado had a name, + who had made the perilous journey across the great Plains + behind a bull-team, and who has since been associated with + everything concerned in the welfare and progress of what has + now become this great Centennial State, toward which all eyes + are turning. Not without its dark days to him has passed this + pioneer life, and none were more filled with discouragement + than those during which he represented the Territory in + Congress. He describes the position as one of peculiar + difficulty—on one hand the clamors of a people for aid + and recognition in their rapid development of the country, + while on the other, to meet them, he found himself a mere + beggar at the doors of Congressional mercy and grace, voteless + and hence powerless. Truly, in the light of his experience, the + office of Territorial delegate is no sinecure.</p> + + <p>No one has more closely observed the course of events in the + Far West than Judge Bradford, and his opinions on some disputed + points are very decided and equally clear. Many have wondered + that Pueblo, which had the advantage of first settlement, had + long been a rendezvous of trappers and frontier traders, and + lay upon the only road to the then so-called Pike's Peak mines, + that <i>viâ</i> the Arkansas Cañon—that this outpost, + situated thus at the very gateway of the Far West, should have + remained comparatively unimportant, while Denver grew with such + astonishing rapidity. But, in the judge's opinion, it was the + war of the rebellion that turned the scale in favor of the + Queen City. The first emigrants had come through Missouri and + up the Arkansas, their natural route, and as naturally + conducting to Pueblo. But when Missouri and South-eastern + Kansas became the scenes of guerrilla warfare the emigrant who + would safely convey himself and family across the prairies must + seek a more northern parallel. Hence, Pueblo received a check + from which it is only now recovering, and Denver an impetus + whose ultimate limits no man can foresee.</p> + + <p>Many strange things were done in the olden time. When the + Plains Indians had gathered together their forces for the + purpose of persistently harassing the settlement, the Mountain + Utes, then the allies of the whites, offered their services to + help repel the common enemy. Petitions went up to the governor + and Legislature to accept the proffered services, but they were + steadily refused. Our long-headed judge gives the reason: The + administration was under the control of men who were feeding + Uncle Sam's troops with corn at thirteen cents per pound, and + other staples in proportion, and the Indian volunteers promised + a too speedy ending of such a profitable warfare.</p> + + <p>Thus eventfully has passed the life of Judge Bradford. + During his threescore-and-five years he has moved almost across + a continent, never content unless he was on the frontier. Long + may he live to ride in his light coverless wagon in the smile + of bright Colorado sunshine, honored by all who know him, and + affording his friends the enjoyment of his rare good + presence!</p> + + <p><a name="OLD_ADOBE_FORT" + id="OLD_ADOBE_FORT"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0012.jpg"><img src="images/0012-tb.jpg" + alt="OLD ADOBE FORT." + title="OLD ADOBE FORT." /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>OLD ADOBE FORT.</p> + + <p>Thirty years ago this whole Rocky-Mountain region, now + appropriated by an enterprising and progressive people, + contained, besides the native Indians and the Mexicans in the + south, only a few trappers and frontier traders, most of them + in the employ of the American Fur Company. These were the + fearless and intrepid pioneers who so far from fleeing danger + seemed rather to court it. Accounts of their + adventures—now a struggle with a wounded bear, again the + threatened perils of starvation when lost in some + mountain-fastness—have long simultaneously terrified and + fascinated both young and old. We all have pictured their + dress—the coat or cloak, often an odd combination of + several varieties of skins pieced together, with fur side in; + breeches sometimes of the same material, but oftener of coarse + duck or corduroy; and the slouched hat, under whose broad brim + whatever of the face that was not concealed by a shaggy, + unkempt beard shone out red from exposure to sun and weather. + The American Fur Company had dotted the country with forts, + which served the double purpose of storehouses for the + valuables collected and of places where the employés could + barricade themselves against the too-often troublesome savages. + For such a purpose, though not actually by the Fur Company, was + built the old adobe fort the ruins of which are still to be + seen on the banks of the Arkansas at Pueblo. How old it may + have been no one seems to know, but certain it is that for long + years, and in the earliest times, it was a favorite rendezvous. + Here was always to be found a jolly good party to pass away the + long winter evenings with song and story. Here Kit Carson often + stopped to rest from his many perilous expeditions, enjoying, + together with Fremont and other noted Rocky-Mountain explorers, + the hospitalities of the old fort. Many times were its soft + walls indented by the arrows of besieging Indians, but its + bloodiest tragedy was enacted in 1854, when the Utes surprised + the sleeping company and savagely massacred all.</p> + + <p>While these events were transpiring at the old fort a party + of Mexicans had journeyed from the south, crossed the Arkansas + River and formed a settlement on the east side of the Fontaine. + A characteristically squalid and miserable place it was, with + the dwellings—they scarce deserved the name of + houses—built in the side of the bluffs very much as + animals might burrow in the ground. Part dug-out and part adobe + were those wretched habitations, and the shed-like parts which + projected from the hill were composed of all conceivable and + inconceivable kinds of rubbish. Sticks, stones, bits of old + iron, worn-out mattings and gunny-sacks entered more or less + into the construction of these dens, all stuck together with + the inevitable adobe mud. The settlement extended some distance + along the side of the bluff, and the sloping plain in front was + dignified as the <i>plaza</i>. Perhaps the dark-hued immigrants + expected a large town to spring from these unpromising + beginnings, and their plaza to take on eventually all the + importance which a place so named ever deserves in the Spanish + and Mexican mind. But the Pike's Peak excitement, originating + in 1852 with the finding of gold by a party of Cherokee + Indians, and reaching its culmination in 1859, brought a far + different class of people to our Rocky-Mountain outpost, and a + civilization was inaugurated which speedily compelled the + ancient Mexican methods to go by the board. Thus, Fontaine was + soon absorbed by the rising town of Pueblo, though the ancient + dug-outs still picturesquely dot the hillside, inhabited by + much the same idle and vagabond class from which the prosperous + ranchman soon learns to guard his hen-roost.</p> + + <p>The growth of any of our Far Western towns presents a + curious study. In these latter days it frequently requires but + a few months, or even weeks, to give some new one a fair start + upon its prosperous way. Sometimes a mineral vein, sometimes + the temporary "end of the track" of a lengthening railway, + forms the nucleus, and around it are first seen the tents of + the advance-guard. Before many weeks have elapsed some + enterprising individual has succeeded, in the face of infinite + toil and expense, in bringing a sawmill into camp. Soon it is + buzzing away on the neighboring hillside, and the rough pine + boards and slabs are growing into houses of all curious sizes + and shapes, irregularly lining the main street. Delightfully + free from conventionality are matters in these new towns. + Former notions of things go for naught. Values are in a + highly-disturbed state, and you will probably be charged more + for the privilege of sleeping somewhere on the floor than for + all the refined elegancies of the Fifth Avenue. The board-walks + along the street, where they exist at all, plainly typify this + absence of a well-defined dead level or zero-point in the + popular sentiment; for the various sections are built each upon + the same eccentric plan that obtains in the corresponding + house. The result is an irregular succession of steps equally + irregular, with enough literal jumping-off places to relieve + any possible monotony attending the promenade. If the growth of + the town seems to continue satisfactory, its houses—at + least those in or near its central portions—begin + gradually to pass through the next stage in their development. + During this interesting period, which might be called their + chrysalid state, they are twisted and turned, sometimes sawn + asunder, parts lopped off here and applied elsewhere, and all + those radical changes made which would utterly destroy anything + possessed of protean possibilities inferior to those of the + common Western frame house. But, as a final result of this + treatment and some small additions of new material, at last + emerges the shapely and often artistic cottage, resplendent in + paint, and bearing small resemblance to the slab-built barn + which forms its framework. If the sometime camp becomes a + city—if Auraria grows into a Denver and Fontaine develops + into Pueblo—the frame houses will sooner or later share a + common fate, that of being mounted on wheels or rollers for a + journey suburbward, to make room for the substantial blocks of + brick or stone. By this curious process of evolution do most of + our Western towns rapidly acquire more or less of a + metropolitan appearance.</p> + + <p><a name="MEXICAN_INTERIOR" + id="MEXICAN_INTERIOR"></a></p> + + <div class="figright"> + <img src="images/0015.jpg" + alt="MEXICAN INTERIOR." /><br /> + MEXICAN INTERIOR. + </div> + + <p>Pueblo, while not a representative Western town in these + respects, yet in its early days presented some curious + combinations, most of them growing out of the heterogeneous + human mixture that attempted to form a settlement. The famous + Green-Russell party, on its way from Georgia to the Pike's Peak + country, had passed through Missouri and Kansas in 1858, and + there found an element ripe for any daring and adventurous + deeds in unknown lands. Many of the border desperadoes, then + engaged in that hard-fought prelude to the civil war, found it + desirable and expedient to leave a place where their violent + deeds became too well known; and these, together with others + who hoped to find in a new country relief from the anarchy + which reigned at home, fell into the wake of the pioneers. + Pueblo received its full share of Kansas outlaws about this + time, and, what with those it already contained, even a modicum + of peace seemed out of the question. Here, for instance, was + found living with the Mexicans by the plaza a quarrelsome + fellow named Juan Trujillo, better known by the sobriquet of + Juan Chiquito or "Little John," which his diminutive stature + had earned for him. This worthy is represented as a constant + disturber of the peace, and he met the tragic fate which his + reckless life had invited. From being a trusted friend he had + incurred the enmitv of a noted character named Charley + Antobees, than whom, perhaps, no one has had a more varied + frontier experience. Coming to the Rocky Mountains in 1836 in + the employ of the American Fur Company, he has since served as + hunter, trapper, Indian-fighter, guide to several United States + exploring expeditions, and spy in the Mexican war as well as in + the war of the rebellion. Antobees still lives on the outskirts + of Pueblo, and his scarred and bronzed face, framed by flowing + locks of jet-black hair, is familiar to all. The frame that has + endured so much is now bent, and health is at last broken, and + about a year since an effort was made by Judge Bradford and + others to secure him a pension. But twenty years back he was in + his full vigor and able to maintain his own against all odds. + Whether or not it is true we cannot say, but certain it is that + he is credited with causing the death of Juan Chiquito. An + Indian called "Chickey" actually did the deed, lying in ambush + for his victim. Perhaps few were sorry at the Mexican's sudden + taking off, and in a country where Judge Lynch alone executes + the laws the whole transaction was no doubt regarded as + eminently proper.</p> + + <p>Among those who came to Pueblo with the influx of 1858 were + two brothers from Ohio, Josiah and Stephen Smith. Stalwart + young men were these, of a different type from the Kansans and + Missourians, yet not of the sort to be imposed upon. They were + crack rifle-shots, and even then held decided opinions on the + Indian question—opinions which subsequent experiences + have served to emphasize, but not change. And what with + constant troubles with the savages, as well as with the + scarcely less intractable Kansans, their first years in the Far + West could not be called altogether pleasant. Many a time have + their lives been in danger from bands of outlaw immigrants, + who, dissatisfied with not finding gold lying about as they had + expected, sought to revenge themselves upon the settlers, whom + they considered in fault for having led the way. Their personal + bravery went far toward bringing to a close this reign of + terror and transforming the lawless settlement into a permanent + and prosperous town. Still in the prime of life, they look back + with pleasure over their most hazardous experiences, for time + has softened the dangers and cast over them the glow of + romance. And while none are more familiar with everything + concerning the early history of Pueblo, it is equally true that + none are more ready to gratify an appreciative listener, and + the writer is indebted for much that follows to their + inimitable recitals.</p> + + <p>About the first work of any note undertaken in connection + with the new town was the building of a bridge across the + Arkansas. This was accomplished in 1860, when a charter was + obtained from Kansas and a structure of six spans thrown across + the river. It was a toll-bridge, and every crossing team put at + least one dollar into the pockets of its owners. But trouble + soon overtook the management. While one of the proprietors was + in New Mexico, building a mill for Maxwell upon his famous + estate, the other was so unfortunate as to kill three men, and + was obliged, as Steph Smith felicitously expressed it, to "skip + out." Thus the bridge passed into other hands, where it + remained till it was partly washed away in 1863. The following + little matter of history connected with its palmy days will be + best given in the narrator's own words: "We had a blacksmith + who misused his wife. The citizens took him down to the bridge, + tied a rope around his body and threw him into the river. They + kept up their lick until they nearly drowned the poor cuss, + then whispered to him to be good to his wife or his time would + be short. He took the hint, used his wife well, and everything + was lovely. That was the first cold-water cure in Pueblo, and I + ain't sure but the last." This incident serves to illustrate + the inherent character of American gallantry, for, however wild + or in most respects uncivilized men may appear to become under + the influence of frontier life, instances are rare in which + women are not treated with all the honor and respect due them. + Indeed, I have sometimes thought that the general sentiment + concerning woman is more refined and reverential among the + bronzed pioneers at the outposts than under the influence of a + higher civilization.</p> + + <p>The Arkansas, ever changing its winding course after the + manner of prairie-rivers, has long since shifted its bed some + distance to the south, leaving only a portion of the old bridge + to span what in high water becomes an arm of the river, but + which ordinarily serves to convey the water from a neighboring + mill. We lean upon its guard-rail while fancy is busy with the + past. We picture the prairie-schooners winding around the mesas + and through the gap: soon they have come to the grove by the + river-bank; the horses are picketed and the camp-fire is + blazing; brown children play in the sand while their parents + lie stretched out in the shadow of the wagons. They left + civilization on the banks of the Missouri more than a month + ago, and their eyes are still turned toward those grand old + mountain-ranges in the west over which the declining sun is now + pouring its transfiguring sheen. The brightness dazzles the + eyes, and the Mexican who rides by on a scarce manageable + broncho with nose high in air might be old Juan Chiquito bent + upon some murderous errand. But no: the rider has stopped the + animal, and is soliciting the peaceful offices of a blacksmith, + whose curious little shop, bearing the suggestive name of + "Ute," is seen near the bridge. Here bronchos, mules and burros + are fitted with massive shoes by this frontier Vulcan and sent + rejoicing upon their winding and rocky ways. Our sleepy gaze + follows along Santa Fé Avenue, and the eye sees little that is + suggestive of a modern Western town. But soon comes noisily + along a one-horse street-car, which asserts its just claims to + popular notice in consequence of its composing a full half of a + system scarce a fortnight old by filling the air with direful + screeches as each curve is laboriously described. And later, + when the magnificent overland train, twenty-six hours from + Kansas City, steams proudly up to the station, fancy can no + longer be indulged. The old has become new. The great Plains + have been bridged, and the outposts of but a decade ago become + the suburbs of to-day.</p> + + <p><a name="OLD_BRIDGE" + id="OLD_BRIDGE"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0018.jpg"><img src="images/0018-tb.jpg" + alt="OLD BRIDGE." + title="OLD BRIDGE." /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>OLD BRIDGE.</p> + + <p>Doubtless Old Si Smith now and then indulges in reveries + somewhat similar, but his retrospections would be of a minute + and personal character. To warm up the average frontiersman, + however—and Old Si is no exception—into a style at + once luminous and emphatic and embellished with all the + richness of the border dialect, it is only necessary to suggest + the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his + yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is + the red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to + become fervid and impressive. To him the Indian is the + embodiment of all that is supremely vile, and hence merits his + unmitigated hatred. Killing Indians is his most delightful + occupation, and the next in order is talking about it. His + contempt for government methods is unbounded, and the popular + Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith + brothers have had a varied experience in frontier affairs, in + which the Indian has played a prominent part. They hold the + Western views, but with less prejudice than is generally found. + They argue the case with a degree of fairness, and many of + their opinions and deductions are novel and equally just. Said + Stephen Smith to the writer: "We've got this thing reduced + right down to vulgar fractions, and the Utes have got to go. + The mineral lands are worth more to us than the Indians + are"—this with a suggestive shrug—"and if the + government don't remove them from the reserves, why, we'll have + to do it ourselves. There's a great fuss been made about the + whites going on the Indian reserves; and what did it all amount + to? Maybe fifty or sixty prospectors, all told, have got over + the lines, dug a few holes and hurt nobody. But I suppose the + Indians always stay where they ought to! I guess not. Some of + them are off their reserves half the time, and they go off to + murder and kill. Do they ever get punished for that? Not much, + except when folks do it on their own account. But let a white + man get found on the Indian reserves and there's a great howl. + I want a rule that will work both ways, and I don't give much + for a government that isn't able to protect me on the Indian + reserves the same as anywhere else. Some years ago Indian + troubles were reported at Washington, and Sherman was sent out + to investigate. Of course they heard he was coming, and all + were on their good behavior. They knew where their blankets and + ponies and provisions came from. Consequently, Sherman reported + everything peaceful: he hadn't seen anybody killed. That's + about the kind of information they get in the East on the + Indian question.</p> + + <p>"Misused? Yes, the Indians have been misused, badly misused. + I know that. But who have <i>they</i> misused? This whole + country is covered with ruins, and they all go to show that it + has been inhabited by a highly-civilized race of people. And + what has become of them? I believe the Indians cleaned them out + long years ago; and now their turn has come. I find it's a law + of Nature"—and here the narrator's tone grew more + reverent as if touching upon a higher theme—"that the + weak go to the wall. It's a hard law, but I don't see any way + out of it. The old Aztecs had to go under, and the Indians will + have to follow suit."</p> + + <p>Whatever humanitarians and archæologists may conclude + concerning these opinions, they are nevertheless extensively + held in the Far West. The frontiersman, who sees the Indian + only in his native savagery, who has found it necessary to + employ a considerable part of his time in keeping out of range + of poisoned arrows, and who must needs be always upon the alert + lest his family fall a prey to Indian treachery, cannot be + expected to hold any ultra-humanitarian views upon the subject. + He has not been brought in contact with the several + partially-civilized tribes, in whose advancement many see + possibilities for the whole race. He cannot understand why the + government allows the Indians to roam over enormous tracts of + land, rich in minerals they will never extract and containing + agricultural possibilities they will never seek to realize. His + plan would be to have only the same governmental care exercised + over the red man as is now enjoyed by the white, and then look + to the law of the survival of the fittest to furnish a solution + of the problem. The case seems so clear and the arguments so + potent that he looks for some outside reasons for their + failure, and very naturally thinks he discovers them in + governmental quarters. "There's too many people living off this + Indian business for it to be wound up yet a while." Thus does a + representative man at the outposts express the sentiment of no + inconsiderable class.</p> + + <p>Next to the Indian himself, the frontiersman holds in slight + esteem the soldiers who are sent for the protection of the + border. The objects of his supreme hatred still often merit his + good opinion for their bravery and fighting qualities, but upon + raw Eastern recruits and West-Point fledglings he looks with + mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods by many hard + knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity toward + those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to + this may be a lurking jealousy—which, however, would be + stoutly disclaimed—because the blue uniform is gaining + honors and experience more easily and under conditions more + favorable than were possible with him in the early days. "They + be about the greenest set!" said an old Indian-fighter to whom + this subject was broached, "and the sight of an Injun jest + about scares 'em to death at first. I never saw any of 'em + <i>I</i> was afraid of if I only had any sort of a show. Why, + back in '59 I undertook to take a young man back to the States, + and we started off in a buggy—a <i>buggy</i>, do you + mind. When we got down the Arkansas a piece we heard the + red-skins was pretty thick, but we went right on, except + keeping more of a lookout, you know. But along in the afternoon + we saw fifteen or twenty coming for us, and we got ready to + give 'em a reception. We had a hard chase, but at last they got + pretty sick of the way I handled my rifle, and concluded to let + us alone for a while. They kept watch of us, though, and meant + to get square with us that night. Well, we travelled till dark, + stopped just long enough to build a big fire, and then lit out. + When those Injuns came for us that night we were some other + place, and they lost their grip on that little scalping-bee. + They didn't trouble us any more, that's sure. And when we got + to the next post there were nigh a hundred teams, six stages + and two companies of soldiers, all shivering for fear of the + Injuns. It rather took the wind out of 'em to see us come in + with that buggy, and they didn't want to believe we had come + through. But, like the man's mother-in-law, we were + <i>there</i>, and they couldn't get out of it. And, sir, maybe + you won't believe me, but those soldiers offered me + <i>seventy-five dollars</i> to go back with them! That's the + sort of an outfit the government sends to protect us!"</p> + + <p><a name="SANTA_FE_AVENUE_PUEBLO_COLORADO" + id="SANTA_FE_AVENUE_PUEBLO_COLORADO"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0022.jpg"><img src="images/0022-tb.jpg" + alt="SANTA FE AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO." + title="SANTA FE AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO.r" /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>SANTA FÉ AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO.</p> + + <p>We have had frequent occasion since our frontier experiences + began to ponder the untrammelled opulence of this Western word, + <i>outfit</i>. From the Mississippi to the Pacific its + expansive possibilities are momentarily being tested. There is + nothing that lives, breathes or grows, nothing known to the + arts or investigated by the sciences—nothing, in short, + coming within the range of the Western perception—that + cannot with more or less appropriateness be termed an "outfit." + A dismal broncho turned adrift in mid-winter to browse on the + short stubble of the Plains is an "outfit," and so likewise is + the dashing equipage that includes a shining phaeton and + richly-caparisoned span. Perhaps by no single method can so + comprehensive an idea of the term in question be obtained in a + short time, and the proper qualifying adjectives correctly + determined, as by simply preparing for a camping-expedition. + The horse-trader with whom you have negotiated for a pair of + horses or mules congratulates you upon the acquisition of a + "boss outfit." When your wagon has been purchased and the mules + are duly harnessed in place, you are further induced to believe + that you have a "way-up outfit," though, obviously, this should + now be understood to possess a dual significance which did not + before obtain, since the wagon represents a component part. The + hardware clerk displays a tent and recommends a fly as forming + a desirable addition to an even otherwise "swell outfit." The + grocer provides you with what he modestly terms a "first-class + outfit," albeit his cans of fruits, vegetables and meats are + for the delectation of the inner man. Frying-pans and + dutch-ovens, camp-stools and trout-scales, receive the same + designation. And now comes the crowning triumph of this + versatile term, as well as a happy illustration of what might + be called its agglutinative and assimilating powers; for when + horses and wagon have received their load of tent and + equipments, and father, mother and the babies have filled up + every available space, this whole establishment, this <i>omnium + gatherum</i> of outfits, becomes neither more nor less than an + "outfit."</p> + + <p>The last five years have witnessed a wonderful material + progress in the Far West. The mineral wealth discovered in + Colorado and New Mexico has caused a great westward-flowing + tide to set in. The nation seems to be possessed of a desire to + reclaim the waste places and to explore the unknown. Cities + that were founded by "fifty-niners," and after a decade seemed + to reach the limits of their growth, have started on a new + career. And for none of these does the outlook seem brighter + than in the case of the city of Pueblo, the old outpost whose + early history we have attempted to sketch. Its growth has all + along been a gradual one, and its improvements have kept pace + with this healthy advance. Its public schools, like those of + all Far Western towns which the writer has visited are model + institutions and an honor to the commonwealth. A handsome brick + court-house, situated on high ground, is an ornament to the + city, and differs widely from that in which Judge Bradford held + court eighteen years ago—the first held in the Territory, + and that, too, under military protection. Pueblo's wealth is + largely derived from the stock-raising business, the + surrounding country being well adapted to cattle and sheep. The + <i>rancheros</i> ride the Plains the year round, and the cattle + flourish upon the food which Nature provides—in the + summer the fresh grass, and in the winter the same converted + into hay which has been cured upon the ground. An important + railway-centre is Pueblo, and iron highways radiate from it to + the four cardinal points. These advantages of location should + procure it a large share of the flood of prosperity that is + sweeping over the State. But enterprises are now in progress + which cannot fail to add materially to its importance as a + factor in the development of the country. On the highest lift + of the mesa south of the town, and in a most commanding + position, it has been decided to locate a blast-furnace which + shall have no neighbor within a radius of five hundred miles. + With iron ore of finest quality easily accessible in the + neighboring mountains, and coal-fields of unlimited extent + likewise within easy reach, the production of iron in the Rocky + Mountains has only waited for the growth of a demand. This the + advancement and prosperity of the State have now well assured. + Many kindred industries will spring up around the furnace, the + Bessemer steel-works and the rail-mills that are now projected; + and a few years will suffice to transform the level mesa, upon + which for untold centuries the cactus and the yucca-lily have + bloomed undisturbed, into a thriving manufacturing city whose + pulse shall be the throb of steam through iron arms. The + onlooking mountains, that have seen strange sights about this + old outpost, are to see a still stranger—the ushering-in + of a new civilization which now begins its march into the land + of the Aztecs.</p> + + <p>Perhaps these thoughts were occupying our minds as we + climbed the bluffs for a visit to this incipient Pittsburg. The + equipage did no credit to the financial status of the iron + company, as it consisted of a superannuated express-wagon drawn + by a dyspeptic white horse which the boy who officiated as + driver found no difficulty in restraining. Two gentlemen in + charge of the constructions, their visitor and two kegs of + nails comprised this precious load. The day was cloudless and + fine, albeit a Colorado "zephyr" was blowing, and the party, + with perhaps the single exception of the horse, felt in fine + spirits. The jolly superintendent, who both in face and mien + reminded one of the typical German nobleman, was overflowing + with story, joke and witty repartee. The site of the works was + reached in the course of time. Excavations were in progress for + the blast-furnace and accessory buildings, and developed a + strange formation. The entire mesa seems built up of boulders + packed together with a sort of alkali clay, dry and hard as + stone, and looking, as our <i>distingué</i> guide remarked, as + though not a drop of water had penetrated five feet from the + surface since the time of the Flood. Two blast-furnaces, each + with a capacity of five hundred tons, will be speedily built, + to be followed by rail-mills, a Bessemer steel-plant and all + the accessories of vast iron-and steel-works. With the + patronage of several thousand miles of railway already assured, + and its duplication in the near future apparently beyond doubt, + the success of this daring frontier enterprise seems far + removed from the domain of conjecture.</p> + + <p><a name="OLD_SI_SMITH" + id="OLD_SI_SMITH"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/0026.jpg" + alt="OLD SI SMITH" + title="OLD SI SMITH" /> + </div> + + <p class='center'>OLD SI SMITH.</p> + + <p>All this was glowingly set forth by the courtly + superintendent, who, though but three months in the country, is + already at heart a Coloradan. That there are some things about + frontier life which he likes better than others he is free to + admit. Among the few matters he would have otherwise he gives + the first place to the tough "range" or "snow-fed" beef upon + which the dwellers in this favored land must needs subsist. "I + heard a story once," said he, "about a young man, a tenderfoot, + who, after long wondering what made the beef so fearfully + tough, at length arrived at the solution, as he thought, and + that quite by accident. He was riding out with a friend, an old + resident, when they chanced to come upon a bunch of cattle. The + young man's attention seemed to be attracted, and as the idea + began to dawn upon him he faced his companion, and, pointing to + an animal which bore the brand "B.C. 45," savagely exclaimed, + 'Look there! How can you expect those antediluvians to be + anything but tough? Why don't you kill your cattle before they + get two or three times as old as Methuselah?'"</p> + + <p>We took a long ride that afternoon under a peerless sky, + with blue mountain-ranges on one hand, whose ridges, covered + with snow, seemed like folds of satin, and on the other the + great billowy Plains, bare and brown and smooth as a carpet. + The white horse, relieved of the kegs of nails, really + performed prodigies of travel, all the more appreciated because + unexpected. A stone-quarry for which we were searching was not + found, but a teamster was, who, while everything solemnly stood + still and waited, and amid the agonies of an indescribable + stutter, finally managed to enlighten us somewhat as to its + whereabouts. These adventures served to put us in excellent + humor, so that when the road was found barricaded by a barbed + wire fence, it only served to give one of the party an + opportunity to air his views upon the subject—to argue, + in fact, that the barbed wire fence had been an important + factor in building up the agricultural greatness of the West. + "For what inducements," he exclaims, "does the top rail of such + a fence offer to the contemplative farmer? None, sir! His + traditional laziness has been broken up, and great material + prosperity is the result."</p> + + <p>Whatever causes have operated to produce the effect, certain + it is that the West is eminently prosperous to-day. Everywhere + are seen growth, enterprise and an aggressiveness that stops at + no obstacles. Immigration is pouring into Colorado alone at the + rate of several thousands per week. The government lands are + being rapidly taken up, and the stable industries of + stock-raising and farming correspondingly extended. + Manufacturing, too, is acquiring a foothold, and many of the + necessaries of life, which now must be obtained in the East, + will soon be produced at home. The mountains are revealing + untold treasures of silver and gold, and the possibilities + which may lie hid in the yet unexplored regions act as a + stimulus to crowds of hopeful prospectors. But while Colorado + is receiving her full share of the influx, a tide seems to be + setting in toward the old empire of the Aztecs, and flowing + through the natural gateway, our old Rocky-Mountain outpost. It + is beginning to be found out that the legends of fabulous + wealth which have come down to us from the olden time have much + of truth in them, and mines that were worked successively by + Franciscan monks, Pueblo Indians, Jesuit priests and Mexicans, + and had suffered filling up and obliteration with every change + of proprietorship, are now being reopened; and that, too, under + a new dispensation which will ensure prosperity to the + enterprise. Spaniard and priest have long since abandoned their + claim to the rich possessions, and their doubtful sway, ever + upon the verge of revolution and offering no incentive to + enterprise, has given place to one of a different character. + Under the protection of beneficent and fostering laws this + oldest portion of our Union may now be expected to reveal its + wealth of resources to energy and intelligent labor. And it may + confidently be predicted that American enterprise will not halt + till it has built up the waste places of our land, and in this + case literally made the desert to blossom as the rose. Thus + gloriously does our new civilization reclaim the errors of the + past, building upon ancient ruins the enlightened institutions + of to-day, and grafting fresh vigor upon effete races and + nationalities. And now, at last, the Spanish Peaks, those + mighty ancient sentinels whose twin spires, like eyes, have + watched the slow rise and fall of stately but tottering + dynasties in the long ago, are to look out upon a different + scene—a new race come in the might of its freedom and + with almost the glory of a conquering host to redeem a waiting + land from the outcome of centuries of avaricious and bigoted + misrule, and even from the thraldom of decay.</p> + + <p class='author'>GEORGE REX BUCKMAN.</p> + + <p><a name="UNTITLED" + id="UNTITLED"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/0029.jpg" + alt="Untitled" + title="Untitled" /> + </div> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="LOST" + id="LOST"></a>LOST.</h2> + + <p><span style="margin-left: 10em;"><b>I.</b></span></p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">I lost my treasures one by + one,<br /></span> <span class="i1">Those joys the world + holds dear;<br /></span> <span>Smiling I said, + "To-morrow's sun<br /></span> <span class="i1">Will + bring us better cheer."<br /></span> + <span class="i0">For faith and love were one. Glad + faith!<br /></span><span class="i0">All loss is naught + save loss of faith.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p><span style="margin-left: 10em;"><b>II.</b></span></p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">My truant joys come trooping + back,<br /></span> <span class="i1">And trooping + friends no less;<br /></span> <span class="i0">But + tears fall fast to meet the lack<br /></span> + <span class="i1">Of dearer happiness.<br /></span> + <span class="i0">For faith and love are two.Sad + faith!<br /></span><span class="i0">'Tis loss indeed, + the loss of faith.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p class='center'>MARY DODGE.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="ADAM_AND_EVE" + id="ADAM_AND_EVE"></a>ADAM AND EVE.</h2> + + <h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" + id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h3> + + <p>From the day on which Adam knew that the date of Jerrem's + trial was fixed all the hope which the sight of Eve had + rekindled was again completely extinguished, and, refusing + every attempt at consolation, he threw himself into an abyss of + despair a hundred-fold more dark and bitter than before. The + thought that he, captain and leader as he had been, should + stand in court confronted by his comrades and neighbors (for + Adam, ignorant of the disasters which had overtaken them, + believed half Polperro to be on their way to London), and there + swear away Jerrem's life and turn informer, was something too + terrible to be dwelt on with even outward tranquillity, and, + abandoning everything which had hitherto sustained him, he gave + himself up to all the terrors of remorse and despair. It was in + vain for Reuben to reason or for Eve to plead: so long as they + could suggest no means by which this dreaded ordeal could be + averted Adam was deaf to all hope of consolation. There was but + one subject which interested him, and only on one subject could + he be got to speak, and that was the chances there still + remained of Jerrem's life being spared; and to furnish him with + some food for this hope, Eve began to loiter at the gates, talk + to the warders and the turnkeys, and mingle with the many + groups who on some business or pretext were always assembled + about the yard or stood idling in the various passages with + which the prison was intersected.</p> + + <p>One morning it came to her mind, How would it be for Adam to + escape, and so not be there to prove the accusation he had made + of Jerrem having shot the man? With scarce more thought than + she had bestowed on many another passing suggestion which + seemed for the moment practical and solid, but as she turned it + round lost shape and floated into air, Eve made the suggestion, + and to her surprise found it seized on by Adam as an + inspiration. Why, he'd risk <i>all</i> so that he escaped being + set face to face with Jerrem and his former mates. Adam had but + to be assured the strain would not be more than Eve's strength + could bear before he had adopted with joy her bare suggestion, + clothed it with possibility, and by it seemed to regain all his + past energy. Could he but get away and Jerrem's life be spared, + all hope of happiness would not be over. In some of those + distant lands to which people were then beginning to go life + might begin afresh. And as his thoughts found utterance in + speech he held out his hand to Eve, and in it she laid her own; + and Adam needed nothing more to tell him that whither he went + there Eve too would go. There was no need for vows and + protestations now between these two, for, though to each the + other's heart lay bare, a word of love scarce ever crossed + their lips. Life seemed too sad and time too precious to be + whiled away in pleasant speeches, and often when together, + burdened by the weight of all they had to say, yet could not + talk about, the two would sit for hours and neither speak a + word. But with this proposition of escape a new channel was + given to them, and as they discussed their different plans the + dreadful shadow which at times had hung between them was rolled + away and lifted out of sight.</p> + + <p>Inspired by the prospect of action, of doing something, Adam + roused himself to master all the difficulties: his old + foresight and caution began to revive, and the project, which + had on one day looked like a desperate extremity, grew by the + end of a week into a well-arranged plan whose success seemed + more than possible. Filled with anxiety for Eve, Reuben gave no + hearty sanction to the experiment: besides which, he felt + certain that now neither Adam's absence nor presence would in + any way affect Jerrem's fate; added to which, if the matter was + detected it might go hard with Adam himself. But his arguments + proved nothing to Eve, who, confident of success, only demanded + from him the promise of secrecy; after which, she thought, as + some questions might be put to him, the less he knew the less + he would have to conceal.</p> + + <p>Although a prisoner, inasmuch as liberty was denied to him, + Adam was in no way subjected to that strict surveillance to + which those who had broken the law were supposed to be + submitted. It was of his own free will that he disregarded the + various privileges which lay open to him: others in his place + would have frequented the passages, hung about the yards and + grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought + and sold. Money could do much in those days of lax discipline, + and the man who could pay and could give need have very few + wants unsatisfied. But Adam's only desire was to be left + undisturbed and alone; and as this entailed no undue amount of + trouble after their first curiosity had been satisfied, it was + not thought necessary to deny him this privilege. From + constantly going in and out, most of the officials inside the + prison knew Eve, while to but very few was Adam's face + familiar; and it was on this fact, aided by the knowledge that + through favor of a gratuity friends were frequently permitted + to outstay their usual hour, that most of their hopes rested. + Each day she came Eve brought some portion of the disguise + which was to be adopted; and then, having learnt from Reuben + that the Mary Jane had arrived and was lying at the wharf + unloading, not knowing what better to do, they decided that she + should go to Captain Triggs and ask him, in case Adam could get + away, whether he would let him come on board his vessel and + give him shelter there below.</p> + + <p>"Wa-al, no," said Triggs, "I woan't do that, 'cos they as + I'se got here might smell un out; but I'll tell 'ee what: I + knaws a chap as has in many ways bin beholden to me 'fore now, + and I reckon if I gives un the cue he'll do the job for + 'ee."</p> + + <p>"But do you think he's to be trusted?" Eve asked.</p> + + <p>"Wa-al, that rests on how small a part you'm foaced to tell + un of," said Triggs, "and how much you makes it warth his + while. I'm blamed if I'd go bail for un myself, but that won't + be no odds agen' Adam's goin': 'tis just the place for he. 'T + 'ud niver do to car'y a pitch-pot down and set un in the midst + o' they who couldn't bide his stink."</p> + + <p>"And the crew?" said Eve, wincing under Captain Triggs's + figurative language.</p> + + <p>"Awh, the crew's right enuf—a set o' gashly, + smudge-faced raskils that's near half Maltee and t' other + Lascar Injuns. Any jail-bird that flies their way 'ull find + they's all of a feather. But here," he added, puzzled by the + event: "how's this that you'm still mixed up with Adam so? I + thought 'twas all 'long o' you and Reuben May that the + Lottery's landin' got blowed about?"</p> + + <p>Eve shook her head. "Be sure," she said, "'twas never in me + to do Adam any harm."</p> + + <p>"And you'm goin' to stick to un now through thick and thin? + 'Twill niver do for un, ye knaw, to set his foot on Cornish + ground agen."</p> + + <p>"He knows that," said Eve; "and if he gets away we shall be + married and go across the seas to some new part, where no one + can tell what brought us from our home."</p> + + <p>Triggs gave a significant nod. "Lord!" he exclaimed, "but + that's a poor lookout for such a bowerly maid as you be! + Wouldn't it be better for 'ee to stick by yer friends 'bout + here than—"</p> + + <p>"I haven't got any friends," interrupted Eve promptly, + "excepting it's Adam and Joan and Uncle Zebedee."</p> + + <p>"Ah, poor old Zebedee!" sighed Triggs: "'tis all dickey with + he. The day I started I see Sammy Tucker to Fowey, and he was + tellin' that th' ole chap was gone reg'lar tottlin'-like, and + can't tell thickee fra that; and as for Joan Hocken, he says + you wouldn't knaw her for the same. And they's tooked poor + foolish Jonathan, as is more mazed than iver, to live with 'em; + and Mrs. Tucker, as used to haggle with everybody so, tends on + 'em all hand and foot, and her's given up praichin' 'bout + religion and that, and 's turned quite neighborly, and, so long + as her can save her daughter, thinks nothin's too hot nor too + heavy."</p> + + <p>"Dear Joan!" sighed Eve: "she's started by the coach on her + way up here now."</p> + + <p>"Whether she hath or no!" exclaimed Triggs in surprise. + "Then take my word they's heerd that Jerrem's to be hanged, and + Joan's comin' up to be all ready to hand for 't."</p> + + <p>"No, not that," groaned Eve, for at the mere mention of the + word the vague dread seemed to shape itself into a certainty. + "Oh, Captain Triggs, don't say that if Adam gets off you don't + think Jerrem's life will be spared."</p> + + <p>"Wa-al, my poor maid, us must hope so," said the + compassionate captain; "but 'tis the warst o' they doin's that + sooner or later th' endin, of 'em must come. 'Twould never do + to let 'em prosper allays," he added with impressive certainty, + "or where 'ud be the use o' parsons praichin' up 'bout heaven + and hell? Why, now, us likes good liquor cheap to Fowey; and + wance 'pon a time us had it too, but that ha'n't bin for twenty + year. Our day's gone by, and so 'ull theirs be now; and th' + excise 'ull come, and revenoos 'ull settle down, and folks be + foaced to take to lousterin' for the bit o' bread they ates, + and live quiet and paceable, as good neighbors should. So try + and take heart; and if so be that Adam can give they Bailey + chaps the go-by, tell un to come 'longs here, and us 'ull be + odds with any o' they that happens to be follerin' to his + heels."</p> + + <p>Charmed with this friendly promise, Eve said "Good-bye," + leaving the captain puzzled with speculations on women and the + many curious contradictions which seem to influence their + actions; while, the hour being now too late to return to the + prison, she took her way to her own room, thinking it best to + begin the preparations which in case of Adam's escape and any + sudden departure it would be necessary to have completed.</p> + + <p>Perhaps it was her interview with Captain Triggs, the sight + of the wharf and the ships, which took her thoughts back and + made them bridge the gulf which divided her past life from her + present self. Could the girl she saw in that shadowy + past—headstrong, confident, impatient of suffering and + unsympathetic with sorrow—be this same Eve who walked + along with all hope and thought of self merged in another's + happiness and welfare? Where was the vanity, where were the + tricks and coquetries, passports to that ideal existence after + which in the old days she had so thirsted? Trampled out of + sight and choked beneath the fair blossoms of a higher life, + which, as in many a human nature, had needed sorrow, + humiliation and a great watering of tears before there could + spring forth the flowers for a fruit which should one day ripen + into great perfection.</p> + + <p>No wonder, then, that she should be shaken by a doubt of her + own identity; and having reached her room she paused upon the + threshold and looked around as if to satisfy herself by all + those silent witnesses which made it truth. There was the chair + in which she had so often sat plying her needle with such tardy + grace while her impatient thoughts did battle with the humdrum, + narrow life she led. How she had beat against the fate which + seemed to promise naught but that dull round of commonplace + events in which her early years had passed away! How as a gall + and fret had come the thought of Reuben's proffered love, + because it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the + life she then most dreaded! To be courted and sought after, to + call forth love, jealousy and despair, to be looked up to, + thought well of, praised, admired,—these were the + delights she had craved and these the longings she had had + granted. And a sigh from the depths of that chastened heart + rendered the bitter tribute paid by all to satiated vanity and + outlived desire. The dingy walls, the ill-assorted furniture + (her mother's pride in which had sometimes vexed her, sometimes + made her laugh) now looked like childhood's friends, whose + faces stamp themselves upon our inmost hearts. The light no + longer seemed obscure, the room no longer gloomy, for each + thing in it now was flooded by the tender light of + memory—that wondrous gift to man which those who only + sail along life's summer sea can never know in all the heights + and depths revealed to storm-tossed hearts.</p> + + <p>"What! you've come back?" a voice said in her ear; and + looking round Eve saw it was Reuben, who had entered + unperceived. "There's nothing fresh gone wrong?" he asked.</p> + + <p>"No, nothing;" but the sad smile she tried to give him + welcome with was so akin to tears that Reuben's face assumed a + look of doubt. "'Tis only that I'm thinking how I'm changed + from what I was," said Eve. "Why, once I couldn't bear this + room and all the things about it; but now—Oh, Reuben, my + heart seems like to break because perhaps 'twill soon now come + to saying good-bye to all of it for ever."</p> + + <p>Reuben winced: "You're fixed to go, then?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, where Adam goes I shall go too: don't you think I + should? What else is left for me to do?"</p> + + <p>"You feel, then, you'd be happy—off with + him—away from all and—everybody else?"</p> + + <p>"Happy! Should I be happy to know he'd gone + alone—happy to know I'd driven him away to some place + where I wouldn't go myself?" and Eve paused, shaking her head + before she added, "If he can make another start in + life—try and begin again—"</p> + + <p>"You ought to help him to it," said Reuben promptly: "that's + very plain to see. Oh, Eve, do you mind the times when you and + me have talked of what we'd like to do—how, never + satisfied with what went on around, we wanted to be altogether + such as some of those we'd heard and read about? The way seems + almost opened up to you, but what shall I do when all this is + over and you are gone away? I can't go back and stick to trade + again, working for nothing more but putting victuals in + myself."</p> + + <p>For a moment Eve did not speak: then, with a sudden + movement, she turned, saying to Reuben, "There's something that + before our lives are at any moment parted I've wanted to say to + you, Reuben. 'Tis that until now, this time while we've been + all together here, I've never known what your worth + is—what you would be to any one who'd got the heart to + value what you'd give. Of late it has often seemed that I + should think but very small of one who'd had the chance of your + liking and yet didn't know the proper value of such + goodness."</p> + + <p>Reuben gave a look of disavowal, and Eve continued, adding + with a little hesitation, "You mustn't think it strange in me + for saying this. I couldn't tell you if you didn't know how + everything lies between Adam and myself; but ever since this + trouble's come about all my thoughts seem changed, and people + look quite different now to what they did before; and, most of + all, I've learnt to know the friend I've got, and always had, + in you, Reuben."</p> + + <p>Reuben did not answer for a moment. He seemed struggling to + keep back something he was yet prompted to speak of. "Eve," he + said at length, "don't think that I've not made mistakes, and + great ones too. When first I fought to battle down my leaning + toward you, why was it? Not because of doubting that 'twould + ever be returned, but 'cos I held myself too good a chap in all + my thoughts and ways to be taken up with such a butterfly + concern as I took you to be. I'd never have believed then that + you'd have acted as I've seen you act. I thought that love with + you meant who could give you the finest clothes to wear and let + you rule the roast the easiest; but you have shown me that you + are made of better woman's stuff than that. And, after all, a + man thinks better of himself for mounting high than stooping to + pick up what can be had for asking any day."</p> + + <p>"No, no, Reuben: your good opinion is more than I deserve," + said Eve, her memory stinging her with past recollections. "If + you want to see a dear, kind-hearted, unselfish girl, wait + until Joan comes. I do so hope that you will take to her! I + think you will, after what you've been to Jerrem and to Adam. I + want you and Joan to like each other."</p> + + <p>"I don't think there's much fear of that," said Reuben. + "Jerrem's spoke so freely about Joan that I seem to know her + before ever having seen her. Let me see: her mind was at one + time set on Adam, wasn't it?"</p> + + <p>"I think that she was very fond of Adam," said Eve, + coloring: "and, so far as that goes, I don't know that there is + any difference now. I'm sure she'd lay her life down if it + would do him good."</p> + + <p>"Poor soul!" sighed Reuben, drawn by a friendly feeling to + sympathize with Joan's unlucky love. "Her cup's been full, and + no mistake, of late."</p> + + <p>"Did Jerrem seem to feel it much that Uncle Zebedee 'd been + took so strange?" asked Eve.</p> + + <p>"I didn't tell him more than I could help," said Reuben. "As + much as possible I made it out to him that for the old man to + come to London wouldn't be safe, and the fear of that seemed to + pacify him at once."</p> + + <p>"I haven't spoken of it to Adam yet," said Eve. "He hasn't + asked about his coming, so I thought I'd leave the telling till + another time. His mind seems set on nothing but getting off, + and by it setting Jerrem free."</p> + + <p>But Reuben made no rejoinder to the questioning tone of + Eve's words, and after a few minutes' pause he waived the + subject by reverting to the description which Eve had given of + Joan, so that, in case he had to meet her alone, he might + recognize her without difficulty. Eve repeated the description, + dwelling with loving preciseness on the various features and + points by which Joan might be known; and then Reuben, having + some work to do, got up to say good-bye.</p> + + <p>"Good-bye," said Eve, holding out her hand—"good-bye. + Every time I say it now I seem to wonder if 'tis to be good-bye + indeed."</p> + + <p>"Why, no: in any way, you'd wait until the trial was + over?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, I forgot: of course we should."</p> + + <p>"Well, then, do you think I'd let you go without a word? Ah, + Eve, no! Whatever others are, nobody's yet pushed you from your + place, nor ever will so long as my life lasts."</p> + + <h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" + id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h3> + + <p>At length the dreaded day was over, the trial was at an end, + and, in spite of every effort made, Jerrem condemned to die. + The hopes raised by the knowledge of Adam's escape seemed + crowned with success when, to the court's dismay, it was + announced that the prisoner's accuser could not be produced: he + had mysteriously disappeared the evening before, and in spite + of a most vigorous search was nowhere to be found. But, with + minds already resolved to make this hardened smuggler's fate a + warning and example to all such as should henceforth dare the + law, one of the cutter's crew, wrought upon by the fear lest + Jerrem should escape and baffle the vengeance they had vowed to + take, was got to swear that Jerrem was the man who fired the + fatal shot; and though it was shown that the night was dark and + recognition next to impossible, this evidence was held + conclusive to prove the crime, and nothing now remained but to + condemn the culprit. The judge's words came slowly forth, + making the stoutest there shrink back and let that arrow from + the bow of death glance by and set its mark on him upon whose + face the crowd now turned to gaze.</p> + + <p>"Can it be that he is stunned? or is he hardened?"</p> + + <p>For Jerrem stands all unmoved and calm while, dulled by the + sound of rushing waters, the words the judge has said come + booming back and back again. A sickly tremor creeps through + every limb and makes it nerveless; a sense of growing weight + presses the flesh down as a burden on the fainting spirit; one + instant a thousand faces, crowding close, keep out the air; the + next, they have all receded out of sight back into misty space, + and he is left alone, with all around faded and grown confused + and all beneath him slipping and giving way. Suddenly a sound + rouses him back to life: a voice has smote his ear and cleaved + his inmost soul; and lifting his head his eyes are met by sight + of Joan, who with a piercing shriek has fallen back, deathlike + and pale, in Reuben's outstretched arms.</p> + + <p>Then Jerrem knows that hope is past and he must die, and in + one flash his fate, in all its misery and shame, stands out + before him, and reeling he totters, to sink down senseless and + be carried off to that dismal cell allotted to those condemned + to death; while Reuben, as best he can, manages to get Joan out + of court and into the open air, where she gradually comes back + to life again and is able to listen to such poor comfort as + Reuben's sad heart can find to give her. For by reason of those + eventful circumstances which serve to cement friendships by + suddenly overthrowing the barriers time must otherwise + gradually wear away, Reuben May and Joan Hocken have (in the + week which has intervened between her arrival and this day of + trial) become more intimate and thoroughly acquainted than if + in an ordinary way they had known each other for years. A + stranger in a large city, with not one familiar face to greet + her, who does not know the terrible feeling of desolation which + made poor Joan hurry through the crowded streets, shrinking + away from their bustle and throng toward Reuben, the one person + she had to turn to for sympathy, advice, assistance and + consolation? With that spirit of perfect trust which her own + large heart gave her the certain assurance of receiving, Joan + placed implicit reliance in all Reuben said and did; and seeing + this, and receiving an inward satisfaction from the sight, + Reuben involuntarily slipped into a familiarity of speech and + manner very opposed to the stiff reserve he usually maintained + toward strangers.</p> + + <p>Ten days were given before the day on which Jerrem was to + die, and during this time, through the various interests raised + in his behalf, no restriction was put upon the intercourse + between him and his friends; so that, abandoning everything for + the poor soul's welfare, Reuben, Joan and Jerrem spent hour + after hour in the closest intercourse. Happily, in times of + great extremity the power of realizing our exact situation is + mostly denied to us; and in the case of Joan and Jerrem, + although surrounded by the terrors and within the outposts of + that dreaded end, it was nothing unfrequent to hear a sudden + peal of laughter, which often would have as sudden an end in a + great burst of tears.</p> + + <p>To point to hopes and joys beyond the grave when every + thought is centred and fixed on this life's interests and keen + anxieties is but a fruitless, vain endeavor; and Reuben had to + try and rest contented in the assurance of Jerrem's perfect + forgiveness and good-will to all who had shown him any malice + or ill-feeling—to draw some satisfaction from the + unselfish love he showed to Joan and the deep gratitude he now + expressed to Uncle Zebedee.</p> + + <p>What would become of them? he often asked when some word of + Joan's revealed the altered aspect of their affairs; and then, + overcome by the helplessness of their forlorn condition, he + would entreat Reuben to stand by them—not to forget Joan, + not to forsake her. And Reuben, strangely moved by sight of + this poor giddy nature's overwrought emotion, would try to calm + him with the ready assurance that while he lived Joan should + never want a friend, and, touched by his words, the two would + clasp his hands together, telling each other of all the + kindness he had showed them, praying God would pay him back in + blessings for his goodness. Nor were theirs the only lips which + spoke of gratitude to Reuben May: his name had now become + familiar to many who through his means were kept from being + ignorant of the sad fate which awaited their boon companion, + their prime favorite, the once madcap, rollicking + Jerrem—the last one, as Joan often told Reuben, whom any + in Polperro would have fixed on for evil to pursue or + misfortune to overtake, and about whom all declared there must + have been "a hitch in the block somewheres, as Fate never + intended that ill-luck should pitch upon Jerrem." The + repetition of their astonishment, their indignation and their + sympathy afforded the poor fellow the most visible + satisfaction, harassed as he was becoming by one dread which + entirely swallowed up the thought and fear of death. This + ghastly terror was the then usual consignment of a body after + death to the surgeons for dissection; and the uncontrollable + trepidation which would take possession of him each time this + hideous recollection forced itself upon him, although + unaccountable to Reuben, was most painful for him to witness. + What difference could it make what became of one's body after + death? Reuben would ask himself, puzzled to fathom that + wonderful tenderness which some natures feel for the flesh + which embodies their attractions. But Jerrem had felt a passing + love for his own dear body: vanity of it had been his ruling + passion, its comeliness his great glory—so much so that + even now a positive satisfaction would have been his could he + have pictured himself outstretched and lifeless, with + lookers-on moved to compassion by the dead grace of his winsome + face and slender limbs. Joan, too, was caught by the same + infection. Not to lie whole and decent in one's coffin! Oh, it + was an indignity too terrible for contemplation; and every time + they were away from Jerrem she would beset Reuben with + entreaties and questions as to what could be done to avoid the + catastrophe.</p> + + <p>The one plan he knew of had been tried—and tried, too, + with repeated success—and this was the engaging of a + superior force to wrest the body from the surgeon's crew, a set + of sturdy miscreants with whom to do battle a considerable mob + was needed; but, with money grown very scarce and time so + short, the thing could not be managed, and Reuben tried to tell + Joan of its impossibility while they two were walking to a + place in which it had been agreed they should find some one + with a message from Eve, who, together with Adam, was in hiding + on board the vessel Captain Triggs had spoken of. But instead + of the messenger Eve herself arrived, having ventured this much + with the hope of hearing something that would lessen Adam's + despair and grief at learning the fate of Jerrem.</p> + + <p>"Ah, poor sawl!" sighed Joan as Eve ended her dismal account + of Adam's sad condition: "'tis only what I feared to hear of. + But tell un, Eve, to lay it to his heart that Jerrem's forgived + un every bit, and don't know what it is to hold a grudge to + Adam; and if I speak of un, he says, 'Why, doan't I know it + ain't through he, but 'cos o' my own headstrong ways and they + sneaks o' revenoo-chaps?' who falsely swored away his blessed + life."</p> + + <p>"Does he seem to dread it much?" asked Eve, the sickly fears + which filled her heart echoed in each whispered word.</p> + + <p>"Not <i>that</i> he don't," said Joan, lifting her hand + significantly to her throat: "'tis after. Oh, Eve," she gasped, + "ain't it too awful to think of their cuttin' up his poor dead + body into bits? Call theyselves doctors!" she burst + out—"the gashly lot! I'll never let wan o' their name + come nighst to me agen."</p> + + <p>"Oh, Reuben," gasped Eve, "is it so? Can nothing be + done?"</p> + + <p>Reuben shook his head.</p> + + <p>"Nothing now," said Joan—"for want o' money, too, + mostly, Eve; and the guineas I've a-wasted! Oh, how the sight + o' every one rises and chinks in judgment 'gainst my ears!"</p> + + <p>"If we'd got the money," said Reuben soothingly, "there + isn't time. All should be settled by to-morrow night; and if + some one this minute brought the wherewithal I haven't one 'pon + whom I dare to lay my hand to ask to undertake the job."</p> + + <p>"Then 'tis no use harpin' 'pon it any more," said Joan; + while Eve gave a sigh, concurring in what she said, both of + them knowing well that if Reuben gave it up the thing must be + hopeless indeed.</p> + + <p>Here was another stab for Adam's wounded senses, and with a + heavy heart and step Eve took her way back to him, while Reuben + and Joan continued to thread the streets which took them by a + circuitous road home to Knight's Passage.</p> + + <p>But no sooner had Eve told Adam of this fresh burden laid on + poor Jerrem than a new hope seemed to animate him. Something + was still to be done: there yet remained an atonement which, + though it cost him his life, he could strive to make to Jerrem. + Throwing aside the fear of detection which had hitherto kept + him skulking within the little vessel, he set off that night to + find the Mary Jane, and, regardless of the terrible shame which + had filled him at the bare thought of confronting Triggs or any + of his crew, he cast himself upon their mercy, beseeching them + as men, and Cornishmen, to do this much for their + brother-sailor in his sad need and last extremity; and his + appeal and the nature of it had so touched these + quickly-stirred hearts that, forgetful of the contempt and + scorn with which, in the light of an informer, they had + hitherto viewed Adam, they had one and all sworn to aid him to + their utmost strength, and to bring to the rescue certain + others of whom they knew, by whose help and assistance success + would be more probable. Therefore it was that, two days before + the morning of his sentenced death, Eve was able to put into + Reuben's hand a scrap of paper on which was written Adam's vow + to Jerrem that, though his own life paid the forfeit for it, + Jerrem's body should be rescued and saved.</p> + + <p>Present as Jerrem's fears had been to Reuben's eyes and to + his mind, until he saw the transport of agitated joy which this + assurance gave to Jerrem he had never grasped a tithe of the + terrible dread which during the last few days had taken such + complete hold of the poor fellow's inmost thoughts. Now, as he + read again and again the words which Adam had written, a + torrent of tears burst forth from his eyes: in an ecstasy of + relief he caught Joan to his heart, wrung Reuben's hand, and + from that moment began to gradually compose himself into a + state of greater ease and seeming tranquillity. Confident, + through the unbroken trust of years, that Adam's promise, once + given, might be implicitly relied on, Jerrem needed no further + assurance than these few written words to satisfy him that + every human effort would be made on his behalf; and the + knowledge of this, and that old comrades would be near, waiting + to unite their strength for his body's rescue, was in itself a + balm and consolation. He grew quite loquacious about the + crestfallen authorities, the surprise of the crowd and the + disappointment of the ruffianly mob deprived of their certain + prey; while the two who listened sat with a tightening grip + upon their hearts, for when these things should come to be the + life of him who spoke them would have passed away, and the + immortal soul have flown from out that perishable husk on which + his last vain thoughts were still being centred.</p> + + <p>Poor Joan! The time had yet to come when she would spend + herself with many a sad regret and sharp upbraiding that this + and that had not been said and done; but now, her spirit + swallowed up in desolation and sunk beneath the burden of + despair, she sat all silent close by Jerrem's side, covering + his hands with many a mute caress, yet never daring to lift up + her eyes to look into his face without a burst of grief + sweeping across to shake her like a reed. Jerrem could eat and + drink, but Joan's lips never tasted food. A fever seemed to + burn within and fill her with its restless torment: the + beatings of her throbbing heart turned her first hot, then + cold, as each pulse said the time to part was hurrying to its + end.</p> + + <p>By Jerrem's wish, Joan was not told that on the morning of + his death to Reuben alone admittance to him had been granted: + therefore when the eve of that morrow came, and the time to say + farewell actually arrived, the girl was spared the knowledge + that this parting was more than the shadow of that last + good-bye which so soon would have to be said for ever. Still, + the sudden change in Jerrem's face pierced her afresh and broke + down that last barrier of control over a grief she could subdue + no longer. In vain the turnkeys warned them that time was up + and Joan must go. Reuben entreated too that they should say + good-bye: the two but clung together in more desperate + necessity, until Reuben, seeing that further force would be + required, stepped forward, and stretching out his hand found it + caught at by Jerrem and held at once with Joan's, while in + words from which all strength of tone seemed to die away Jerrem + whispered, "Reuben, if ever it could come to pass that when I'm + gone you and she might find it some day in your minds to stand + together—<i>one</i>—say 'twas the thing he wished + for most before he went." Then, with a feeble effort to push + her into Reuben's arms, he caught her back, and straining her + close to his heart again cried out, "Oh, Joan, but death comes + bitter when it means good-bye to such as you!" Another cry, a + closer strain, then Jerrem's arms relax; his hold gives way, + and Joan falls staggering back; the door is opened—shut; + the struggle is past, and ere their sad voices can come echoing + back Jerrem and Joan have looked their last in life.</p> + + <h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" + id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h3> + + <p>When Reuben found that to be a witness of Jerrem's death + Joan must take her stand among the lawless mob who made holiday + of such sad scenes as this, his decision was that the idea was + untenable. Jerrem too had a strong desire that Joan should not + see him die; and although his avoidance of anything that + directly touched upon that dreaded moment had kept him from + openly naming his wishes, the hints dropped satisfied Reuben + that the knowledge of her absence would be a matter of relief + to him. But how get Joan to listen to his scruples when her + whole mind was set on keeping by Jerrem's side until hope was + past and life was over?</p> + + <p>"Couldn't 'ee get her to take sommat that her wouldn't sleep + off till 'twas late?" Jerrem had said after Reuben had told him + that the next morning he must come alone; and the suggestion + made was seized on at once by Reuben, who, under pretence of + getting something to steady her shaken nerves, procured from + the apothecary near a simple draught, which Joan in good faith + swallowed. And then, Reuben having promised in case she fell + asleep to awaken her at the appointed hour, the poor soul, worn + out by sorrow and fatigue, threw herself down, dressed as she + was, upon the bed, and soon was in a heavy sleep, from which + she did not rouse until well into the following day, when some + one moving in the room made her start up. For a moment she + seemed dazed: then, rubbing her eyes as if to clear away those + happy visions which had come to her in sleep, she gazed about + until Reuben, who had at first drawn back, came forward to + speak to her. "Why, Reuben," she cried, "how's this? Have I + been dreamin', or what? The daylight's come, and, see, the + sun!"</p> + + <p>And here she stopped, her parched mouth half unclosed, as + fears came crowding thick upon her mind, choking her further + utterance. One look at Reuben's face had told the tale; and + though she did not speak again, the ashen hue that overspread + and drove all color from her cheeks proclaimed to him that she + had guessed the truth.</p> + + <p>"'Twas best, my dear," he said, "that you should sleep while + he went to his rest."</p> + + <p>But the unlooked-for shock had been too great a strain on + body and mind, alike overtaxed and weak, and, falling back, + Joan lay for hours as one unconscious and devoid of life. And + Reuben sat silent by her side, paying no heed as hour by hour + went by, till night had come and all around was dark: then some + one came softly up the stairs and crept into the room, and + Eve's whispered "Reuben!" broke the spell.</p> + + <p>Yes, all had gone well. The body, rescued and safe, was now + placed within a house near to the churchyard in which Eve's + mother lay: there it was to be buried. And there, the next day, + the commonplace event of one among many funerals being over, + the four thus linked by fate were brought together, and Adam + and Joan again stood face to face. Heightened by the disguise + which in order to avoid detection he was obliged to adopt, the + alteration in Adam was so complete that Joan stood aghast + before this seeming stranger, while a fresh smart came into + Adam's open wounds as he gazed upon the changed face of the + once comely Joan.</p> + + <p>A terrible barrier—such as, until felt, they had never + dreaded—seemed to have sprung up to separate and divide + these two. Involuntarily they shrank at each other's touch and + quailed beneath each other's gaze, while each turned with a + feeling of relief to him and to her who now constituted their + individual refuge and support. Yes, strange as it seemed to + Adam and unaccountable to Joan, <i>she</i> clung to Reuben, + <i>he</i> to Eve, before whom each could be natural and + unrestrained, while between their present selves a great gulf + had opened out which naught but time or distance could bridge + over.</p> + + <p>So Adam went back to his hiding-place, Reuben to his shop, + and Joan and Eve to the old home in Knight's Passage, as much + lost amid the crowd of thronged London as if they had already + taken refuge in that far-off land which had now become the goal + of Adam's thoughts and keen desires. Eve, too, fearing some + fresh disaster, was equally anxious for their departure, and + most of Reuben's spare time was swallowed up in making the + necessary arrangements. A passage in his name for himself and + his wife was secured in a ship about to start. At the last + moment this passage was to be transferred to Adam and Eve, + whose marriage would take place a day or two before the vessel + sailed. The transactions on which the successful fulfilment of + these various events depended were mostly conducted by Reuben, + aided by the counsels of Mr. Osborne and the assistance of + Captain Triggs, whose good-fellowship, no longer withheld, made + him a valuable coadjutor.</p> + + <p>Fortunately, Triggs's vessel, through some detention of its + cargo, had remained in London for an unusually long time, and + now, when it did sail, Joan was to take passage in it back to + Polperro.</p> + + <p>"Awh, Reuben, my dear," sighed Joan one evening as, Eve + having gone to see Adam, the two walked out toward the little + spot where Jerrem lay, and as they went discussed Joan's near + departure, "I wish to goodness you'd pack up yer alls and come + 'longs to Polperro home with me: 't 'ud be ever so much better + than stayin' to this gashly London, where there ain't a blow o' + air that's fresh to draw your breath in."</p> + + <p>"Why, nonsense!" said Reuben: "you wouldn't have me if I'd + come."</p> + + <p>"How not have 'ee?" exclaimed Joan. "Why, if so be I thought + you'd come I'd never stir from where I be until I got the + promise of it."</p> + + <p>"But there wouldn't be nothin' for me to do," said + Reuben.</p> + + <p>"Why, iss there would—oceans," returned Joan. "Laws! I + knaws clocks by scores as hasn't gone for twenty year and more. + Us has got two ourselves, that wan won't strike and t' other + you can't make tick."</p> + + <p>Reuben smiled: then, growing more serious, he said, "But do + you know, Joan, that yours isn't the first head it's entered + into about going down home with you? I've had a mind toward it + myself many times of late."</p> + + <p>"Why, then, do come to wance," said Joan excitedly; "for so + long as they leaves me the house there'll be a home with me and + Uncle Zebedee, and I'll go bail for the welcome you'll get + gived 'ee there."</p> + + <p>Reuben was silent, and Joan, attributing this to some + hesitation over the plan, threw further weight into her + argument by saying, "There's the chapel too, Reuben. Only to + think o' the sight o' good you could do praichin' to 'em and + that! for, though it didn't seem to make no odds before, I + reckons there's not a few that wants, like me, to be told o' + some place where they treats folks better than they does down + here below."</p> + + <p>"Joan," said Reuben after a pause, speaking out of his own + thoughts and paying no heed to the words she had been saying, + "you know all about Eve and me, don't you?"</p> + + <p>Joan nodded her head.</p> + + <p>"How I've felt about her, so that I believe the hold she's + got on me no one on earth will ever push her off from."</p> + + <p>"Awh, poor sawl!" sighed Joan compassionately: "I've often + had a feelin' for what you'd to bear, and for this reason + too—that I knaws myself what 'tis to be ousted from the + heart you'm cravin' to call yer own."</p> + + <p>"Why, yes, of course," said Reuben briskly: "you were set + down for Adam once, weren't you?"</p> + + <p>"Awh, and there's they to Polperro—mother amongst 'em, + too—who'll tell 'ee now that if Eve had never shawed her + face inside the place Adam 'ud ha' had me, after all. But + there! all that's past and gone long ago."</p> + + <p>There was another pause, which Reuben broke by saying + suddenly, "Joan, should you take it very out of place if I was + to ask you whether after a bit you could marry me? I dare say + now such a thought never entered your head before."</p> + + <p>"Well, iss it has," said Joan; 'and o' late, ever since that + blessed dear spoke they words he did, I've often fell to + wonderin' if so be 't 'ud ever come to pass. Not, mind, that I + should ha' bin put out if 't had so happened that you'd never + axed me, like, but still I thought sometimes as how you might, + and then agen I says, 'Why should he, though?'"</p> + + <p>"There's many a reason why <i>I</i> should ask <i>you</i>, + Joan," said Reuben, smiling at her unconscious frankness, + "though very few why you should consent to take a man whose + love another woman has flung away."</p> + + <p>"Awh, so far as that goes, the both of us is takin' what's + another's orts, you knaw," smiled Joan.</p> + + <p>"Then is it agreed?" asked Reuben, stretching out his + hand.</p> + + <p>"Iss, so far as I goes 'tis, with all my heart." Then as she + took his hand a change came to her April face, and looking at + him through her swimming eyes she said, "And very grateful too + I'm to 'ee, Reuben, for I don't knaw by neither another wan + who'd take up with a poor heart-broke maid like me, and they + she's looked to all her life disgraced by others and + theyselves."</p> + + <p>Reuben pressed the hand that Joan had given to him, and + drawing it through his arm the two walked on in silence, + pondering over the unlooked-for ending to the strange events + they both had lately passed through. Joan's heart was full of a + contentment which made her think, "How pleased Adam will be! + and won't mother be glad! and Uncle Zebedee 'ull have somebody + to look to now and keep poor Jonathan straight and put things a + bit in order;" while Reuben, bewildered by the thoughts which + crowded to his mind, semed unable to disentangle them. Could it + be possible that he, Reuben May, was going down to live at + Polperro, a place whose very name he had once taught himself to + abominate?—that he could be willingly casting his lot + amid a people whom he had but lately branded as thieves, + outcasts, reprobates? Involuntarily his eyes turned toward + Joan, and a nimbus in which perfect charity was intertwined + with great love and singleness of heart seemed to float about + her head and shed its radiance on her face; and its sight was + to Reuben as the first touch of love, for he was smitten with a + sense of his own unworthiness, and, though he did not speak, he + asked that a like spirit to that which filled Joan might rest + upon himself.</p> + + <p>That evening Eve was told the news which Joan and Reuben had + to tell, and as she listened the mixed emotions which swelled + within her perplexed her not a little, for even while feeling + that the two wishes she most desired—Joan cared for and + Reuben made happy—were thus fulfilled, her heart seemed + weighted with a fresh disaster: another wrench had come to part + her from that life soon to be nothing but a lesson and a + memory. And Adam, when he was told, although the words he said + were honest words and true, and truly he did rejoice, there yet + within him lay a sadness born of regret at rendering up that + love so freely given to him, now to be garnered for another's + use; and henceforth every word that Reuben spoke, each promise + that he gave, though all drawn forth by Adam's own requests, + stuck every one a separate thorn within his heart, sore with + the thought of being an outcast from the birthplace that he + loved and cut off from those whose faces now he yearned to look + upon.</p> + + <p>No vision opened up to Adam's view the prosperous life the + future held in store—no still small voice then whispered + in his ear that out of this sorrow was to come the grace which + made success sit well on him and Eve; and though, as years went + by and intercourse became more rare, their now keen interest in + Polperro and its people was swallowed up amid the many claims a + busy life laid on them both, each noble action done, each good + deed wrought, by Adam, and by Eve too, bore on it the unseen + impress of that sore chastening through which they now were + passing.</p> + + <p>Out of the savings which from time to time Adam had placed + with Mr. Macey enough was found to pay the passage-money out + and keep them from being pushed by any pressing want on + landing.</p> + + <p>Already, at the nearest church, Adam and Eve had been + married, and nothing now remained but to get on board the + vessel, which had already dropped down the river and was to + sail the following morning, Triggs had volunteered to put them + and their possessions safely on board, and Reuben and Joan, + with Eve's small personal belongings, were to meet them at the + steps, close by which the Mary Jane's boat would be found + waiting. The time had come when Adam could lay aside his + disguise and appear in much the same trim he usually did when + at Polperro.</p> + + <p>Joan was the first to spy him drawing near, and holding out + both her hands to greet the welcome change she cried, "Thank + the Lord for lettin' me see un his ownself wance + more!—Awh, Adam! awh, my dear! 't seems as if I could + spake to 'ee now and know 'ee for the same agen.—Look to + un, Reuben! you don't wonder now what made us all so proud of + un at home."</p> + + <p>Reuben smiled, but Adam shook his head: the desolation of + this sad farewell robbed him of every other power but that of + draining to the dregs its bitterness. During the whole of that + long day Eve and he had hardly said one word, each racked with + thoughts to which no speech gave utterance. Mechanically each + asked about the things the other one had brought, and seemed to + find relief in feigning much anxiety about their safety, until + Triggs, fearing they might outstay their time, gave them a hint + it would not do to linger long; and, with a view to their + leavetaking being unconstrained, he volunteered to take the few + remaining things down to the boat and stow them safely away, + adding that when they should hear his whistle given it would be + the signal that they must start without delay.</p> + + <p>The spot they had fixed on for the starting-place was one + but little used and well removed from all the bustle of a more + frequented landing. A waterman lounged here and there, but + seeing the party was another's fare vouchsafed to them no + further interest. The ragged mud-imps stayed their noisy pranks + to scrutinize the country build of Triggs's boat, leaving the + four, unnoticed, to stand apart and see each in the other's + face the reflection of that misery which filled his own.</p> + + <p>Parting for ever! no hopes, no expectations, no looking + forward, nothing to whisper "We shall meet again"! "Good-bye + for ever" was written on each face and echoed in each heart. + Words could not soothe that suffering which turned this common + sorrow into an individual torture, which each must bear unaided + and alone; and so they stood silent and with outward calm, + knowing that on that brink of woe the quiver of an eye might + overthrow their all but lost control.</p> + + <p>The sun was sinking fast; the gathering mists of eventide + were rising to shadow all around; the toil of day was drawing + to its close; labor was past, repose was near at hand; its + spirit seemed to hover around and breathe its calm upon those + worn, tried souls. Suddenly a shrill whistle sounds upon their + ears and breaks the spell: the women start and throw their arms + around each other's necks. Adam stretches his hand out, and + Reuben grasps it in his own.</p> + + <p>"Reuben, good-bye. God deal with you as you shall deal with + those you're going among!"</p> + + <p>"Adam, be true to her, and I'll be true to those you leave + behind."</p> + + <p>"Joan!" and Adam's voice sounds hard and strained, and then + a choking comes into his throat, and, though he wants to tell + her what he feels, to ask her to forgive all he has made her + suffer, he cannot speak a word. Vainly he strives, but not a + sound will come; and these two, whose lives, so grown together, + are now to be rent asunder, stand stricken and dumb, looking + from out their eyes that last farewell which their poor + quivering lips refuse to utter.</p> + + <p>"God bless and keep you, Eve!" Reuben's voice is saying as, + taking her hands within his own, he holds them to his heart and + for a moment lets them rest there.—"Oh, friends," he + says, "there is a land where partings never come: upon that + shore may we four meet again!"</p> + + <p>Then for a moment all their hands are clasped and held as in + a vice, and then they turn, and two are gone and two are left + behind.</p> + + <p>And now the two on land stand with their eyes strained on + the boat, which slowly fades away into the vapory mist which + lies beyond: then Reuben turns and takes Joan by the hand, and + silently the two go back together, while Adam and Eve draw near + the ship which is to take them to that far-off shore to which + Hope's torch, rekindled, now is pointing.</p> + + <p>Good-bye is said to Triggs, the boat pushes off, and the two + left standing side by side watch it away until it seems a + speck, which suddenly is swallowed up and disappears from + sight. Then Adam puts his arm round Eve, and as they draw + closer together from out their lips come sighing forth the + whispered words, "Fare-well! farewell!"</p> + + <p class="author"><i>The Author of "Dorothy Fox"</i>.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="OUR_GRANDFATHERS_TEMPLES" + id="OUR_GRANDFATHERS_TEMPLES"></a>OUR GRANDFATHERS' + TEMPLES.</h2> + + <p>If on the fourteenth day of May, 1607, when the Rev. Robert + Hunt celebrated the first sacramental service of the Church of + England on American soil, there had suddenly sprung up at + Jamestown the pillars and arches of a fully-equipped cathedral, + whose stones had remained to tell us of the days when they + first enshrined the worship of the earliest colonists, our most + ancient Christian church would still be less than three hundred + years old—a hopelessly modern structure in comparison + with many an abbey and cathedral of England and the + Continent.</p> + + <p><a name="THE_OLD_SOUTH" + id="THE_OLD_SOUTH"></a></p> + + <div class="figleft"> + <a href="images/0056.jpg"><img src="images/0056-tb.jpg" + alt="THE OLD SOUTH." /></a><br /> + THE OLD SOUTH. + </div> + + <p>In a comparative sense, we look in vain for old churches in + a new country, for in our architecture, if nowhere else, we are + still a land of yesterday, where age seems venerable only when + we refuse to look beyond the ocean, and where even a short two + hundred years have taken away the larger share of such + perishable ecclesiastical monuments as we once had. Our + grandfathers' temples, whether they stood on the banks of the + James River or on the colder shores of Massachusetts Bay, were + built cheaply for a scanty population: their material was + usually wood, sometimes unshapen logs, and their sites, chosen + before the people and the country had become fitted to each + other, were afterward often needed for other uses. So long as + London tears down historic churches, even in the present days + of fashionable devotion to the old and the quaint, and so long + as the Rome of 1880 is still in danger from vandal hands, we + need only be surprised that the list of existing American + churches of former days is so long and so honorable as it is. + If we have no York Minster or St. Alban's Abbey or Canterbury + Cathedral, we may still turn to an Old South, a St. Paul's and + a Christ Church. It is something, after all, to be able to + count our most famous old churches on the fingers of both + hands, and then to enumerate by tens those other temples whose + legacy from bygone times is scarcely less rich.</p> + + <p>The American churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth + centuries were plain structures, unpretending without and + unadorned within; and this for other reasons than the poverty + of the community, the lack of the best building-materials, and + the absence both of architects and of artistic tastes. It was a + simple ritual which most of them were to house, and the absence + of an ornate service demanded the absence of ornamentation, + which would be meaningless because it would symbolize nothing. + The influence of the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Baptists in + Rhode Island, the Dutch Reformed in New York, the Lutherans and + Presbyterians in the Middle and Southern colonies, and the + Friends in Pennsylvania, whatever their denominational + differences, was a unit in favor of the utmost simplicity + consistent with decency and order; and though there was a + difference between Congregational churches like the Old South + in Boston and the Friends' meeting-houses in Philadelphia, the + difference was far less marked than that existing between the + new and old buildings of the Old South society, which the + modern tourist may compare at his leisure in the Boston of + to-day. Even the Episcopalians shared, or deferred to, the + prevailing spirit of the time: they put no cross upon their + Christ Church in Cambridge, nearly a hundred and thirty years + after the settlement of the place, lest they should offend the + tastes of their neighbors. The Methodists, the "Christians," + the Swedenborgians, the Unitarians and the Universalists were + not yet, and the Moravians were a small and little-understood + body in Eastern Pennsylvania.</p> + + <p><a name="KINGS_CHAPEL" + id="KINGS_CHAPEL"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0057.jpg"><img src="images/0057-tb.jpg" + alt="KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN 1872." + title="KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN 1872." /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN 1872.</p> + + <p>Nearly all the colonists, of whatever name, brought from + Europe a conscientious love of religious simplicity and + unpretentiousness: for the most part, the English-speaking + settlers were dissenters from the Church which owned all the + splendid architectural monuments of the country whence they + came; and it was not strange that out of their religious + thought grew churches that symbolized the sturdy qualities of a + faith which, right or wrong, had to endure exile and poverty + and privation—privation not only from social wealth, but + from the rich store of ecclesiastical traditions which had + accumulated for centuries in cathedral choirs and abbey + cloisters.</p> + + <p><a name="CHRIST_CHURCH" + id="CHRIST_CHURCH"></a></p> + + <div class="figleft"> + <a href="images/0058.jpg"><img src="images/0058-tb.jpg" + alt="CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON." /></a><br /> + CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON. + </div> + + <p>Therefore, the typical New England meeting-house of the + seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may perhaps be taken as + the best original example of what America has to show in the + way of church-building. To be sure, its cost was modest, its + material was perishable wood, its architectural design was + often a curious medley of old ideas and new uses, and even its + few ornaments were likely to be devoid of the beauty their + designers fancied that they possessed. But it was, at any rate, + an honest embodiment of a sincere idea—the idea of + "freedom to worship God;" and it was adapted to the uses which + it was designed to serve. It stood upon a hill, a square box + with square windows cut in its sides—grim without and + grim within, save as the mellowing seasons toned down its ruder + aspects, and green grass and waving boughs framed it as if it + were a picture. Within, the high pulpit, surmounted by a + sounding-board, towered over the square-backed pews, facing a + congregation kept orderly by stern tithing-man and sterner + tradition. There was at first neither organ nor stove nor + clock. The shivering congregation warmed itself as best it + might by the aid of foot-stoves; the parson timed his sermon by + an hour-glass; and in the singing-seats the fiddle and the + bass—viol formed the sole link (and an unconscious one) + between the simple song-service of the Puritan meeting-house + and the orchestral accompaniments to the high masses of + European cathedrals. The men still sat at the end of the + pew—a custom which had grown up in the days when they + went to the meeting-house gun in hand, not knowing when they + should be hastily summoned forth to fight the Indians. In the + earliest days the drum was the martial summons to worship, but + soon European bells sent forth their milder call. Behind the + meeting-houses were the horse-sheds for the use of distant + comers—a species of ecclesiastical edifice still adorning + the greater number of American country churches, and not likely + to disappear for many a year to come.</p> + + <p>In the elder day there was no such difference as now between + city and country churches, for the limitations of money and + material bore upon both more evenly. But with growing wealth + and the choice of permanent locations for building came brick + and stone; English architects received orders; and the + prevailing revival led by Sir Christopher Wren and his + followers dotted the Northern colonies with more pretentious + churches, boasting spires not wholly unlike those which were + then piercing London skies. With costlier churches of permanent + material there came also the English fashion of burial in + churchyards and chancel-vaults, and mural tablets and + horizontal tombstones were laid into the mortar which has been + permitted, in not a few cases, to preserve them for our own + eyes.</p> + + <p><a name="ST_MICHAELS" + id="ST_MICHAELS"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0059.jpg"><img src="images/0059-tb.jpg" + alt="ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS" + title="ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS" /> + </a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS.</p> + + <p>But our oldest churches, as a rule, have been made more + notable by the political events with which they have been + associated than by the honorable interments that have taken + place beneath their shadow. Their connection with the living + has endeared them to our memories more than their relations to + the dead. Not because it is Boston's Westminster Abbey or + Temple Church has the Old South been permitted to come down to + us as the best example of the Congregational meeting-houses of + the eighteenth century, but because of the Revolutionary + episodes of which it was the scene, and which are commemorated + in the stone tablet upon its front. The Old South Church, built + in 1729, belonged to the common class of brick structures which + replaced wooden ones; for, like Solomon's temple, its + predecessor had been built of cedar sixty years before. The + convenient location of the Old South and the capaciousness of + its interior brought to it the colonial meetings which preceded + the Revolution, and especially that famous gathering of + December 13, 1773, whence marched the disguised patriots to + destroy the taxed tea in Boston harbor. The convenient access + and spacious audience-room of the old church also led to its + occupancy as a riding-school for British cavalry in 1775. Even + now, in the quiet days following the recent excitement + attending its escape from fire and from sale and demolition, + the ancient church still finds occasional use as a place for + lectures and public gatherings. Its chequered days within the + past decade have at least served to make its appearance and its + part in colonial history more familiar to us, and have done + something to save other churches from the destruction which + might have overtaken them.</p> + + <p>As the Old South stands as the brick-and-mortar enshrinement + of the best Puritan thought of the eighteenth century, so + King's Chapel in Boston, built twenty-five years later, + represents the statelier social customs and the more + conservative political opinions of the early New England + Episcopalians. Its predecessor, of wood, was the first building + of the Church of England in New England. The present King's + Chapel, with its sombre granite walls and its gently-lighted + interior, suggests to the mind an impression of independence of + time rather than of age. One reads on the walls, to be sure, + such high-sounding old names as Vassall and Shirley and + Abthorp, and on a tomb in the old graveyard near by one sees + the inscriptions commemorating Governor John Winthrop of + Massachusetts and his son John, governor of Connecticut. But + King's Chapel seems the home of churchly peace and gracious + content; so that, as we sit within its quaint three-sided pews, + it is hard to remember the stormy scenes in which it has had + part. Its Tory congregation, almost to a man, fled from its + walls when the British general, Gage, evacuated Boston; the + sterner worshippers of the Old South occupied its Anglican pews + for a time; and later it was the scene of a theological + movement which caused, in 1785, the first Episcopal church in + New England—or rather its remnant—to become the + first Unitarian society in America.</p> + + <p>In Salem street, Boston, left almost alone at the extreme + north end of the city, is Christ Church, built in 1723. Its + tower contains the oldest chime of bells in America, and from + it, according to some antiquarians, was hung the lantern which + on April 18, 1775, announced to the waiting Paul Revere, and + through him to the Middlesex patriots in all the surrounding + country, that General Gage had despatched eight hundred men to + seize and destroy the military stores gathered at Concord by + the Massachusetts Committees of Safety and Supplies. Thus + opened the Revolutionary war, for the battles at Lexington and + Concord took place only the next day.</p> + + <p>The white-spired building at the corner of Park and Tremont + streets, Boston, known as the Park Street Church, is hardly so + old as its extended fame would lead one to suppose, for it + dates no farther back than the first quarter of the present + century. Its position as the central point of the great + theological controversies of 1820 in the Congregational + churches of Eastern Massachusetts has made it almost as + familiar as the "Saybrook Platform." The meeting-house was + built at the time when the greater part of the Boston churches + were modifying their creeds, and when the Old South itself + would have changed its denominational relations but for the + vote of a State official, cast to break a tie. Its inelegance + and rawness are excused in part by its evident solidity and + sincerity of appearance. In its shadow rest Faneuil, Revere, + Samuel Adams and John Hancock.</p> + + <p>Boston has other churches which, like the Park Street, are + neither ancient nor modern, the Hollis Street Church and the + First Church in Roxbury being good examples. New England has + hardly a better specimen of the old-fashioned meeting-house on + a hill than this old weather-beaten wooden First Church in + Roxbury, the home of a parish to which John Eliot, the apostle + to the Indians, once ministered. Another quaint memorial of the + old colonial days survives in the current name, "Meeting-house + Hill," of a part of the annexed Dorchester district of + Boston.</p> + + <p><a name="ST_PAULS" + id="ST_PAULS"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0062.jpg"><img src="images/0062-tb.jpg" + alt="ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW YORK" + title="ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW YORK" /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW YORK.</p> + + <p>St. Paul's Church, on Boston Common, was the first attempt + of the Episcopalians of the city, after the loss of King's + Chapel, to build a temple of imposing appearance. Controversies + theological and architectural rose with its walls, and young + Edward Everett, if report is to be credited, was the author of + a tract, still in circulation, in which its design and its + principles formed the text for a criticism on the religion to + whose furtherance it was devoted. Standing as it does next the + United States court-house, the uses of the two buildings seem + to have been confused in the builders' minds; for there is + something ecclesiastical in the appearance of the hall of + justice, which was originally a Masonic temple, and something + judicial in the face of the church.</p> + + <p>In Cambridge, three miles from Boston, the + eighteenth-century Episcopalians not only possessed a church, + but also displayed to unwilling eyes a veritable "Bishop's + Palace"—the stately house of the Rev. East Apthorp, + "missionary to New England" and reputed candidate for the + bishopric of that region. Mr. Apthorp was rich and influential, + but his social and ecclesiastical lot was not an easy one, and + he soon returned to England discouraged, leaving his "palace" + to come down to the view of our own eyes, which find in it + nothing more dangerous to republican institutions than is to be + discovered in a hundred other of the three-story wooden houses + which used so to abound in Massachusetts. Christ Church, + Cambridge, in which the bishop <i>in posse</i> used to + minister, and which stands opposite Harvard College, was + designed by the architect of King's Chapel, and has always been + praised for a certain shapely beauty of proportion. For the + last twenty years it has boasted the only chime of bells in + Cambridge, whose quiet shades of a Sunday evening have been + sweetly stirred by the music struck from them by the hands of a + worthy successor of the mediæval bell-ringers, to whom bells + are books, and who can tell the story of every ounce of + bell-metal within twenty miles of his tower. It was of this + church, with its Unitarian neighbor just across the ancient + churchyard where so many old Harvard and colonial worthies + sleep, that Holmes wrote:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Like sentinel and nun, they + keep<br /></span> <span class="i1">Their vigil on the + green:<br /></span> <span class="i0">One seems to + guard, and one to weep,<br /></span> + <span class="i1">The dead that lie + between.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>The suburbs of Boston are not poor in churches of the + eighteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century. The oldest + church in New England—the oldest, indeed, in the Northern + States—still standing in Salem, was built in 1634, and + its low walls and tiny-paned windows have shaken under the + eloquence of Roger Williams. It has not been used for religious + purposes since 1672. In Newburyport is one of the American + churches, once many but now few, in which George Whitefield + preached, and beneath it the great preacher lies buried. A + curious little reminder of St. Paul's, London, is found here in + the shape of a whispering gallery. Another landmark is the + venerable meeting-house of the Unitarian society in Hingham, + popularly known as the "Old Ship." Built in 1681, it was a + Congregational place of worship for nearly a century and a + half. Its sturdiness and rude beauty form a striking + illustration of the lasting quality of good, sound wooden beams + as material for the sanctuary. Preparations have already been + undertaken for celebrating the second centennial of the ancient + building. Nearly as old, and still more picturesque with its + quaint roof, its venerable hanging chandelier of brass, its + sober old reredos and its age-hallowed communion-service, is + St. Michael's, Marblehead, built in 1714, where faithful + rectors have endeavored to reach six generations of the + fishermen and aristocracy of the rocky old port. The + antiquarian who has seen these old temples and asks for others + on the New England coast will turn with scarcely less interest + to St. John's, Portsmouth; the forsaken Trinity Church, + Wickford, Rhode Island, built in 1706; or Trinity, Newport, + where Bishop Berkeley used to preach. In Newport, indeed, one + may also speculate beneath the Old Mill on the fanciful theory + that the curious little structure was a baptistery long before + the days of Columbus—the most ancient Christian temple on + this side the sea.</p> + + <p>It is not uncommon to find comparatively new American + churches to which their surroundings or their sober material or + their quiet architecture have given a somewhat exaggerated + appearance of age. Such is the case with the curious row of + three churches—the North and Centre Congregational and + Trinity Episcopalstanding side by side on the New Haven green + in a fashion unknown elsewhere in our own country. Any one of + these three churches looks quite as old as that shapely + memorial of pre-Revolutionary days, St. Paul's Chapel, New + York, built in 1766 in the prevailing fashion of the London + churches. As with St. Paul's, there was also no marked + appearance of antiquity in the North Dutch Church, New York, + removed in recent years. The poor old Middle Dutch Church in + the same city, with its ignoble modern additions and its swarm + of busy tenants, would have looked old if it could have done + so, but for modern New Yorkers it has no more venerable memory, + in its disfigurement and disguise, than that furnished by its + use, for a time, as the city post-office.</p> + + <p><a name="OLD_SWEDES_CHURCH" + id="OLD_SWEDES_CHURCH"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0065.jpg"><img src="images/0065-tb.jpg" + alt="OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA." + title="OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA." /></a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.</p> + + <p>New York is poor in old buildings, and especially poor in + old churches. Besides St. Paul's, the comparatively modern St. + John's Chapel and the John Street Methodist Church, it really + has nothing to show to the tourist in search of ancient places + of worship. The vicinity can boast a few colonial + temples—the quaint old Dutch church at Tarrytown, dear to + the readers of Irving; the Tennent Church on the battle-ground + of Monmouth, New Jersey, with its blood-stains of wounded + British soldiers; and a charmingly plain little Friends' + meeting-house, no bigger than a small parlor, near Squan, New + Jersey, being the most strikingly attractive. In Newark one + notes the deep-set windows and solid stone walls of the old + First Presbyterian Church, and the quiet plainness of Trinity + Episcopal Church, which looks like Boston's King's Chapel, with + the addition of a white wooden spire.</p> + + <p>Philadelphia is richer than any other American city in + buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the + older streets it is a frequent sight to see quaint little + houses of imported English brick modestly laid in alternate red + and black, curiously like the latest modern fashion. The ample + room for growth possessed by this widespreading city has saved + many an ancient house for present use as dwelling or store. One + is not surprised, therefore, to find on the old streets near + the Delaware three churches of weather-stained brick which seem + trying to make the piety of an elder age useful to the + worshippers of to-day. All three of these churches—Gloria + Dei, Christ and St. Peter's—now have their chief work + among the poor people whom one always finds in a business + quarter near the river-front, but each attracts, by its + old-time associations and its modern missionary spirit, a + goodly circle of attendants from the western parts of the city. + Gloria Dei Church, the oldest of the three, was built in 1700 + by Swedish Lutherans on the spot where the Swedish predecessors + of the Friends had located their fortified log church + twenty-three years earlier. Its bell and communion-service and + some of its ornamental woodwork were presented by the king of + Sweden. It is surrounded by the usual graveyard, in which lies + Alexander Wilson, the lover and biographer of birds, who asked + to be buried here, in a "silent, shady place, where the birds + will be apt to come and sing over my grave." The Old Swedes' + Church retained its Lutheran connection until recent years, + when it became an Episcopal parish.</p> + + <p>Christ Church and St. Peter's were formerly united in one + parochial government, and to the two parishes ministered + William White, the first Church-of-England minister in + Pennsylvania, the friend and pastor of Washington, the chaplain + of Congress and one of the first two bishops of the American + Church. The present structure of Christ Church was begun in + 1727, but not finished for some years. The parish is older, + dating from 1695. Queen Anne gave it a communion-service in + 1708. In 1754 came from England its still-used chime of bells, + which were laboriously transferred during the Revolution to + Allentown, Pennsylvania, lest they should fall into British + hands and be melted up for cannon. At Christ Church a pew was + regularly occupied by Washington during his frequent residence + in Philadelphia; and here have been seated Patrick Henry, + Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and many another patriot, + besides Cornwallis, Howe, André and others on the English side. + Around and beneath the church are many graves covered by + weather-worn stones, and on the walls of the interior there are + a number of mural tablets.</p> + + <p>St. Peter's Church was begun in 1758, and completed three + years later. In quiet graciousness of appearance it is like + another Christ Church, and its interior arrangements are still + more quaint, the chancel being at the eastern end of the + church, while the pulpit and lectern are at the western. In the + adjoining churchyard is a monument to Commodore Decatur.</p> + + <p>One cannot find in all America sweeter and quainter + memorials of a gentle past—memorials still consecrated to + the gracious work of the present—than the churches and + other denominational houses in the old Moravian towns of + Pennsylvania. At Bethlehem, as one stands in the little + three-sided court on Church street and looks up at the heavy + walls, the tiny dormer windows and the odd-shaped belfry which + mark the "Single Sisters' House" and its wings, one may well + fancy one's self, as a travelled visitor has said, in Quebec or + Upper Austria. Still more quaint and quiet is Willow Square, + behind this curious house, where, beneath drooping + willow-boughs, one finds one's self beside the door of the old + German chapel, with the little dead-house, the boys' school and + the great and comparatively modern Moravian church near by. + Through Willow Square leads the path to the burying-ground, + where lie, beneath tall trees, long rows of neatly-kept graves, + each covered with a plain flat stone, the men and the women + lying on either side of the broad central path. Several of the + ancient Moravian buildings date from the middle of the last + century. The Widows' House stands, opposite the Single Sisters' + Range, and across the street from the large church is the + Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, established in 1749, and by + far the oldest girls' school in the United States.</p> + + <p>It was in 1778 that the Single Sisters gave to Pulaski that + banner of crimson, silk which is commemorated in Longfellow's + well-known "Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem." The poem, + however, written in the author's early youth, and preserved for + its rare beauty of language and fine choice of subject, rather + than for its historical accuracy, has done much to perpetuate a + wrong idea of the Moravian spirit and ritual. Mr. Longfellow + writes in his first stanza</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i2">When the dying flame of + day<br /></span> <span class="i2">Through the chancel + shot its ray,<br /></span> <span class="i2">Far the + glimmering tapers shed<br /></span> + <span class="i2">Faint light on the cowled + head,<br /></span> <span class="i2">And the censer + burning swung,<br /></span> <span class="i2">When + before the altar hung<br /></span> + <span class="i2">That proud banner, which, with + care,<br /></span> <span class="i2">Had been + consecrated there;<br /></span> <span class="i0">And + the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while,<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Sung low in the dim, mysterious + aisle.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>But the Moravians know nothing of chancels, tapers, cowled + heads, censers, altars or nuns. Their faith has always been the + simplest Protestantism, their churches are precisely such as + Methodists or Baptists use, and their ritual is plainer than + that of the most "evangelical" Episcopal parish. Their "single + sisters' houses," "widows' houses" and "single brethren's + houses"—the last long disused—are simply + arrangements for social convenience or co-operative + housekeeping. Mr. Longfellow's poetic description applies to + the Moravian ceremonial no more accurately than to a + Congregational prayer-meeting or a Methodist "love-feast."</p> + + <p><a name="MORAVIAN_CEMETERY" + id="MORAVIAN_CEMETERY"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0068.jpg"><img src="images/0068-tb.jpg" + alt="THE MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA." + title="THE MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA." /> + </a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>THE MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, + PENNSYLVANIA.</p> + + <p>Beside the deep and silent waters of the James River in + Virginia, undisturbed by any sound save the flight of birds and + the rustle of leaves, stands all that is left of the first + church building erected by Englishmen in America. A good part + of the tower remains, the arched doorways being still intact, + and it seems a pitiable misfortune that the honestly-laid + bricks of the venerable building could not have come down to + our day. But, as it is, this ancient square block of brick + forms our one pre-eminent American ruin. Nothing could be a + more solemn monument of the past than the lonely tower, + surrounded by thick branches and underbrush and looking down + upon the few crumbling gravestones still left at its base. + Jamestown, long abandoned as a village, has now become an + island, the action of the waters having at last denied it the + remaining solace of connection with the mainland of the Old + Dominion, of whose broad acres it was once the chief town and + the seat of government—the forerunner of all that came to + America at the hands of English settlers.</p> + + <p>In the slumberous old city of Williamsburg, three miles from + Jamestown, stands the Bruton parish church, two hundred and two + years old, and still the home of a parish of sixty + communicants. Built of brick, with small-paned windows and + wooden tower, its walls have listened to the eloquence of the + learned presidents of the neighboring William and Mary College, + and its floor has been honored by the stately tread of many a + colonial governor, member of the legislature or Revolutionary + patriot; for Williamsburg was the capital and centre of + Virginia until the end of the eighteenth century, and shared + whatever Virginia possessed of political or personal renown. + Washington, of course, was more than once an attendant at + Bruton Church, and so were Jefferson and Patrick Henry and an + honorable host. In the church and in the chapel of William and + Mary College—which the ambitious colonists used to think + a little Westminster Abbey—was the religious home of a + good share of what was stateliest or most honorable in the + early colonial life of the South.</p> + + <p>Other old churches still dot the Virginia soil—St. + John's, Richmond; Pohick Church, Westmoreland county; Christ + Church, Lancaster county; St. Anne's, Isle of Wight county. + Their antiquities, and those of other ancient sanctuaries of + the Old Dominion, have been painstakingly set forth by Bishop + Meade and other zealous chroniclers, and their attractiveness + is increased, in most cases—as at Jamestown—by the + loneliness of their surroundings. Another old church, left in + the midst of sweet country sights and gentle country sounds, is + St. James's, Goose Creek, South Carolina. St. Michael's and St. + Philip's at Charleston in the same State have heard the roar of + hostile cannon, but have come forth unscathed. The demolished + Brattle Street Church in Boston was not the only one of our + sacred edifices to be wounded by cannonballs, for the exigences + of the fight more than once, during the Revolution and the + civil war, brought flame and destruction within the altar-rails + of churches North and South.</p> + + <p>The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in America has been + so recent that it can show but few historical landmarks. The + time-honored cathedral at St. Augustine, Florida, and the + magnificent ruin of the San José Mission near San Antonio, + Texas, and one or two weather-stained little chapels in the + North-west, are nearly all the churches that bring to us the + story of the priestly work of the Roman ecclesiastics during + the colonial days.</p> + + <p>We have no State Church, and the different Presidents have + made a wide variety of choice in selecting their places of + worship in Washington. St. John's, just opposite the White + House, has been the convenient Sunday home of some of them: + others have followed their convictions in Methodist, + Presbyterian, Unitarian and other churches. But the city of + Washington is itself too young to be able to boast any very + ancient associations in its churches, and few of its temples + have been permitted to record the names of famous occupants + during a series of years. Our whole country, indeed, is a land + of many denominations and a somewhat wandering population; and + older cities than Washington have found one church famous for + one event in its history, and another for another, rather than, + in any single building, a series of notable occurrences running + through the centuries. The nearest approach to the record of a + succession of worthies occupying the same church-seats year + after year is to be found in the chronicles of our oldest + college-chapels, as, for instance, at Dartmouth, where the + building containing the still-used chapel dates from 1786. But + though poverty and custom unite in making our colleges + conservative, their growth in numbers demands, from time to + time, new and more generous accommodations for public worship; + and so the little buildings of an earlier day are either torn + down or kept for other and more ignoble uses, like Holden + Chapel at Harvard. This quaint little structure was built in + 1744, and is now used for recitation-rooms, but at one period + in its career it served as the workshop of the college + carpenter.</p> + + <p><a name="RUINS_OF_THE_OLD_CHURCH_TOWER" + id="RUINS_OF_THE_OLD_CHURCH_TOWER"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <a href="images/0071.jpg"><img src="images/0071-tb.jpg" + alt="RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA." + title="RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA." /> + </a> + </div> + + <p class='center'>RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, + VIRGINIA.</p> + + <p>In the years since our grandfathers built their places of + worship we have seen strange changes in American church + buildings—changes in material, location and adaptation to + ritual uses. We have had a revival of pagan temple-building in + wood and stucco; we have seen Gothic cathedrals copied for the + simplest Protestant uses, until humorists have suggested that + congregations might find it cheaper to change their religion + than their unsuitable new churches; we have ranged from four + plain brick walls to vast and costly piles of marble or + greenstone; we have constructed great audience-rooms for Sunday + school uses alone, and have equipped the sanctuary with all + culinary attachments; we have built parish-houses whose comfort + the best-kept mediæval monk might envy, and we have put up + evangelistic tabernacles only to find the most noted + evangelists preferring to work in regular church edifices + rather than in places of easy resort by the thoughtless crowd + of wonder-seekers. But not all these doings have been foolish + or mistaken: some of them have been most hopeful signs, and the + next century will find excellent work in the church-building of + our day. The Gothic and Queen Anne revivals, at their best, + have promoted even more than the old-time honesty in the use of + sound and sincere building-material; and not a few of our newer + churches prove that our ecclesiastical architects have + something more to show than experiments in fanciful "revivals" + that are such only in name. We shall continue to do well so + long as we worthily perpetuate the best material lesson taught + by our grandfathers' temples—the lesson of downright + honesty of construction and of a union between the spirit of + worship and its local habitation.</p> + + <p class='author'>CHARLES F. RICHARDSON.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2> + <a name="WILL_DEMOCRACY_TOLERATE_A_PERMANENT_CLASS_OF_NATIONAL_OFFICE_HOLDERS" + id="WILL_DEMOCRACY_TOLERATE_A_PERMANENT_CLASS_OF_NATIONAL_OFFICE_HOLDERS"> + </a>WILL DEMOCRACY TOLERATE A PERMANENT CLASS OF NATIONAL + OFFICE HOLDERS?</h2> + + <p>It is no doubt a public misfortune that so much of that + thoughtful patriotism which, both on account of its culture and + its independence, must always be valuable to the country, + should have been wasted, for some time past, upon what are + apparently narrow and unpractical, if not radically unsound, + propositions of reform in the civil service. There is + unquestionably need of reform in that direction: it would be + too much to presume that in the generally imperfect state of + man his methods of civil government would attain perfection; + but it must be questioned whether the subject has been + approached from the right direction and upon the side of the + popular sympathy and understanding. At this time propositions + of civil-service reform have not even the recognition, much + less the comprehension, of the mass of the people. Their + importance, their limitations, their possibilities, have never + been demonstrated: no commanding intellectual authority has + ever taken up the subject and worked it out before the eyes of + the people as a problem of our national politics. It remains a + question of the closet, a merely speculative proposition as to + the science of government.</p> + + <p>What, then, are the metes and bounds of this reform? How + much is demanded? How much is practicable?</p> + + <p>Not attempting a full answer to all of these questions, and + intending no dogmatic treatment of any, let us give them a + brief consideration from the point of view afforded by the + democratic system upon which the whole political fabric of the + United States is established. We are to look at <i>our</i> + civil-service reform from that side. Whatever in it may be + feasible, that much must be a work in accord with the popular + feeling. It may be set down at the outset, as the first + principle of the problem, that any practicable plan of + organizing the public service of the United States must not + only be founded upon the general consent of the people, but + must also have, in its actual operation, their continual, easy + and direct participation. Any scheme, no matter by what + thoughtful patriot suggested, no matter upon what model shaped, + no matter from what experience of other countries deduced, + which does not possess these essential features can never be + worth the serious attention of any one who expects to + accomplish practical and enduring results.</p> + + <p>(Possibly this may seem dogmatic, to begin with; but if we + agree to treat the question as one in democratic politics, the + principle stated becomes perfectly apparent.)</p> + + <p>It must be fair, then, and for the purposes of this article + not premature, to point out that the measure which is + especially known as "civil-service reform," and which has been + occasionally recognized in the party platforms along with other + generalities, is one whose essence is <i>the creation of a + permanent office-holding class</i>. Substantially, this is what + it amounts to. A man looking forward to a place in the public + service is to regard it as a life occupation, the same as if he + should study for a professional career or learn a mechanical + trade. Once in office, after a "competitive examination" or + otherwise, he will expect to stay in: he will hold, as the + Federal judges do, by a life-tenure, "during good behavior." + This is now substantially the system of Great Britain, which, + in the judgment of Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, is so much better than + our own as to actually reduce the rate of criminality in that + country, and which, he declares, only political baseness can + prevent us from imitating. A change of administration there, + Mr. Eaton adds, only affects a few scores of persons occupying + the highest positions: the great mass of the officials live and + die in their places, indifferent to the fluctuation of + parliamentary majorities or the rise and fall of + ministries.</p> + + <p>We must ask ourselves does this system accord with American + democracy?</p> + + <p>A little more than half a century has passed since John + Quincy Adams, unquestionably the best trained and most + experienced American administrator who ever sat in the + Presidency, undertook to establish in the United States almost + precisely the same system as that which Great Britain now has. + Admission to the places was not, it is true, by means of + competitive examination, but the feature—the essential + feature—of permanent tenure was present in his plan. Mr. + Adams took the government from Mr. Monroe without considering + any change needful: his Cabinet advisers even included three of + those who had been in the Cabinet of his predecessor, and these + he retained to the end, though at least one of the three, he + thought, had ceased to be either friendly or faithful to him. + Retaining the old officers, and reappointing them if their + commissions expired, selecting new ones, in the comparatively + rare cases of death, resignation or ascertained delinquency, + upon considerations chiefly relating to their personal + capabilities for the vacant places, Mr. Adams was patiently and + faithfully engaged during the four years of his Presidency in + establishing almost the precise reform of the national service + which has been in recent times so strenuously urged upon us as + the one great need of the nation—the administrative + purification which, if effectually performed, would prove that + our system of government was fit to continue in existence. Mr. + Adams's plan did, indeed, seem excellent. It commanded the + respect of honest but busy citizens absorbed in their private + affairs and desirous that the government might be fixed, once + for all, in settled grooves, so that its functions would + proceed like the steady progress of the seasons. It was an + attempt to run the government, as has been sometimes said, "on + business principles." The President was to proceed, and did + proceed, as if he had in charge some great estate which he was + to manage and direct as a faithful and exact trustee. This, no + one can deny, had the superficial look of most admirable + administration.</p> + + <p>But President Adams had left out of account largely what we + are compelled to sedulously consider—public opinion. He + had acquired most of his experience abroad, and his principal + service at home, as Secretary of State, had been in a + remarkably quiet time, when party movements were neither ebbing + nor flowing, so that he had forgotten how strong and vigorous + the democratic feeling was amongst the population of these + States. This is a forgetfulness to which all men are liable who + long occupy official position, and who seldom have to submit + themselves to that severe and rude competitive examination + which the plan of popular elections establishes. Unfortunately + for him, he was not responsible to a court of chancery for the + management of his trust, but to a tribunal composed of a + multitude of judges. His accounts were to be passed upon not by + one learned and conservative auditor guided by familiar + precedents and rules of law, but a great, tumultuous popular + assembly, which would approve or disapprove by a majority vote. + When, therefore, it appeared to the people that he was forming + a body of permanent office-holders—was recruiting a civil + army to occupy in perpetuity the offices which they, the mass, + had created and were taxed to pay for—the fierce, and in + many respects scandalous, partisan assault which Jackson + represented, if he did not direct, gathered overwhelming force. + It seemed to the popular view that a narrow, an exclusive, an + aristocratic system was being formed. The President appeared to + be, while honestly and carefully preserving their trust from + waste or loss, committing it to a control independent of + them—an official body which, having a permanent tenure, + would be altogether indifferent to their varying desires. Such + a scheme of government was therefore no more than an attempt to + stand the pyramid on its apex: Mr. Adams's administration, + supported chiefly by those whose aspirations were for an honest + and capable bureaucracy, and who could not or would not face + the rude questionings of democracy, ended with his first four + years, and went out in such a whirlwind of partisan opposition + as brought in, by reaction, the infamous "spoils system" that + at the end of half a century we are but partially recovered + from.</p> + + <p>To designate more particularly the great fact which had been + disregarded in this notable experiment of fifty years ago, and + which is apparently not sufficiently considered in the measures + of reform that have been more recently pressed upon us, we may + declare that the government of the United States is, as yet, + the direct outcome of what may be called <i>the political + activity of the people</i>. Whether or not, having read + history, we must anticipate a time here when the many, weary of + preserving their own liberties, will resign their power to a + few, it is certain that no such inclination yet appears. The + government is the product of the public mind and will when + these are moved with reference to the subject. It is created + freshly at short intervals, and the manner of the creation is + seldom languid or careless, but usually earnest, intense and + heated. Upon this point there has no doubt been much + misapprehension. As it has happened—perhaps rather + oddly—that those of our thoughtful patriots whose + warnings and appeals have reached public notice have had their + experiences mostly in city life, surrounded by the peculiar + conditions which exist there, the conclusions they have drawn + in some respects are applicable only to their own surroundings. + They have discovered persons who had forgotten or did not + believe that liberty could be bought only with the one currency + of eternal vigilance, and coupled with these others who were + too busy to attend to the active processes by which the + government is from time to time renewed; and they have + concluded, with fatal inaccuracy of judgment, that this + exceptional disposition of a small number of persons was a type + of the whole population. Nothing could be more absurdly untrue. + Outside of a very limited circle no such political fatigue + exists. The people generally are deeply interested in public + affairs and willing to attend to their own public duties. Their + concern in regard to measures, methods and candidates is seldom + laid aside. The <i>political activity</i> to which we have + called attention thus at some length is earnest, persistent and + exacting.</p> + + <p>It will be useful for the reformer of the civil service to + give some study to the manifestations of this activity. He will + find it one of the most marked and characteristic features in + the life of the American people. If he will take the pains to + examine the civil organization of the country, he will find + that its roots run to every stratum of society. The number of + persons interested in politics, not as a speculative subject, + but as a practical and personal one, is wonderfully great. + Thus, in most of the States there exists that modification of + the ancient Saxon system of local action by + "hundreds"—the township organization. This alone carries + a healthy political movement into the farthest nook and corner + of the body politic: every citizen of common sense may well be + consulted in this primary activity, and every household may be + interested in the question whether its results are good or bad. + But besides this, simple and slightly compensated as are the + positions belonging to the township, there are in every + community many willing to fill them. To be a supervisor of the + roads,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" + id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" + class="fnanchor">[1]</a> to be township constable and + collector of the taxes, to audit the township accounts, to + be a member of the school board, to be a justice of the + peace, is an inclination—it may be a + desire—entertained by many citizens; and if the + ambition may seem to be a narrow one, its modesty does not + make it unworthy or discreditable. But these men alone, + active in the politics of townships, form a surprising + array. If we consider that in Pennsylvania there are + sixty-seven counties, with an average of say forty townships + in each, here are twenty-six hundred and eighty townships, + having each not less than ten officials, and making nearly + twenty-seven thousand persons actually on duty at one time + in a single State in this fundamental branch of the service. + And if we estimate that besides those who are in office at + least two persons are inclined and willing, if not actually + desirous, to occupy the place now filled by each one—a + very moderate calculation—we multiply twenty-six + thousand eight hundred by three, and have over eighty + thousand persons whose minds are quick and active in local + politics on this one account. But we may proceed further. + There are the cities and boroughs, their official business + more complex and laborious, and in most cases receiving much + higher compensation. The competition for these is in many + instances very great: in the case of large cities we need + not waste words in elaborating the fact. It is difficult to + estimate the number of persons to whom the municipal + corporations give place and pay compensation in the State of + Pennsylvania, but five thousand is not an extravagant + surmise, while it would be equally reasonable to presume + that for each place occupied at least three others would be + willing to fill it, so that on this account we may make a + total of twenty thousand. But there are also the county + offices. Besides the judicial positions, altogether + honorable, held by long terms of election and receiving + liberal compensation, there are in each county an average of + fifteen other officials, making in the State, in round + numbers, one thousand. These, again, may be multiplied by + four: there are certainly three waiting aspirants for each + place. But ascend now to the State system, with its several + executive departments, the legislature, the charitable and + penal institutions and the appointments in the gift of the + governor. Great and small, these may reach one thousand (the + Legislature alone, with its officers and employés, accounts + for over three hundred), and certainly there are at least + five persons looking toward each of the several places.</p> + + <p>Upon such an estimate, then, of the political activities of + one State we have such a showing as this:</p> + + <div class='center'> + <table border="0" + cellpadding="4" + cellspacing="0" + summary="Citizens politically active"> + <tr> + <td align='left'>Citizens</td> + + <td align='left'>politically</td> + + <td align='left'>active</td> + + <td align='center'>as</td> + + <td align='left'>to</td> + + <td align='left'>townships,</td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='right'>80,000</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>cities</td> + + <td align='left'>and</td> + + <td align='center'>boroughs</td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='right'>20,000</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>counties</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='right'>4,000</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>the</td> + + <td align='left'>State,</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='right'>5,000</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='right'>-------</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='left'>Making</td> + + <td align='left'>a</td> + + <td align='center'>total</td> + + <td align='center'>of</td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='right'>109,000</td> + </tr> + </table> + </div> + + <p>Some allowance should be made, no doubt, for persons whose + inclinations for position cover all the different + fields—who may be said to be watching several holes. But + we have not considered how many citizens of Pennsylvania are + inclined to national positions—the Presidency, seats in + Congress or some of the numerous places in the general service + of the Federal government. These two classes, it is probable, + would offset each other.</p> + + <p>Subtracting, however, the odd thousands from the total + stated, we may fix at one hundred thousand the number of + citizens in the one State who, by reason of occupying some + position of public duty or of being inclined to fill one, are + actively interested in the subject of politics. This is almost + exactly one-seventh of the whole number of voters in the State: + it presents the fact that in every group of seven citizens + there is one, presumably of more than the average in capacity + and intelligence, whose mind is quick and sensitive to every + question affecting political organization. We are brought thus + to the same point which we reached by an observation of the + township system—the fact that every part of society is + permeated by the general political circulation. It is like the + human organism: nerves and blood-vessels extend, with size and + capacity proportioned for their work, to the most remote + extremity, and the whole is alive.</p> + + <p>Let us, however, guard strictly, at this point, against a + possible misconception. It is not to be understood that these + one hundred thousand citizens are simply "office-seekers," + using the ordinary and offensive sense of the term. The + activity in affairs which we describe is distinct from a sordid + desire to grab the emoluments of office. The vast majority of + the places, including all those in the townships—which, + with the aspirants to them, make four-fifths of the + whole—are either without any pay at all or have an amount + so small as to be beneath our consideration. But a small part + of the offices which we have enumerated carry emoluments + sufficient to furnish a living for the most economical + incumbent. The inspiration of the political interest evidenced + by this one-seventh part of the citizenship is not an unworthy + one at all: on the contrary, it is that essential democratic + inclination without which our form of government must quickly + stagnate. It would be foolish to say that no selfish motive + enters into this tremendous manifestation of energy and effort + (until humanity assumes a higher form the moving power of the + mercenary principle must be very great), but it is fair and it + is accurate to ascribe to the men in affairs a much loftier and + more honorable impulse—the aspiration to share in the + conduct of their own government, the unwillingness to be + ignored or excluded in the administration of what is + universally denominated a common trust. That they enjoy, if + they do not covet, such pecuniary advantage as their places + bring is reasonable, but it is true, to their credit, that they + do appreciate more than this the honor that attaches to the + public station and the pleasure which may be experienced in the + discharge of its conspicuous duties.</p> + + <p>Let us presume that even this imperfect study of the + political activities of a single State may present some + conception of the tremendous force and energy that go to the + making, year by year, of the various branches of our + government. Certainly, any student of this field may accept + with respect the admonition that there is no languor, no + fatigue, no feeling of genteel disgust with politics, in what + has thus been presented him. If, then, his plan of + reorganization for the civil service is intended to be set up + without consulting the popular inclination, or possibly even in + opposition to it, he may well stand hesitant as to his + likelihood of success. The question may confront him at once: + Is the organization of a permanent official class in the + administration of the general government likely to accord with + the desires of the people? And we may add, Is it consistent + with the general character of our form of government? Is it not + attended by conclusive objections?</p> + + <p>It is not the purpose of this article to attempt answering + these questions fully. We do not propose to throw ourselves + across the path of those undoubtedly sincere, and probably + wise, students of this subject who have arrived at the positive + conclusion that to establish a permanent tenure for the great + body of the national office-holders, and to appoint to + vacancies among them upon the tests of a competitive or other + examination, is the panacea for all our public disorders, the + regenerative process which will lift our whole system into a + higher and purer atmosphere. We do not say that these gentlemen + may not be right, but we are willing to examine the + subject.</p> + + <p>Upon viewing, then, the tremendous popular activity in local + and State affairs—and we must reflect that there is "more + politics to the square foot" in some of the newer States than + there is in Pennsylvania—the inquiry is natural whether + this stops short of all national politics. Certainly it does + not. The offices in the general government, though their + importance and their influence are usually overestimated, are a + great object of attention with the whole country. The vehement + democratic movement toward them that marked the time of Jackson + is still apparent, though it proceeds with diminished force and + is regulated and tempered by the strong protest which has been + made against the scandals of the "spoils system," and against + the theory that government by parties must be a continual + struggle for plunder. It is noticeable that no administration + has ever really attempted the formation of an irremovable body + of officials. No party has ever yet explicitly declared itself + in favor of such a policy. No actual leader of any party, + bearing the responsibility of its success or failure in the + elections, has ever yet sincerely and persistently advocated + the measure. None wish to undertake so tremendous a task. He + would indeed be a powerful orator who could carry a popular + gathering with him in favor of the proposition that hereafter + the holding of office was to be made more exclusive—that + the people were to put away from themselves, by a renunciation + of their own powers, the expectancy of occupying a great part + of the public places. Rare as may be the persuasive ability of + the true stump-orator, and serene as his confidence may be in + his powers, there would be but few volunteers to enter a + campaign upon such a platform as that. It would be a forlorn + hope indeed.</p> + + <p>The view of the people undoubtedly is (1) that the public + places are common property; (2) that any one may aspire to fill + them; and (3) that the elevation to them is properly the direct + or nearly direct result of election. The elective principle is + democratic. It has been, since the beginning of the government, + steadily consuming all other methods of making public officers. + In most States the appointing power of the governor, which + years ago was usually large, has been stripped to the + uttermost. It is thirty years in Pennsylvania since even the + judiciary became elective by the people. And in those + States—of which Delaware furnishes an example—where + most of the county officers are still the appointees of the + governor, the tendency to control his action by a display of + the popular wish—such an array of petitions, etc. as + amounts to a polling of votes—is unmistakable. The + governor is moved, obviously, by the people. And if to some + this general tendency toward the elective idea seems dangerous, + it must be answered that it is not really so if the people are + in fact capable of self-government. Conceding this as the + foundation of our system, we cannot, at this point and that, + expect to interpose a guardianship over their expression.</p> + + <p>To the permanency of tenure it is that we have given, and + expect will generally be given, most attention. This is the + essence of the proposed "reform." The manner of selecting new + appointees is of no great consequence if the vacancies are to + occur so seldom as must be the case where incumbents hold for + life. Whether the new recruits come in upon the certificates of + a board of examiners, such as the British Civil-Service + Commission, or upon the scrutiny of the Executive and his + advisers, as now, is a consideration of minor importance. It is + the idea of an official class, an order of office-holders, + which appears to throw itself across the path of the democratic + activity which we have attempted to describe. This is the point + of conflict—if any. We might, it is true, take many + measures to ensure the colorless and harmless character of the + system. Up to a recent time the government clerks in England + were deprived of the suffrage, in order that they might be + perfectly indifferent to politics. It is probable that in time + our own officials would lose the ordinary instincts of a + democratic citizenship, and would regard with coldness, if not + contempt, the activities that lead to a renewal of the + government. But however smoothly they might move in the + pursuance of their clerical routine, however faultless they + might become in their round of prescribed duties, would they + not still obstruct the public purpose? Would not even this + emasculate order of placemen, standing apart a sacrificed + though favored class, still present themselves as unpardonable + offenders? When it should be discovered that they claimed the + possession in perpetuity of the offices in the national + government, and had organized themselves as a standing army of + placemen, can it be believed that they would not be swept aside + by the same iconoclastic onset which ended the Adams + administration?</p> + + <p>We do not pause here to represent the apparent inconsistency + of desiring to de-citizenize a large number of intelligent + members of the community, or the risk of creating a class in + the republic forbidden to take any active interest in the + renewals of its organization, or the impolicy of diminishing + the force and courage of the popular will in its grapple with + the problem of self-government; but all these comments may + suggest themselves.</p> + + <p>Popular expectancy, it may fairly be declared, follows all + the stations of public life with a jealous if not an eager eye. + There is abundant evidence of this in the county and township + systems. Taking, for example, the administration of county + affairs in any of the States, it will be found that the + officers, by a rule that seems generally satisfactory, hold + during short terms, and are seldom re-elected immediately to + the same place. The rule is rotation—giving a large + number of persons their "turn"—and changes are regularly + made. A man disappointed this year for a particular place waits + until the time comes to fill it again, and in many counties, + other things being about equal, the fact that he has waited + patiently and now presents the oldest claim governs the + selection. The antipathy to one who seeks to hold on to his + place beyond the ordinary term—the dislike for a grabber + who desires more than is usually assigned—is a perfectly + well-known feature in politics. The county system of + Pennsylvania will afford abundant proof of the statements here + made: the terms of the officers, who are all elective, do not + average more than four years, even including such + court-officials as the clerks and prothonotaries, whose duties + are in some particulars technical and difficult, requiring an + acquaintance with the forms of legal procedure. But it is + further true that in the States where county officers are + appointed by the governor no protracted tenure results. On the + contrary, the pressure upon him of the public expectation + seldom permits the reappointment of an officer whose commission + is expiring.</p> + + <p>With this rule of change, primary as its application is, and + within the direct comprehension and control of the people, + there does not appear to be any general discontent. It is + accepted, so far as we can discover, as a just and proper + system by which an equality of claims upon the common favor is + maintained. It is reasonable to presume, therefore, that + amongst a people fairly acquainted with their own business, and + possessing a fair education both of the schools and of + experience in life, many persons in every community are + competent to serve as its officials. At any rate, in the midst + of these usages we discover no demand that the terms of office + be made permanent, and that the place-holders be put beyond the + reach of a removal. There is no apparent realization that such + a "reform" is demanded; and if it be difficult, as has been + stated, to awaken popular enthusiasm in behalf of a permanent + tenure in the national civil service, there seems to be nothing + in the rules of primary politics to help smooth the way.</p> + + <p>It may be asked now whether it is not almost certainly true + that some sound principle lies in the methods which an + intelligent community, unrestrained by ancient conventional + ideas or repressive systems of law, applies to its own + political organization. Is not this instinctive democratic plan + an essential principle of a government founded upon equal + rights? <i>Is it not a law of Change which characterizes the + civil service of a democracy, and not a law of + Permanence?</i></p> + + <p>We can hardly doubt that the facts which have been stated + concerning the disposition of the people toward the offices in + their government are capable of a philosophical explanation; + and as they proceed with evident freedom and naturalness from + the very bosom of communities accustomed to independent thought + and action, the conclusion is irresistible that this is the + temper and the tendency of a free government. Startling as it + may be to propose change rather than permanency in the civil + service, that may prove to be best adapted to our wants. + Consciously or not, such a rule has been established by the + people themselves; and while it has scarcely found a formal + presentation, much less had careful examination and argument, + there can be little doubt that such a principle, substantially + as we have described, lies close to the hearts of the people. + The right of election, the idea that public officers should be + elective, and the expectation that there will be a rotation of + duties and honors, are popular principles which are + unmistakable.</p> + + <p>Apart from the consideration that whatever is fundamental in + popular government, whatever tends to the preservation of + individual freedom and equality of rights, must be a safe + principle, there could be much said from the most practical + stand-point in favor of rotation in office. All human + experience proves the usefulness of change. Rest is the next + thing to rust. In physics things without motion are usually + things without life; and in government it is the bureaus least + disturbed by change that are most stagnated and most + circumlocutory. The apparent misfortune of having men + experienced in public affairs make way, at intervals, for + others of less experience is itself greatly exaggerated. There + are facts so important in compensation that the assumed evil + becomes one of very moderate proportions. For it will be seen + upon careful observation that no important function of the + government, not even in the national service, calls for a + character or qualification—sometimes, but rarely, for any + sort of special or technical skill—which is not being + continually formed and trained either in the movements of + private life and business experience or in the political + schools which are furnished by the State, the county and the + township. The functions of the government are substantially the + guardianship of the same interests for which the State, the + county, the township and the individual exercise concern. + Government has lost its mystery: even diplomacy has somewhat + changed from lying and chicanery to common-sense dealing. The + qualities that are required in the government—industry, + economy, integrity, knowledge of men and affairs—are + precisely those which are of value to every individual citizen, + and which are taught day by day everywhere—to the lads in + school and college and to the men in their occupations of life. + Such qualities a community fit to govern itself must abundantly + possess. There is nothing occult in the science of government. + The administration in behalf of the people of the organization + which they have ordered is nothing foreign to their own + knowledge. They have ceased to consider themselves unfit for + self-rule: they no longer think of calling in from other worlds + a different order of beings to govern them.</p> + + <p>We may accept without fear principles which seem startling, + but which are proved to be rooted in democratic ground, so long + as we have faith in the democratic system itself. There is no + road open for the doubter and questioner of popular rights but + that which leads back to abandoned ground. We may proceed, + then, with an attempt to explain the philosophy of the rule of + Change. Shall it not be stated thus:</p> + + <p><i>That, due regard being had to the preservation of + simplicity and economy—forbidding thus the needless + increase of offices and expenses—it is then true that the + active participation by the largest number of persons in the + practical administration of their own government is an object + highly to be desired in every democratic republic.</i></p> + + <p>The government must be the highest school of affairs. Shall + it be declared that to study there and to have its diploma is + not desirable for all? Is it not perfectly evident that the + more who can learn to actually discharge the duties belonging + to their own social organization, the better for them and the + better for it?</p> + + <p>All these propositions necessarily imply the existence of an + intelligent and patriotic people, at least of such a majority. + So always does every plan of popular government. Whatever of + disappointment presents itself to the author of any scheme of + "reform," upon finding that he has constructed a system which + is ridden down by the political activity of the people, he must + blame the plan upon which our fabric is built. If he is + chagrined to find that his <i>imperium in imperio</i> is not + practicable, and that nothing can make here a power stronger + than the source of power, he must solace his hurt feelings with + the reflection that the system was never adapted to his + contrivance, and that our fathers, when in the beginning they + resolved to establish a government by the people, gave consent + thereby to all the apparent risks and inconveniences of having + the people continually minding their own affairs.</p> + + <p>With a just comprehension of the democratic forces that give + motion and life to the governmental system of the United + States, and of the manner in which they affect the public + service in all its departments, the wise advocate of reform + must approach his work. His patriotism and thoughtfulness are + both necessary. To proceed against the democratic law is not + practicable: to establish a new system which is inconsistent + with the abundant vitality and conscious strength of that + already established is a futile proposition indeed.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="THE_PRICE_OF_SAFETY" + id="THE_PRICE_OF_SAFETY"></a>THE PRICE OF SAFETY.</h2> + + <p>Thirty-three years ago—that is, shortly before + Christmas, 1847—I went over to Paris to pass a few weeks + with my family. The great railway schemes of the two previous + years in England had broken down a good many men in our + office—draughtsmen, surveyors and so on. I wonder if the + present public recollects those days, when the <i>Times</i> + brought out double supplements to accommodate the + advertisements of railroads, when King Hudson was as much a + potentate as Queen Victoria, when Brunel and Stephenson were + autocrats, and when everybody saw a sudden chance of getting + rich by shares or damages? Those days were the beginning of + that period of prosperity of which the recent "hard times" were + the reaction. <i>Then</i> twenty guineas a night for + office-work was sometimes paid to youngsters not yet out of + their teens. In the great offices the young men worked all day + and the alternate nights to get plans ready for Parliament, + sustained by strong coffee always on the tap, till some of them + went mad with the excitement and the strain.</p> + + <p>I had worked hard both in the field and office during the + closing months of 1847, but I broke down at last, and was sent + to recover my health under the care of my family. That family + consisted of my father—a half-pay English + officer—my mother and three sisters, then living <i>au + troisième</i> in the Rue Neuve de Berri, not far from the + newly-erected Russian church, and the windows of the + <i>appartement</i> commanded a side view down the Champs + Élysées. I only needed rest and recreation, both of which my + adoring family eagerly provided me. My sisters were three + lively, simple-hearted, honest English girls, who had a large + acquaintance in Paris, and took great pride and pleasure in + introducing to it their only brother. We were not only invited + to our embassy and on visiting terms with all the English + Colony (that colony whose annals at that period are written in + <i>The Adventures of Philip</i>, and to which Thackeray's + mother and nearest relatives, like ourselves, belonged), but we + were, in virtue of some American connections, admitted to the + American embassy on the footing of semi-Americans.</p> + + <p>We enjoyed our American friends greatly. I formed the + opinion then, which I retain now, that cultivated Americans, + the top-skimming of the social cream, are some of the most + charming people to be met with in cultivated society. To all + that constitutes "nice people" everywhere they join a + <i>soupçon</i> of wild flavor which gives them individuality. + They are to society what their own wild turkeys and canvasbacks + are to the <i>menu</i>.</p> + + <p>One of my sisters, Amy, the eldest, had been ill that + winter, and was not equal to joining in the gayeties that the + others enjoyed. Her principal amusement was walking in the + Gardens of Monceaux, a private domain of King Louis Philippe in + the Batignolles, a quiet, humdrum spot, where she could set her + foot upon green turf and gravel. The streets of Paris, the + Boulevards, and the Champs Élysées were too attractive to a + pleasure-seeker like myself to allow me to content myself with + the pale attractions of Monceaux, but I went there with my + sister once or twice, because French etiquette forbade her + walking even in these quiet garden-paths alone.</p> + + <p>One day it was proposed by her that we should go again. I + could not, in common humanity, refuse, and so consented. Poor + Amy "put on her things," as our girls called it, and we + descended to the porte-cochère, intending to engage the first + passing citadine. As we stepped into the street, however, a gay + carriage with high-stepping gray horses, a chasseur with knife + and feathers, and a coachman in a modest livery on a + hammer-cloth resplendent with yellow fringes and embroideries, + drew up at our door: a pretty hand was laid upon the portière + and a voice cried, "Amy! Amy! I was coming for you."</p> + + <p>"My brother—Miss Leare," said Amy.</p> + + <p>Miss Leare bowed to me gracefully and motioned to her + chasseur to open the carriage-door. "Get in," she said. + "<i>I</i> have the carriage for two hours: what shall we do + with it? Mamma is at the dentist's.—Amy, I thought you + would enjoy a drive, and so I came for you."</p> + + <p>I helped Amy in, and was making my bow when Miss Leare + stopped me. "Come too," she said cordially: "Amy's brother + surely need not be taboo. Shall we drive to the Bois?"</p> + + <p>"I was going to Monceaux," said Amy. "Would it be quite the + thing for us to drive alone to the Bois?"</p> + + <p>"Oh-h-h!" said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the + vocative.—"You see," she added, turning to me, "I am so + unprepared by previous training that I shall never become <i>au + fait</i> in French proprieties. Indeed, I hold them in great + reverence, but they seem to be for ever hedging me in; nor can + I understand the meaning of half of them. In America I was + guided by plain right and wrong.—Why shall we not outrage + etiquette, Amy, by 'going alone,' as you call it, to Monceaux? + Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way + that we may walk there without a chaperon? I should have + thought seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that + there be any danger at all.—In America, Mr. Farquhar, + your escort would be enough for us, and the fact that Amy is + your sister would give a sort of double security to your + protection."</p> + + <p>"Oh, dear Miss Leare—" began Amy.</p> + + <p>"Hermie, Amy—Hermione, which is English and American + for Tasso's Erminia.—Do you like my name, Mr. Farquhar? + We have strange names in America, English people are pleased to + say.—Victor!" she went on, calling to the chasseur + without pausing for any reply, "stop at some place where they + sell candy. Mr. Farquhar will get out and buy us some."</p> + + <p>Obediently to her order, we stopped at a confectioner's. I + was directed to put my hand into the carriage-pocket, where I + should find some "loose change," kept there for candy and the + hurdy-gurdy boys. Then I was directed to go into the "store" + and choose a pound of all sorts of "mixed candy."</p> + + <p>I had not more than made myself intelligible to a young + person behind the counter when the carriage-door was opened and + both the girls came in, Miss Hermione declaring that she knew I + should be embarrassed by the multitude of "sweeties," and that + I should need their experience to know what I was about.</p> + + <p>With dawdling, laughing and good-comradeship we chose our + bonbons, and getting back into the barouche we proceeded to + crunch them as we drove on to Monceaux. It was like being + children over again, with a slight sense of being out of + bounds. I had never seen confectionery eaten wholesale in that + fashion. Such bonbons were expensive, too. Trained in the + personal economy of English middle-class life, it would never + have occurred to me to buy several francs' worth of sugar-plums + and to eat them by the handful. But as the fair American sat + before me, smiling, laughing, petting Amy and saying + fascinating impertinences to myself, I thought I had never seen + so bewitching a creature. Her frame, though <i>svelte</i> and + admirably proportioned, gave me an idea of vigor and strength + not commonly associated at that time with the girls of America. + Her complexion, too, was healthy: she was not so highly colored + as an English country girl, but her skin was bright and clear. + Her face was a perfect oval, her hair glossy and dark, her eyes + expressive hazel. Her points were all good: her ears, her + hands, her feet, her upper lip and nostrils showed blood, and + the daintiness and taste of her rich dress seemed to denote her + good taste and fine breeding. My sisters, could not tie their + bonnet-strings as she tied hers, nor were their dresses + anything like hers in freshness, fit or daintiness of + trimming.</p> + + <p>We alighted at last at old Monceaux, and walked about its + solemn alleys. Sometimes Miss Leare talked sense, and talked it + well. Those were exciting days in Paris. It was February, 1848, + and a great crisis was nearer at hand in politics than we + suspected; besides which there had been several events in + private life which had increased the general excitement of the + period—notably the murder of Marshal Sebastiani's + daughter, the poor duchesse de Praslin. Hermione could talk of + these things with great spirit, but sometimes relapsed into her + grown-up childishness. She talked, too, with animation of the + freedom and happiness of her American girlhood. My sister Amy + had always taken life <i>au grand sérieux</i>; Ellen was a + little too prompt to flirt with officers and gay young men, and + needed repression; Lætitia went in for book-learning, and + measured every one by what she called their "educational + opportunities." My sisters were as different as possible from + this butterfly creature, who seemed to sip interest and + amusement out of everything.</p> + + <p>At the end of two hours we drove back to Mrs. Leare's hôtel, + which was opposite our own apartment in the Rue Neuve de Berri, + the hôtel that a few weeks later was occupied by Prince Jerome. + Here Hermione insisted upon our coming in while the carriage + drove to the dentist's for her mother.</p> + + <p>The reception-rooms in Mrs. Leare's hôtel were very showy. + They were filled with buhl and knick-knacks gathered on all + parts of the Continent, and lavishly displayed, not always in + good keeping. A little sister, Claribel, came running up to us + when we entered, and clung fondly to Hermione, who sat down at + the Erard grand piano and sang to us, without suggestion, a gay + little French song. She was taking lessons, Amy afterward told + me, of the master most in vogue in Paris and of all others the + most expensive. Amy, who could sing well herself, disparaged + Hermione's voice to me, and sighed as she thought of the waste + of those inestimable lessons.</p> + + <p>Then Miss Hermione lifted the top of an ormolu box on the + chimney-piece of a boudoir and showed Amy and me, under the + rose as it were, some cigarettes, with a laugh. "Mamma's," she + said: "she has a <i>faiblesse</i> that way."</p> + + <p>"Oh, Hermione! you don't?" cried Amy.</p> + + <p>"No, <i>I</i> don't," said Hermione more gravely.</p> + + <p>I was so amused by her, so fascinated, so completely at my + ease with her, that I could have stayed on without taking note + of time had not Amy remembered that it was our dinner-hour. We + took our leave, and met Mrs. Leare on the staircase ascending + to her apartment. She greeted Amy with as much effusion as was + compatible with her ideas of fashion, and said she was "right + glad" to hear we had been passing the morning with + Hermione.</p> + + <p>"I wish you would come very often. I like her to see English + girls: you do her so much good, Amy.—Mr. Farquhar, we + shall hope to see you often too. I have a little reception here + every Sunday evening."</p> + + <p>With that she continued her course up stairs, and we + descended to the porte-cochère.</p> + + <p>She was a faded woman, "dressed to death," as Amy phrased + it, and none of my people had a good word for her.</p> + + <p>"The Leares are rolling in riches, I believe," remarked my + father, "and an American who is rich has no hereditary + obligations to absorb his wealth, so that it becomes all + 'spending-money,' as Miss Hermione says. The head of the + family—King Leare I call him—stays at home in some + sort of a counting-room in New York and makes money, giving + Mrs. Leare and Miss Hermione <i>carte blanche</i> to spend it + on any follies they please. I never heard anything exactly + wrong concerning Mrs. Leare, but she does not seem to me the + woman to be trusted with that very nice young daughter. I feel + great pity for Miss Leare."</p> + + <p>"Miss Leare has plenty of sense and character," said my + mother: "I do not think her mother's queer surroundings seem to + affect her in any way. She moves among the Frenchmen, Poles and + Italians of her mother's court like that lady + Shakespeare—or was it Spenser?—wrote about among + the fauns and satyrs. With all her American freedom she avoids + improprieties by instinct. I have no fears for her future if + she marries the right man."</p> + + <p>"Indeed, mamma," said Amy, "I wish she would keep more + strictly within the limit of the proprieties. She makes me + nervous all the time we are together."</p> + + <p>"My dear, you never heard her breathe a really unbecoming + word or saw her do an immodest thing?" said my mother + interrogatively.</p> + + <p>"Oh no, of course not," said Amy.</p> + + <p>"They say Mrs. Leare wants to marry her to that Neapolitan + marquis who is so often there," put in Ellen. "<i>On dit</i>, + she will have a <i>dot</i> of two millions of francs, or, as + they call it, half a million of dollars."</p> + + <p>"Such a rumor," I broke in, rather annoyed by this turn in + the conversation, "may well buy her the right to be a + marchioness if she will."</p> + + <p>"Indeed it won't, then," said Ellen sharply, "for she thinks + Americans should not 'fix' themselves permanently abroad. She + says she means to marry one of her own folks, as she calls her + countrymen."</p> + + <p>"She knows an infinite variety of things, and has had all + kinds of masters," sighed Lætitia: "she speaks all the + languages in Europe. I believe Americans have a peculiar + facility for pronunciation, like the Russians, and she learned + at her school in America philosophy, rhetoric, logic, Latin, + algebra, chemistry."</p> + + <p>"I wonder she should be so sweet a woman," said my father. + "She seems a good girl—I never took her for a learned + one—but her mother is a fool, and I should think her + father must be that or worse. I wonder what he can be like? It + seems to an Englishman so strange that a man should stay at + home alone for years, and suffer his wife and family to travel + all over the Continent without protection."</p> + + <p>Though my father, mother and sisters declined the Sunday + invitation of Mrs. Leare, I went to her reception. The guests + were nearly all Italians, Poles, Spaniards or Frenchmen. There + was no Englishman present, but myself, and only one or two + Americans. I felt at once how out of place my mother, the + country matron, and my father, <i>ce respectable viellard,</i> + would have been in such a circle. But Mrs. Leare's guests were + not the <i>jeunesse dorée</i> nor the dubious nobility I had + expected to meet in her <i>salon</i>. The Frenchmen among them + were all men whose names were familiar in French political + circles—men of revolutionary tendencies and of advanced + opinions. I afterward discovered they had taken advantage of + Mrs. Leare's desire to be the head of a salon to use her rooms + as a convenient rendezvous. It was safe ground on which to + simmer their revolutionary cauldron. It was seething and + bubbling that night, although neither the Leares nor myself + were aware of what was brewing. The talk was all about the + Banquets, especially the impending reform banquet in the Rue + Chaillot. The gentlemen present were not exactly conspirators: + they were for the most part political reformers, who, being cut + off from the usual modes of expressing themselves through a + recognized parliamentary opposition or by the medium of + petition, had devised a system of political banquets, some + fifty of which had already been held in the departments, and + they were now engaged in getting one up in Paris in the Twelfth + arrondissement.</p> + + <p>At that time, in a population of thirty-five millions, there + were but a quarter of a million of French voters, and as in + France all places (from that of a railroad guard to a seat on + the bench) were disposed of by the government, it was very easy + for ministers to control the legislature. A reform, really + needed in the franchise, was the object proposed to themselves + by the original heads of the Revolution of 1848, though when + they had set their ball in motion they could neither control it + nor keep up with it as it rolled downward.</p> + + <p>The prevalent idea in Mrs. Leare's salon was that the + banquet of the Rue Chaillot would go off quietly, that the + prefect of police would protest, and that the affair would then + pass into the law-courts, where it would remain until all + interest in the subject had passed away. One was sensible, + however, that there was a general feeling of excitement in the + atmosphere. Paris swarmed with troops, evidently under stricter + discipline than usual. People looked into each other's faces + interrogatively and read the daily papers with an anxious + air.</p> + + <p>Though I did not at the time fully appreciate what I saw, I + was struck by the business-like character of the men about me. + The guests, I thought, took very little notice of the lady of + the house. I did not then suspect that they were using her + hospitality for their own purposes, and that they felt secure + in her total incapacity to understand what they were doing. + She, meantime, intent on filling her reception-rooms with + celebrities and titled persons, was charmed to have collected + so many distinguished men around her.</p> + + <p>Hermione appeared bewildered, uncomfortable and restless, + like a spectator on the edge of a great crowd. "There are too + many strangers here to-night," she said: "mamma and I do not + know one half of them. They have been brought here by their + friends. To have a salon is mamma's ambition, but this is not + my idea of it. I feel as if we were out of place among these + men, who talk to each other and hardly notice us at all."</p> + + <p>We sat together and exchanged our thoughts in whispers. It + was one of those crowds that create a solitude for lovers. Not + that we talked sentiment or that we were lovers. We conversed + about the excitements of the day—of the Leste affair, in + which the king and the king's ministry were accused of + protecting dishonesty; of the Beauvallon and D'Equivilley duel + and the Praslin murder, in connection with both of which the + royal family and the ministry were popularly accused of + protecting criminals—and at last the conversation strayed + away from France to Hermione's own girlhood. She told me of her + happy country home in Maryland with her grandmother, and + sighed. I asked her if she was going to the English ball to be + given on Wednesday night at the beautiful Jardin d'Hiver in the + Champs Élysées.</p> + + <p>"I suppose so," she replied, "but I don't care for large + assemblies: I feel afraid of the men I meet. I wish your mother + could chaperon me: it would be much nicer to be with her than + with my own. Mamma understands nothing about looking after me; + she wants to have a good time herself, and I am only in her + way. Do you know, Mr. Farquhar, I have a theory that when women + have missed anything they ought to have enjoyed in early life, + they always want to go back and pick it up. Mamma had no + pleasures in her youth, no attentions, no gayety. If I am to be + chaperoned, I like the real thing. If I were at home in + Maryland, where my father came from, I should need no one to + protect me: <i>you</i> could take me to the ball."</p> + + <p>"I, Miss Hermione?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, you. You would call for me, and wait till I was ready + to come down. Then you and I would go <i>alone</i>," she added, + enjoying my look of incredulity. "It is the custom: no harm + could come of it," she added. "We would walk to our ball."</p> + + <p>"No harm in the case that you have supposed, but in some + other cases—"</p> + + <p>"You suppose a good deal," she interrupted. "You suppose a + girl without self-respect or good sense, and perhaps a man + without honor. Here, of course, things cannot be like that. + Society seems founded upon different ideas from those prevalent + with us about men and women. <i>Here</i>, I admit, a girl finds + comfort and protection and ease of mind in a good chaperon. Yet + it seemed strange to me to put on leading-strings when I came + out here: I had been used to take care of myself for so many + years."</p> + + <p>"Why, Miss Leare," I said, laughing, "you cannot have been + many years in society."</p> + + <p>"I am twenty," she said frankly, "and we came to Europe + about three years ago. But before that time I had been in + company a good deal. Not in the city, for I was not 'out,' but + in the hotels at Newport, at the Springs and in the country. In + America one has but to do what one knows is kind and right, and + no one will think evil: here one may do, without suspecting it, + so many compromising things."</p> + + <p>"Does the instinct that you speak of to be kind and right + always guide the young American lady?"</p> + + <p>"I suppose so—so far as I know. It <i>must</i>. She + walks by it, and sets her feet down firmly. Here I feel all the + time as if I were walking among traps blindfolded."</p> + + <p>The ball of the Jardin d'Hiver in the Champs Élysées was a + superb success. The immense glass-house was fitted up for + dancing, and all went merry as a marriage-bell, with a crater + about to open under our feet, as at the duchess of Richmond's + ball at Brussels.</p> + + <p>Miss Leare was there, but quiet and dignified. There was not + the smallest touch of vulgarity about her. The coarse readiness + to accept publicity which distinguishes the underbred woman, + whether in England or America, the desire to show off a foreign + emancipation from what appear ridiculous French rules, were not + in her.</p> + + <p>Yet she might have amused herself as she liked with complete + impunity, for Mrs. Leare appeared to leave her entirely alone. + I danced with her as often as she would permit me, and my heart + was no longer in my own possession when I put-her into her + carriage about dawn.</p> + + <p>Two or three days after I called, but the ladies were not + in, so that except at church at the Hôtel Marboeuf on Sunday + morning I saw nothing of Miss Hermione. Monday, February 21st, + was sunny and bright. The public excitement was such that an + unusual number of working-men were keeping their St. Crispin. + The soldiers, however, were confined to their quarters: not a + uniform was to be seen abroad. Our night had been disturbed by + the continuous rumble of carts and carriages.</p> + + <p>"Is it a fine day for the banquet?" I heard Amy say as our + maid opened her windows on Tuesday morning.</p> + + <p>"There is to be no banquet," was the answer. "<i>Voyez + done</i> the proclamation posted on the door of the barrack at + the corner of the Rue Chaillot."</p> + + <p>I sprang from my bed and looked out of my window. A strange + change had taken place in the teeming little caserne at the + corner. Instead of the usual groups of well-behaved + boy-soldiers in rough uniforms, the barrack looked deserted, + and its lower windows had been closed up to their top panes + with bags of hay and mattresses. Not a soldier, not even a + sentry, was to be seen.</p> + + <p>I dressed myself and went out to collect news. The carts + that had disturbed us during the night had been not only + employed in removing all preparations for the banquet, but in + taking every loose paving-stone out of the way. I found the + Place de la Madeleine full of people, all looking up at the + house of Odillon Barrot, asking "What next?" and "What shall we + do?" Odillon Barrot was the hero of the moment—literally + <i>of the moment</i>. In forty-eight hours from that time his + name had faded from the page of history. In the Place de la + Concorde there was more excitement, for threats were being made + to cross the bridge and to insult the Chambers. The Pont de + l'Institut, notwithstanding the efforts of the garde municipale + or mounted police, was greatly crowded. A party of dragoons, on + sorrel ponies barely fourteen hands high, rode up and began to + clear the bridge, but gently and gradually. The crowd was + retiring as fast as its numbers would permit, when some of the + municipal guard rode through the ranks of the dragoons and set + themselves, with ill-judged roughness, to accelerate the + operation. The crowd grew angry, and stones began to be thrown + at the guard and soldiers.</p> + + <p>Growing anxious for the women I had left in the Rue Neuve de + Berri, I returned home by side-streets. A crowd had collected + on the Champs Élysées about thirty yards from the corner of our + street, and was forming a barricade. All were shouting, all + gesticulating. Citadines at full speed were driving out of + reach of requisition; horses were going off disencumbered of + their vehicles; the driver of a remise was seated astride his + animal, the long flaps of his driving-coat covering it from + neck to tail; a noble elm was being hewn down by hatchets and + even common knives. An omnibus, the remise, a few barrels and + dining-tables, a dozen yards of <i>pave</i> torn up by eager + hands, a sentry-box, some benches and the tree, formed the + barricade. <i>Gamins</i> and <i>blouses</i> worked at it. The + respectables looked on and did not trouble the workers. + Suddenly there was a general stampede among them. A squadron of + about fifty dragoons charged up the Champs Élysées. One old + peasant-woman in a scanty yellow-and-black skirt, which she + twitched above her knees, led the retreat. But soon they + stopped and turned again, while the dragoons rode slowly back, + breathing their horses. Nobody was angry, for nobody had been + hurt, but they were frightened enough.</p> + + <p>At this moment, stealing from a porte-cochère where she had + taken refuge during the fright and <i>sauve gui peut</i>, came + a figure wrapped in dark drapery. Could it be possible? + Hermione Leare! In a moment I was at her side. She was very + pale and breathless, and she was glad to take my arm. "What + brings you here?" I whispered.</p> + + <p>"Our servants have all run away: they think mamma is + compromised. Victor, our chasseur, broke open mamma's secretary + and took his wages. She is almost beside herself. She wanted to + send a letter to the post, and as it is steamer-day I thought + papa had better know that thus far nothing has happened to us. + There was nobody to take the letter: I said I would put it in + the box in the Rue Ponthieu."</p> + + <p>"And did you post it?"</p> + + <p>"No: I could not get to the Rue Ponthieu. They were firing + down the street, and now I dare not."</p> + + <p>"Trust it to me, Miss Leare, and promise me to send for me + if you have any more such errands. You must never run such + risks again."</p> + + <p>"I have to be the man of the family," she answered, almost + with an apologetic air.</p> + + <p>"Do not say that again. I shall come over three times a day + while this thing lasts to see if you have any commissions."</p> + + <p>She smiled and pressed my hand as she turned into her own + porte-cochère. Frightened servants and their friends were in + the porter's lodge, who gazed after her with exclamations as + she went up the common stair.</p> + + <p>The remainder of that day passed with very little fighting. + Up to that time it had been a riot apropos of a change of + ministry, but in the night the secret societies met and flung + aside the previous question.</p> + + <p>When we awoke on Wednesday morning, February 23d, we were + struck by the strange quiet of the streets. No provisions + entered Paris through the barrier, no vehicles nor venders of + small wares. The absolute silence, save when "Mourir pour la + Patrie" sounded hoarsely in the distance, was as strange as it + was unexpected. I had always connected an insurrection with + noise. It was rumored that Guizot the Unpopular had been + dismissed, and that Count Mole, a man of half measures, had + been called to the king's councils. The affair looked to me as + if it were going to die out for want of fuel. But I was + mistaken: the blouses, who had not had one gun to a hundred the + day before, had been all night arming themselves by domiciliary + requisitions. The national guard was not believed to be + firm.</p> + + <p>The night before, an hour after I had parted with Miss + Hermione, I had made an attempt to see her and Mrs. Leare, + without any success. Not even bribery would induce the + concierge to let me in. His orders were peremptory: "<i>Pas un + seul, monsieur, personne</i>"—madame received nobody.</p> + + <p>Early on Wednesday morning I again presented myself: the + ladies were not visible. Later in the day I called again, and + was again refused. But several times Amy had seen Hermione at a + window, and they had made signs across the street to one + another. I began to understand that Mrs. Leare was overwhelmed + by the responsibility she had incurred in opening her salon to + men whom she now perceived to have been conspirators, and that + she was obstinately determined not to compromise herself + further by giving admittance to any one.</p> + + <p>Our bonne had been able to ascertain from the concierge of + the Leare house that madame was hysterical, and could hardly be + controlled by mademoiselle.</p> + + <p>I was in the streets till five o'clock on Wednesday, when, + concluding all was over, I came home, intending to make another + effort to see the Leares, and if possible to take Miss + Hermione, with Ellen and Lætitia, to view the debris of the two + days' fight—to let them get their first glimpse of real + war in the Place de la Concorde, where a regiment was littering + down its horses for the night, and a peep into the closed + gardens of the Tuileries.</p> + + <p>When I got up to our rooms I found my sisters at a window + overlooking the courtyard of Mrs. Leare's hotel, and they all + cried out with one voice, "Mrs. Leare's carriage is just ready + to drive away."</p> + + <p>I looked. A travelling-equipage stood in the courtyard. On + it the concierge was hoisting trunks, and into it was being + heaped a promiscuous variety of knick-knackery and wearing + apparel. A country postilion—who, but for his dirt, would + have looked more like a character in a comedy than a real live, + serviceable post-boy—was standing in carpet slippers + (having divested himself of his boots of office) harnessing + three undersized gray Normandy mares to an elegant + travelling-carriage.</p> + + <p>Hermione herself, Claribel her little sister, Mrs. Leare and + the old colored nurse got quickly in. Mrs. Leare was in tears, + with her head muffled in a yard or two of green <i>barège</i>, + then the distinctive mark of a travelling American woman. The + child's-nurse had long gold ear-drops and a head-dress of red + bandanna. There was not a man of any kind with them except the + postilion. The concierge opened the gates of the courtyard.</p> + + <p>"Stop! stop!" I cried, and rushed down our own staircase and + out of our front door.</p> + + <p>As I ran past their entrance a woman put a paper into my + hand. I had no time to glance at it, for the carriage had + already turned into the Rue Ponthieu. For some distance I ran + after it, encountering at every step excited groups of people, + some of whom seemed to me in search of mischief, while some had + apparently come out to gather news. There were no other + carriages in the streets, and that alone enabled me to track + the one I was in chase of, for everybody I met had noticed + which way it had turned. It wound its way most deviously + through by-streets to avoid those in which paving-stones had + been torn up or barricades been formed, and the postilion made + all possible speed, fearing the carriage might be seized and + detached from his horses. But the day's work was finished and + the disorders of the night were not begun.</p> + + <p>Forced at last to slacken my speed and to take breath, I + glanced at the paper that I still held in my hand. It contained + a few words from Hermione: "Thank you for all the kindness you + have tried to show us, dear sir. My mother has heard that all + the English in Paris are to be massacred at midnight by the + mob, and directs me to give you notice, which is the reason I + address this note to you and not to Amy. Mamma is afraid of + being mistaken for an Englishwoman. We have secured post-horses + and are setting out for Argenteuil, where we shall take the + railway. Again, thank you: your kindness will not be forgotten + by H. LEARE."</p> + + <p>This note reassured me. I no longer endeavored to overtake + the carriage, but I pushed my way as fast as possible beyond + the nearest barrier. Once outside the wall of Paris, I was in + the Banlieu, that zone of rascality whose inhabitants are all + suspected by the police and live under the ban. Of course on + such a gala-day of lawlessness this hive was all astir. At a + village I passed through I tried to hire a conveyance to + Argenteuil. I also tried to get some railway information, but + nobody could tell me anything and all were ravenous for news. I + secured, however, without losing too much time, a seat with a + stout young country-man who drove a little country cart with a + powerful gray horse, and was going in the direction I wanted to + travel.</p> + + <p>"What will be the result of this affair?" I said to him when + he had got his beast into a steady trot.</p> + + <p>He shrugged his shoulders. A French workingman has a far + larger vocabulary at his command than the English laborer. "Bon + Dieu!" he exclaimed: "who knows what will come of it? A land + without a master is no civilized land. We shall fall back into + barbarism. What there is certain is, that we shall all be + ruined."</p> + + <p>At length, to my great relief, we saw a carriage before us; + and we drove into the railway-station at the same moment as the + Leares.</p> + + <p>Before the ladies could alight I was beside the window of + their carriage.</p> + + <p>"You here, Mr. Farquhar?" cried Hermione. "How good of you! + You cannot guess the relief. Help me to get them out, these + helpless ones."</p> + + <p>We lifted Mrs. Leare on to the platform of the railway, + weeping and trembling. The old colored nurse could not speak + French, and seemed to think her only duty was to hold the hand + of little Claribel and to stand where her young mistress placed + her. All looked to Hermione. She carried a canvas bag of + five-franc pieces and paid right and left. I tried to + interfere, as she was giving the postilion an exorbitant + sum.</p> + + <p>"No, hush!" she whispered: "we can afford to pay, but in our + situation we cannot afford to dispute."</p> + + <p>She then deputed me to see after the "baggage," as she + called the luggage of the party, and went with her mother into + the glass cage that the French call a <i>salle d'attente</i> at + a railway-station.</p> + + <p>We had come from the seat of war, and every one crowded + around us asking for news. I had little to tell, but replied + that I believed the affair was nearly over. I did not foresee + that two hours later a procession roaring "Mourir pour la + Patrie" under the windows of the Hôtel des Affaires Étrangères + would be fired into by accident, and that the <i>émeute</i> of + February, 1848, would be converted into a revolution.</p> + + <p>It was nine o'clock in the evening. The lamps were lighted + in the station. The night was cloudy, but far off on the + horizon we could see a gleam of radiance, marking the locality + of the great city.</p> + + <p>After an hour of very anxious waiting, during which Mrs. + Leare was beside herself with nervous agitation, the locked + doors of our prison were flung open and we were permitted to + seat ourselves in a railway-carriage.</p> + + <p>Hermione's tender devotion to her mother, the old servant + and the child was beautiful to witness. Now that Mrs. Leare was + helpless on her daughter's hands, they seemed to have found + their natural relations. Hermione said few words to me, but a + glance now and then thanked me for being with them. The train + started. For about three miles all went on well, although we + travelled cautiously, fearing obstructions. Suddenly the speed + of our train was checked, and there was a cry of consternation + as we rounded a sharp curve. The bridge over the Seine at its + third bend was ablaze before us!</p> + + <p>All the men upon the train sprang out upon the track as soon + as the carriage-doors were opened, and in a few moments we were + surrounded by ruffians refusing to let us go on.</p> + + <p>"Back the train!" cried the railroad official in charge.</p> + + <p>No, they were not willing to let us go back to Paris. + Conspirators against the people might be making their escape. + They had set fire to the bridge, they said, to prevent the + train from passing over. It must remain where it was. If we + passengers desired to return to Paris, we must walk there.</p> + + <p>"Walk?" I exclaimed: "it is ten miles! Women—delicate + ladies—children!"</p> + + <p>My remonstrance was drowned in the confusion. Suddenly the + party of women under my charge stood at my elbow: Mrs. Leare + was leaning on Hermione's arm; Mammy Christine and Claribel + cowered close and held her by her drapery.</p> + + <p>"Make no remonstrances," she said in a low voice: "let us + not excite attention. An Englishman never knows when not to + complain: an American accepts his fate more quietly. These + people mean to sack the train. We had better get away as soon + as possible."</p> + + <p>"But how?" I cried.</p> + + <p>"I can walk. We must find some means of transporting mamma, + Mammy Chris and Clary."</p> + + <p>As Hermione said this she turned to an official and + questioned him upon the subject. He thought that there was a + little cart and horse which might be hired at a neighboring + cottage.</p> + + <p>"Let us go and see about it, Mr. Farquhar," said + Hermione.</p> + + <p>"I will."</p> + + <p>"No: I put greater trust in my own powers of + persuasion.—Mammy dear, take good care of mamma: we shall + be back directly."</p> + + <p>Her <i>we</i> was very sweet to me, and I shared her + mistrust of my French and my diplomacy.</p> + + <p>The glare of the burning bridge lighted our steps: the air + was full of falling flakes of fire. The cottage was a quarter + of a mile off. Hermione refused my arm, but, holding her skirts + daintily, stepped bravely at my side. She exhibited no + bashfulness, no excitement, no confusion, no fear: she was + simply bent on business. We reached the peasant's farmyard. He + and his family were outside the house. We like to say a + Frenchman has no word for <i>home</i>. But the conclusion that + the man of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces from this lack in his + vocabulary is false: no man cares more for the domicile that + shelters him. Hermione made her request with sweet + persuasiveness. I saw at once it would have been refused if I + had made it, but to her they made excuses. The old horse, they + said, was very old, the old cart was broken.</p> + + <p>"Let me look at it," said Hermione. At this they led us into + an outhouse, where she assisted me to make a careful + inspection. I might have rejected the old trap at once, but she + offered a few suggestions, which she told me in an aside were + the fruit of her experiences in Maryland and Virginia, and the + cart was pronounced safe enough to be driven slowly with a + light load.</p> + + <p>A half-grown son of the house was put in charge of it. + Hermione suggested he should bring the family clothes-line in + case of a breakdown, and prevailed upon the farmer's wife to + put in plenty of fresh straw, a blanket and a pillow. She made + a bargain, less extravagant than I expected, with the peasant + proprietor, promising, however, a very handsome + <i>pourboire</i> to his son in the event of our good fortune. + The farmer stipulated, in his turn, that cart, horse and lad + were not to pass the barrier, that the boy should walk at the + horse's head, and that the cart was to contain only two women + and little Claribel.</p> + + <p>It was harnessed up immediately. Hermione and I followed it + on foot back to the little band of travellers waiting beside + the railway.</p> + + <p>"Can we not get some of your trunks out?" I said to her.</p> + + <p>"No," she answered: "leave them to their fate. I dare not + overload the cart, and I doubt whether those men with hungry + eyes would let us take them. Mamma," she whispered, "has her + diamonds."</p> + + <p>"You will get into the cart, Miss Leare?" I said as I saw + her motioning to the old colored woman to take the place beside + her mother.</p> + + <p>"No indeed," she replied: "our contract stipulated only for + mamma, Mammy and Clary: Mammy is crippled with rheumatism. If + you have no objection I will walk with you."</p> + + <p>"Objection? No. But it is ten miles."</p> + + <p>"A long stretch," she said with a half sigh, "but I am + young, strong, and excitement counts for something: besides, + there is no remedy. We must consider them."</p> + + <p>There had been about fifteen other persons on the train. A + dozen of these, finding we were going to walk back to Paris, + proposed to join us. The night was growing dark, and we pushed + on. There was no woman afoot but Hermione. "Madame" they called + her, evidently taking her for my wife, but by no word or smile + did she notice the blunder. After a while she accepted my arm, + drawing up her skirts by means of loops or pins. We had one + lantern among us, and from time to time its glare permitted me + to see her dainty feet growing heavy with mud and travel.</p> + + <p>It was not what could be called a lovers' walk, tramping in + the dark through mud and water, on a French country road, at a + cart's tail, and hardly a word was exchanged between us; yet + had it not been for fears about her safety it would have been + the most delightful expedition I had ever known.</p> + + <p>From time to time Mrs. Leare and the old nurse in the cart + complained of their bones. Hermione was always ready with + encouragement, but she said little else to any one. She + appeared to be reserving all her energies to assist her + physical endurance and to strengthen her for her task of taking + care of the others.</p> + + <p>I had always seen my sisters and other girls protected, + sheltered, cared for: it gave me a sharp pang to see this + beautiful and dainty creature totally unthought of by those + dependent on her. Nor did Mrs. Leare seem to feel any anxiety + about my comradeship with her daughter. I could fully + appreciate Hermione's remark about her chaperonage being very + unsatisfactory.</p> + + <p>Every now and then we passed through villages along whose + straggling streets the population was aswarm, eager for news + and wondering at our muddy procession. In one of the villages I + suggested stopping, but Mrs. Leare was now as frantic to get + home again as she had been to get away. She said, and truly, + that it had been a wild plan to start from Paris—that if + she had seen me and had heard that I thought the émeute was at + an end and that the report about the English was untrue, she + should never have left her apartment. She had been frightened + out of her senses by some men <i>en blouse</i> who had made + their way into her rooms and had carried off her pistol and a + little Turkish dagger. Victor's theft of his own wages had + upset her. She had insisted upon setting out. Hermione had got + post-horses somehow: Hermione ought never to have let her come + away.</p> + + <p>About three in the morning we reached a larger village than + we had hitherto passed. The inhabitants had been apprised of + the events in the Rue Neuve des Capucines before the ministry + of the Affaires Étrangères, and the revolutionary element had + increased in audacity. A crowd of turbulent-looking working-men + dressed in blouses, armed with muskets, old sabres and all + kinds of miscellaneous weapons, stopped our way. Some seized + the head of the old horse, some gathered round the cart and + lifted lanterns into the faces of the ladies. The French + workman is a much more athletic man than the French soldier. I + own to a sensation of deadly terror for a moment when I saw the + ladies in the midst of a lawless rabble whose brawny arms were + bared as if prepared for butchery of any kind. Far off, too, a + low rattle of distant musketry warned us that the tumult in + Paris was renewed.</p> + + <p>"Mourir pour la Patrie" appeared to come from every throat, + and many of the crowd were the worse for liquor. Indeed, these + patriots had rendezvoused at a cabaret at the entrance of the + village, and swarmed from its tables to intercept us. The + ladies, they insisted, must alight and be examined. Mammy Chris + was drawn out of the cart, looking as if her face had been + rubbed in ashes: Mrs. Leare was nervously excited, Hermione + went up to her, supported her and drew her bag of diamonds out + of her hand. I took Claribel in my arms.</p> + + <p>"Vos passeports," they demanded.</p> + + <p>"Here are our American passports," said Hermione: "we are + Americans."</p> + + <p>"Yes, Americans, republicans!" cried Mrs. Leare: "we + fraternize with all republicans in France."</p> + + <p>"Aristos," said a man between his teeth, glancing at her + dress and at that of Hermione.</p> + + <p>"What does he say?" cried Mrs. Leare, who did not catch the + word.</p> + + <p>"Hush, mother!" said Hermione.</p> + + <p>"But what did he say?" she shrieked. "Tell me at once: do + not keep it from me."</p> + + <p>Hermione replied (unwilling to use the word "aristocrat") by + an American idiom: "He said we belonged to the Upper Ten."</p> + + <p>"But we don't! Oh, Hermie, your father belongs to a good + family in Maryland, but <i>my</i> grandfather made shoes. I was + quite poor when he married me. I was only sixteen."</p> + + <p>"What you say?" said a railroad-hand who knew a little + English. "You say you are not some aristos?"</p> + + <p>"No, sir," said I: "these ladies claim to be Americans and + republicans."</p> + + <p>"Vive la République!" cried the man.</p> + + <p>"Vive la République!" quickly echoed Hermione.</p> + + <p>"C'est bien! c'est bien!" cried another, raising his lantern + to her blanched and beautiful face.</p> + + <p>"You will let us all pass, monsieur?" she said persuasively: + "you will even be our escort a little way. We will pay + handsomely for your protection."</p> + + <p>Before he could answer her two or three fellows, more drunk + than the rest, burst out with a proposition: "She says they are + not aristos, but republicans. Let her prove it. She cannot, if + she be a true republican, refuse to kiss her + fellow-patriots."</p> + + <p>I started and was about to knock the rascal down with the + bag of diamonds.</p> + + <p>But Hermione laid a restraining hand upon my arm. + "Gentlemen," she said in clear tones and perfect French, "it is + quite true that we are Americans and republicans. We wish you + well, and if it be for the good of France to be free under a + republican form of government, no one can wish her prosperity + more than ourselves. But in our free country, messieurs, a + woman is held free to give her kiss to whom she will, and + according to our custom she gives it only to her betrothed or + to her husband." Here stooping she picked up a little boy who + had worked himself into the forefront of the crowd, and before + I knew what she was about to do she had lifted him upon the + cart beside her. She looked a moment steadily at the men around + her, holding the boy's hand in both her own, then turning + toward him and pressing her lips upon his face, she said, + "Messieurs, I kiss your representative: I cannot embrace a + multitude;" and placed a piece of money in the gamin's + hand.</p> + + <p>For a moment there was some doubt what view the crowd might + take of this, but her beauty, her fearlessness, and, above all, + the awe inspired by her womanliness, prevailed. They shouted + "Vive la République!"</p> + + <p>"With all my heart," replied Hermione. "Now shout for me, + gentlemen: Vive la République des États Unis!"</p> + + <p>They were completely won. A French crowd is never dangerous + or unmanageable till it has tasted blood, and besides it + has—or at least in those days it used to + have—<i>sentiments</i>, to which it was possible with a + little tact to appeal successfully.</p> + + <p>The opposition to our progress came to an end. Mrs. Leare + and old Mammy were helped back into the cart, and a man offered + them some wine. They brought some also to Hermione. I pressed + her to drink it, which she did to their good health, and giving + back the glass placed in it a napoleon. "Do me the favor, + messieurs," she said, "to drink your next toast to our American + republic."</p> + + <p>Cheers rose for her. There was no longer any talk of + detaining us: the old horse was urged forward. Hermione took my + arm. We marched on, escorted by the rabble. At the end of the + village-street they all gave us an unsteady cheer and turned + back to their wine-tables. Hermione proceeded in silence a + little farther. Then I felt her slipping from my arm, and was + just in time to catch her.</p> + + <p>Without compunction I requested Mammy Chris to get out of + the cart and put her young lady in her place, pillowing her + head as carefully as I could on my own coat, and proceeding in + my shirtsleeves.</p> + + <p>We were then not half a mile from the Banlieu, which we + passed without adventure, much to my surprise, its inhabitants + having taken advantage of the confusion to pour into Paris and + infest its richer quarters.</p> + + <p>The ladies were obliged to get out at the barrier and to + send back the cart to its proprietor. Again I had the happiness + of supporting Hermione while I carried little Claribel, and + Mrs. Leare and Mammy walked on ahead.</p> + + <p>"I feel humiliated," I said, "that the whole burden of those + dreadful moments should have fallen upon you."</p> + + <p>"And to avoid that feeling you were ready to knock down a + drunken blouse in English style?" she said, smiling. "No, Mr. + Farquhar, nothing but the power that a woman finds in her own + womanhood could have brought us through safely. Those men had + all had mothers, and each man had some sort of womanly ideal. I + could not have managed a crowd of <i>poissardes</i>, but, thank + Heaven, there is yet a chord that a woman may strike in the + hearts of men."</p> + + <p>The dawn of Thursday, February 24, 1848, was breaking at the + eastward when I arrived with Mrs. Leare, Hermione, the nurse + and child at their own apartment. I went up stairs with them. + All was cold and cheerless in the rooms. There were no + servants. Mrs. Leare sat down; the old nurse bemoaned her + rheumatism and her aching bones; Hermione, with the assistance + of the concierge's wife, lighted a fire, made some tea and + waited on her mother.</p> + + <p>For several days afterward she was very ill. She knew + nothing of passing events—of the king's flight, of the + triumphal and victorious processions that passed up the Champs + Élysées, of the sudden impossibility of procuring supplies of + change, and of the consequent difficulty of paying household + bills with <i>billets de mille francs</i> without gold or + silver.</p> + + <p>Each day I went several times to make inquiries, and twice I + saw Mrs. Leare in bed, but Hermione was invisible.</p> + + <p>My father, an honorable British officer of the old school, + perceived how things were with me. "My son," he said one day, + "there are two courses open to you. You have nothing but your + profession. Your education and the premium on your admittance + to the office of the great man for whom you work have been my + provision for you: the little property I have to leave must + support your sisters. You cannot under such circumstances + address Miss Leare. You must either go back at once to your + work in England and forget this episode, or you may go out to + America and see her father. You can tell him you have nothing + on which to support his daughter, and ask if he will give you + leave to address the young lady. No son of mine, situated like + yourself, shall offer himself in any other way to an heiress + whose father is three thousand miles away, and who is supposed + to have two millions of francs for her dowry."</p> + + <p>I saw he was right, but, forlorn as the hope was of any + appeal to Mr. Leare, I would not relinquish it. I resolved to + go out to America and see him, and wrote to England to secure + letters of introduction to the chief engineers in the United + States and Canada. Meantime, my father proposed that we should + go together and call upon Mrs. and Miss Leare.</p> + + <p>Hermione received us in the boudoir, looking like a bruised + lily: her mother came in afterward.</p> + + <p>"We are going right straight home," she said, "the moment we + can get money to get away. I have written to Mr. Leare that he + must find some means to send me some."</p> + + <p>"I am glad to hear you say this, madame," said my father. + "My son has just made up his mind to go out to America and seek + employment on one of your railways."</p> + + <p>Hermione looked up with a question in her eyes: so did her + mother.</p> + + <p>"Why, Mr. Farquhar, that will suit us exactly," cried Mrs. + Leare.—"Hermione, won't it be lovely if Mr. Farquhar + takes care of us on the voyage?—You will engage your + passage—won't you?—in the same steamer as we + do?—No one was ever so good a squire of dames as your + son, Captain Farquhar. Hermione and I shall never forget our + obligations to him."</p> + + <p>"No, madame," said my father; and he got up and walked to + the fireplace, where in his embarrassment he laid his hand upon + the ornamented box which held the cigarettes of the fast + lady.</p> + + <p>She rose up too and went hastily toward him, anxious he + should not surprise her little frailty.</p> + + <p>"The truth is, madame," whispered my father, who never could + restrain his tongue from any kindly indiscretion, "the poor + fellow is suffering too much from the attractions of Miss + Leare. He has nothing but his profession, and I tell him he + must not dare to address her in her father's absence."</p> + + <p>"My dear captain, what does that matter? And I believe + Hermione would have him too," said her mother.</p> + + <p>"Disparity of means—" began my father.</p> + + <p>"Oh, no matter," interrupted Mrs. Leare: "her father always + told her just to please herself. Mr. Farquhar is an Englishman + and of good family. He has his profession to keep him out of + mischief, and Hermie will more than pay her own expenses. + Indeed, I dare not go home without a gentleman to look after us + on the passage: my nerves have been too shattered, and I never + again shall trust a courier. Do let your son go back with us," + she implored persuasively; and added, as she saw that he still + hesitated, "Besides, what rich man in America knows how long he + may be rich? 'Spend your money and enjoy yourself' has always + been my motto."</p> + + <p>Thus urged, what could my father do but suppose that Mrs. + Leare knew Mr. Leare's views better than he did? He no longer + held out on the point of honor.</p> + + <p>In twenty-four hours Hermione and I were engaged to be + married.</p> + + <p>During the voyage to New York I learned to understand her + father's character, and when he met us on the wharf I was no + longer afraid of him.</p> + + <p>Hermione's choice in marriage seemed to be wholly left to + herself. Mr. Leare told me, when I had that formidable talk + with him dreaded by all aspirants to the hand of a man's + daughter, that Hermione had too much good sense, self-respect + and womanliness to give herself away to a man unworthy of her. + "That she can love you, sir," he said, "is sufficient + recommendation."</p> + + <p>That it might be sufficient in my case I hoped with all my + soul, but felt, as Hermione had expressed it early in our + acquaintance, that society in America must be founded upon very + different opinions than our own in regard to the relations of + men and women.</p> + + <p class='author'>E.W. LATIMER.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="THE_AUTHORS_OF_FROUFROU" + id="THE_AUTHORS_OF_FROUFROU"></a>THE AUTHORS OF + "FROUFROU."</h2> + + <p>No doubt it will surprise some theatre-goers who are not + special students of the stage to be told that the authors of + <i>Froufrou</i> are the authors also of the <i>Grande Duchesse + de Gérolstein</i> and of <i>La Belle Hélène</i>, of + <i>Carmen</i> and of <i>Le Petit Duc</i>. There are a few, I + know, who think that <i>Froufrou</i> was written by the fertile + and ingenious M. Victorien Sardou, and who, without thinking, + credit M. Jacques Offenbach with the composition of the words + as well as the music of the <i>Grande Duchesse</i>; and as for + <i>Carmen</i>, is it not an <i>Italian</i> opera, and is not + the book, like the music, the work of some Italian? As a matter + of fact, all these plays, unlike as they are to each other, and + not only these, but many more—not a few of them fairly + well known to the American play-goer—are due to the + collaboration of M. Henri Meilhac and M. Ludovic Halévy.</p> + + <p>Born in 1832, M. Henri Meilhac, like M. Émile Zola, dealt in + books before he began to make them. He soon gave up trade for + journalism, and contributed with pen and pencil to the comic + <i>Journal pour Rire</i>. He began as a dramatist in 1855 with + a two-act play at the Palais Royal Theatre: like the first + pieces of Scribe and of M. Sardou, and of so many more who have + afterward abundantly succeeded on the stage, this play of M. + Meilhac's was a failure; and so also was his next, likewise in + two acts. But in 1856 the <i>Sarabande du Cardinal</i>, a + delightful little comedy in one act, met with favor at the + Gymnase. It was followed by two or three other comediettas + equally clever. In 1859, M. Meilhac made his first attempt at a + comedy in five acts, but the <i>Petit fils de Mascarille</i> + had not the good fortune of his ancestor. In 1860, for the + first time, he was assisted by M. Ludovic Halévy, and in the + twenty years since then their names have been linked together + on the title-pages of two score or more plays of all + kinds—drama, comedy, farce, opera, operetta and ballet. + M. Meilhac's new partner was the nephew of the Halévy who is + best known out of France as the composer of the <i>Jewess</i>, + and he was the son of M. Léon Halévy, poet, philosopher and + playwright. Two years younger than M. Henri Meilhac, M. Ludovic + Halévy held a place in the French civil service until 1858, + when he resigned to devote his whole time, instead of his spare + time, to the theatre. As the son of a dramatist and the nephew + of a popular composer, he had easy access to the stage. He + began as the librettist-in-ordinary to M. Offenbach, for whom + he wrote <i>Ba-ta-clan</i> in 1855, and later the <i>Chanson de + Fortunio</i>, the <i>Pont des Soupirs</i> and <i>Orphée aux + Enfers</i>. The first very successful play which MM. Meilhac + and Halévy wrote together was a book for M. Offenbach; and it + was possibly the good fortune of this operetta which finally + affirmed the partnership. Before the triumph of the <i>Belle + Hélène</i> in 1864 the collaboration had been tentative, as it + were: after that it was as though the articles had been + definitely ratified—not that either of the parties has + not now and then indulged in outside speculations, trying a + play alone or with an outsider, but this was without prejudice + to the permanent partnership.</p> + + <p>This kind of literary union, the long-continued conjunction + of two kindred spirits, is better understood amongst us than + the indiscriminate collaboration which marks the dramatic + career of M. Eugène Labiche, for instance. Both kinds were + usual enough on the English stage in the days of Elizabeth, but + we can recall the ever-memorable example of Beaumont and + Fletcher, while we forget the chance associations of Marston, + Dekker, Chapman and Ben Jonson. And in contemporary literature + we have before us the French tales of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian and + the English novels of Messrs. Besant and Rice. The fact that + such a union endures is proof that it is advantageous. A + long-lasting collaboration like this of MM. Meilhac and Halévy + must needs be the result of a strong sympathy and a sharp + contrast of character, as well as of the possession by one of + literary qualities which supplement those of the other.</p> + + <p>One of the first things noticed by an American student of + French dramatic literature is that the chief Parisian critics + generally refer to the joint work of these two writers as the + plays of M. Meilhac, leaving M. Halévy altogether in the shade. + At first this seems a curious injustice, but the reason is not + far to seek. It is not that M. Halévy is some two years the + junior of M. Meilhac: it lies in the quality of their + respective abilities. M. Meilhac has the more masculine style, + and so the literary progeny of the couple bear rather his name + than his associate's. M. Meilhac has the strength of marked + individuality, he has a style of his own, one can tell his + touch; while M. Halévy is merely a clever French dramatist of + the more conventional pattern. This we detect by considering + the plays which each has put forth alone and unaided by the + other. In reading one of M. Meilhac's works we should feel no + doubt as to the author, while M. Halévy's clever pictures of + Parisian society, wanting in personal distinctiveness, would + impress us simply as a product of the "Modern French + School."</p> + + <p>Before finally joining with M. Halévy, M. Meilhac wrote two + comedies in five acts of high aim and skilful execution, and + two other five-act pieces have been written by MM. Meilhac and + Halévy together. The <i>Vertu de Célimène</i> and the <i>Petit + fils de Mascarille</i> are by the elder partner—<i>Fanny + Lear</i> and <i>Froufrou</i> are the work of the firm. Yet in + these last two it is difficult to see any trace of M. Halévy's + handiwork. Allowing for the growth of M. Meilhac's intellect + during the eight or ten years which intervened between the work + alone and the work with his associate, and allowing for the + improvement in the mechanism of play-making, I see no reason + why M. Meilhac might not have written <i>Fanny Lear</i> and + <i>Froufrou</i> substantially as they are had he never met M. + Halévy. But it is inconceivable that M. Halévy alone could have + attained so high an elevation or have gained so full a comic + force. Perhaps, however, M. Halévy deserves credit for the + better technical construction of the later plays: merely in + their mechanism the first three acts of <i>Froufrou</i> are + marvellously skilful. And perhaps, also, his is a certain + softening humor, which is the cause that the two later plays, + written by both partners, are not so hard in their brilliance + as the two earlier comedies, the work of M. Meilhac alone.</p> + + <p>It may seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals, + but I think M. Halévy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's + plays a fuller ethical richness. To the younger writer is due a + simple but direct irony, as well as a lightsome and laughing + desire to point a moral when occasion serves. Certainly, I + shall not hold up a play written to please the public of the + Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all the + virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of + all the cardinal sins. The frequenters of the Palais Royal + Theatre are not babes; young people of either sex are not taken + there; only the emancipated gain admittance; and to the + seasoned sinners who haunt theatres of this type these plays by + MM. Meilhac and Halévy are harmless. Indeed, I do not recall + any play of theirs which could hurt any one capable of + understanding it. Most of their plays are not to be recommended + to ignorant innocence or to fragile virtue. They are not meant + for young men and maidens. They are not wholly free from the + taint which is to be detected in nearly all French fiction. The + mark of the beast is set on not a little of the work done by + the strongest men in France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too + clever ever to delve in indecency from mere wantonness: he has + no liking for vice, but his virtue sits easily on him, and + though he is sound on the main question, he looks upon the + vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halévy, it seems to + me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff. He raises a warning + voice now and then—in <i>Fanny Lear</i>, for instance, + the moral is pointed explicitly—and even where there is + no moral tagged to the fable, he who has eyes to see and ears + to hear can find "a terrible example" in almost any of these + plays, even the lightest. For the congregation to which it was + delivered there is a sermon in <i>Toto chez Tata</i>, perhaps + the piece in which, above all others, the Muse seems Gallic and + <i>égrillarde</i>. That is a touch of real truth, and so of a + true morality, where Tata, the fashionable courtesan, leaning + over her stairs as Toto the school-boy bears off her elderly + lover, and laughing at him, cries out, "Toi, mon petit homme, + je te repincerai dans quatre ou cinq ans!" And a cold and + cutting stroke it is a little earlier in the same little comedy + where Toto, left alone in Tata's parlor, negligently turns over + her basket of visiting-cards and sees "names which he knew + because he had learnt them by heart in his history of France." + Still, in spite of this truth and morality, I do not advise the + reading of <i>Toto chez Tata</i> in young ladies' seminaries. + Young ladies in Paris do not go to hear Madame Chaumont, for + whom <i>Toto</i> was written, nor is the Variétés, where it was + played, a place where a girl can take her mother.</p> + + <p>It was at the Variétés in December, 1864, that the <i>Belle + Hélène</i> was produced: this was the first of half a score of + plays written by MM. Meilhac and Halévy for which M. Jacques + Offenbach composed the music. Chief among these are + <i>Barbe-bleue</i>, the <i>Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein</i>, + the <i>Brigands</i> and <i>Périchole</i>. When we recall the + fact that these five operas are the most widely known, the most + popular and by far the best of M. Offenbach's works, there is + no need to dwell on his indebtedness to MM. Meilhac and Halévy, + or to point out how important a thing the quality of the + opera-book is to the composer of the score. These earlier + librettos were admirably made: they are models of what a comic + opera-book should be. I cannot well imagine a better bit of + work of its kind than the <i>Belle Hélène</i> or the <i>Grande + Duchesse</i>. Tried by the triple test of plot, characters and + dialogue, they are nowhere wanting. Since MM. Meilhac and + Halévy have ceased writing for M. Offenbach they have done two + books for M. Charles Lecoq—the <i>Petit Duc</i> and the + <i>Grande Demoiselle</i>. These are rather light comic operas + than true <i>opéras-bouffes</i>, but if there is an elevation + in the style of the music, there is an emphatic falling off in + the quality of the words. From the <i>Grande Duchesse</i> to + the <i>Petit Duc</i> is a great descent: the former was a + genuine play, complete and self-contained—the latter is a + careless trifle, a mere outline sketch for the composer to fill + up. The story—akin in subject to Mr. Tom Taylor's fine + historical drama <i>Clancarty</i>—is pretty, but there is + no trace of the true poetry which made the farewell letter of + Périchole so touching, or of the true comic force which + projected Général Bourn. <i>Carmen</i>, which, like + <i>Périchole</i>, owes the suggestion of its plot and + characters to Prosper Mérimée, is little more than the + task-work of the two well-trained play-makers: it was + sufficient for its purpose, no more and no less.</p> + + <p>Of all the opera-books of MM. Meilhac and Halévy, that one + is easily first and foremost which has for its heroine the + Helen of Troy whom Marlowe's Faustus declared</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i4">Fairer than the evening + air,<br /></span> <span class="i0">Clad in the beauty + of a thousand stars.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>In the <i>Belle Hélène</i> we see the higher wit of M. + Meilhac. M. Halévy had been at the same college with him, and + they had pored together over the same legends of old time, but + working without M. Meilhac on <i>Orphée aux Enfers</i>, M. + Halévy showed his inferiority, for <i>Orphée</i> is the + old-fashioned anachronistic skit on antiquity—funny if + you will, but with a fun often labored, not to say + forced—the fun of physical incongruity and exaggeration. + But in the <i>Belle Hélène</i> the fun, easy and flowing, is of + a very high quality, and it has root in mental, not physical, + incongruity. Here indeed is the humorous touchstone of a whole + system of government and of theology. And, allowing for the + variations made with comic intent, it is altogether Greek in + spirit—so Greek, in fact, that I doubt whether any one + who has not given his days and nights to the study of Homer and + of the tragedians, and who has not thus taken in by the pores + the subtle essence of Hellenic life and literature, can truly + appreciate this French farce. Planché's <i>Golden Fleece</i> is + in the same vein, but the ore is not as rich. Frere's <i>Loves + of the Triangles</i> and some of his <i>Anti-Jacobin</i> + writing are perhaps as good in quality, but the subjects are + inferior and temporary. Scarron's vulgar burlesques and the + cheap parodies of many contemporary English play-makers are not + to be mentioned in the same breath with this scholarly fooling. + There is something in the French genius akin to the Greek, and + here was a Gallic wit who could turn a Hellenic love-tale + inside out, and wring the uttermost drop of fun from it without + recourse to the devices of the booth at the fair, the false + nose and the simulation of needless ugliness. The French play, + comic as it was, did not suggest hysteria or epilepsy, and it + was not so lacking in grace that we could not recall the + original story without a shudder. There is no shattering of an + ideal, and one cannot reproach the authors of the <i>Belle + Hélène</i> with what Theophrastus Such calls "debasing the + moral currency, lowering the value of every inspiring fact and + tradition."</p> + + <p>Surpassed only by the <i>Belle Hélène</i> is the <i>Grande + Duchesse de Gérolstein</i>. It is nearly fifteen years since + all the world went to Paris to see an Exposition Universelle + and to gaze at the "sabre de mon père," and since a Russian + emperor, going to hear the operetta, said to have been + suggested by the freak of a Russian empress, sat incognito in + one stage-box of the little Variétés Theatre, and glancing up + saw a Russian grand duke in the other. It is nearly fifteen + years since the tiny army of Her Grand-ducal Highness took New + York by storm, and since American audience after audience + hummed its love for the military and walked from the French + Theatre along Fourteenth street to Delmonico's to supper, + sabring the waiters there with the venerated weapon of her + sire. The French Theatre is no more, and Delmonico's is no + longer at that Fourteenth-street corner, and Her Highness + Mademoiselle Tostée is dead, and M. Offenbach's sprightly tunes + have had the fate of all over-popular airs, and are forgotten + now. <i>Où sont les neiges d'antan?</i></p> + + <p>It has been said that the authors regretted having written + the <i>Grande Duchesse</i>, because the irony of history soon + made a joke on Teutonic powers and principalities seem like + unpatriotic satire. Certainly, they had no reason to be ashamed + of the literary quality of their work: in its class it yields + only to its predecessor. There is no single figure as fine as + Calchas—Général Boum is a coarser outline—but how + humorous and how firm is the drawing of Prince Paul and Baron + Grog! And Her Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch + of youthful femininity than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard + to judge the play now. Custom has worn its freshness and made + it too familiar: we know it too well to criticise it clearly. + Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action with over-much + "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits of + the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can + be remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best + bits of exposition on the modern French stage.</p> + + <p>Besides these plays for music, and besides the more + important five-act comedies to be considered later, MM. Meilhac + and Halévy are the authors of thirty or forty comic + dramas—as they are called on the English stage—or + farce-comedies in one, two, three, four, and even five acts, + ranging in aim from the gentle satire of sentimentality in + <i>La Veuve</i> to the outspoken farce of the <i>Réveillon</i>. + Among the best of the longer of these comic plays are + <i>Tricoche et Cacolet</i> and <i>La Boule</i>. Both were + written for the Palais Royal, and they are models of the new + dramatic species which came into existence at that theatre + about twenty years ago, as M. Francisquc Sarcey recently + reminded us in his interesting article on the Palais Royal in + <i>The Nineteenth Century</i>. This new style of comic play may + be termed realistic farce—realistic, because it starts + from every-day life and the most matter-of-fact conditions; and + farce, because it uses its exact facts only to further its + fantasy and extravagance. Consider <i>La Boule</i>. Its first + act is a model of accurate observation; it is a transcript from + life; it is an inside view of a commonplace French household + which incompatibility of temper has made unsupportable. And + then take the following acts, and see how on this foundation of + fact, and screened by an outward semblance of realism, there is + erected the most laughable superstructure of fantastic farce. I + remember hearing one of the two great comedians of the Théâtre + Français, M. Coquelin, praise a comic actor of the Variétés + whom we had lately seen in a rather cheap and flimsy farce, + because he combined "la vérité la plus absolue avec la fantasie + la plus pure." And this is the merit of <i>La Boule</i>: its + most humorous inventions have their roots in the truth.</p> + + <p>Better even than <i>La Boule</i> is <i>Tricoche et + Cacolet</i>, which is the name of a firm of private detectives + whose exploits and devices surpass those imagined by Poe in + America, by Wilkie Collins in England, and by Gaboriau in + France. The manifold disguises and impersonations of the two + partners when seeking to outwit each other are as well-motived + and as fertile in comic effect as any of the attempts of + Crispin or of some other of Regnard's interchangeable valets. + Is not even the <i>Légataire Universel</i>, Regnard's + masterpiece, overrated? To me it is neither higher comedy nor + more provocative of laughter than either <i>La Boule</i> or + <i>Tricoche et Cacolet</i>; and the modern plays, as I have + said, are based on a study of life as it is, while the figures + of the older comedies are frankly conventional. Nowhere in + Regnard is there a situation equal in comic power to that in + the final act of the <i>Réveillon</i>—a situation Molière + would have been glad to treat.</p> + + <p>Especially to be commended in <i>Tricoche et Cacolet</i> is + the satire of the hysterical sentimentality and of the forced + emotions born of luxury and idleness. The parody of the amorous + intrigue which is the staple of so many French plays is as + wholesome as it is exhilarating. Absurdity is a deadly + shower-bath to sentimentalism. The method of Meilhac and Halévy + in sketching this couple is not unlike that employed by Mr. + W.S. Gilbert in <i>H.M.S. Pinafore</i> and <i>The Pirates of + Penzance</i>. Especially to be noted is the same perfectly + serious pushing of the dramatic commonplaces to an absurd + conclusion. There is the same kind of humor too, and the same + girding at the stock tricks of stage-craft—in <i>H.M.S. + Pinafore</i> at the swapping of children in the cradle, and in + <i>Tricoche et Cacolet</i> at the "portrait de ma mère" which + has drawn so many tears in modern melodrama. But MM. Meilhac + and Halévy, having made one success, did not further attempt + the same kind of pleasantry—wiser in this than Mr. + Gilbert, who seems to find it hard to write anything else.</p> + + <p>As in the <i>Château à Toto</i> MM. Meilhac and Halévy had + made a modern perversion of <i>Dame Blanche</i>, so in <i>La + Cigale</i> did they dress up afresh the story of the <i>Fille + du R'egiment</i>. As the poet asks—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Ah, World of ours, are you so + gray,<br /></span> <span class="i1">And weary, World, + of spinning,<br /></span> <span class="i0">That you + repeat the tales to-day<br /></span> + <span class="i1">You told at the + beginning?<br /></span> <span class="i0">For lo! the + same old myths that made<br /></span> + <span class="i1">The early stage-successes<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Still hold the boards, and still are + played<br /></span> <span class="i1">With new effects + and dresses.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>I have cited <i>La Cigale</i>, not because it is a very good + play—for it is not—but because it shows the present + carelessness of French dramatists in regard to dramatic + construction. <i>La Cigale</i> is a very clever bit of work, + but it has the slightest of plots, and this made out of old + cloth; and the situations, in so far as there are any, follow + each other as best they may. It is not really a play: it is a + mere sketch touched up with Parisianisms, "local hits" and the + wit of the moment. This substitution of an off-hand sketch for + a full-sized picture can better be borne in a little one-act + play than in a more ambitious work in three or four acts.</p> + + <p>And of one-act plays Meilhac and Halévy have written a score + or more—delightful little <i>genre</i> pictures, like the + <i>Été de Saint-Martin</i>, simple pastels, like <i>Toto chez + Tata</i>, and vigorous caricatures, like the <i>Photographe</i> + or the <i>Brésilien</i>. The Frenchman invented the ruffle, + says Emerson: the Englishman added the shirt. These little + dramatic trifles are French ruffles. In the beginning of his + theatrical career M. Meilhac did little comedies like the + <i>Sarabande</i> and the <i>Autographe</i>, in the Scribe + formula—dramatized anecdotes, but fresher in wit and + livelier in fancy than Scribe's. This early work was far more + regular than we find in some of his latest, bright as these + are: the <i>Petit Hôtel</i>, for instance, and <i>Lolotte</i> + are etchings, as it were, instantaneous photographs of certain + aspects of life in the city by the Seine or stray paragraphs of + the latest news from Paris.</p> + + <p>It is perhaps not too much to say that Meilhac and Halévy + are seen at their best in these one-act plays. They hit better + with a single-barrel than with a revolver. In their five-act + plays, whether serious like <i>Fanny Lear</i> or comic like + <i>La Vie Parisienne</i>, the interest is scattered, and we + have a series of episodes rather than a single story. Just as + the egg of the jelly-fish is girt by circles which tighten + slowly until the ovoid form is cut into disks of independent + life, so if the four intermissions of some of Meilhac and + Halévy's full-sized plays were but a little longer and wider + and deeper they would divide the piece into five separate + plays, any one of which could fairly hope for success by + itself. I have heard that the <i>Roi Candaule</i> was + originally an act of <i>La Boule</i>, and the + <i>Photographe</i> seems as though it had dropped from <i>La + Vie Parisienne</i> by mistake. In M. Meilhac's earlier five-act + plays, the <i>Vertu de Celimène</i> and the <i>Petit fils de + Mascarille</i>, there is great power of conception, a real grip + on character, but the main action is clogged with tardy + incidents, and so the momentum is lost. In these comedies the + influence of the new school of Alexandre Dumas <i>fils</i> is + plainly visible. And the inclination toward the strong, not to + say violent, emotions which Dumas and Angier had imported into + comedy is still more evident in <i>Fanny Lear</i>, the first + five-act comedy which Meilhac and Halévy wrote together, and + which was brought out in 1868. The final situation is one of + truth and immense effectiveness, and there is great vigor in + the creation of character. The decrepit old rake, the Marquis + de Noriolis, feeble in his folly and wandering in helplessness, + but irresistible when aroused, is a striking figure; and still + more striking is the portrait of his wife, now the Marquise de + Noriolis, but once Fanny Lear the adventuress—a woman who + has youth, beauty, wealth, everything before her, if it were + not for the shame which is behind her: gay and witty, and even + good-humored, she is inflexible when she is determined; hers is + a velvet manner and an iron will. The name of Fanny Lear may + sound familiar to some readers because it was given to an + American adventuress in Russia by a grand-ducal admirer.</p> + + <p>After <i>Fanny Lear</i> came <i>Froufrou</i>, the lineal + successor of <i>The Stranger</i> as the current masterpiece of + the lachrymatory drama. Nothing so tear-compelling as the final + act of <i>Froufrou</i> had been seen on the stage for half a + century or more. The death of Froufrou was a watery sight, and + for any chance to weep we are many of us grateful. And yet it + was a German, born in the land of Charlotte and + Werther,—it was Heine who remarked on the oddity of + praising the "dramatic poet who possesses the art of drawing + tears—a talent which he has in common with the meanest + onion." It is noteworthy that it was by way of Germany that + English tragedy exerted its singular influence on French + comedy. Attracted by the homely power of pieces like <i>The + Gamester</i> and <i>Jane Shore</i>, Diderot in France and + Lessing in Germany attempted the <i>tragédie bourgeoise</i>, + but the right of the "tradesmen's tragedies"—as Goldsmith + called them—to exist at all was questioned until + Kotzebue's pathetic power and theatrical skill captured nearly + every stage in Europe. In France the bastard offspring of + English tragedy and German drama gave birth to an equally + illegitimate <i>comédie larmoyante</i>. And so it happens that + while comedy in English literature, resulting from the clash of + character, is always on the brink of farce, comedy in French + literature may be tinged with passion until it almost turns to + tragedy. In France the word "comedy" is elastic and covers a + multitude of sins: it includes the laughing <i>Boule</i> and + the tearful <i>Froufrou</i>: in fact, the French Melpomene is a + sort of <i>Jeanne qui pleure et Jeanne qui rit</i>.</p> + + <p>So it happens that <i>Froufrou</i> is a comedy. And indeed + the first three acts are comedy of a very high order, full of + wit and rich in character. I mentioned <i>The Stranger</i> a + few lines back, and the contrast of the two plays shows how + much lighter and more delicate French art is. The humor to be + found in <i>The Stranger</i> is, to say the least, Teutonic; + and German humor is like the simple Italian wines: it will not + stand export. And in <i>The Stranger</i> there is really no + character, no insight into human nature. <i>Misanthropy and + Repentance</i>, as Kotzebue called his play (<i>The + Stranger</i> was Sheridan's title for the English translation + he revised for his own theatre), are loud-sounding words when + we capitalize them, but they do not deceive us now: we see that + the play itself is mostly stalking sententiousness, mawkishly + overladen with gush. But in <i>Froufrou</i> there is wit of the + latest Parisian kind, and there are characters—people + whom we might meet and whom we may remember. Brigard, for one, + the reprobate old gentleman, living even in his old age in that + Bohemia which has Paris for its capital, and dyeing his few + locks because he feels himself unworthy to wear gray + hair,—Brigard is a portrait from life. The Baron de + Cambri is less individual, and I confess I cannot quite stomach + a gentleman who is willing to discuss the problem of his wife's + virtue with a chance adorer. But the cold Baronne herself is no + commonplace person. And Louise, the elder daughter of Froufrou, + the one who had chosen the better part and had kept it by much + self-sacrifice,—she is a true woman. Best, better even + than Brigard, is Gilberte, nicknamed "Froufrou" from the + rustling of her silks as she skips and scampers airily around. + Froufrou, when all is said, is a real creation, a revelation of + Parisian femininity, a living thing, breathing the breath of + life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet. + Marrying a reserved yet deeply-devoted husband because her + sister bid her; taking into her home that sister, who had + sacrificed her own love for the husband; seeing this sister + straighten the household which she in her heedless seeking for + idle amusement had not governed, then beginning to feel herself + in danger and aware of a growing jealousy, senseless though it + be, of the sister who has so innocently supplanted her by her + hearth, and even with her child; making one effort to regain + her place, and failing, as was inevitable,—poor Froufrou + takes the fatal plunge which will for ever and at once separate + her from what was hers before. What a fine scene is that at the + end of the third act, in which Froufrou has worked herself + almost to a frenzy, and, hopeless in her jealousy, gives up all + to her sister and rushes from the house to the lover she + scarcely cares for! And how admirably does all that has gone + before lead up to it! These first three acts are a wonder of + constructive art. Of the rest of the play it is hard to speak + so highly. The change is rather sudden from the study of + character in the first part to the demand in the last that if + you have tears you must prepare to shed them now. The + brightness is quenched in gloom and despair. Of a verity, + frivolity may be fatal, and death may follow a liking for + private theatricals and the other empty amusements of fashion; + but is it worth while to break a butterfly on the wheel and to + put a humming-bird to the question? To say what fate shall be + meted out to the woman taken in adultery is always a hard task + for the dramatist. Here the erring and erratic heroine comes + home to be forgiven and to die, and so after the fresh and + unforced painting of modern Parisian life we have a finish full + of conventional pathos. Well, death redeems all, and, as Pascal + says, "the last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy + there may have been in the rest of life. We must all die + alone."</p> + + <p class='author'>J. BRANDER MATTHEWS.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="THE_KINGS_GIFTS" + id="THE_KINGS_GIFTS"></a>THE KING'S GIFTS.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Cyrus the king in royal + mood<br /></span> <span class="i0">Portioned his gifts + as seemed him good:<br /></span> <span class="i0">To + Artabasus, proud to hold<br /></span> + <span class="i0">The priceless boon, a cup of + gold—<br /></span> <span class="i0">A + rare-wrought thing: its jewelled brim<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Haloed a nectar sweet to + him.<br /></span> <span class="i0">No flavor fine it + seemed to miss;<br /></span> <span class="i0">But when + the king stooped down, a kiss<br /></span> + <span class="i0">To leave upon Chrysantas' + lips,<br /></span> <span class="i0">The jewels paled in + dull eclipse<br /></span> <span class="i0">To + Artabasus: hard and cold<br /></span> + <span class="i0">And empty grew the cup of + gold.<br /></span> <span class="i0">"Better, O Sire, + than mine," cried he,<br /></span> <span class="i0">"I + deem Chrysantas' gift to be."<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Yet the wise king his courtiers + knew,<br /></span> <span class="i0">And unto each had + given his due.<br /></span> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">To all who watch and all who + wait<br /></span> <span class="i0">The king will come, + or soon or late.<br /></span> <span class="i0">Choose + well: thy secret wish is known,<br /></span> + <span class="i0">And thou shalt surely have thine + own—<br /></span> <span class="i0">A golden cup + thy poor wealth's sign,<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Or on thy lips Love's seal + divine.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p class='center'>EMILY A. BRADDOCK</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="BAUBIE_WISHART" + id="BAUBIE_WISHART"></a>BAUBIE WISHART.</h2> + + <p>"I have taken you at your word, you see, Miss Mackenzie. You + told me not to give alms in the street, and to bring the + begging children to you. So here is one now."</p> + + <p>Thus introduced, the begging child was pushed forward into + the room by the speaker, a lady who was holding her by one + shoulder.</p> + + <p>She was a stunted, slim creature, that might have been any + age from nine to fourteen, barefooted and bareheaded, and + wearing a Rob Roy tartan frock. She entered in a sidelong way + that was at once timid and confidently independent, and stared + all round her with a pair of large brown eyes. She did not seem + to be in the least frightened, and when released by her + guardian stood at ease comfortably on one foot, tucking the + other away out of sight among the not too voluminous folds of + her frock.</p> + + <p>It was close on twelve o'clock of a March day in the poor + sewing-women's workroom in Drummond street. The average number + of women of the usual sort were collected together—a + depressed and silent gathering. It seemed as if the bitter east + wind had dulled and chilled them into a grayer monotony of look + than usual, so that they might be in harmony with the general + aspect which things without had assumed at its grim bidding. A + score or so of wan faces looked up for a minute, but the child, + after all, had nothing in her appearance that was calculated to + repay attention, and the lady was known to them all. So "white + seam" reasserted its old authority without much delay.</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie laid down the scissors which she had been + using on a bit of coarse cotton, and advanced in reply to the + address of the newcomer. "How do you do? and where did you pick + up this creature?" she asked, looking curiously at the + importation.</p> + + <p>"Near George IV. Bridge, on this side of it, and I just took + hold of her and brought her off to you at once. I don't + believe"—this was said <i>sotto voce</i>—"that she + has a particle of clothing on her but that frock."</p> + + <p>"Very likely.—What is your name, my child?"</p> + + <p>"Baubie Wishart, mem." She spoke in an apologetic tone, + glancing down at her feet, the one off duty being lowered for + the purpose of inspection, which over, she hoisted the foot + again immediately into the recesses of the Rob Roy tartan.</p> + + <p>"Have you a father and mother?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, mem."</p> + + <p>"What does your father do?"</p> + + <p>Baubie Wishart glanced down again in thought for an instant, + then raised her eyes for the first time directly to her + questioner's face: "He used to be a Christy man, but he canna + be that any longer, sae he goes wi' boords."</p> + + <p>"Why cannot he be a Christy man any longer?"</p> + + <p>Down came the foot once more, and this time took up its + position permanently beside the other: "Because mother drinks + awfu', an' pawned the banjo for drink." This family history was + related in the most matter-of-fact, natural way.</p> + + <p>"And does your father drink too?" asked Miss Mackenzie after + a short pause.</p> + + <p>Baubie Wishart's eyes wandered all round the room, and with + one toe she swept up a little mass of dust before she answered + in a voice every tone of which spoke unwilling truthfulness, + "Just whiles—Saturday nichts."</p> + + <p>"Is <i>he</i> kind to you?"</p> + + <p>"Ay," looking up quickly, "excep' just whiles when he's + fou—Saturday nichts, ye ken—and then he beats me; + but he's rale kind when he's sober."</p> + + <p>"Were you ever at school?"</p> + + <p>"No, mem," with a shake of the head that seemed to convey + that she had something else, and probably better, to do.</p> + + <p>"Did you ever hear of God?" asked the lady who had brought + her.</p> + + <p>"Ay, mem," answered Baubie quite readily: "it's a kind of a + bad word I hear in the streets."</p> + + <p>"How old are you?" asked both ladies simultaneously.</p> + + <p>"Thirteen past," replied Baubie, with a promptness that made + her listeners smile, suggesting as it did the thought that the + question had been put to her before, and that Baubie knew well + the import of her answer.</p> + + <p>She grew more communicative now. She could not read, but, + all the same, she knew two songs which she sang in the + streets—"Before the Battle" and "After the Battle;" and, + carried away by the thought of her own powers, she actually + began to give proof of her assertion by reciting one of them + there and then. This, however, was stopped at once. "Can knit + too," she added then.</p> + + <p>"Who taught you to knit?"</p> + + <p>"Don' know. Wis at a Sunday-schuil too."</p> + + <p>"Oh, you were? And what did you learn there?"</p> + + <p>Baubie Wishart looked puzzled, consulted her toes in vain, + and then finally gave it up.</p> + + <p>"I should like to do something for her," observed her first + friend: "it is time this street-singing came to an end."</p> + + <p>"She is intelligent, clearly," said Miss Mackenzie, looking + curiously at the child, whose appearance and bearing rather + puzzled her. There was not a particle of the professional + street-singer about Baubie Wishart, the child of that species + being generally clean-washed, or at least soapy, of face, with + lank, smooth-combed and greasy hair; and usually, too, with a + smug, sanctimonious air of meriting a better fate. Baubie + Wishart presented none of these characteristics: her face was + simply filthy; her hair was a red-brown, loosened tangle that + reminded one painfully of oakum in its first stage. And she + looked as if she deserved a whipping, and defied it too. She + was just a female arab—an arab <i>plus</i> an + accomplishment—bright, quick and inconsequent as a + sparrow, and reeking of the streets and gutters, which had been + her nursery.</p> + + <p>"Yes," continued the good lady, "I must look after her."</p> + + <p>"Poor little atom! I suppose you will find out where the + parents live, and send the school-board officer to them. That + is the usual thing, is it not? I must go, Miss Mackenzie. + Good-bye for to-day. And do tell me what you settle for + her."</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie promised, and her friend took her + departure.</p> + + <p>"Go and sit by the fire, Baubie Wishart, for a little, and + then I shall be ready to talk to you."</p> + + <p>Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the + end of the fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the + on-goings about her with the stoicism of a red Indian. She + showed no symptom of wonder at anything, and listened to the + disquisitions of Miss Mackenzie and the matron as to the proper + adjustment of parts—"bias," "straights," "gathers," + "fells," "gussets" and "seams," a whole new language as it + unrolled its complexities before her—with complacent + indifference.</p> + + <p>At last, all the web of cotton being cut up, the time came + to go. Miss Mackenzie buttoned up her sealskin coat, and + pulling on a pair of warm gloves beckoned Baubie, who rose with + alacrity: "Where do your father and mother live?"</p> + + <p>"Kennedy's Lodgings, in the Gressmarket, mem."</p> + + <p>"I know the place," observed Miss Mackenzie, to whom, + indeed, most of these haunts were familiar. "Take me there now, + Baubie."</p> + + <p>They set out together. Baubie trotted in front, turning her + head, dog-fashion, at every corner to see if she were followed. + They reached the Grassmarket at last, and close to the corner + of the West Bow found an entry with the whitewashed inscription + above it, "Kennedy's Lodgings." Baubie glanced round to see if + her friend was near, then vanished upward from her sight. Miss + Mackenzie kilted her dress and began the ascent of the stairs, + the steps of which, hollowed out as they were by the tread of + centuries of human feet, afforded a not too safe footing.</p> + + <p>Arrived at the third floor, she found Baubie waiting for + her, breathless and panting.</p> + + <p>"It's here," she said—"the big kitchen, mem."</p> + + <p>A long, narrow passage lay before them, off which doors + opened on all sides. Precipitating herself at one of these + doors, Baubie Wishart, who could barely reach the latch, pushed + it open, giving egress to a confusion of noises, which seemed + to float above a smell of cooking, in which smell herrings and + onions contended for the mastery.</p> + + <p>It was a very large room, low-ceilinged, but well enough + lighted by a couple of windows, which looked into a close + behind. The walls had been whitewashed once upon a time, but + the whitewash was almost lost to view under the decorations + with which it was overlaid. These consisted of pictures cut out + of the illustrated weekly papers or milliners' books. All sorts + of subjects were represented: fashion-plates hung side by side + with popular preachers and statesmen, race-horses and Roman + Catholic saints; red-and white-draped Madonnas elbowed the + "full-dress" heroines of the penny weeklies. It was a curious + gallery, and a good many of the works of art had the merit of + being antique. Generations of flies had emblazoned their deeds + of prowess on the papers: streaks of candle-grease bore witness + to the inquiring turn of mind, attracted by the letter-press, + or the artistic proclivities of Kennedy's lodgers. It was about + two, the dinner-hour probably, which accounted for the presence + of so many people in the room. Most, but not all, seemed to be + of the wandering class. They were variously employed. Some were + sitting on the truckle-beds that ran round the walls; one or + two were knitting or sewing; a cripple was mending baskets in + one of the windows; and about the fire a group were collected + superintending the operations which produced, though not + unaided, the odors with which the room was reeking.</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie stood for a few minutes, unnoticed + apparently, looking about her at the motley crowd. Baubie on + entering the room had raised herself for a second on tiptoe to + look into a distant corner, and then, remarking to herself, + half audibly, "His boords is gane," subsided, and contented + herself with watching Miss Mackenzie's movements.</p> + + <p>There seemed to be no one to do the honors. The inmates all + looked at each other for a moment hesitatingly, then resumed + their various occupations. A young woman, a sickly, livid-faced + creature, rose from her place behind the door, and, advancing + with a halting step, said to Miss Mackenzie, "Mistress + Kennedy's no' in, an' Wishart's oot wi's boords."</p> + + <p>"I wanted to see him about this child, who was found begging + in the streets to-day."</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie looked curiously at the woman, wondering if + she could belong in any way to the Wishart family. She was a + miserable object, seemingly in the last stage of + consumption.</p> + + <p>"Eh, mem," she answered hurriedly, and drawing nearer, + "ye're a guid leddy, I ken, an' tak' t' lassie away oot o' + this. The mither's an awfu' wuman: tak' her away wi' ye, or + she'll sune be as bad. She'll be like mysel' and the rest o' + them here."</p> + + <p>"I will, I will," Miss Mackenzie said, shocked and startled, + recoiling before the spirit-reeking breath of this warning + spectre. "I will, I will," she repeated hastily. There was no + use remaining any longer. She went out, beckoning to Baubie, + who was busy rummaging about a bed at the top of the room.</p> + + <p>Baubie had bethought her that it was time to take her father + his dinner. So she slipped over to that corner of the big + kitchen which was allotted to the Wishart family and possessed + herself of a piece of a loaf which was hidden away there. As + she passed by the fire she profited by the momentary + abstraction of the people who were cooking to snap up and make + her own a brace of unconsidered trifles in the shape of onions + which were lying near them. These, with the piece of bread, she + concealed on her person, and then returned to Miss Mackenzie, + who was now in the passage.</p> + + <p>"Baubie," said that lady, "I will send some one here about + you. Now, don't let me hear of your singing in the streets or + begging again. You will get into trouble if you do."</p> + + <p>She was descending the stairs as she spoke, and she turned + round when she had reached the entry: "You know the police will + take you, Baubie."</p> + + <p>"Yes, mem," answered Baubie, duly impressed.</p> + + <p>"Well, now, I am going home. Stay: are you hungry?"</p> + + <p>Without waiting for her answer, Miss Mackenzie entered a + tiny shop close by, purchased a mutton-pie and handed it to + Baubie Wishart, who received it with wondering reverence. Miss + Mackenzie took her way home westward up the Grassmarket. She + turned round before leaving it by way of King's Stables, and + caught sight of Bauble's frock by the entry of Kennedy's + Lodgings—a tiny morsel of color against the shadow of the + huge gray houses. She thought of the big kitchen and its + occupants, and the face and words of the poor girl, and + promised herself that she would send the school-board officer + to Kennedy's Lodgings that very night.</p> + + <p>Baubie waited till her friend was well out of sight: then + she hid her mutton-pie in the same place with the onions and + the piece of bread, and started up the Grassmarket in her turn. + She stopped at the first shop she passed and bought a + pennyworth of cheese. Then she made her way to the Lothian + road, and looked up and down it anxiously in search of the + walking advertisement-man. He was not there, so she directed + her course toward Princes street, and after promenading it as + far east as the Mound, she turned up into George street, and + caught sight of her father walking along slowly by the + curbstone. It was not long before she overtook him.</p> + + <p>"Od, lassie, I wis thinkin' lang," he began wearily as soon + as he realized her apparition. Baubie did not wait for him to + finish: with a peremptory nod she signified her will, and he + turned round and followed her a little way down Hanover street. + Then Baubie selected a flight of steps leading to a basement + store, and throwing him a look of command flitted down and + seated herself at the bottom. It was sheltered from the cold + wind and not too much overlooked. Wishart shifted the boards + from about his shoulders, and, following her, laid them against + the wall at the side of the basement-steps, and sat down + heavily beside her. He was a sickly-looking man, sandy-haired, + with a depressed and shifty expression of face—not + vicious, but weak and vacillating. Baubie seemed to have the + upper hand altogether: every gesture showed it. She opened the + paper that was wrapped about her fragment of rank yellow + cheese, laid it down on the step between them, and then + produced, in their order of precedence, the pie, the onions and + the bread.</p> + + <p>"Wha gied ye that?" asked Wishart, gazing at the + mutton-pie.</p> + + <p>"A leddy," replied Baubie, concisely.</p> + + <p>"An' they?" pointing to the onions.</p> + + <p>A nod was all the answer, for Baubie, who was hungry, was + busy breaking the piece of loaf. Wishart with great care + divided the pie without spilling much more than half its gravy, + and began on his half of it and the biggest onion + simultaneously. Baubie ate up her share of pie, declined + cheese, and attacked her onion and a great piece of crust. The + crust was very tough, and after the mutton-pie rather dry and + tasteless, and she laid it down presently in her lap, and after + a few minutes' passive silence began: "That," nodding at the + cheese, or what was left of it rather, "wis all I got—ae + penny. The leddy took me up till a hoose, an' anither are that + wis there came doon hame and gaed in ben, an' wis speirin' for + ye, an' says she'll gie me till the polis for singin' an' + askin' money in t' streets, an' wants you to gie me till her to + pit in schuil."</p> + + <p>She stopped and fixed her eyes on him, watching the effect + of her words. Wishart laid down his bread and cheese and stared + back at her. It seemed to take some time for his brain to + realize all the meaning of her pregnant speech.</p> + + <p>"Ay," he said after a while, and with an effort, "I maun + tak' ye to Glasgae, to yer aunt. Ye'll be pit in schuil if yer + caught."</p> + + <p>"I'll no bide," observed Baubie, finishing off her onion + with a grimace. The raw onion was indeed strong and hot, even + for Bauble's not too epicurean palate, but it had been got for + nothing—a circumstance from which it derived a flavor + which many people more dainty than Bauble Wishart find to be + extremely appetizing.</p> + + <p>"Bide!" echoed her father: "they'll mak' ye bide. Gin I had + only the banjo agen!" sighed the whilom Christy man, getting up + and preparing to adjust the boards once more.</p> + + <p>The last crumb of the loaf was done, and Bauble, refreshed, + got up too. "Whenll ye be hame?" she questioned abruptly when + they had reached the top of the steps.</p> + + <p>"Seven. Gaeway hame wi' ye, lassie, noo. Ye didna see + <i>her</i>?" he questioned as he walked off.</p> + + <p>"Na," replied Bauble, standing still and looking about her + as if to choose which way she should take.</p> + + <p>He sighed deeply, and moved off slowly on his way back to + his post, with the listless, hopeless air that seems to belong + to the members of his calling.</p> + + <p>Bauble obeyed her parent's commands in so far as that she + did go home, but as she took Punch and Judy in her course up + the Mound, and diverged as far as a football match in the + Meadows, it was nearly seven before Kennedy's Lodgings saw her + again.</p> + + <p>The following morning, shortly after breakfast, Miss + Mackenzie's butler informed her that there was a child who + wanted to speak with her in the hall. On going down she found + Bauble Wishart on the mat.</p> + + <p>"Where is your father? and why did he not come with you?" + asked Miss Mackenzie, puzzled.</p> + + <p>"He thoucht shame to come an' speak wi' a fine leddy like + you." This excuse, plausible enough, was uttered in a low voice + and with downcast eyes, but hardly was it pronounced when she + burst out rapidly and breathlessly into what was clearly the + main object of her visit: "But please, mem, he says he'll gie + me to you if ye'll gie him the three shillin's to tak' the + banjo oot o' the pawn."</p> + + <p>This candid proposal took Miss Mackenzie's breath away. To + become the owner of Baubie Wishart, even at so low a price, + seemed to her rather a heathenish proceeding, with a flavor of + illegality about it to boot. There was a vacancy at the home + for little girls which might be made available for the little + wretch without the necessity of any preliminary of this kind; + and it did not occur to her that it was a matter of any moment + whether Mr. Wishart continued to exercise the rôle of + "sandwich-man" or returned to his normal profession of + banjo-player. Baubie was to be got hold of in any case. With + the muttered adjuration of the wretched girl in Kennedy's + Lodgings echoing in her ears, Miss Mackenzie determined that + she should be left no longer than could be helped in that + company.</p> + + <p>How earnest and matter of fact she was in delivering her + extraordinary errand! thought Miss Mackenzie to herself, + meeting the eager gaze of Baubie Wishart's eyes, looking out + from beneath her tangle of hair like those of a Skye + terrier.</p> + + <p>"I will speak to your father myself, Baubie—tell him + so—to-morrow, perhaps: tell him I mean to settle about + you myself. Now go."</p> + + <p>The least possible flicker of disappointment passed over + Baubie's face. The tangled head drooped for an instant, then + she bobbed by way of adieu and vanished.</p> + + <p>That day and the next passed before Miss Mackenzie found it + possible to pay her long-promised visit to Mr. Wishart, and + when, about eleven in the forenoon, she once more entered the + big kitchen in Kennedy's Lodgings, she was greeted with the + startling intelligence that the whole Wishart family were in + prison.</p> + + <p>The room was as full as before. Six women were sitting in + the middle of the floor teasing out an old hair mattress. There + was the same odor of cooking, early as it was, and the same + medley of noises, but the people were different. The + basket-making cripple was gone, and in his place by the window + sat a big Irish beggar-woman, who was keeping up a conversation + with some one (a compatriot evidently) in a window of the close + behind.</p> + + <p>The mistress of the house came forward. She was a + decent-looking little woman, but had rather a hard face, + expressive of care and anxiety. On recognizing her visitor she + curtsied: "The Wisharts, mem? Yes, they're a' in jail."</p> + + <p>"All in jail?" echoed Miss Mackenzie. "Will you come outside + and speak to me? There are so many people—"</p> + + <p>"Eh yes, mem: I'm sure ye fin' the room closs. Eh yes, mem, + the Wisharts are a' in the lock-up."</p> + + <p>They were standing outside in the passage, and Mrs. Kennedy + held the door closed by the latch, which she kept firmly + grasped in her hand. It struck Miss Mackenzie as being an odd + way to secure privacy for a privileged communication, to fasten + the door of their room upon those inside. It was expressive, + however.</p> + + <p>"Ye see, mem," began the landlady, "Wishart's no a very bad + man—jist weak in the heid like—but's wife is jist + something awfu', an' I could not let her bide in a decent + lodging-house. We hae to dra' the line somewhere, and I dra' it + low enough, but she wis far below that. Eh, she's jist + terrible! Wishart has a sister in Glasgae verra weel to do, an' + I h'ard him say he'd gie the lassie to her if it wer na for the + wife. The day the school-board gentleman wis here she came + back: she'd been away, ye ken, and she said she'd become a + t'otaller, an' so I sed she micht stay; but, ye see, when nicht + came on she an' Wishart gaed out thegither, an' jist to + celebrate their bein' frien's again she an' him gaed intil a + public, an' she got uproarious drunk, an' the polis took her + up. Wishart wis no sae bad, sae they let him come hame; but, ye + see, he had tasted the drink, an' wanted mair, an' he hadna ony + money. Ye see, he'd promised the gentleman who came here that + he widna send Baubie oot to sing again. But he <i>did</i> send + her oot then to sing for money for him, an' the polis had been + put to watch her, an' saw her beg, an' took her up to the + office, an' came back here for Wishart. An' so before the day + was dune they were a' lockit up thegither."</p> + + <p>Such was the story related to Miss Mackenzie. What was to be + done with Baubie now? It was hardly fair that she should be + sent to a reformatory among criminal children. She had + committed no crime, and there was that empty bed at the home + for little girls. She determined to attend the sheriff-court on + Monday morning and ask to be given the custody of Baubie.</p> + + <p>When Monday morning came, ten o'clock saw Miss Mackenzie + established in a seat immediately below the sheriff's high + bench. The Wisharts were among the first batch tried, and made + their appearance from a side-door. Mrs. Wishart came first, + stepping along with a resolute, brazen bearing that contrasted + with her husband's timid, shuffling gait. She was a + gypsy-looking woman, with wandering, defiant black eyes, and + her red face had the sign-manual of vice stamped upon it. After + her came Baubie, a red-tartan-covered mite, shrinking back and + keeping as close to her father as she could. Baubie had favored + her mother as to complexion: that was plain. The top of her + rough head and her wild brown eyes were just visible over the + panel as she stared round her, taking in with composure and + astuteness everything that was going on. She was the most + self-possessed of her party, for under Mrs. Wishart's active + brazenness there could easily be seen fear and a certain + measure of remorse hiding themselves; and Wishart seemed to be + but one remove from imbecility.</p> + + <p>The charges were read with a running commentary of bad + language from Mrs. Wishart as her offences were detailed; + Wishart blinked in a helpless, pathetic way; Baubie, who seemed + to consider herself as associated with him alone in the charge, + assumed an air of indifference and sucked her thumb, meantime + watching Miss Mackenzie furtively. She felt puzzled to account + for her presence there, but it never entered her head to + connect that fact with herself in any way.</p> + + <p>"Guilty or not guilty?" asked the sheriff-clerk.</p> + + <p>"There's a kin' lady in coort," stammered Wishart, "an' she + kens a' aboot it."</p> + + <p>"Guilty or not guilty?" reiterated the clerk: "this is not + the time to speak." "She kens it a', an' she wis to tak' the + lassie."</p> + + <p>"Guilty or not guilty? You must plead, and you can say what + you like afterward." Wishart stopped, not without an appealing + look at the kind lady, and pleaded guilty meekly. A policeman + with a scratched face and one hand plastered up testified to + the extravagances Mrs. Wishart had committed on the strength of + her conversion to teetotal principles.</p> + + <p>Baubic heard it all impassively, her face only betraying + anything like keen interest while the police-officer was + detailing his injuries. Three months' imprisonment was the + sentence on Margaret Mactear or Wishart. Then Wishart's + sentence was pronounced—sixty days.</p> + + <p>He and Baubie drew nearer to each other, Wishart with a + despairing, helpless look. Baubie's eyes looked like those of a + hare taken in a gin. Not one word had been said about her. She + was not to go with her father. What was to become of her? She + was not long left in doubt as to her fate.</p> + + <p>"I will take the child, sheriff," said Miss Mackenzie + eagerly and anxiously. "I came here purposely to offer her a + home in the refuge."</p> + + <p>"Policeman, hand over the child to this lady at once," said + the sheriff.—</p> + + <p>"Nothing could be better, Miss Mackenzie. It is very good of + you to volunteer to take charge of her."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Wishart disappeared with a parting volley of blasphemy; + her husband, casting, as he went, a wistful look at Miss + Mackenzie, shambled fecklessly after the partner of his joys + and sorrows; and the child remained alone behind. The policeman + took her by an arm and drew her forward to make room for a + fresh consignment of wickedness from the cells at the side. + Baubie breathed a short sigh as the door closed upon her + parents, shook back her hair, and looked up at Miss Mackenzie, + as if to announce her readiness and good will. Not one vestige + of her internal mental attitude could be gathered from her + sun-and wind-beaten little countenance. There was no + rebelliousness, neither was there guilt. One would almost have + thought she had been told beforehand what was to happen, so + cool and collected was she.</p> + + <p>"Now, Baubie, I am going to take you home. Come, child."</p> + + <p>Pleased with her success, Miss Mackenzie, so speaking, took + the little waif's hand and led her out of the police-court into + the High street. She hardly dared to conjecture that it was + Baubie Wishart's first visit to that place, but as she stood on + the entrance-steps and shook out her skirts with a sense of + relief, she breathed a sincere hope that it might be the + child's last.</p> + + <p>A cab was waiting. Baubie, to her intense delight and no + less astonishment, was requested to occupy the front seat. Miss + Mackenzie gave the driver his order and got in, facing the red + tartan bundle.</p> + + <p>"Were you ever in a cab before?" asked Miss Mackenzie.</p> + + <p>"Na, niver," replied Baubie in a rapt tone and without + looking at her questioner, so intent was she on staring out of + the windows, between both of which she divided her attention + impartially.</p> + + <p>They were driving down the Mound, and the outlook, usually + so far-reaching from that vantage-ground, was bounded by a + thick sea-fog that the east wind was carrying up from the Forth + and dispensing with lavish hands on all sides. The buildings + had a grim, black look, as if a premature old age had come upon + them, and the black pinnacles of the Monument stood out sharply + defined in clear-cut, harsh distinctness against the floating + gray background. There were not many people stirring in the + streets. It was a depressing atmosphere, and Miss Mackenzie + observed before long that Baubie either seemed to have become + influenced by it or that the novelty of the cab-ride had worn + off completely. They crossed the Water of Leith, worn to a mere + brown thread owing to the long drought, by Stockbridge street + bridge, and a few yards from it found themselves before a gray + stone house separated from the street by a grass-plot + surrounded by a stone wall: inside the wall grew chestnut and + poplar trees, which in summer must have shaded the place + agreeably, but which this day, in the cold gray mist, seemed + almost funereal in their gloomy blackness. The gate was opened + from within the wall as soon as Miss Mackenzie rang, and she + and Baubie walked up the little flagged path together. As the + gate clanged to behind them Baubie looked back involuntarily + and sighed.</p> + + <p>"Don't fear, lassie," said her guide: "they will be very + kind to you here. And it will be just a good home for you."</p> + + <p>It may be questioned whether this promise of a good home + awoke any pleasing associations or carried with it any definite + meaning to Baubie Wishart's mind. She glanced up as if to show + that she understood, but her eyes turned then and rested on the + square front of the little old-fashioned gray house with its + six staring windows and its front circumscribed by the wall and + the black poplars and naked chestnuts, and she choked down + another sigh.</p> + + <p>"Now, Mrs. Duncan," Miss Mackenzie was saying to a + comfortably-dressed elderly woman, "here's your new girl, + Baubie Wishart."</p> + + <p>"Eh, ye've been successful then, Miss Mackenzie?"</p> + + <p>"Oh dear, yes: the sheriff made no objection. And now, Mrs. + Duncan, I hope she will be a good girl and give you no + trouble.—Come here, Baubie, and promise me to do + everything you are told and obey Mrs. Duncan in + everything."</p> + + <p>"Yes, mem," answered Bauble reverently, almost solemnly.</p> + + <p>There seemed to be no necessity for further exhortation. + Baubie's demeanor promised everything that was hoped for or + wanted, and, perfectly contented, Miss Mackenzie turned her + attention to the minor details of wardrobe, etc.: "That frock + is good enough if it were washed. She must get shoes and + stockings; and then underwear, too, of some sort will be + wanted."</p> + + <p>"That will it," responded the matron; "but I had better send + her at once to get a bath."</p> + + <p>A big girl was summoned from a back room and desired to get + ready a tub. It was the ceremony customary at the reception of + a neophyte—customary, and in general very necessary + too.</p> + + <p>Baubie's countenance fell lower still on hearing this, and + she blinked both eyes deprecatingly. Nevertheless, when the big + girl—whom they called Kate—returned, bringing with + her a warm whiff of steam and soap, she trotted after her + obediently and silently.</p> + + <p>After a while the door opened, and Kate's yellow head + appeared. "Speak with ye, mem?" she said. "I hae her washen + noo, but what for claes?"</p> + + <p>"Eh yes.—Miss Mackenzie, we can't put her back into + those dirty clothes."</p> + + <p>"Oh no.—I'll come and look at her clothes, Kate." As + she spoke Miss Mackenzie rose and followed the matron and Kate + into a sort of kitchen or laundry.</p> + + <p>In the middle of the floor was a tub containing Miss Wishart + mid-deep in soapsuds. Her thick hair was all soaking, and clung + fast to her head: dripping locks hung clown over her eyes, + which looked out through the tangle patient and suffering. She + glanced up quickly as Miss Mackenzie came in, and then resigned + herself passively into Kate's hands, who with a piece of + flannel had resumed the scrubbing process.</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie was thinking to herself that it was possibly + Baubie Wishart's first experience of the kind, when she + observed the child wince as if she were hurt.</p> + + <p>"It's yon' as hurts her," said Kate, calling the matron's + attention to something on the child's shoulders. They both + stooped and saw a long blue-and-red mark—a bruise all + across her back. Nor was this the only evidence of + ill-treatment: other bruises, and even scars, were to be seen + on the lean little body.</p> + + <p>"Puir thing!" said the matron in a low tone, + sympathizingly.</p> + + <p>"Baubie, who gave you that bruise?" asked Miss + Mackenzie.</p> + + <p>No answer from Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching + the drops running off the end of her little red nose, which + played the part of a gargoyle to the rest of her face.</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie repeated the question, sternly almost: + "Bauble Wishart, I insist upon knowing who gave you that + bruise."</p> + + <p>"A didna gie't to mysel', mem." was the answer from the + figure in the soapsuds. There was a half sob in the voice as of + terror, and her manner had all the appearance of + ingenuousness.</p> + + <p>The matron and Miss Mackenzie looked at each other + significantly, and agreed tacitly that there was no use in + pushing the question.</p> + + <p>"Od!" said Kate, who had paused in the act of taking a warm + towel from the fireplace to listen, "a'body kens ye didna gie + it till yoursel', lassie."</p> + + <p>"Where are her clothes?" said the matron. "Oh, here. Yon + frock's good enough if it was washed; but, losh me! just look + at these for clothes!" She was exhibiting some indescribable + rags as she spoke.</p> + + <p>"Kate," said Miss Mackenzie, "dress her in the lassie + Grant's clothes: they are the most likely to fit her. Don't + lose time: I want to see her again before I go."</p> + + <p>Kate fished up her charge, all smoking, from the soapsuds + and rubbed her down before the fire. Then the tangled wet hair + was parted evenly and smoothed into dark locks on either side + of her face. Raiment clean, but the coarsest of the coarse, was + found for her. A brown wincey dress surmounted all. Shoes and + stockings came last of all, probably in the order of importance + assigned to them by Kate.</p> + + <p>From the arm-chair of the matron's sitting-room Miss + Mackenzie surveyed her charge with satisfaction. Baubie looked + subdued, contented, perhaps grateful, and was decidedly + uncomfortable. Every vestige of the picturesque was gone, + obliterated clean by soap and water, and Kate's hair-comb, a + broken-toothed weapon that had come off second best in its + periodic conflicts with her own barley-mow, had disposed for + ever of the wild, curly tangle of hair. Her eyes had red rims + to them, caused by superfluous soap and water, and in its + present barked condition, when all the dirt was gone, Baubie's + face had rather an interesting, wistful expression. She seemed + not to stand very steadily in her boots, which were much too + big for her.</p> + + <p>Miss Mackenzie surveyed her with great satisfaction. The + brown wincey and the coarse apron seemed to her the neophyte's + robe, betokening Baubie's conversion from arab nomadism to + respectability and from a vagabond trade to decorous + industry.</p> + + <p>"Now, Baubie, you can knit: I mean to give you needles and + worsted to knit yourself stockings. Won't that be nice? I am + sure you never knitted stockings for yourself before."</p> + + <p>"Yes, mem," replied Baubie, shuffling her feet.</p> + + <p>"Now, what bed is she to get, Mrs. Duncan? Let us go up + stairs and see the dormitory."</p> + + <p>"I thought I would put her in the room with Kate: I changed + the small bed in there. If you will just step up stairs, Miss + Mackenzie?"</p> + + <p>The party reached the dormitory by a narrow wooden + staircase, the whiteness of which testified to the scrubbing + powers of Kate's red arms and those of her compeers. All the + windows were open, and the east wind came in at its will, + nippingly cold if airy. They passed through a large, + low-ceilinged room into a smaller one, in which were only four + beds: a small iron stretcher beside the window was pointed out + as Baubie's. Miss Mackenzie turned down the red-knitted + coverlet and looked at the blankets. They were perfectly clean, + like everything else, and, like everything else too, very + coarse and very well worn.</p> + + <p>"This will do very nicely.—Baubie, this is to be your + bed."</p> + + <p>Baubie, fresh from the lock-up and Kennedy's Lodgings, might + have been expected to show some trace of her sense of + comparison, but not a vestige of expression crossed her face: + she looked up in civil acknowledgment of having heard: that was + all.</p> + + <p>"I shall look in again in the course of a week," announced + Miss Mackenzie.—"Good-bye, Baubie: do everything Mrs. + Duncan tells you."</p> + + <p>With this valedictory Miss Mackenzie left the matron, and + Kate attended her down stairs; and Baubie was at last + alone.</p> + + <p>She remained standing stock-still when they left her by the + bedside—when the door, shut by Kate, who went out last, + hid them from her view. She listened in a stupid kind of way to + the feet tramping on the bare boards of the outer dormitory and + down the stairs: then all was still, and Baubie Wishart, clean, + clothed and separated from her father for the first time in her + life, was left alone to consider how she liked "school." She + felt cold and strange and lonely, and for about three minutes' + space she abandoned herself without reserve to the sensation. + Then the heavy shoes troubled her, and in a fit of anger and + impatience she suddenly began to unlace one. Some far-off sound + startled her, and with a furtive, timorous look at the door she + fastened it up again. No one came, but instead of returning to + the boot she sprang to the window, and, mounting the narrow + sill, prepared to survey the domain that lay below it. There + was not much to see. The window looked out on the back green, + which was very much like the front, save that there was no + flagged walk. A few stunted poplars ran round the walls: the + grass was trodden nearly all off, and from wall to wall were + stretched cords from which fluttered a motley collection of + linen hung out to dry. There was no looking out of it. Baubie + craned her adventurous small neck in all directions. One side + of the back green was overlooked by a tenement-house; the other + was guarded by the poplars and a low stone wall; at the bottom + was a dilapidated outhouse. The sky overhead was all dull gray: + a formless gray sea-mist hurried across it, driven by the east + wind, which found time as well to fill, as it passed, all the + fluttering garments on the line and swell them into ridiculous + travesties of the bodies they belonged to, tossing them the + while with high mockery into all manner of weird + contortions.</p> + + <p>Baubie looked at them curiously, and wondered to herself how + much they would all pawn for—considerably more than three + shillings no doubt. She established that fact to her own + satisfaction ere long, although she was no great arithmetician, + and she sighed as she built and demolished an air-castle in her + own mind. Though there was but little attraction for her in the + room, she was about to leave the window when her eye fell on a + large black cat crouched on the wall, employed in surveillance + of the linen or stalking sparrows or in deadly ambush for a + hated rival. Meeting Baubie's glance, he sat up and stared at + her suspiciously with a pair of round yellow, unwinking + orbs.</p> + + <p>"Ki! ki! ki!" breathed Baubie discreetly. She felt lonely, + and the cat looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to + the house doubtless, for he stared at her with an interested, + questioning look. Presently he moved. She repeated her + invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his feet, humped his + back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round, facing + the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail + tucked in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the + cold wind as little purchase as possible. Baubie felt snubbed + and lonely, and drawing back from the window she sat down on + the edge of her bed to wait events.</p> + + <p>Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the + last few days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves + than hers, and the unwonted bodily sensations caused by the + bath and change of garments seemed to intensify her + consciousness of novelty and restraint. There was another not + very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had not taken + account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly + enough. It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the + parting from her father. Baubie herself would have been greatly + puzzled had any person designated her feelings by these names. + There were many things in that philosophy of the gutter in + which Baubie Wishart was steeped to the lips undreamt of by + her. What she knew she knew thoroughly, but there was much with + which most children, even of her age and class in life, are, it + is to be hoped, familiar, of which Baubie Wishart was utterly + ignorant. Her circumstances were different from + theirs—fortunately for them; and amongst the poor, as + with their betters, various conditions breed various + dispositions. Baubie was an outer barbarian and savage in + comparison with some children, although they perhaps went + barefooted also; but, like a savage too, she would have grown + fat where they would have starved. And this she knew well.</p> + + <p>Kate's yellow head, appearing at the door to summon her to + dinner, put an end to her gloomy reverie. And with this, her + first meal, began Baubie's acquaintance with the household of + which she was to form an integral portion from that hour.</p> + + <p>They gave her no housework to do. Mrs. Duncan, whom a very + cursory examination satisfied as to the benighted ignorance of + this latest addition to her flock, determined that Baubie + should learn to read, write and sew as expeditiously as might + be. In order that she might benefit by example, she was made to + sit by the lassie Grant, the child whose clothes had been lent + to her, and her education began forthwith.</p> + + <p>It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still: + "white seam" was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in + which she had beforehand believed herself an adept, was found + fault with. The lassie Grant, as was pointed out to her, could + knit more evenly and possessed a superior method of "turning + the heel."</p> + + <p>Baubie Wishart listened with outward calmness and seeming + acquiescence to the comparison instituted between herself and + her neighbor. Inwardly, however, she raged. What about + knitting? Anybody could knit. She would like to see the lassie + Grant earn two shillings of a Saturday night singing in the + High street or the Lawnmarket. Baubie forgot in her flush of + triumphant recollection that there had always been somebody to + take the two shillings from her, and beat her and accuse her of + malversation and embezzlement into the bargain. Artist-like, + she remembered her triumphs only: she could earn two shillings + by her braced of songs, and for a minute, as she revelled in + this proud consciousness, her face lost its demure, watchful + expression, and the old independent, confident bearing + reappeared. Baubie forgot also in her present well-nourished + condition the never-failing sensation of hunger that had gone + hand in hand with these departed glories. But even if she had + remembered every circumstance of her former life, and the + privations and sufferings, she would still have pined for its + freedom.</p> + + <p>The consequence of her being well fed was simply that her + mind was freed from what is, after all, the besetting + occupation of creatures like her, and was therefore at liberty + to bestow its undivided attention upon the restraints and + irksomeness of this new order of things. Her gypsy blood began + to stir in her: the charm of her old vagabond habits asserted + itself under the wincey frock and clean apron. To be commended + for knitting and sewing was no distinction worth talking about. + What was it compared with standing where the full glare of the + blazing windows of some public-house fell upon the Rob Roy + tartan, with an admiring audience gathered round and bawbees + and commendations flying thick? She never thought then, any + more than now, of the cold wind or the day-long hunger. It was + no wonder that under the influence of these cherished + recollections "white seam" did not progress and the knitting + never attained to the finished evenness of the lassie Grant's + performance.</p> + + <p>None the less, although she made no honest effort to equal + this model proposed for her example, did Baubie feel jealous + and aggrieved. Her nature recognized other possibilities of + expression and other fields of excellence beyond those afforded + by the above-mentioned useful arts, and she brooded over her + arbitrary and forcedly inferior position with all the intensity + of a naturally masterful and passionate nature. It was all the + more unbearable because she had no real cause of complaint: had + she been oppressed or ill-treated in the slightest degree, or + had anybody else been unduly favored, there would have been a + pretext for an outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her + discontent. But it was not so. The matron dispensed even-handed + justice and motherly kindness impartially all round. And if the + lassie Grant's excellences were somewhat obtrusively contrasted + with Baubie's shortcomings, it was because, the two children + being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to rouse thereby a + spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any pharisaical + self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a + sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in + the refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair + any comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught + Baubie.</p> + + <p>Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in + the refuge, when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise, + called to inquire how her <i>protégée</i> was getting on.</p> + + <p>The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie. + "She's just no trouble—a quiet-like child. She knows just + nothing, but I've set her beside the lassie Grant, and I don't + doubt but she'll do well yet; but she is some dull," she + added.</p> + + <p>"Are you happy, Baubie?" asked Miss Mackenzie. "Will you try + and learn everything like 'Lisbeth Grant? See how well she + sews, and she is no older than you."</p> + + <p>"Ay, mem," responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up. + She was still wearing 'Lisbeth Grant's frock and apron, and the + garments gave her that odd look of their real owner which + clothes so often have the power of conveying. Baubie's slim + figure had caught the flat-backed, square-shoulder form of her + little neighbor, and her face, between the smooth-laid bands of + her hair, seemed to have assumed the same gravely-respectable + air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the time, could + they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed lips + and studied pose.</p> + + <p>That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance + from the wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and + shrunken in size, as was the nature of its material for one + reason, and for another because it had parted, in common with + its owner when subjected to the same process, with a great deal + of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar garb again with + joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction.</p> + + <p>That same night, when the girls were going to + bed—whether the inspiration still lingered, in spite of + soapsuds, about the red frock, and was by it imparted to its + owner, or whether it was merely the prompting of that demon of + self-assertion that had been tormenting her of + late—Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of + consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock + in trade.</p> + + <p>The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of + the house when the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder, + hastened up to know what was the meaning of this departure from + the regular order of things. Baubie heard their approach, and + only sang the louder. She had a good and by no means unmusical + voice, which the rest had rather improved; and by the time the + authorities arrived on the scene there was an audience gathered + round the daring Baubie, who, with shoes and stockings off and + the Rob Roy tartan half unfastened, was standing by her bed, + singing at the pitch of her voice. The words could be heard + down the stairs:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Hark! I hear the bugles sounding: 'tis + the signal for the fight.<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Now, may God protect us, mother, as He + ever does the right.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>"Baubie Wishart," cried the astonished mistress, "what do + you mean?"</p> + + <p>The singer was just at the close of a verse:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Hear the battle-cry of Freedom! how it + swells upon the air!<br /></span> <span class="i0">Yes, + we'll rally round the standard or we'll perish nobly + there.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes + and flushed face toward the speaker.</p> + + <p>"Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart," went on the angry + matron, "to make yon noise? You ought to think shame of such + conduct, singing your good-for-nothing street-songs like a + tinkler. One would think ye would feel glad never to hear of + such things again. Let me have no more of this, do ye hear? I + just wonder what Miss Mackenzie would say to ye!—Kate, + stop here till they are all bedded and turn off yon gas."</p> + + <p>Long before the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into + darkness beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification + swelling her small heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs! + Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan's scornful epithets rang in her ears and + cut her to the quick. She lay awake, trembling with anger and + indignation, until long after Kate had followed the younger fry + to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears listened + for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the + weary occupants were safely asleep: then she sat up in bed. The + moonlight was streaming into the room through the uncurtained + window, and lit up her tumbled head and hot face. After a + cautious pause she stepped out on the floor and went round the + foot of her bed to the window. She knelt down on the floor, as + if she were in search of something, and began feeling with her + hand on the lower part of the shutter. Then, close to the + floor, and in a place where they were likely to escape + detection, she marked clearly and distinctly eight deep, short + scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She + ran her fingers over them until she could feel each scratch + distinctly. Eight! She counted them thrice to make sure, then + jumped back into bed, and in a few minutes was as fast asleep + as her neighbors.</p> + + <p>The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a + month, and time, as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter + and more diligent—diligent apparently at least, for the + knitting, though it advanced, showed no sign of corresponding + improvement, and the rest of her work was simply scamped. March + had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at last + began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown + glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks + became covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like + branches of the poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began + to knot and swell; the Water of Leith overflowed, and ran + bubbling and mud-colored under the bridge; and the grass by its + banks, and even that in the front green of the refuge, showed + here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer and + longer, and of a mild evening the thrush's note was to be heard + above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean + Terrace Gardens.</p> + + <p>Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more + docile and demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her + tally on the window-shutter behind her bed.</p> + + <p>May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their + goal, now close; on reaching which they return slowly and + unwillingly, but just as surely; and to her joy, about, the + third week in May, Baubie Wishart counted one warm, clear night + fifty-nine scratches on the shutter. Fifty-nine! She knew the + number well without counting them.</p> + + <p>Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but + the next morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather + more simple toilette than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash + herself, brush her hair or put on her shoes and stockings. + Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she had come, she went. She + stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer dormitory, + passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not without + a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival, + Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare + feet waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room, + which looked out on the front green. She opened the window + easily, hoisted herself on the sill, crept through and let + herself drop on the grass below. To scramble up the trunk of + one of the chestnuts and swing herself over the wall was + quickly done, and then she was once more on the flagged path of + the street, and the world lay before her.</p> + + <p>As she stood for one moment, breathless with her haste and + excitement, she was startled by the sudden apparition of the + house cat, who was on his way home as surreptitiously as she + was on hers abroad. He had one bloody ear and a scratched nose, + and stared at her as he passed: then, probably in the hope of + finding an open door after her, he jumped over the wall + hurriedly. Baubie was seized with a sudden panic lest the cat + should waken some one in the house, and she took to her heels + and ran until she reached the bridge. The morning sun was just + beginning to touch the tall tops of the houses, and the little + valley through which the Water of Leith ran lay still in a kind + of clear grayish light, in which the pale tender hues of the + young leaves and the flowering trees were all the more vividly + beautiful. The stream was low, and it hurried along over its + stony bed, as if it too were running away, and in as great a + hurry to be free of all restraints as truant Baubie Wishart, + whose red frock was now climbing the hilly gray street + beyond.</p> + + <p>She could hear, as she strained herself to listen for + pursuing voices, the rustle and murmur of the water with an odd + distinctness as it rose upon the still air of the summer + morning.</p> + + <p>Not a creature was to be seen as she made her way eastward, + shaping her course for Princes street, and peering, with a + gruesome fear of the school-board officer, round every corner. + That early bird, however, was not so keenly on the alert as she + gave him the credit of being, and she reached her goal + unchallenged after coasting along in parallel lines with it for + some time.</p> + + <p>The long beautiful line of Princes street was untenanted as + the Rob Roy tartan tacked cautiously round the corner of St. + David street and took a hasty look up and down before venturing + forth.</p> + + <p>The far-reaching pale red beams of the morning sun had just + touched and kindled as with a flame the summit of the Rock, and + the windows of the Castle caught and flashed back the greeting + in a dozen ruddy reflections. The gardens below lay partly + veiled in a clear transparent mist, faintly blue, that hovered + above the trees and crept up the banks, and over which the + grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its head + majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond.</p> + + <p>Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as + Baubie darted along. Fixing her eye on that portion of the High + School which is visible from Princes street, she pushed along + at a pace that was almost a run, and a brief space saw her draw + up and fall exhausted on the steps that lead up to the Calton + Hill.</p> + + <p>Right before her was the jail-gate.</p> + + <p>The child's feet, unused now for some time to such + hardships, were hot and bruised, for she had not stopped to + pick her footing in her hasty course, and she was so out of + breath and heated that it seemed to her as if she would never + get cool or her heart cease fluttering as if it would choke + her. She shrank discreetly against the stone wall at her side, + and there for three long hours she remained crouched, watching + and waiting for the hour to chime when the grim black gate + opposite would open.</p> + + <p>The last tinge of crimson and purple had faded before the + golden glories of the day as the sun climbed higher and higher + in the serene blue sky. The red cliffs of Salisbury Crags + glared with a hot lustre above the green slopes of the hill, + and in the white dust of the high-road a million tiny stars + seemed to sparkle and twinkle most invitingly to Baubie's eyes. + The birds had long been awake and busy in the bushes above her + head, and from where she sat she could see, in the distant + glitter of Princes street, all the stir of the newly-raised + day.</p> + + <p>It was a long vigil, and her fear and impatience made it + seem doubly longer. At last the clock began to chime eight, and + before it was half done the wicket in the great door opened + with a noisy clang after a preliminary rattle.</p> + + <p>First came a boy, who cast an anxious look round him, then + set off at a run; next a young woman, for whom another was + waiting just out of sight down the road; last of all (there + were only three released), Baubie, whose heart was beginning to + beat fast again with anxiety, saw the familiar, well-known + figure shamble forth and look up and down the road in a + helpless, undecided way. The next moment the wicket had clapped + to again. Wishart glanced back at it, sighed once or twice, and + blinked his eyes as though the sunlight were too strong for + them.</p> + + <p>Baubie, scarce breathing, watched him as a cat watches just + before she springs.</p> + + <p>After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward, + obeying some sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow + those who had gone on before. Baubie saw this, and, just + waiting to let him get well under way and settle into his gait, + she gathered herself up and sprang across the road upon him + with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash.</p> + + <p>He fairly staggered with surprise. There she was, exactly as + he had left her, dusty, barefooted and bareheaded. The wind had + tossed up her hair, which indeed was only too obedient to its + will, and it clustered all the more wildly about her face + because of having been cropped to the regulation length of the + refuge.</p> + + <p>"Lassie, is't you?" he ejaculated, lost in astonishment. + Then, realizing the fact, he gave expression to his feeling by + grinning in a convulsive kind of way and clapping her once or + twice on the shoulder next him. "Od! I niver! Didna the + leddy—"</p> + + <p>Baubie cut him short. "Sed I widna bide," she observed + curtly and significantly.</p> + + <p>Gestures and looks convey, among people like the Wisharts, + far more meaning than words, and Baubie's father perfectly + understood from the manner and tone of her pregnant remark that + she had run away from school, and had severed the connection + between herself and the "kind leddy," and that in consequence + the situation was highly risky for both. They remained standing + still for a moment, looking at each other. The boy and the + woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty high-road + seemed all their own domain.</p> + + <p>Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the + direction of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It + was for her, as usual, to decide. Baubie had been his + Providence for as long as he had memory for—no great + length of time. He was conjecturing in his own mind vaguely + whether his Providence had, by any chance, got the desiderated + three shillings necessary for the redemption of the banjo + hidden away in the Rob Roy tartan. He would not have been + surprised had it been so, and he would have asked no + questions.</p> + + <p>Seeing that her eyes followed the direction of his with a + forbidding frown, he said tentatively, "Ye + didn'—didna—"</p> + + <p>"What?" snapped Baubie crossly: she divined his meaning + exactly. "Come awa' wi' ye!" she ordered, facing right round + countryward.</p> + + <p>"We'll gae awa' til Glasgae, Baubie, eh? I'm thinkin' to yer + auntie's. <i>She</i>"—with a gesture of his head backward + at the prison—"will no' be oot this month; sae she'll + niver need to ken, eh?"</p> + + <p>Baubie nodded. He only spoke her own thoughts, and he knew + it.</p> + + <p>The first turn to the right past the High School brought + them out on the road before Holyrood, which lay grim and black + under the sun-bathed steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange + and all round the south-eastern portion of the city this odd + couple took their way. It was a long round, but safety made it + necessary. At last, between Corstorphine's wooded slopes and + the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they struck into the Glasgow + road. In the same order as before they pursued their journey, + Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a word over + her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of + the horizon received into itself the two quaint figures, and + Baubie Wishart and the Rob Roy tartan faded together out of + sight.</p> + + <p class="author"><i>The Author of "Flitters, Tatters and the + Counsellor."</i></p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="GAS-BURNING_AND_ITS_CONSEQUENCES" + id="GAS-BURNING_AND_ITS_CONSEQUENCES"></a>GAS-BURNING, AND + ITS CONSEQUENCES.</h2> + + <p>"It is remarkable what attention has been attracted all over + the country by the recent experiments with Edison's + inventions," observed my friend the traveller as our host + turned a fuller flow of gas in the chandelier. "Even in the + little villages out West, of only one bank and <i>not</i> one + good hotel, the topics which last spring generally excited most + interest in all circles were Edison's electric light and Bell's + telephone."</p> + + <p>"Very likely," replied our host, an elderly gentleman of + fortune. "If we had such impure gas as is found in many of the + villages and small cities not so very far West, I'd never light + a burner in my library again. As it is, I do so very rarely. + The products of gas combustion act on the bindings until firm + calf drops in pieces, and even law-sheep loses its coherency, + as the argument of the opposing counsel does when your own + lawyer begins to talk."</p> + + <p>"The effect on the upholstery and metallic ornaments is as + bad as upon the books," added our hostess. "This room will have + to be refurnished in the spring—all on account of the + changes in color both of the paper and the silk and cotton + fabrics; and the bronze dressing on those statuettes is + softening, so that there are lines and spots of rust all over + them."</p> + + <p>"Perhaps, my dear, they would have suffered equally from the + atmosphere without gas," replied the old gentleman, looking at + his wife over his glasses.</p> + + <p>"Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock + than he had a year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear + in the market," said his neighbor a chemist, who had just + dropped in.</p> + + <p>"If I lose I shall lay it to your advice."</p> + + <p>"You did well to buy—if you sell at once," said the + traveller, who was interested in the electric light to some + unknown extent: "gas stock will finally have to go down."</p> + + <p>"When the sun shines in the night, not before," asserted a + young accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a + private talk with the daughter of the house at the other corner + of the room.</p> + + <p>"Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly," + said the chemist.</p> + + <p>"But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the + electric-light boom for the temporary respite you have had from + poor gas at high prices."</p> + + <p>"Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they + could manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a + time when people almost believed that Edison's light would + prove a success."</p> + + <p>"But it <i>was</i> a success. It proved an excellent light, + displayed a neat lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the + atmosphere or the eyes; and the perfect carbons showed a + surprising endurance. The only difficulty is that the invention + is not yet perfected so as to go immediately into use."</p> + + <p>"But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with + deposited carbon," returned the chemist. "If carbons could be + made to last long enough to render the lamps cheap, this + smoking of the globes would set a limit at which the lamps + would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the + exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive."</p> + + <p>"That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow + dearer."</p> + + <p>"That isn't likely within a century. Besides, by the fault + of the consumer gas-light costs now one-third more than it + should for the same light. The best English authorities state + this to be the case in Great Britain, and I have no question + that such is the fact here."</p> + + <p>"How would you remedy the evil of waste?"</p> + + <p>"By the use of economical burners and of governors to + regulate the flow of gas."</p> + + <p>"That is very easily said. What is the name of your + economical burner?"</p> + + <p>"I am not an advocate of any special burner, but of all that + are constructed on right principles."</p> + + <p>"There are many kinds of burners. Do you not have some + classification for them?" inquired the young lady, who was + fresh from Wellesley.</p> + + <p>"The usual forms of the burner," replied the chemist + "—or, more properly, the forms of the tip—are the + fishtail, the batwing and the argand. In the first the gas + issues through two holes which come together at the top, so + that the two jets of gas impinge and form a flat flame; in the + batwing the gas issues in a thin sheet through a slit in a + hollow knob; while in the argand the gas enters a short + cylinder or broad ring, escaping thence through numerous holes + at the upper edge. There are many varieties of each of these, + differing in the construction of the part below the tip. The + argand has long been the favorite burner for the table and + desk. Its advantages are a strong, steady light, but, as you + know, it is apt to smoke at every slight increase in the + pressure of the gas, though there are recent improved forms in + which this fault is in a measure corrected. A properly-made + argand burner will give a light equal to three whole candles + (spermaceti, of the standard size and quality) for every foot + of gas burned. Of the argand burners, Guise's shadowless argand + has been considered the best, but of late years Sugg's Letheby + burner has carried off the palm. Wood's burner has been a + favorite, as, being a fishtail, it could be used with a short + chimney, which gives the flame steadiness. By the arms on the + chimney-frame the flame is broadened at the bottom, with a + smaller dark space at the base than in any other flat-flame + burner. It is so constructed that the quantity of gas passing + is regulated by turning a tap in the lower part of the burner, + which changes the size of the orifice in the tube. Ten years + ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally + thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is + now little used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can + be used in any common burner except the argand. The old brass + and iron tips are mostly superseded by those of "lava," being + liable to an early change of the orifice from incrustation and + rust. In the flat-flame burners there are differences in the + internal arrangement. Perhaps our young gas-manufacturer here + can tell us what is now the most approved burner."</p> + + <p>The young man confessed that he had specimens of the best + kinds of flat-flame burners in his pocket. He quickly brought + from his overcoat in the hall a small paper parcel from which + he produced several bright little brass tubes, explaining that + he carried them because somebody was always inquiring about the + best kind of burner. "These save talk," said he.</p> + + <p>With a small wrench he removed one of the old burners, and + the several kinds were successively tested in its place. Some + gave a better light, but it was objected that they might + consume more gas. Whereupon the chemist tore a strip from his + well-worn handkerchief, and, having damped it, wound the ribbon + several times around the top of the old burner (which had been + replaced), leaving the orifice uncovered. The new burner was + screwed down over this, making a gas-tight connection. "There," + said he, "we have a gauge. The new burner will receive the same + amount of gas that the old one consumed—no more, no + less—but the current is slightly checked."</p> + + <p>The burner gave the same amount of light as before, so far + as the eye could perceive.</p> + + <p>"In the combustion of gas for heating purposes," continued + the chemist, "seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through + small holes. For light you want something different. Suppose + you send a current of gas up into this sewing-thimble: it can + find an exit only by turning backward. Then suppose it escapes + from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity above it, whence + it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of the usual + size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken. It + will be seen that only the expansive force of the gas, together + with its buoyancy, acts upon the jets, instead of a direct + current. Now, it will always be found that the burner which + best carries out the principles just illustrated—other + points being equal—will give more light with a less + quantity of gas than any other. This also exhibits the chief + principle of most of the governors or regulators.</p> + + <p>"You will observe that this checking of the current is + attained in various ways in different burners," continued the + chemist as he unscrewed and dissected the samples before him. + "In some it is done by a perforated metal disk in the orifice; + in others, by a bit of wool, which checks slightly a slow + current, and by the pressure of a strong one becomes compacted + and forms a more effective obstacle. In most cases, however, it + soon becomes solid with condensed matters from the gas. Another + form of check is a small cap having perpendicular slits at the + sides. The cylinder of the cap, being smaller than the orifice + of the burner, screws down into it; the openings being + shortened or lengthened according as the cylinder is screwed up + or down. One objection to this is the trouble required in + regulating. Here is another burner, in which the orifice ends + in a cap whose sides, near the bottom, are pierced with four + pin-holes directed downward. This reverses the direction of the + current of gas, which then escapes through the pin-holes + downward into a chamber, then turns upward along its sides to + the tip, on entering which it again turns. Each burner is able + to consume economically a flow of gas peculiar to itself, which + can be ascertained by a minute's experiment, and then regulated + by the tap in the pipe. But this requires much care, and is apt + to be neglected. A very small tap in the burner (as in the Wood + and Ellis burners), which can be adjusted so as to require no + further attention, seems the best method of effecting this + graduation."</p> + + <p>The chemist now pulled a manuscript from his pocket and read + from it as follows: "The quantity of light decreases with + disproportionate rapidity by reduced consumption; for, as + experiments have shown, when consuming only two feet per hour, + eighty-five per cent. of the gas is lost; with two and a half + feet the loss is sixty per cent.; and with three and a half + feet it is thirty-four per cent. of that derived from the gas + when burning the full quantity for which the burner is + constructed. In some experiments made upon this matter under + the direction of referees appointed by the London Board of + Trade the loss at the other extreme is given. They report: + 'Instead of the gas giving increased light as the rate of + consumption is increased, it will be seen that <i>in every + case</i> there is a point beyond which the <i>light + decreases</i> relatively to the proportion of gas consumed. In + every case, too, this point lies far below the maximum of + gas-consumption, observing the turning-points in the case of + the different burners.' Again, every burner has a certain + amount of gas which it will consume to the greatest advantage + as to both light and economy; which in a completely-regulated + burner is quickly found, and the delivery fixed by the small + tap. When the gas is issuing from the burner at so low a + pressure that the flame is just on the point of smoking, the + maximum effect for the quantity of gas consumed in that + particular burner is attained, because in that case the + quantity and intensity of the light are most advantageously + balanced. For the same reason, the burner best suited for light + is one in which the jet-openings are proportionately large, so + as to prevent as much as possible too great contact with the + air in the lower part of the flame. In case the air-currents + disturb the light, it is necessary to turn on a stronger flow, + which secures steadiness, but sets economy at naught."</p> + + <p>"It would be a good thing," said the young fellow, + interrupting him, "if some person would invent a burner that + should heat the gas before its discharge. We could then get a + perfect combustion of the carbon, and so greater brilliancy and + economy."</p> + + <p>"That is a very common error. Mr. Leslie's burner was + designed on that very theory: the result was contrary to + expectation."</p> + + <p>"What was the form of the burner?" inquired our host.</p> + + <p>"Leslie's burner is a form of the argand. The gas, instead + of issuing from holes pierced in a solid ring, is conducted to + the flame in separate small tubes upward of an inch long. + Twenty-eight of these tubes are inserted in a ring two inches + in diameter, and converge to one inch at the ends, where the + gas escapes. These tubes become hot very quickly when the gas + is lighted, and it issues at a high temperature. Here is the + result of a test made by Mr. Clegg, and given on page 344 of + his valuable work on coal gas:</p> + + <p><span style="margin-left: 1em;">COMMON ARGAND, FIFTEEN + HOLES.</span><br /> + Consumption per hour in cubic feet:<br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3em;">6 feet, light = 17.4 standard + candles.</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3em;">5 feet, light = 13.64 standard + candles</span><br /> + <br /> + LESLIE'S BURNER, TWENTY-EIGHT HOLES.<br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3em;">6 feet, light = 14.73 standard + candles.</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 3em;">5 feet, light = 11.28 standard + candles.</span></p> + + <p>"In experimenting with common burners, argand and others, it + is found that, if the aperture in the tip is too small for the + orifice in the body of the burner, the escaping gas is too + highly heated and is consumed too quickly. So with Leslie's + burner in an increased degree. Theories brought to the test of + experiment are often disappointing."</p> + + <p>The chemist now proceeded to illustrate his harangue with + the argand upon the table, which he lighted and turned on full, + without replacing the chimney. The dull-red flame streamed up + to a height of eight inches or more, waving and smoking + slightly. He now turned down the gas and replaced the chimney, + then set the tap at the same angle as before. "Here," said he, + "we have a flame barely four inches high—of brilliant + white—which gives more light than the taller flame did. + The cause of the shortening of the flame is the more rapid + combustion of the gas, owing to the increased draught or + air-supply in the chimney. From the greater intensity of this + flame a much larger quantity of light is produced than by the + longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the flame is + shortened still more and its brilliancy increased, but not to a + degree sufficient to compensate for the diminished surface. The + light, you are doubtless aware, comes from the incandescence of + the carbon, heated by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with + a portion of the oxygen of the air."</p> + + <p>The chemist now read from his manuscript again: "Carburetted + hydrogen of a passably good quality requires two volumes of + pure oxygen for its complete combustion and conversion into + carbonic acid and water. Atmospheric air contains, in its pure + state, about twenty per cent. of oxygen; therefore, one cubic + foot of gas requires for its perfect combustion ten cubic feet + of air. If less be admitted to the flame, a quantity of free + carbon will escape, and be deposited in the form of black + smoke. If an excess of air be admitted, we shall find that the + quantity of nitrogen accompanying this excess has a tendency to + extinguish the flame, while it takes no part in the elective + affinity constantly going on between the other + elements—namely, hydrogen, oxygen and the vapor of + carbon.</p> + + <p>"Again," said he, turning down the gas, "if the flame be + reduced to a consumption of two feet per hour, its light will + be equal to that of one candle only; but on raising the + chimney, thus, about half an inch from the gallery or support + the light is greatly increased, or by simply placing a disk on + top of the chimney the light is increased ninefold; both of + which effects seem to result from a diminished current of air, + while at the same time there is an ample supply. Lastly, with + the ordinary glass moon-globe so generally used in dwellings + with the fishtail burner little difference can be perceived + between the light given from the flame by four feet and that + from six feet of gas per hour, in consequence of the strong + current of air passing up through the globe; but if the top of + the glass be enclosed by a talc cover having an orifice in the + centre about an inch in diameter, then the conditions of the + burner are completely changed. The light is greatly increased, + because the highest economical advantage is then + approached."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" + id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" + class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + + <p>"Smoke from the aperture and lamp-black on the cover must + result from such an arrangement," objected the old + gentleman.</p> + + <p>"There need be very little of either," responded the + chemist. "From some burners there is little light without + smoke. A smoky flame may arise from too much carbon, but the + gas companies in this part of the country are not apt to make + their product too rich; and such a condition is not likely to + occur except with vapor-gas when warm weather quickly succeeds + to a cold spell in the winter season. The consumer's immediate + remedy in any case is to use a smaller tip with the fishtail + and batwing burners, and a taller chimney with the argand; + which devices will give a quicker movement to the gas in one + case and to the air in the other. The smoking, however, may be + caused by carbonic acid, which checks combustion. There is + always more or less of this in gas, arising from a partial + combustion in the retorts when charging them with coal or while + withdrawing the exhausted charge. But it is only by excessively + slow and careless work that this can happen to a serious + extent. Only an expert can tell when this condition exists, + though if the symptoms do not yield to manipulations of the + chimney and tap, it may be suspected. There is no effective + remedy for this adulteration which can be applied by the + consumer except a vigorous complaint against the company which + supplies the stuff.</p> + + <p>"There remains one burner or lamp to be mentioned, contrived + with special reference to health," he continued—"the + ventilating standard lamp of Doctor Faraday, used in the House + of Lords. In this there is an outer glass by which the vitiated + air passes away through the pipe communicating with the + external air. The lamp is interesting, but there is a question + whether there is any practical advantage in its use. Rutter's + ventilating lamp is of different form, having a globe instead + of an outer cylinder, the gas and air coming in from above. + Some of the best dwellings now being erected in the vicinity of + New York are provided with tin pipes leading from the burners + to the open air. In some the pipe receives the foul air from an + open metallic or mineral shade over the burner; others have a + larger pipe enclosing the gas-pipe for ventilation, the tops of + the two pipes (including the burner) being enclosed by a globe + pierced with holes for fresh air. There is said to result a + good ventilation, with economy of gas, an increased steadiness + of the flame and power of light. A better arrangement is a + third pipe enclosing the gas-pipe and enclosed in the + ventilating-pipe, opening to the air, instead of the holes in + the globe, which in this case should be air-tight. This plan is + said to have reached its perfection when the three pipes are + filled with wire gauze to some extent. This, being heated by + the escape of hot gases in the ventilating-pipe, sends both the + air and the gas to the flame already highly heated. The result + is said to be admirable as regards ventilation, steadiness and + power of the light and economy of gas.</p> + + <p>"With these lamps the pressure of the gas-current is of + great importance; and I now turn to that subject. It is a + general complaint in buildings whose rooms are high that the + flow of gas on the lower floor is deficient, while on the upper + floors there is a greater supply than is necessary. This + inconvenience arises from the upper stories being subjected to + less atmospheric pressure than the lower, every rise of ten + feet making a difference in the pressure of about one-tenth of + an inch of water; and, consequently, a column of gas acquires + that amount of pressure additional. The following table, + recording an experiment of Mr. Richards, will show the result + in respect to light:</p> + + <div class='center'> + <table border="0" + cellpadding="1" + cellspacing="0" + summary="Gas issuing from the burner"> + <tr> + <td align='left'>Gas</td> + + <td align='left'>issuing</td> + + <td align='left'>from</td> + + <td align='left'>the</td> + + <td align='left'>burner</td> + + <td align='left'>at</td> + + <td align='left'>a</td> + + <td align='left'>pressure</td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='left'>pressure</td> + + <td align='left'>of—</td> + </tr> + </table> + </div> + + <div class='center'> + <table border="0" + cellpadding="6" + cellspacing="0" + summary="Gas issuing from the burner"> + <tr> + <td align='left'>1/10</td> + + <td align='left'>inch</td> + + <td align='left'>of</td> + + <td align='left'>water</td> + + <td align='left'>gave</td> + + <td align='left'>the</td> + + <td align='left'>light</td> + + <td align='left'>of</td> + + <td align='right'>12</td> + + <td align='left'>candles</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>5/10</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='right'>6</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>10/10</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='right'>2</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>40/10</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='right'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>no</td> + + <td align='left'>appreciable</td> + + <td align='center'>light.</td> + </tr> + </table> + </div> + + <p>Suppose a building of six floors is supplied from the + gas-mains at a pressure of six-tenths, and that the difference + of altitude between the highest and lowest light is equal to + fifty feet: the gas in the highest or sixth floor will issue + from the burners at a pressure of eleven-tenths; the fifth + floor, at ten-tenths; and so on. In order to secure an entirely + equable flow and economical light a regulator is necessary on + each floor above the first. The gas companies are frequently + obliged to supply mills at a much greater pressure than is + stated above as necessary, in order that the ground floors may + have sufficient light."</p> + + <p>"How about incorrect meters?" asked the traveller.</p> + + <p>"Little need be said of them, as they fall within the domain + of the companies and the public inspector of gas. Under + favorable conditions gas-meters will remain in order for ten + years or more; and when they become defective they as often + favor the consumer, probably, as they do the gas company. Their + defects do not often occasion inconvenience; and when they once + get out of order they run so wild that their condition is soon + detected, when the errors in previous bills should be corrected + by estimate of other seasons."</p> + + <p>"You haven't mentioned the apparatus (carburetters) for + increasing the richness of the gas, which can be applied by the + consumer upon his own premises," said the old gentleman.</p> + + <p>"There is little need. The burners should be adjusted to the + quality of gas furnished. If there were any real gain in this + method of enrichment, the gas companies are the parties who + could make the most of it: indeed, many of them do to such an + extent as can be made profitable. But whenever the temperature + of the atmosphere falls, the matter added to the gas is + deposited in the pipes, sometimes choking them entirely at the + angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas + that is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law + and the contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give + all gas-improving machines the go-by.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" + id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" + class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + + <p>"Light having, perhaps, been sufficiently considered for the + present needs, we have now to note the effects of the + combustion of gas upon the atmosphere, and through this upon + the furnishing of rooms and the health of the persons living + therein," said the chemist, again taking up his manuscript. + "The usual products from the combustion of common illuminating + gas are carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and water-vapor. + Every burner consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour spoils + as much air as two full-grown men: it is therefore evident that + the air of a room thus lighted would soon become vitiated if an + ample supply of fresh air were not frequently admitted.</p> + + <p>"Remember," said he, looking up from the paper, "that nearly + the same effects proceed from the combustion of candles and + lamps of every kind when a sufficient number of these are + burned to give an equal amount of light. Carbonic acid is + easily got rid of, for the rooms where gas is burned usually + have sufficient ventilation near the floor by means of a + register, or even the slight apertures under the + doors—together with their frequent opening—to carry + off the small quantity emitted by one or two burners. But there + are other gases which must have vent at the upper part of the + room, while fresh air should be admitted to supply the place of + that which is chemically changed."</p> + + <p>Returning to his manuscript, he continued: "The burners + which give the least light, burning instead with a low, blue + flame, form the most carbonic acid and free the most nitrogen. + Such are all the burners for heat rather than light. But the + formation of sulphuric acid gas may be the same in each. In the + yellow flame the carbon particles escape to darken the light + colors of the room, not being heated sufficiently to combine + with the oxygen. This product of the combustion of gas (free + carbon) might be regarded as rather wholesome than otherwise + (as its nature is that of an absorbent) were it not the worst + kind of dust to breathe—in fact, clogging the lungs to + suffocation. In vapor gas—made at low heat—the + carbon is in a large degree only mechanically mixed with the + hydrogen, and is liable, especially in cold weather, to be + deposited in the pipes. This leaves only a very poor, thin gas, + mainly hydrogen, which burns with a pale blue flame, as seen in + cold spells in winter. High heats and short charges in the + retorts of the manufactory give a purer gas and a larger + production. Gas made at high heat will reach the consumer in + any weather very nearly as rich as when it leaves the + gas-holder; for, thus made, the hydrogen and carbon are + chemically combined, instead of the hydrogen merely bearing a + quantity of carbon-vapor mechanically mixed and liable to + deposit with every reduction of temperature. To relieve the + atmosphere of the gases and vapors proceeding from combustion + is, of course, the purpose of ventilation. The sulphuric acid + gas and ammonia will be largely in combination with the + water-vapor, which also proceeds from combustion, so that all + will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries to + counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which + causes leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, + would be of doubtful utility, since it might only serve to + carry into the porous leather still more of the gases just + mentioned. The action of both sulphuric acid and ammonia is, + undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of leather, so that it + crumbles to meal or falls apart in flakes.</p> + + <p>"In a very interesting paper read by Professor William R. + Nichols of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the + American Association of Science at its Saratoga meeting in + 1879, the results of many analyses of leather bindings were + given, showing the presence of the above-named substances in + old bindings in many times greater quantity than in new. Still, + their presence did not prove them to be the cause of the decay; + and Professor Nichols proposes to ascertain the fact by + experiments requiring some years for demonstration.</p> + + <p>"In the hope of deciding the question with reasonable + certainty at once, I have made careful examinations of the + books in the three largest libraries of Boston and Cambridge, + each differing from the others in age and atmosphere. The + bindings of the volumes examined bore their own record in dates + and ownership, by which the conditions of their atmosphere in + respect to gas and (approximately) to heat were made known for + periods varying from current time to over two hundred years. In + the Public Library the combined influences of gas, heat and + effluvium have wrought upon the leather until many covers were + ready to drop to pieces at a touch. The binding showed no more + shrinkage than in the other libraries, but in proportion to the + time the books had been upon the shelves the decay of the + leather was about the same as in the Athenæum. I am informed + that many of the most decayed have from time to time been + rebound, so that a full comparison cannot be made between this + and the others. In the Athenæum less gas has been used, and + there is very little effluvium, but the mealy texture of the + leather is general among the older tenants of the shelves. + Numbers of volumes in the galleries were losing their backs, + which were more or less broken off at the joints from the + shrinkage and brittleness of the leather. The plan has been + proposed of introducing the vapor of water to counteract the + effects of dryness upon the bindings. In this library the + atmosphere has the usual humidity of that out of doors, being + warmed by bringing the outer air in over pipes conveying hot + water, while the other libraries have the higher heat of + steam-pipes. If, therefore, its atmosphere differs from that of + the other libraries in respect to moisture, the variation is in + the direction of greater humidity, without any corresponding + effect on the preservation of bindings. In fact, proper + ventilation and low shelves seem to be the true remedies for + these evils, or, rather, the best means of amelioration, since + there is no complete antidote to the decay common to all + material things. The last condition involves the disuse of + galleries and of rooms upon more than one flat, unless the + atmosphere in the upper portions of the lower rooms be shut off + from the higher, as it should be. Another precaution which + might be taken with advantage is to use the higher shelves for + cloth bindings.</p> + + <p>"In the Harvard College Library no gas has ever been used, + nor any other artificial illuminator to much extent. Neither + had any large number of the volumes been exposed to the + products of gas-combustion, except for a brief time before they + were placed here. The bindings in this library showed very + little crumbling, but many covers were breaking at the joints + from the shrinking which arises from excessive dryness. In + common with many other substances, leather yields moisture to + the air much more readily than it receives it from that medium. + Cloth bindings showed no decay at all here—very little in + any of the libraries, except in the loss of color. It should be + stated that the volumes which I examined at Harvard College + were generally older than those inspected in the other + libraries. There are parchment bindings in each of the + libraries hundreds of years old, apparently just as perfect in + texture as when first placed upon the shelves of the original + owner. The parchment was often worn through at the angles, but + there was no breakage from shrinking, the material having been + shrunken as much as possible when prepared from the skin. At + Harvard College I examined an embossed calf binding stretched + on wooden sides which was above a hundred years old. It was in + almost perfect preservation, and not much shrunken. This + volume, being very large, was on a shelf next the ground + floor—a position which it had probably held ever since + the erection of the building.</p> + + <p>"Professor Nichols does not mention morocco in his tables of + analyses. Indeed, morocco was so little used for bookbindings + until within about thirty years that it affords a less ample + field for investigation than any other of the leathers now in + common use. My attention was therefore directed specially to + this material, of which I found some specimens having a record + of nearly fifty years. My observation was, that in all the + libraries these were less affected by decay, in proportion to + their age, than other leathers. In Harvard College Library the + best Turkey morocco, with forty years of exposure, showed no + injury except from chafing. The outer integument was often worn + away, exposing the texture of the skin, which was still of + strong fibre. In the Athenæum, on the contrary, many of the + moroccos showed the same decay as the calf, russia and sheep. + There was, however, a wide difference in the condition of + moroccos of the same age—some showing as much decay as + the calf, while others had scarcely any of the disintegration + common to the older calf bindings. The same might, indeed, be + said of all leathers, those tanned by the quick modern methods, + with much more acid than is used in old processes, in which + time is a large factor, showing always a more rapid + deterioration. But, the methods being the same, morocco, the + oiliest of the common leathers and the one having the firmest + cuticle, endures the best.</p> + + <p>"The order of endurance of leather (as observed by + librarians) against atmospheric effects is as follows, + descending from the first to the last in order: Parchment, + light-colored morocco, sheep, russia, calf. Cloth wears out + quickly by use, but appears—the linen especially—to + be affected by the atmosphere only in loss of color. These + observations all refer to the ordinary humidity of the air in + frequented rooms.</p> + + <p>"This, then, is the result of my inquiries: I found the + shrinking and breaking resulting from heat much the same in all + the libraries, but most in that where the heating is from the + outer air brought in over hot-water pipes, the two other + libraries examined being warmed by steam-pipes having a higher + temperature. I found the mealy structure—or instead + thereof flakiness—to prevail most in the Athenæum, next + in the Public Library: in the latter, however, many volumes + have been rebound, thus raising the average of condition. In + the Harvard College Library no gas—in fact, little if any + artificial light—is used, and here, too, the mealy + structure and disintegration are mostly absent. I conclude, + therefore, from these limited observations, that heat is + responsible for a large part of the damage to leather bindings, + its effects being evidently supplemented and hastened by + gas-combustion.</p> + + <p>"The ventilating lamps before described, though rather + cumbrous to eyes accustomed to the small and simple apparatus + commonly used, might prove valuable in rooms containing fabrics + liable; to be injured by the gases from open burners."</p> + + <p>As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked + to the somewhat weary listeners, "You now see the vast amount + of study and care required to use gas with economy and safety. + I could not have argued the cause of a new, clean, gasless and + vaporless light like electricity any better myself."</p> + + <p>"It will be found," responded the chemist, "that there are + more troubles and dangers connected with the electric + light—besides the larger expense—than are thought + of now."</p> + + <p>"That is so!" ejaculated the young fellow.</p> + + <p>"At any rate," said the old gentleman, "gas stock won't go + lower for twenty years than it has been this winter."</p> + + <p>"You are all wedded to your idols," was the final protest of + the traveller.</p> + + <p>"I wish I was," murmured the young fellow, with a + side-glance at his fair neighbor, who immediately removed to + another part of the room.</p> + + <p class='author'>GEORGE J. VARNEY.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="SHAKESPEARE" + id="SHAKESPEARE"></a>THE ΑΡΑΞ + ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑ IN + SHAKESPEARE</h2> + + <p>When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first + strikes us is its copiousness. His characters are countless, + and each one speaks his own dialect. His little fishes never + talk like whales, nor do his whales talk like little fishes. + Those curious in such matters have detected in his works + quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin + alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two.</p> + + <p>Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of + words is multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics. Mrs. Cowden + Clarke has counted those words one by one, and ascertained + their sum to be not less than fifteen thousand. The total + vocabulary of Milton's poetical remains is no more than eight + thousand, and that of Homer, including the <i>Hymns</i> as well + as both <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i>, is about nine + thousand. In the English Bible the different words are reckoned + by Mr. G.P. Marsh in his lectures on the English language at + rather fewer than six thousand. Those in the Greek Testament I + have learned by actual count to be not far from five thousand + five hundred.</p> + + <p>Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they + could teach Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning + Greek moods and tenses, even as the ancient Athenians, + according to the fable of Phædrus, contended that they + understood squealing better than a pig. However this may be, + any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke + and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard + to Shakespeare's use of language which Shakespeare himself + cannot have known. One particular as to which he must have been + ignorant, while we may have knowledge, is concerning his + employment of terms denominated <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i>.</p> + + <p>The phrase <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i>—literally, + <i>once spoken</i>—may be traced back, I think, to the + Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, who invented + it to describe those words which they observed to occur once, + and <i>only once</i>, in any author or literature. It is so + convenient an expression for statistical commentators on the + Bible, and on the classics as well, that they will not + willingly let it die.</p> + + <p>The list of <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i>—that + is, words used once and <i>only once</i>—in Shakespeare + is surprisingly long. It embraces a greater multitude than any + man can easily number. Nevertheless, I have counted those + beginning with two letters. The result is that the + απαξ + λεγόμενα with + initial <i>a</i> are 364, and those with initial <i>m</i> are + 310. There is no reason, that I know of, to suppose the census + with these initials to be proportionally larger than that with + other letters. If it is not, then the words occurring only once + in all Shakespeare cannot be less than five thousand, and they + are probably a still greater legion.</p> + + <p>The number I have culled from one hundred and forty-six + pages of Schmidt is 674. At this rate the total on the fourteen + hundred and nine pages of the entire Lexicon would foot up + 6504. It is possible, then, that Shakespeare discarded, after + once trying them, more different words than fill and enrich the + whole English Bible. The old grammarians tell us that a certain + part of speech was called <i>supine</i>, because it was very + seldom needed, and therefore almost always lying <i>on its + back</i>—<i>i.e.</i> in Latin, <i>supinus</i>. The + supines of Shakespeare outnumber the employés of most + authors.</p> + + <p>The array of Shakespearian <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i> + appears still vaster if we compare it with expressions of the + same nature in the Scriptures and in Homer. In the English + Bible words with the initials <i>a</i> and <i>m</i> used once + only are 132 to 674 with the same initials in Shakespeare. The + scriptural <i>once-onlys</i> would be more than twice as many + as we find them were they as frequent in proportion to their + total vocabulary as his are.</p> + + <p>The Homeric <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i> with + initial <i>m</i> are 78, but were they as numerous in + proportion to Homer's whole world of words as Shakespeare's + are, they would run up to 186; that is, to more than twice as + many as their actual number.</p> + + <p>In the Greek New Testament I have enumerated 63 + <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i> + beginning with the letter <i>m</i>—a larger number than + you would expect, for it is as large as that in both English + Testaments beginning with that same letter, which is also + exactly 63. It indicates a wider range of expression in the + authors of the Greek original than in their English + translators.</p> + + <p>The 310 Shakespearian words with initial <i>m</i> used + <i>once only</i> I have also compared with the whole verbal + inventory of our language so far as it begins with that letter. + They make up one-fifth almost of that entire stock, which + musters in Webster only 1641 words. You will at once inquire, + "What is the <i>nature</i> of these rejected Shakespearian + vocables, which he seems to have viewed as milk that would bear + no more than one skimming?"</p> + + <p>The percentage of <i>classical</i> words among them is + great—greater indeed than in the body of Shakespeare's + writings. According to the analysis of Weisse, in an average + hundred of Shakespearian words one-third are classical and + two-thirds Saxon. But then all the classical elements have + inherent meaning, while half of the Saxon have none. We may + hence infer that of the significant words in Shakespeare + one-half are of classical derivation. Now, of the + απαξ + λεγόμενα with + initial <i>a</i>, I call 262 words out of 364 classical, and + with initial <i>m</i>, 152 out of 310; that is, 414 out of 674, + or about four-sevenths of the whole Shakespearian host + beginning with those two letters. In doubtful cases I have + considered those words only as classical the first etymology of + which in Webster is from a classical or Romance root. In the + biblical words used once only the classical portion is + enormous—namely, not less than sixty-nine per + cent.—while the classical percentage in Shakespearian + words of the same class is no more than sixty-one.</p> + + <p>Among the 674 <i>a</i> and <i>m</i> Shakespearian words + occurring once only the proportion of words now <i>obsolete</i> + is unexpectedly small. Of 310 such words with initial <i>m</i>, + only one-sixth, or 51 at the utmost, are now disused, either in + sense or even in form. Of this half-hundred a few are used in + Shakespeare, but not at present, as verbs; thus, to + <i>maculate</i>, to <i>miracle</i>, to <i>mud</i>, to + <i>mist</i>, to <i>mischief</i>, to <i>moral</i>—also + <i>merchandized</i> and <i>musicked</i>. Another class now + wellnigh unknown are <i>misproud, misdread, mappery, mansionry, + marybuds, masterdom, mistership, mistressship.</i></p> + + <p>Then there are slight variants from our modern orthography + or meanings, as <i>mained</i> for maimed, <i>markman</i> for + marksman, <i>make</i> for mate, <i>makeless</i> for mateless, + <i>mirable, mervaillous, mess</i> for mass, <i>manakin, + minikin, meyny</i> for many, <i>momentarry</i> for momentary, + <i>moraler, mountainer, misgraffing, misanthropos, mott</i> for + motto, to <i>mutine, mi'nutely</i> for every minute.</p> + + <p>None seem wholly dead words except the following eighteen: + To <i>mammock</i>, tear; <i>mell</i>, meddle; <i>mose</i>, + mourn; <i>micher</i>, truant; <i>mome</i>, fool; + <i>mallecho</i>, mischief; <i>maund</i>, basket; + <i>marcantant</i>, merchant; <i>mun</i>, sound of wind; + <i>mure</i>, wall; <i>meacock</i>, henpecked; <i>mop</i>, grin; + <i>militarist</i>, soldier; <i>murrion</i>, affected with + murrain; <i>mammering</i>, hesitating; <i>mountant</i>, raised + up; <i>mered</i>, only; <i>man-entered</i>, grown up.</p> + + <p>About one-tenth of the remaining <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i> with + initial <i>m</i> are descriptive compounds. Among them are the + following adjectives: <i>Maiden-tongued, maiden-widowed, + man-entered</i> (before noted as obsolete), <i>many-headed, + marble-breasted, marble-constant, marble-hearted, + marrow-eating, mean-apparelled, merchant-marring, + mercy-lacking, mirth-moving, moving-delicate, mock-water, + more-having, mortal-breathing, mortal-living, mortal-staring, + motley-minded, mouse-eaten, moss-grown, mouth-filling, + mouth-made, muddy-mettled, momentary-swift, maid-pale</i>. From + this list, which is nearly complete, it is evident that such + compounds as may be multiplied at will form but a small + fraction of the words that are used <i>once only</i> by + Shakespeare.</p> + + <p>The words used <i>once only</i> by Shakespeare are often so + beautiful and poetical that we wonder how they could fail to be + his favorites again and again. They are jewels that might hang + twenty years before our eyes, yet never lose their lustre. Why + were they never shown but once? They remind me of the exquisite + crystal bowl from which I saw a Jewess and her bridegroom drink + in Prague, and which was then dashed in pieces on the floor of + the synagogue, or of the Chigi porcelain painted by Raphael, + which as soon as it had been once removed from the Farnesina + table was thrown into the Tiber. To what purpose was this + waste? Why should they be used up with once using? Specimens of + this sort, which all poets but Shakespeare would have paraded + as pets many a time, are multifarious. Among a hundred others + never used but once, we have <i>magical, mirthful, mightful, + mirth-moving, moonbeams, moss-grown, mundane, motto, matin, + mural, multipotent, mourningly, majestically, marbled, + martyred, mellifluous, mountainous, meander, magnificence, + magnanimity, mockable, merriness, masterdom, masterpiece, + monarchize, menaces, marrowless</i>.</p> + + <p>Again, a majority of Shakespearian <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i> + being familiar to us as household words, it seems impossible + that he who had tried them once should have need of them no + more. Instances—all with initial <i>m</i>—are as + follows: <i>mechanics, machine, maxim, mission, mode, monastic, + marsh, magnify, malcontent, majority, manly, malleable, + malignancy, maritime, manna, manslaughter, masterly, + market-day-folks, maid-price, mealy, meekly, mercifully, + merchant-like, memorial, mercenary, mention, memorandums, + mercurial, metropolis, miserably, mindful, meridian, medal, + metaphysics, ministration, mimic, misapply, misgovernment, + misquote, misconstruction, monstrously, monster-like, + monstrosity, mutable, moneyed, monopoly, mortise, mortised, + muniments</i>, to <i>moderate</i>, and <i>mother-wit</i> These + words, and five thousand more equally excellent, which have + remained part of the language of the English-speaking world for + three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue + to belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have + worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he + as shy of repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was + of showing his wit?—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i2">Who bore it about,<br /></span> + <span class="i0">As if afraid to wear it + out<br /></span> <span class="i0">Except on holidays or + so,<br /></span> <span class="i0">As men their best + apparel do.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>This question, why a full third of Shakespeare's verbal + riches was never brought to light more than once, is probably + one which nobody can at present answer even to his own + satisfaction. Yet the phenomenon is so remarkable that every + one will try after his own fashion to account for it. My own + attempt at a provisional explanation I will present in the + latter part of this paper.</p> + + <p>Let us first, however, notice another question concerning + the <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i>—namely, + that which respects their <i>origin</i>. Where did they come + from? how far did Shakespeare make them? and how far were they + ready to his hand? No approach to answering this inquiry can be + made for some years. Yet as to this matter let us rejoice that + the unique dictionary of the British Philological Society is + now near publication. This work, slowly elaborated by thousands + of co-workers in many devious walks of study on both sides of + the Atlantic, aims to exhibit the first appearance in a book of + every English word. In regard to the great bulk of + Shakespeare's diction it will enable us ten years hence to + determine how much of it was known to literature before him, + and how much of it he himself gathered or gleaned in highways + and byways, or caused to ramify and effloresce from Saxon or + classical roots and trunks, thus "endowing his purposes with + words to make them known." Meantime, we are left to + conjectures. As of his own coinage I should set down such + vocables as <i>motley-minded, mirth-moving, mockable, marbled, + martyred, merriness, marrowless, mightful, multipotent, + masterdom, monarchize</i>, etc. etc.</p> + + <p>But, however much of his linguistic treasury Shakespeare + shall be proved to have inherited ready-made—whatever + scraps he may have stolen at the feast of languages—it is + clear that he was an imperial creator of language, and lived + while his mother-tongue was still plastic. Having a mint of + phrases in his own brain, well might he speak with the contempt + he does of those "fools who for a tricksy word defy the + matter;" that is, slight or disregard it. He never needed to do + that. Words were "correspondent to his command, and, + Ariel-like, did his spiriting gently."</p> + + <p>In a thousand cases, however, Shakespeare cannot have + rejected words through fear lest he should repeat them. It has + taken three centuries for the world to ferret out his + <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i>: can + we believe that he knew them all himself? Unless he were the + Providence which numbers all hairs of the head, he had not got + the start of the majestic world so far as that, however + myriad-minded we may consider him. An instinct which would have + rendered him aware of each and every individual of five + thousand that he had employed once only would be as + inconceivable as that of Falstaff, which made him discern the + heir-apparent in Prince Hal when disguised as a highwayman. In + short, Shakespeare could not be conscious of all the words he + had once used, more than Brigham Young could recognize all the + wives he had once wedded.</p> + + <p>In the absence of other theories concerning the reasons for + Shakespeare's <i>απαξ + λεγόμενα</i> + being so abundant, I throw out a suggestion of my own till a + better one shall supplant it.</p> + + <p>Shakespeare's forte lay in characterization, and that + endlessly diversified. But when he sketched each several + character it seems that he was never content till he had either + found or fabricated the aptest words possible for representing + its form and pressure most true to life. No two characters + being identical in any particular more than two faces are, no + two descriptions, as drawn by his genius, could repeat many of + the selfsame characterizing words. Each of his vocables thus + became like each of the seven thousand constituents of a + locomotive, which fits the one niche it was ordained to fill, + but everywhere else is out of place, and even + <i>dislocated</i>. The more numerous his ethical + differentiations, the more his language was differentiated.</p> + + <p>His personages were as multifarious as have been portrayed + by the whole band of Italian painters; but, as a wizard in + words, he resembled the magician in mosaic, who can delineate + in stone every feature of those portraits because he can + discriminate and imitate shades of color more numberless than + even Shakespeare's words.</p> + + <p>It is hard to believe that the Shakespearian characters were + born, like Athene from the brain of Zeus, in panoplied + perfection. They grew. The play of <i>Troilus</i> was a dozen + years in growth. According to the best commentators, + "Shakespeare, after having sketched out a play on the fashion + of his youthful taste and skill, returned in after years to + enlarge it, remodel it, and enrich it with the matured fruits + of years of observation and reflection. <i>Love's Labor + Lost</i> first appeared in print with the annunciation that it + was 'newly corrected and augmented,' and <i>Cymbeline</i> was + an entire <i>rifacimento</i> of an early dramatic attempt, + showing not only matured fulness of thought, but laboring + intensity of compressed expression." So speaks Verplanck, and + his utterance is endorsed by Richard Grant White.</p> + + <p>Such being the facts, it is clear that Shakespeare treated + his dramas as Guido did the <i>Cleopatra</i>, which he would + not let leave his studio till ten years after the non-artistic + world deemed that portrait fully finished. Meantime, the + painter in moments of inspiration was pencilling his canvas + with curious touches, each approximating nearer his ideal. So + the poet sought to find out acceptable words, or what he terms + "an army of good words." He poured his new wine into new + bottles, and never was at rest till he had arrayed his ideas in + that fitness of phrase which comes only by fits.</p> + + <p>Had he survived fifty years longer, I suppose he would to + the last have been perfecting his phrases, as we read in + Dionysius of Halicarnassus that Plato up to the age of + eighty-one was "combing and curling, and weaving and unweaving, + his writings after a variety of fashions." Possibly, the great + dramatist would at last have corrected one of his couplets as a + modern commentator has done for him, so that it would + stand,</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Find <i>leaves</i> on trees, + <i>stones</i> in the running brooks,<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Sermons in <i>books</i>, and + <i>all</i> in everything.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>To speak seriously with a writer in the <i>Encyclopædia + Britannica:</i> "His manner in diction was progressive, and + this progress has been deemed so clearly traceable in his plays + that it can enable us to determine their chronological + sequence." The result is, that while other authors satiate and + soon tire us, Shakespeare's speech for ever "breathes an + indescribable freshness."</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i6">Age cannot wither<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Nor custom stale his infinite + variety.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>In the last line I have quoted there is a + απαξ + λεγόμενα but it + is a word which I think you would hardly guess. It is the last + word—<i>variety</i>.</p> + + <p>On every average page of Shakespeare you are greeted and + gladdened by at least five words that you never saw before in + his writings, and that you never will see again, speaking once + and then for ever holding their peace—each not only rare, + but a nonsuch—five gems just shown, then snatched away. + Each page is studded with five stars, each as unique as the + century-flower, and, like the night-blooming cereus, "the + perfume and suppliance of a minute"—<i>ipsa varietate + variora</i>. The mind of Shakespeare was bodied forth as + Montezuma was apparelled, whose costume, however gorgeous, was + never twice the same. Hence the Shakespearian style is fresh as + morning dew and changeful as evening clouds, so that we remain + for ever doubtful in relation to his manner and his matter, + which of them owes the greater debt to the other. The + Shakespearian plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael, + the characters to the drawing of Michael Angelo, but the + word-painting superadds the coloring of Titian. Accordingly, in + studying Shakespeare's diction I should long ago have said, if + I could, what I read in Arthur Helps, where he treats of a + perfect style—that "there is a sense of felicity about + it, declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that + you feel it will not happen again to that man who writes the + sentence, nor to any other of the sons of men, to say the like + thing so choicely, tersely, mellifluously and completely."</p> + + <p>In the central court of the Neapolitan Museum I saw + grape-clusters, mouldings, volutes, fingers and antique + fragments of all sorts wrought in rarest marble, lying + scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and rain, cast down + the wrong side up, and as it were thrown away, as when the + stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street. + Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like this + apparent wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can + afford to make nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy + of shrines. We say to ourselves, "If such be the things she + throws away, what must be her jewels?" A similar feeling rises + in me while exploring Shakespeare's prodigality in + απαξ + λεγόμενα. His + exchequer appears more exhaustless than the Bank of + England.</p> + + <p class='author'>JAMES D. BUTLER.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="AN_EPISODE_OF_SPANISH_CHIVALRY" + id="AN_EPISODE_OF_SPANISH_CHIVALRY"></a>AN EPISODE OF + SPANISH CHIVALRY.</h2> + + <p>Don Quijote's readers are aware of the enormous popularity + of the romances of chivalry, but they are apt to imagine that + these represent a purely ideal state of things. This is + undoubtedly the case as far as knight-errantry is concerned, + but certain distinctive habits and customs of chivalry + prevailed in Spain and elsewhere long after the feudal system + and the earlier and original form of chivalry had passed away. + One of the most curious instances of this survival of chivalry + occurred in Spain in the first half of the fifteenth century, + and after commanding the admiration of Europe furnished Don + Quijote with an admirable argument for the existence of Amadis + of Gaul and his long line of successors. The worthy knight had + been temporarily released from his confinement in the Enchanted + Cage, and had begun his celebrated reply to the canon's + statement that there had never been such persons as Amadis and + the other knights-errant, nor the absurd adventures with which + the romances of chivalry abound. Don Quijote's answer is a + marvellous mixture of sense and nonsense: the creations of the + romancer's brain are placed side by side with the Cid, Juan de + Merlo and Gutierre Ouijada, whose names were household words in + Spain: "Let them deny also that Don Fernando de Guerara went to + seek adventures in Germany, where he did combat with Messer + George, knight of the household of the duke of Austria. Let + them say that the jousts of Sucro de Quiñones, him of the Pass, + were a jest."</p> + + <p>It is to these jousts, as one of the most characteristic + episodes of the reign of John II. and of the times, that we + wish to call attention.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" + id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" + class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + + <p>On the evening of Friday, the 1st of January, 1434, while + the king and his court were at Medina del Campo and engaged in + the rejoicings customary on the first day of the New Year, + Suero de Quiñones and nine knights clad in white entered the + saloon, and, coming before the throne, kissed the hands and + feet of the king, and presented him through their herald with a + petition of which the following is the substance:</p> + + <p>"It is just and reasonable for those who are in confinement + or deprived of their freedom to desire liberty; and since I, + your vassal and subject, have long been in durance to a certain + lady—in witness whereof I bear this chain about my neck + every Thursday—now, therefore, mighty sovereign, I have + agreed upon my ransom, which is three hundred lances broken by + myself and these knights, as shall more clearly hereafter + appear—three with every knight or gentleman (counting as + broken the lance which draws blood) who shall come to a certain + place this year; to wit, fifteen days before and fifteen days + after the festival of the apostle St. James, unless my ransom + shall be completed before the day last mentioned. The place + shall be on the highway to Santiago, and I hereby testify to + all strange knights and gentlemen that they will there be + provided with armor, horses and weapons. And be it known to + every honorable lady who may pass the aforesaid way that if she + do not provide a knight or gentleman to do combat for her, she + shall lose her right-hand glove. All the above saving two + things—that neither Your Majesty nor the constable Don + Alvaro de Luna is to enter the lists."</p> + + <p>After the reading of this petition the king took counsel + with his court and granted it, for which Quiñones humbly + thanked him, and then he and his companions retired to disarm + themselves, returning shortly after in dresses more befitting a + festal occasion.</p> + + <p>After the dancing the regulations for the jousts, consisting + of twenty-two chapters, were publicly read. In addition to the + declarations in the petition, it is provided that in case two + or more knights should come to ransom the glove of any lady, + the first knight only will be received, and no one can ransom + more than one glove. In the seventh chapter Quiñones offers a + diamond to the first knight who appears to do combat for one of + three ladies to be named by him, among whom shall not be the + one whose captive he is. No knight coming to the Pass of Honor + shall select the defender with whom to joust, nor shall he know + the name of his adversary until the combat is finished; but any + one after breaking three lances may challenge by name any one + of the defenders, who, if time permits, will break another + lance with him. If any knight desires to joust without some + portion of his armor named by Quiñones, his request shall be + granted if reason and time permit. No knight will be admitted + to the lists until he declare his name and country. If any one + is injured, "as is wont to happen in jousts," he shall be + treated as though he were Quiñones himself, and no one in the + future shall ever be held responsible for any advantage or + victory he may have gained over any of the defenders of the + Pass. No one going as a pilgrim to Santiago by the direct road + shall be hindered by Quiñones unless he approach the aforesaid + bridge of Orbigo (which was somewhat distant from the highway). + In case, however, any knight, having left the main road, shall + come to the Pass, he shall not be permitted to depart until he + has entered the lists or left in pledge a piece of his armor or + right spur, with the promise never to wear that piece or spur + until he shall have been in some deed of arms as dangerous as + the Pass of Honor. Quiñones further pledges himself to pay all + expenses incurred by those who shall come to the Pass.</p> + + <p>Any knight who, after having broken one or two lances, shall + refuse to continue, shall lose his armor or right spur as + though he had declined to enter the lists. No defender shall be + obliged to joust a second time with any one who had been + disabled for a day in any previous encounter.</p> + + <p>The twenty-first chapter provides for the appointment of two + knights, "<i>caballeros anliguos è probados en annas è dignas + de fè</i>," and two heralds, all of whom shall swear solemnly + to do justice to all who come to the Pass, and who shall decide + all questions which may arise.</p> + + <p>The last chapter provides "that if the lady whose I + [Quiñones] am shall pass that way, she shall not lose her + glove, and no one but myself shall do combat for her, for no + one in the world could do it so truly as I."</p> + + <p>When the preceding provisions had been read, Quiñones gave + to the king-at-arms a letter signed and sealed, which invited + to the Pass all knights so disposed, granting safe conduct to + those of other kingdoms, and declaring the cause of said trial + of arms. Copies of the above letter were also given to other + heralds, who were provided with everything necessary for long + journeys, and in the six months that intervened before the day + fixed for the jousts the matter had been proclaimed throughout + all Christendom. Meanwhile, Quiñones provided horses and arms + and everything necessary for "such an important + enterprise."</p> + + <p>In the kingdom of Leon, about ten miles east of Astorga and + on the highway from that city to the capital, is the bridge of + Orbigo. Suero de Quiñones did not select Orbigo with reference + to convenience of access from the Castiles, but because it must + be passed by pilgrims to Santiago; and that year (1434) was + especially sacred to the saint, whose festival, on the 25th of + July, has always been celebrated with great pomp. The Spaniards + having been forbidden to go to Jerusalem as crusaders, and + being too much occupied at home with the Moors to make such a + long pilgrimage, wisely substituted Santiago, where the remains + of St. James, the patron of Spain, is supposed to rest. His + body is said to have floated in a stone coffin from Joppa to + Padron (thirteen miles below Santiago) in seven days, and for + nearly eight centuries lay forgotten in a cave, but was at + length miraculously brought to light by mysterious flames + hovering over its resting-place, and in 829 was removed to + Santiago. In 846 the saint made his appearance at the + celebrated battle of Clavijo, where he slew sixty thousand + Moors, and was rewarded by a grant of a bushel of grain from + every acre in Spain. His shrine was a favorite resort for + pilgrims from all Christendom until after the Reformation, and + the saint retained his bushel of grain (the annual value of + which had reached the large sum of one million dollars) until + 1835.</p> + + <p>It was near the highway, in a pleasant grove, that Quiñones + erected the lists, a hundred and forty-six paces long and + surrounded by a palisade of the height of a lance, with various + stands for the judges and spectators. At the opposite ends of + the lists were entrances—one for the defenders of the + Pass—and there were hung the arms and banners of + Quiñones, as well as at the other entrance, which was reserved + for the knights who should come to make trial of their arms. In + order that no one might mistake the way, a marble king-at-arms + was erected near the bridge, with the right arm extended and + the inscription, "To the Pass."</p> + + <p>The final arrangements were not concluded until the 10th of + July, the first day of the jousts. Twenty-two tents had been + erected for the accommodation of those engaged in the + enterprise as well as for mere spectators, and Quiñones had + provided all necessary servants and artisans, among whom are + mentioned kings-at-arms, heralds, trumpeters and other + musicians, notaries, armorers, blacksmiths, surgeons, + physicians, carpenters, lance-makers, tailors, embroiderers, + etc. In the midst of the tents was erected a wooden + dining—hall, hung with rich French cloth and provided + with two tables—one for Quiñones and the knights who came + to the Pass, and the other for those who honored the jousts + with their presence. A curious fact not to be omitted is that + the king sent one of his private secretaries to prepare daily + accounts of what happened at the Pass, which were transmitted + by relays to Segovia (where he was engaged in hunting), so that + he should receive them within twenty-four hours.</p> + + <p>On Saturday, the 10th of July, 1434, all the arrangements + having been completed, the heralds proceeded to the entrance of + the lists and announced to Quiñones that three knights were at + the bridge of Orbigo who had come to make trial of their + arms—one a German, Messer Arnoldo de la Floresta Bermeja + of the marquisate of Brandenburg, "about twenty-seven years + old, blond and well-dressed;" the others two brothers from + Valencia, by name Juan and Per Fabla. Quiñones was greatly + delighted at their coming, and sent the heralds to invite them + to take up their quarters with him, which they did, and were + received with honor at the entrance of the lists in the + presence of the judges. It being Saturday, the jousting was + deferred until the following Monday, and the spurs of the three + knights were hung up in the judges' stand as a sort of pledge, + to be restored to their owners when they were ready to enter + the lists.</p> + + <p>The next morning the trumpets sounded, and Quiñones and his + nine companions heard mass in the church of St. John at Orbigo, + and took possession of the lists in the following fashion: + First came the musicians with drums and Moorish fifes, preceded + by the judge, Pero Barba. Then followed two large and beautiful + horses drawing a cart filled with lances of various sizes + pointed with Milan steel. The cart was covered with blue and + green trappings embroidered with bay trees and flowers, and on + every tree was the figure of a parrot. The driver of this + singular conveyance was a dwarf. Next came Quiñones on a + powerful horse with blue trappings, on which were worked his + device and a chain, with the motto <i>Il faut + deliberer</i><a name="FNanchor_5_5" + id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" + class="fnanchor">[5]</a> He was dressed in a quilted jacket + of olive velvet brocade embroidered in green, with a cloak + of blue velvet, breeches of scarlet cloth and a tall cap of + the same color. He wore wheel-spurs of the Italian fashion + richly gilt, and carried a drawn sword, also gilt. On his + right arm, near the shoulder, was richly embroidered his + device in gold two fingers broad, and around it in blue + letters,</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Si a vous ne plait de avoyr me + sure,<br /></span> <span class="i4">Certes ie + clis,<br /></span> <span class="i4">Que ie + suis,<br /></span> <span class="i3">Sans + venture.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" + id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" + class="fnanchor">[6]</a><br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>With Quiñones were his nine companions in scarlet velvet and + blue cloaks bearing Quiñones' device and chain, and the + trappings of their horses blue, with the same device and motto. + Near Quiñones were many knights on foot, some of whom led his + horse to do him honor. Three pages magnificently attired and + mounted closed the procession, which entered the lists, and + after passing around it twice halted before the judges' stand, + and Quiñones exhorted the judges to decide impartially all that + should happen, giving equal justice to all, and especially to + defend the strangers in case they should be attacked on account + of having wounded any of the defenders of the Pass.</p> + + <p>The next day, Monday, at dawn the drums beat the reveille, + and the judges, with the heralds, notaries and kings-at-arms, + took their places in their stands. The nine defenders meanwhile + heard mass in a large tent which served as a private chapel for + Quiñones, and where mass was said thrice daily at his expense + by some Dominicans. After the defenders were armed they sent + for the judges to inspect their weapons and armor. The German + knight, Arnoldo, had a disabled hand, but he declared he would + rather die than refrain from jousting. His arms and horse were + approved, although the latter was superior to that of Quiñones. + The judges had provided a body of armed soldiers whose duty it + was to see that all had fair play in the field, and had a pile + of lances of various sizes placed where each knight could + select one to suit him.</p> + + <p>Quiñones and the German now entered the lists, accompanied + by their friends and with "much music." The judges commanded + that no one should dare to speak aloud or give advice or make + any sign to any one in the lists, no matter what happened, + under penalty of having the tongue cut out for speaking and a + hand cut off for making signs; and they also forbade any knight + to enter the lists with more than two servants, one mounted and + the other on foot. The spur taken from the German the previous + Saturday was now restored to him, and the trumpets sounded a + charge, while the heralds and kings-at-arms cried <i>Legeres + allér! legeres allér! é fair son deber</i>.</p> + + <p>The two knights charged instantly, lance in rest, and + Quiñones encountered his antagonist in the guard of his lance, + and his weapon glanced off and touched him in the armor of his + right hand and tore it off, and his lance broke in the middle. + The German encountered him in the armor of the left arm, tore + it off and carried a piece of the border without breaking his + lance. In the second course Quiñones encountered the German in + the top of his plastron, without piercing it, and the lance + came out under his arm-pit, whereupon all thought he was + wounded, for on receiving the shock he exclaimed <i>Olas!</i> + and his right vantbrace was torn off, but the lance was not + broken. The German encountered Quiñones in the front of his + helmet, breaking his lance two palms from the iron. In the + third course Quiñones encountered the German in the guard of + his left gauntlet, and passed through it, and the head of the + lance stuck in the rim without breaking, and the German failed + to encounter. In the fourth course Quiñones encountered the + German in the armor of his left arm without breaking his lance, + and the German failed to encounter. In the next course both + failed to encounter, but in the sixth Quiñones encountered the + German in the joint of his left vantbrace, and the iron passed + half through without breaking, while the shaft broke in the + middle, and the German failed to encounter. After this last + course they went to the judges' stand, where their jousting was + pronounced finished, since they had broken three lances between + them. Quiñones invited the German to supper, and both were + accompanied to their quarters by music, and Quiñones disarmed + himself in public.</p> + + <p>The two Valencian knights did not delay to challenge + Quiñones, since he had remained uninjured; and, as they had the + right to demand horses and arms, they chose those which + Quiñones had used in the last joust. The chronicler adds: "It + seems to me that they did not ask it so much for their honor as + for the safety of their skins." The judges decided that + Quiñones was not bound to give his own armor, as there were + other suits as good: nevertheless, he complied, and sent in + addition four horses to choose from. He was also anxious to + joust with them, but Lope de Estuñiga refused to yield his + place, and cited the chapter of the regulations which provided + that no one should single out his adversary. Quiñones offered + him a very fine horse and a gold chain worth three hundred + doubloons, but Estuñiga answered that he would not yield his + turn although he were offered a city.</p> + + <p>At vespers Estuñiga and Juan Fabla were armed and the judges + examined their arms, and although Fabla had the better horse, + they let it pass. At the sound of the trumpet Estuñiga entered + the lists magnificently attired, and attended by two pages in + armor bearing a drawn sword and a lance. Juan Fabla followed + immediately, and at the given signal they attacked each other + lance in rest. Fabla encountered Estuñiga in the left arm, + tearing off his armor, but neither of them broke his lance. In + the four following courses they failed to encounter. In the + sixth Fabla encountered his adversary in the breastplate, + breaking his lance in the middle, and the head remained + sticking in the armor. They encountered in the seventh course, + and Estuñiga's servant, who was in the lists, cried out, "At + him! at him!" The judges commanded his tongue to be cut out, + but at the intercession of those present the sentence was + commuted to thirty blows and imprisonment. They failed to + encounter in the eighth course, but in the ninth Estuñiga broke + his lance on Fabla's left arm: the latter failed to encounter, + and received a great reverse. After this they ran nine courses + without encountering, but in the nineteenth Estuñiga met Fabla + in the plastron, and his lance slipped off on to his helmet, + but did not break, although it pierced the plastron and the + iron remained sticking in it. By this time it had grown so dark + that the judges could not distinguish the good from the bad + encounters, and for this reason they decided that the combat + was finished the same as though three lances had been broken. + Estuñiga invited Fabla to sup with Quiñones, "and at table + there were many knights, and after supper they danced."</p> + + <p>That same day there arrived at the Pass nine knights from + Aragon, who swore that they were gentlemen without reproach. + Their spurs were taken from them, according to the established + custom, and hung up in the judges' stand until they should + enter the lists.</p> + + <p>The succeeding combats were but repetitions, with trifling + variations, of those just described. From dawn, when the + trumpet sounded for battle, until the evening grew so dark that + the judges could not distinguish the combatants, the defenders + maintained the Pass against all comers with bravery and + honor.</p> + + <p>The third day there passed near Orbigo two ladies, and the + judges sent the king-at-arms and the herald to ascertain + whether they were of noble birth and provided with knights to + represent them in the lists and win them a passage through + Orbigo, and also to request them to give up their right-hand + gloves. The ladies answered that they were noble and were on a + pilgrimage to Santiago; their names were Leonora and Guiomar de + la Vega; the former was married and accompanied by her husband; + the latter was a widow. The king-at-arms then requested their + gloves to be kept as a pledge until some knight should ransom + them. Frances Davio, an Aragonese knight, immediately offered + to do combat for the ladies. The husband of Doña Leonora said + that he had not heard of this adventure, and was unprepared to + attempt it then, but if the ladies were allowed to retain their + gloves, as soon as he had accomplished his pilgrimage he would + return and enter the lists for them. The gloves, however, were + retained and hung in the judges' stand. The matter caused some + discussion, and finally the judges decided that the gloves + should not be kept, for fear it should seem that the defenders + of the Pass were interfering with pilgrims, and also on account + of Juan de la Vega's chivalrous response. So the gloves were + sent on to Astorga to be delivered to their owners, and Juan de + la Vega was absolved from all obligation to ransom them, "and + there was strife among many knights as to who should do battle + for the sisters."</p> + + <p>On the 16th of July, Frances Davio jousted with Lope de + Estuñiga, and when the trial of arms was ended with great honor + to both, Davio swore aloud, so that many knights heard him, + "that never in the future would he have a love-affair with a + nun, for up to that time he had loved one, and it was for her + sake that he had come to the Pass; and any one who had known it + could have challenged him as an evil-doer, and he could not + have defended himself." Whereat Delena, the notary and compiler + of the original record of the Pass, exclaims, "To which I say + that if he had had any Christian nobleness, or even the natural + shame which leads every one to conceal his faults, he would not + have made public such a sacrilegious scandal, so dishonorable + to the religious order and so injurious to Christ."</p> + + <p>The same day the king-at-arms and herald announced to + Quiñones that a gentleman named Vasco de Barrionuevo, servant + of Ruy Diaz de Mendoza, mayor-domo of the king, had come to + make trial of his arms, but as he was not a knight he prayed + Quiñones to confer that honor on him. Quiñones consented, and + commanded him to wait at the entrance of the lists, whither he + and the nine defenders went on foot accompanied by a great + crowd. Quiñones asked Vasco if he desired to become a knight, + and on his answering in the affirmative he drew his gilt sword + and said, "Sir, do you promise to keep and guard all the things + appertaining to the noble order of chivalry, and to die rather + than fail in any one of them?" He swore that he would do so, + and Quiñones, striking him on the helmet with his naked sword, + said, "God make thee a good knight and aid thee to live and act + as every good knight should do!" After this ceremony the new + knight entered the lists with Pedro de los Rios, and they ran + seven courses and broke three lances.</p> + + <p>On the festival of St. James (July 25th) Quiñones entered + the lists without three of the principal pieces of his + armor—namely, the visor of his helmet, the left vantbrace + and breastplate—and said, "Knights and judges of this + Passo Honroso, inasmuch as I announced through Monreal, the + king's herald, that on St. James's Day there would be in this + place three knights, each without a piece of his armor, and + each ready to run two courses with every knight who should + present himself that day, know, therefore, that I, Suero de + Quiñones, alone am those three knights, and am prepared to + accomplish what I proclaimed." The judges after a short + deliberation answered that they had no authority to permit him + to risk his life in manifest opposition to the regulations + which he had sworn to obey, and declared him under arrest, and + forbade all jousting that day, as it was Sunday and the + festival of St. James. Quiñones felt greatly grieved at their + decision, and told them that "in the service of his lady he had + gone into battle against the Moors in the kingdom of Granada + with his right arm bared, and God had preserved him, and would + do so now." The judges, however, were inflexible and refused to + hear him.</p> + + <p>The last day of July, late in the afternoon, there arrived + at the Pass a gentleman named Pedro de Torrecilla, a retainer + or squire of Alfonso de Deza, but no one was willing to joust + with him, on the ground that he was not an hidalgo. The + generous Lope de Estuñiga, hearing this, offered to dub him a + knight, but Torrecilla thanked him and said he could not afford + to sustain in becoming manner the honor of chivalry, but he + would make good the fact that he was an hidalgo. Lope de + Estuñiga was so much pleased by this discreet answer that he + believed him truly of gentle blood, and to do him honor entered + the lists with him. It was, however, so late that they had only + time to run three courses, and then the judges pronounced their + joust finished. Torrecilla esteemed so highly the fact that so + renowned a knight as Lope de Estuñiga should have condescended + to enter the lists with him that he swore it was the greatest + honor he had ever received in his life, and he offered him his + services. Estuñiga thanked him, and affirmed that he felt as + much honored by having jousted with him as though he had been + an emperor.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" + id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" + class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + + <p>A few days after the above events an incident occurred which + shows how contagious the example of Quiñones and his followers + was, and to what amusing imitations it led. A Lombard trumpeter + made his appearance at the Pass, and said that he had been to + Santiago on a pilgrimage, and while there had heard that there + was at the Passo Honroso a trumpeter of the king of Castile + named Dalmao, very celebrated in his line, and he had gone + thirty leagues out of his way in order to have a trial of skill + with him; and he offered to stake a good trumpet against one of + Dalmao's. The latter took the Lombard's trumpet and blew so + loud and skilfully that the Italian, in spite of all his + efforts, was obliged to confess himself conquered, and gave up + his trumpet.</p> + + <p>So far, the encounters, if not entirely bloodless, had not + been attended by any fatal accident. The defenders had all been + wounded, more or less severely: once Quiñones concealed the + fact until the end of the joust in which his antagonist had + been badly hurt, and it was only when the knights were disarmed + that it was discovered that Quiñones was bleeding profusely. On + another occasion his helmet was pierced by his adversary's + lance, the fragment of which he strove in vain to withdraw. All + believed him mortally wounded, but he cried, "It is nothing! it + is nothing! Quiñones! Quiñones!" and continued as though + nothing had occurred. After three encounters the judges + descended from their stands and made him remove his helmet to + see whether he was wounded. When it was found that he was not, + "every one thought that God had miraculously delivered him." + Quiñones was also wounded in his encounter with Juan de Merlo, + and again concealed the fact until the end of the combat, when + he asked the judges to excuse him from jousting further that + day, as his right hand, which he had previously sprained, was + again dislocated, and caused him terrible suffering; and well + it might, for the flesh was lacerated and the whole arm seemed + paralyzed.</p> + + <p>The wounds received the 28th of July were, unfortunately, + sufficiently healed by the 6th of August to enable him to enter + the lists with the unhappy Esberte de Claramonte, an Aragonese. + "Would to God," exclaims the chronicler, "he had never come + here!" In the ninth encounter Quiñones' lance entered his + antagonist's left eye and penetrated the brain. The luckless + knight broke his lance in the ground, was lifted from his + saddle by the force of the blow, and fell dead without uttering + a word; "and his face seemed like the face of one who had been + dead two hours." The Aragonese and Catalans present bewailed + his death loudly, and Quiñones was grieved in his soul at such + a great misfortune. Every possible honor was shown the dead + knight, and the welfare of his soul was not forgotten. Master + Anton, Quiñones' confessor, and the other priests were sent for + to administer the sacraments, and Quiñones begged them to chant + the <i>Responsorium</i><a name="FNanchor_8_8" + id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" + class="fnanchor">[8]</a> over the body, as was customary in + the Church, and do in all respects as though he himself were + the dead man. The priest replied that the Church did not + consider as sons those who died in such exercises, for they + could not be performed without mortal sin, neither did she + intercede for their souls; in proof whereof he referred to + the canonical law, cap. <i>de + Torneamentis</i>.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" + id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" + class="fnanchor">[9]</a> However, at the earnest request of + Quiñones, Messer Anton went with a letter to the bishop of + Astorga to ask leave to bury Claramonte in holy ground, + Quiñones promising if it were granted to take the dead + knight to Leon and bury him in his own family chapel. + Meanwhile, they bore the body to the hermitage of Santa + Catalina, near the bridge of Orbigo, and there it remained + until night, when Messer Anton returned without the desired + license; so they buried Claramonte in unconsecrated ground + near the hermitage, with all possible honor and amid the + tears of the assembled knights. This mournful event does not + seem, however, to have made a very deep impression, for that + same afternoon the jousting was continued.</p> + + <p>The remaining days were marked by no unusual occurrence: + several were seriously but not fatally wounded, and one by one + the defenders of the Pass were disabled; so that when the 9th + of August, the last day of the jousts, arrived, Sancho de + Ravenal was the only one of the ten defenders who was able to + enter the lists. He maintained the Pass that day against two + knights, and then the jousts were declared ended. When the + decision was known there was great rejoicing and blowing of + trumpets, and the lists were illuminated with torches. The + judges returned the spurs which still hung in the stand to the + owners who through lack of time had not been able to joust. + Quiñones and eight of his companions (Lope de Aller was + confined to his bed by his wounds) entered the lists in the + same manner and order as on the first day, and halting before + the judges Quiñones addressed them as follows: "It is known to + Your Honors how I presented myself here thirty days ago with + these companions, and the cause of my so doing was to terminate + the captivity in which until this moment I was to a very + virtuous lady, in token of which I have worn this iron collar + continually every Thursday. The condition of my ransom was, as + you know, three hundred lances broken or guarding this Pass + thirty days, awaiting knights and gentlemen who should free me + from said captivity; and whereas I believe, honorable sirs, + that I have fulfilled everything according to the terms set + down at the beginning, I therefore beg you will command me to + remove this iron collar in testimony of my liberty."</p> + + <p>The judges answered briefly as follows: "Virtuous gentleman + and knight, after hearing your declaration, which seems just + and true, we hereby declare your enterprise completed and your + ransom paid; and be it known to all present that of the three + hundred lances mentioned in the agreement but few remain yet to + be broken, and these would not have remained unbroken had it + not been for lack of adversaries. We therefore command the + king-at-arms and the herald to remove the collar from your neck + and declare you from this time henceforth free from your + enterprise and ransom." | The king-at-arms and the herald then + descended from the stand, and in the presence of the notaries + with due solemnity took the collar from Quiñones' neck in + fulfilment of the judges' command.</p> + + <p>During the thirty days' jousting sixty-eight knights had + entered the lists: of these, one, Messer Arnoldo de la Floresta + Bermeja (Arnold von Rothwald?), was a German; one an Italian, + Messer Luis de Aversa; one Breton,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" + id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" + class="fnanchor">[10]</a> three Valencians, one Portuguese, + thirteen Aragonese, four Catalans, and the remaining + forty-four were from the Castiles and other parts of Spain. + The number of courses run was seven hundred and + twenty-seven, and one hundred and sixty-six lances were + broken. Quiñones was afterward killed by Gutierre Quijada, + one of the knights who took part in the Passo Honroso, and + with whom he seems to have had some kind of a feud. + Quiñones' sword may still be seen at Madrid in the Royal + Armory, No. 1917.</p> + + <p class="author">T.F. CRANE.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="AUTOMATISM" + id="AUTOMATISM"></a>AUTOMATISM.</h2> + + <h3>CONCLUDING PAPER.</h3> + + <p>A few months ago, walking along Fifteenth street, I came up + behind a friend and said, "Good-morning." No answer. + "Good-morning, sir," a little louder.—"Oh, excuse me: I + did not hear you the first time."—" How then did you know + that I had spoken twice?" My friend was nonplussed, but what + had happened was this: on my first speaking the impulse of the + voice had fallen upon his ear and started a nerve-wave which + had struggled up as far as the lower apparatus at the base of + the brain, and, passing through this, had probably even reached + the higher nerve-centres in the surface of the cerebrum, near + to which consciousness resides, but not in sufficient force to + arouse consciousness. When, however, the attention was excited + by my second address, it perceived the first faint impulse + which had been registered upon the protoplasm of the + nerve-centres, although unfelt. Probably most of my readers + have had a similar experience. A word spoken, but not + consciously heard, has a moment afterward been detected by an + effort as distinctly conscious as that made by the man who is + attempting to decipher some old faint manuscript. This incident + and its explanation will serve to illustrate the relation which + seems to exist between consciousness and sensation, and also + between consciousness and the general mental actions.</p> + + <p>It will perhaps render our thinking more accurate if we + attempt to get a clear idea just here as to what consciousness + is and what it is not. Various definitions of the term have + been given, but the simplest and truest seems to be that it is + a knowledge of the present existence of self, and perhaps also + of surrounding objects, although it is conceivable that a + conscious person might be shut off from all contact with the + external world by abolition of the senses. Consciousness is + certainly not what the philosopher and the theologian call the + Ego, or the personality of the individual. A blow on the head + puts an end for the time being to consciousness, but not to the + man's personality. Neither is consciousness the same as the + sense of personal identity, although it is closely connected + with it. The conviction of a man that he is the same person + through the manifold changes which occur in him as the + successive years go on is evidently based on consciousness and + memory. This is well illustrated by some very curious cases in + which the sense or knowledge of personal identity has been + completely lost. Not long ago an instance of such complete loss + was recorded by Doctor Hewater (<i>Hospital Gazette</i>, + November, 1879). The gentleman who was the subject of this loss + found himself standing upon the dépôt-platform in Belaire City, + Ohio, utterly ignorant of who he was or where he came from or + where he was going to. He had a little money in his pocket, and + in his hand a small port-manteau which contained a pair of + scissors and a change of linen. He was well dressed, and on + stating at the nearest hotel his strange condition and asking + for a bed, was received as a guest. In the evening he went out + and attended a temperance lecture. Excited by the eloquence of + the speaker, he was seized with an uncontrollable impulse, + rushed from the room and began to smash with a club the windows + of a neighboring tavern. The roughs ran out of the saloon and + beat him very badly, breaking his arm: this brought him to the + police-station, and thence to the hospital. For months every + effort was made to identify him, but at the date of reporting + without avail. He was known in the hospital as "Ralph," that + name having been found on his underclothing. His knowledge upon + all subjects unconnected with his identity is correct: his + mental powers are good, and he has shown himself expert at + figures and with a pen. For a long time it was thought that he + was feigning, but every one about him was finally convinced + that he is what he says he is—namely, a man without + knowledge of his personal identity. This curious case, which is + by no means unparalleled in the annals of psychological + medicine, shows how distinct memory is from consciousness. + Memory of the past was in Ralph entirely abolished so far as + concerned his own personality, but consciousness was perfect, + and the results of previous mental training remained, as is + shown by his use of figures. It was as though there was a + dislocation between consciousness and the memory of self.</p> + + <p>The distinctness of consciousness from memory is also shown + by dreams. Events which have passed are often recalled during + the unconsciousness of sleep. The curious although common + carrying of the memory of a dream over from the unconsciousness + of sleep to the consciousness of waking movements further + illustrates the complete distinction between the two cerebral + functions.</p> + + <p>If memory, then, be not part of consciousness, what is its + nature? There is a law governing nervous actions both in health + and disease which is known as that of habitual action. The + curious reflex movements made by the frog when acid is put upon + its foot, as detailed in my last paper, were explained by this + law. The spinal cord, after having frequently performed a + certain act under the stimulus of conscious sensation, becomes + so accustomed to perform that act that it does it when the + oft-felt peripheral impulse comes again to it, although the + cerebral functions and consciousness are suspended. A + nerve-centre, even of the lowest kind, once moulded by repeated + acts, retains their impression—<i>i.e.</i> remembers + them. Learning to walk is, as was shown in the last paper, + training the memory of the lower nerve-centres at the base of + the brain until at last they direct the movements of walking + without aid from consciousness. The musician studies a piece of + music. At first the notes are struck in obedience to a + conscious act of the will founded upon a conscious recognition + of the printed type. By and by the piece is so well known that + it is played even when the attention is directed to some other + subject; that is, the act of playing has been repeated until + the lower nerve-centres, which preside over the movements of + the fingers during the playing, have been so impressed that + when once the impulses are started they flow on uninterruptedly + until the whole set has been gone through and the piece of + music is finished. This is the result of memory of the lower + nerve-centres. At first, the child reads only by a distinct + conscious effort of memory, recalling painfully each word. + After a time the words become so impressed upon the lower + nerve-centres that we may read on when our attention is + directed to some other thing. Thus, often we read aloud and are + unconscious of what we have read, precisely as the compositor + habitually sets up pages of manuscript without the faintest + idea of what it is all about. This law of habitual action + applies not only to the lower nerve-centres in their healthy + condition, but with equal force in disease. It is notorious + that one of the great difficulties in the cure of epilepsy is + the habit which is acquired by the nerve-centres of having at + intervals attacks of convulsive discharge of nerve-force. Some + years since I saw in consultation a case which well illustrates + this point. A boy was struck in the head with a brick, and + dropped unconscious. On coming to be was seized with an + epileptic convulsion. These convulsions continually recurred + for many months before I saw him. He never went two hours + without them, and had usually from thirty to forty a + day—some, it is true, very slight, but others very + severe. Medicines had no influence over him, and with the idea + that there might be a point of irritation in the wound itself + causing the epilepsy, the scar was taken out. The result was + that the seizures were the same day reduced very much in + frequency, and in a short time became amenable to treatment, so + that finally complete recovery occurred. He had, however, + probably fifty convulsions in all after the removal of the scar + before this result was achieved. Undoubtedly, in this case the + point of irritation was removed by the operation. The cause of + the convulsions having been taken away, they should have + stopped at once. But here the law of habitual action asserted + itself, and it was necessary to overcome the remembrance of the + disease by the nerve-centres. It is plain that the higher + nerve-centre remembers the idea or fact because it is impressed + by ideas and facts, precisely as the lower spinal nerve-centres + in the frog remember irritations and movements which have + impressed them. The faculty of memory resides in all + nerve-centres: the nature of that which is remembered depends + upon the function of the individual centre. A nerve-cell which + thinks remembers thought—a nerve-cell which causes motion + remembers motion.</p> + + <p>The so-called cases of double consciousness are perfectly + simple in their explanation when the true nature of memory is + borne in mind. In these cases the subject seems to lead a + double life. The attacks usually come on suddenly. In the first + attack all memory of the past is lost. The person is as an + untaught child, and is forced to begin re-education. In some of + these cases this second education has gone on for weeks, and + advanced perhaps beyond the stage of reading, when suddenly the + patient passes back to his original condition, losing now all + memory of events which had occurred and all the knowledge + acquired in what may be called his second state, but regaining + all that he had originally possessed. Weeks or months afterward + the second state reoccurs, the individual now forgetting all + memory of the first or natural condition. It is usually found + that events happening and knowledge acquired during the first + attack of what we have called the second state are remembered + in subsequent returns, so that the second education can be + taken up at the point at which it was lost, and progress be + made. This alternation of conditions has in some instances gone + on for years, the patient living, as it were, two lives at + broken intervals. This condition, usually called double + consciousness, is not double consciousness at all, but, if the + term may be allowed, double memory. It is evidently allied in + its nature to the loss of the sense of personal identity. + Certain phenomena of remembrance seen frequently in exhausting + diseases, and especially in old age, show the permanence of + impressions made upon the higher nerve-centres, and are also + very similar in their nature to this so-called double + consciousness. Not long since a very aged lady of Philadelphia, + who was at the point of death, began to talk in an unknown + tongue, soon losing entirely her power of expressing herself in + English. No one could for a time make out the language she was + speaking, but it was finally found to be Portuguese; and in + tracing the history of the octogenarian it was discovered that + until four or five years of age she had been brought up in Rio + Janeiro, where Portuguese is spoken. There is little difference + between the nature of such a case and that of the so-called + double consciousness, both involving the forgetting of that + which has been known for years.</p> + + <p>There is a curious mental condition sometimes produced by + large doses of hasheesh which might be termed double + consciousness more correctly than the state to which the name + is usually applied. I once took an enormous dose of this + substance. After suffering from a series of symptoms which it + is not necessary here to detail, I was seized with a horrible + undefined fear, as of impending death, and began at the same + time to have marked periods when all connection seemed to be + severed between the external world and myself. During these + periods I was unconscious in so far that I was oblivious of all + external objects, but on coming out of one it was not a blank, + dreamless void upon which I looked back, a mere empty space, + but rather a period of active but aimless life, full, not of + connected thought, but of disjointed images. The mind, freed + from the ordinary laws of association, passed, as it were, with + lightning-like rapidity from one idea to another. The duration + of these attacks was but a few seconds, but to me they seemed + endless. Although I was perfectly conscious during the + intermissions between the paroxysms, all power of measuring + time was lost: seconds appeared to be hours—minutes grew + to days—hours stretched out to infinity. I would look at + my watch, and then after an hour or two, as I thought, would + look again and find that scarcely a minute had elapsed. The + minute-hand appeared motionless, as though graven in the face + itself: the laggard second-hand moved so slowly that it seemed + a hopeless task to watch it during its whole infinite round of + a minute, and I always gave up in despair before the sixty + seconds had elapsed. When my mind was most lucid there was a + distinct duplex action in regard to the duration of time. I + would think to myself, "It has been so long since a certain + event!"—an hour, for example, since the doctor was + summoned—but Reason would say, "No, it has been only a + few minutes: your thoughts and feelings are caused by the + hasheesh." Nevertheless, I was not able to shake off, even for + a moment, this sense of the almost indefinite prolongation of + time. Gradually the periods of unconsciousness became longer + and more frequent, and the oppressive feeling of impending + death more intense. It was like a horrible nightmare: each + successive paroxysm was felt to be the longest I had suffered. + As I came out of it a voice seemed constantly saying, "You are + getting worse; your paroxysms are growing longer and deeper; + they will overmaster you; you will die." A sense of personal + antagonism between my will-power and myself, as affected by the + drug, grew very strong. I felt as though my only chance was to + struggle against these paroxysms—that I must constantly + arouse myself by an effort of will; and that effort was made + with infinite toil and pain. It seemed to me as if some evil + spirit had the control of the whole of me except the will, and + was in determined conflict with that, the last citadel of my + being. Once or twice during a paroxysm I felt myself mounting + upward, expanding, dilating, dissolving into the wide confines + of space, overwhelmed by a horrible, unutterable despair. Then + by a tremendous effort I seemed to break loose and to start up + with the shuddering thought, "Next time you will not be able to + throw this off; and what then?" The sense of double + consciousness which I had to some extent is often, under the + action of hasheesh, much more distinct. I have known patients + to whom it seemed that they themselves sitting upon the chair + were in continual conversation with a second self standing in + front of them. The explanation of this curious condition is a + difficult one. It is possible that the two sides of the brain, + which are accustomed in health to work as one organ, are + disjoined by the poison, so that one half of the brain thinks + and acts in opposition to the other half.</p> + + <p>From what has already been said it is plain that memory is + entirely distinct from consciousness, and that it is in a + certain sense automatic, or at least an attribute of all + nerve-centres. If this be so, it would seem probable, <i>a + priori</i>, that other intellectual acts are also distinct from + consciousness. For present purposes the activities of the + cerebrum may be divided into the emotional and the more + strictly-speaking intellectual acts. A little thought will, I + think, convince any of my readers that emotions are as purely + automatic as the movements of the frog's hind leg. The Irishman + who said that he was really a brave man, although he had a + cowardly pair of legs which always ran away with him, was far + from speaking absurdly. It is plain that passion is something + entirely beyond the conscious will, because it is continually + excited from without, and because we are unable to produce it + by a mere effort of the will without some external cause. The + common phrase, "He is working himself up into a passion," + indicates a perception of the fact that consciousness sometimes + employs memories, thoughts, associations, etc. to arouse the + lower nerve-centres that are connected with the emotion of + anger. It is so also with various other emotions. The soldier + who habitually faces death in the foremost rank of the battle, + and yet shrinks in mortal fear or antipathy from a mouse, is + not an unknown spectacle. It is clear that his fear of the + little animal is based not upon reason, but upon an + uncontrollable sensitiveness in his nervous system acquired by + inheritance or otherwise. It does not follow from this that + conscious will is not able to affect emotion. As already + pointed out, it can arouse emotion by using the proper means, + and it undoubtedly can, to a greater or less extent, directly + subdue emotion. The law of inhibition, as it is called by the + physiologist, dominates the whole nervous system. Almost every + nerve-centre has above it a higher centre whose function it is + directly to repress or subdue the activity of the lower centre. + A familiar instance of this is seen in the action of the heart: + there are certain nerve-centres which when excited lessen the + rate of the heart's beat, and are even able to stop it + altogether. The relation of the will-power to the emotions is + directly inhibitory. The will is able to repress the activity + of those centres which preside over anger. In the man with red + hair these centres may be very active and the will-power weak; + hence the inhibitory influence of the will is slight and the + man gets angry easily. In the phlegmatic temperament the + anger-centres are slow to action, the will-power strong, and + the man is thrown off his balance with difficulty. It is well + known that power grows with exercise, and when we habitually + use the will in controlling the emotional centres its power + continually increases. The man learning self-control is simply + drilling the lower emotional centres into obedience to the + repressive action of the higher will. Without further + demonstration, it is clear that emotion is distinct from + conscious will, and is automatic in the sense in which the term + has been used in this article.</p> + + <p>Imagination also is plainly distinct from consciousness. It + acts during sleep. Often, indeed, it runs riot during the + slumbers of the night, but at times it works with an automatic + regularity exceeding its powers during the waking moments. It + is also true that judgment is exercised in sleep, and that + reason sometimes exerts its best efforts in that state. But not + only do the intellectual nets go on without consciousness + during sleep, but also while we are awake. Some years since I + was engaged in working upon a book requiring a good deal of + thought. Very frequently I would be unable to solve certain + problems, but leaving them would find a day or two afterward, + on taking pen in hand, that the solution traced itself without + effort on the paper clearly and logically. During the sleeping + hours, or during the waking hours of a busy professional life, + the brain had, without my consciousness, been solving the + difficulties. This experience is by no means a peculiar one. + Many scientific workers have borne testimony to a similar habit + of the cerebrum. The late Sir W. Rowan Hamilton, the discoverer + of the mathematical method known as that of the quaternions, + states that his mind suddenly solved that problem after long + work when he was thinking of something else. He says in one + place: "Tomorrow will be the fifteenth birthday of the + quaternions. They started into life or light full grown on the + 16th of October, 1843, as I was walking with Lady Hamilton to + Dublin and came up to Brougham Bridge; that is to say, I then + and there felt the galvanic circle of thought closed, and the + sparks which fell from it were the fundamental equations + between <i>I, F</i> and <i>K</i> exactly as I have used them + ever since. I felt the problem to have been at that moment + solved—an intellectual want relieved which had haunted me + for at least fifteen years before." Mr. Appolo, a distinguished + scientific inventor, stated in the Proceedings of the Royal + Society that it was his habit to get the bearings and facts of + a case during the day and go to bed, and wake the next morning + with the problem solved. If the problem was a difficult one he + always passed a restless night. Examples might be multiplied. + Sir Benjamin Brodie, speaking of his own mental action, states + that when he was unable to proceed further in some + investigation he was accustomed to let the matter drop. Then + "after an interval of time, without any addition to my stock of + knowledge, I have found the obscurity and confusion in which + the subject was originally enveloped to have cleared away. The + facts have seemed all to settle themselves in their right + places, and their mutual relations to have become apparent, + although I have not been sensible of having made any distinct + effort for that purpose."</p> + + <p>Not only is there such a thing, then, as unconscious + thought, but it is probable that the best thinking is rarely, + if ever, done under the influence of consciousness. The poet + creates his work when the inspiration is on him and he is + forgetful of himself and the world. Consciousness may aid in + pruning and polishing, but in creating it often interferes + with, rather than helps, the cerebral action. I think any one + of my readers who has done any literary or scientific writing + will agree that his or her best work is performed when self and + surrounding objects have disappeared from thought and + consciousness scarcely exists more than it does in a dream. + Sometimes the individual is conscious of the flow of an + undercurrent of mental action, although this does not rise to + the level of distinct recognition. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks + of a business-man of Boston who, whilst considering a very + important question, was conscious of an action going on in his + brain so unusual and painful as to excite his apprehension that + he was threatened with palsy; but after some hours his + perplexity was all at once cleared up by the natural solution + of the problem which was troubling him, worked out, as he + believed, in the obscure and restless interval. "Jumping to a + conclusion," a process to which the female sex is said to be + especially prone, is often due to unconscious cerebration, the + reasoning being so rapid that the consciousness cannot follow + the successive steps. It is related that Lord Mansfield once + gave the advice to a younger friend newly appointed to a + colonial judgeship, "Never give reasons for your decisions. + Your judgments will very probably be right, but your reasons + will almost certainly be wrong." The brain of the young judge + evidently worked unconsciously with accuracy, but was unable to + trace the steps along which it really travelled.</p> + + <p>We are not left to the unaided study of our mental processes + for proof that the human brain is a mechanism. In the + laboratory of Professor Goltz in Strasburg I saw a terrier from + which he had removed, by repeated experiments, all the surface + of the brain, thereby reducing the animal to a simple + automaton. Looked at while lying in his stall, he seemed at + first in no wise different from other dogs: he took food when + offered to him, was fat, sleek and very quiet. When I + approached him he took no notice of me, but when the assistant + caught him by the tail he instantly became the embodiment of + fury. He had not sufficient perceptive power to recognize the + point of assault, so that his keeper, standing behind him, was + not in danger. With flashing eyes and hair all erect the dog + howled and barked furiously, incessantly snapping and biting, + first on this side and then on that, tearing with his fore legs + and in every way manifesting rage. When his tail was dropped by + the attendant and his head touched, the storm at once subsided, + the fury was turned into calm, and the animal, a few seconds + before so rageful, was purring like a cat and stretching out + its head for caresses. This curious process could be repeated + indefinitely. Take hold of his tail, and instantly the storm + broke out afresh: pat his head, and all was tenderness. It was + possible to play at will with the passions of the animal by the + slightest touches.</p> + + <p>During the Franco-German contest a French soldier was struck + in the head with a bullet and left on the field for dead, but + subsequently showed sufficient life to cause him to be carried + to the hospital, where he finally recovered his general health, + but remained in a mental state very similar to that of + Professor Goltz's dog. As he walked about the rooms and + corridors of the soldiers' home in Paris he appeared to the + stranger like an ordinary man, unless it were in his apathetic + manner. When his comrades were called to the dinner-table he + followed, sat down with them, and, the food being placed upon + his plate and a knife and fork in his hands, would commence to + eat. That this was not done in obedience to thought or + knowledge was shown by the fact that his dinner could be at + once interrupted by awakening a new train of feeling by a new + external impulse. Put a crooked stick resembling a gun into his + hand, and at once the man was seized with a rage comparable to + that produced in the Strasburg dog by taking hold of his tail. + The fury of conflict was on him: with a loud yell he would + recommence the skirmish in which he had been wounded, and, + crying to his comrades, would make a rush at the supposed + assailant. Take the stick out of his hand, and at once his + apathy would settle upon him; give him a knife and fork, and, + whether at the table or elsewhere, he would make the motions of + eating; hand him a spade, and he would begin to dig. It is + plain that the impulse produced by seeing his comrades move to + the dining-room started the chain of automatic movements which + resulted in his seating himself at the table. The weapon called + into new life the well-known acts of the battle-field. The + spade brought back the day when, innocent of blood, he + cultivated the vineyards of sunny France.</p> + + <p>In both the dog and the man just spoken of the control of + the will over the emotions and mental acts was evidently lost, + and the mental functions were performed only in obedience to + impulses from without—<i>i.e.</i> were automatic. The + human brain is a complex and very delicate mechanism, so + uniform in its actions, so marvellous in its creation, that it + is able to measure the rapidity of its own processes. There are + scarcely two brains which work exactly with the same rapidity + and ease. One man thinks faster than another man for reasons as + purely physical as those which give to one man a faster gait + than that of another. Those who move quickly are apt to think + quickly, the whole nervous system performing its processes with + rapidity. This is not, however, always the case, as it is + possible for the brain to be differently constructed, so far as + concerns its rapidity of action, from the spinal cord of the + same individual. Our power of measuring time without + instruments is probably based upon the cerebral system of each + individual being accustomed to move at a uniform rate. + Experience has taught the brain that it thinks so many thoughts + or does so much work in such a length of time, and it judges + that so much time has elapsed when it has done so much work. + The extraordinary sense of prolongation of time which occurs in + the intoxication produced by hasheesh is probably due to the + fact that under the influence of the drug the brain works very + much faster than it habitually does. Having produced a + multitude of images or thoughts in a moment, the organ judges + that a corresponding amount of time has elapsed. Persons are + occasionally seen who have the power of waking at any desired + time: going to bed at ten o'clock, they will rouse themselves + at four, five or six in the morning, as they have made up their + minds to do the previous night. The explanation of this curious + faculty seems to be that in these persons the brain-functions + go on with so much regularity during sleep that the brain is + enabled to judge, though unconsciously, when the time fixed + upon has arrived, and by an unconscious effort to recall + consciousness.</p> + + <p>Of course the subject of automatism might have been + discussed at far greater length than is allowable in the limits + of two magazine articles, but sufficient has probably been said + to show the strong current of modern physiological psychology + toward proving that all ordinary mental actions, except the + exercise of the conscious will, are purely physical, produced + by an instrument which works in a method not different from + that in which the glands of the mouth secrete saliva and the + tubules of the stomach gastric juice. Some of my readers may + say this is pure materialism, or at least leads to materialism. + No inquirer who pauses to think how his investigation is going + to affect his religious belief is worthy to be called + scientific. The scientist, rightly so called, is a searcher + after truth, whatever may be the results of the discovery of + the truth. Modern science, however, has not proved the truth of + materialism. It has shown that the human organism is a + wonderful machine, but when we come to the further question as + to whether this machine is inhabited by an immortal principle + which rules it and directs it, or whether it simply runs + itself, science has not, and probably cannot, give a definite + answer. It has reached its limit of inquiry, and is unable to + cross the chasm that lies beyond. There are men who believe + that there is nothing in the body save the body itself, and + that when that dies all perishes: there are others, like the + writer, who believe that they feel in their mental processes a + something which they call "will," which governs and directs the + actions of the machine, and which, although very largely + influenced by external surroundings, is capable of rising above + the impulses from without, leading them to believe in the + existence of more than flesh—of soul and God. The + materialist, so far as natural science is concerned, stands + upon logical ground, but no less logical is the foundation of + him who believes in human free-will and immortality. The + decision as to the correctness of the beliefs of the + materialist or of the theist must be reached by other data than + those of natural science.</p> + + <p class='author'>H.C. WOOD, M.D.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="OUR_MONTHLY_GOSSIP" + id="OUR_MONTHLY_GOSSIP"></a>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2> + + <h3>CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM AND DEMOCRATIC IDEAS.</h3> + + <p>A movement which appeals not to the emotions, but to the + intellect—whose advocates aim at enlightening-the public + mind and convincing it of the truth of some new or disregarded + principle, and the necessity of enforcing it—needs above + all things open and active opposition, both as a stimulant to + its supporters and as a means of arousing general attention. It + has been very unfortunate for our Civil-Service Reformers that + they have never been able to provoke discussion. They have had + the field of argument all to themselves. Their repeated + challenges have been received only with silent respect, + scornful indifference, or expressions of encouragement still + more depressing. Those whose hostility they were prepared to + encounter have been the readiest to acknowledge the truth of + their propositions—considered as pure + abstractions—and have even invited them to apply their + system—in conjunction with that which it seeks to + supplant. Meanwhile, the popular interest has been kept busily + absorbed by issues of a different nature; and the Reformers, + snubbed in quarters where they had confidently counted on aid, + and hustled from the arena in which they had fondly imagined + they were to play a prominent part and exert a decisive + influence, are now, it is announced, about to devote their + energies to the quiet propagation of their views by means of + tracts and other publications, abstaining from any appearance + in the domain of actual politics either as a distinct party or + as an organized body of independent voters appealing to the + hopes and fears of existing parties, and ready to co-operate + with one or the other according to the inducements offered for + their support.</p> + + <p>We heartily wish them success in this new enterprise, and it + is as a contribution to their efforts that we publish in this + number of the Magazine an article which, so far as our + observation extends, is the first direct argumentative attack + upon their doctrines and open defence of the system they have + assailed. We shall not undertake to anticipate their reply, but + I shall content ourselves with pointing out, on the principle + of <i>fas est ab hoste doceri,</i> what they may learn from + this attack, and especially what hints may be derived from it + in regard to the proper objective point of their proposed + operations. Hitherto, if we mistake not, they have been led to + suppose that the only obstacles in their way are the interested + antagonism of the "politicians" and the ignorant apathy of the + great mass of the people, and it is because they have found + themselves powerless to make head against the tactics of the + former class that they intend to confine themselves henceforth + to the work of awaking and enlightening the latter. There is + always danger, however, when we are expounding our pet theories + to a group of silent listeners, of ignoring their state of mind + in regard to the subject-matter and mistaking the impression + produced by our eloquence. George Borrow tells us that when + preaching in Rommany to a congregation of Gypsies he felt + highly flattered by the patient attention of his hearers, till + he happened to notice that they all had their eyes fixed in a + diabolical squint. Something of the same kind would, we fear, + be the effect on a large number of persons of well-meant + expositions of the English civil-service reform and its + admirable results. Nor will any appeals to the moral sense + excite an indignation at the workings of our present system + sufficiently deep and general to demand its overthrow. + Civil-service reform had a far easier task in England than it + has here, and forces at its back which are here actively or + inertly opposed to it. There the system of patronage was + intimately connected with oligarchical rule; official positions + were not so much monopolized by a victorious party as by a + privileged class; the government of the day had little interest + in maintaining the system, the bulk of the nation had a direct + interest in upsetting it, and its downfall was a natural result + of the growth of popular power and the decline of aristocracy. + Our system, however similar in its character and effects, had + no such origin; it does not belong to some peculiar institution + which we are seeking to get rid of: on the contrary, it has its + roots in certain conceptions of the nature of government and + popular freedom—of the relations between a people and + those who administer its affairs—which are all but + universally current among us.</p> + + <p>It is this last point which is clearly and forcibly + presented in the article of our contributor, and which it will + behoove the Reformers not to overlook. Nothing is more + characteristic of the American mind, in reference to political + ideas, than its strong conservatism. This fact, which has often + puzzled foreign observers accustomed to connect democracy with + innovating tendencies and violent fluctuations, is yet easily + explained. Though ours is a new country, its system of + government is really older than that of almost any other + civilized country. In the century during which it has existed + intact and without any material modification the institutions + of most other nations have undergone a complete change, in some + cases of form and structure, in others of theory and essence. + Even England, which boasts of the stability of its government + and its immunity from the storms that have overturned so many + thrones and disorganized so many states, has experienced a + fundamental, though gradual and peaceable, revolution. There, + as elsewhere, the centre of power has changed, the chain of + tradition has been broken, and new conceptions of the functions + of government and its relations to the governed have taken the + place of the old ones. But in America nothing of this kind has + occurred: the "old order" has not passed away, nor have its + foundations undergone the least change; the municipal and + colonial institutions under which we first exercised the right + of self-government, and the Constitution which gave us our + national baptism, are still the fountain of all our political + ideas; and our party struggles are not waged about new + principles or animated by new watch words, but are fenced and + guided by the maxims transmitted by the founders of the + republic. This is our strength and our safeguard against wild + experiments, but it is also an impediment to every suggestion + of improvement. It binds us to the letter of tradition, leads + us to confound the accidental with the essential, and gives to + certain notions and certain words a potency which must be + described as an anachronism. We still use the language of the + Revolutionary epoch, recognize no perils but those against + which our ancestors had to guard, and put faith in the efficacy + of methods that have no longer an object, and of phrases that + have lost their original significance. Because George III. + distributed offices at his pleasure as rewards, and bound the + holders to party services in conformity with his will, the + sovereign people is to do the same. "Rotation in office" having + been the means in the eighteenth century of dispelling + political stagnation and checking jobbery and corruption, it is + still the only process for correcting abuses and getting the + public service properly performed. The prime duty of all good + citizens is to emulate the incessant political activity of + their patriotic forefathers, and it is owing solely to a too + general neglect of this duty that ballot-stuffing and + machine-running, and all the other evils unknown in early days + and in primitive communities, have come into existence and + gained sway throughout the land. These and similar views, + according to our observation, characterize what we may without + disrespect, and without confining the remark to the rural + districts, term the provincial mind, and wherever they exist + the ideas of the Civil-Service Reformers are not only not + understood or treated as visionary, but are regarded with + aversion and distrust as foreign, monstrous and inconsistent + with popular freedom and republican government.</p> + + <h3>AN UNFINISHED PAGE OF HISTORY.</h3> + + <p>I can easily understand why educated Americans cross the + Atlantic every year in shoals in search of the picturesque; and + I can understand, too, all that they say of the relief which + ivied ruins and cathedrals and galleries, or any other + reminders of past ages, give to their eyes, oppressed so long + by our interminable rows of store-box houses, our pasteboard + villas, the magnificence of our railway accommodations for + Ladies and Gents, and all the general gaseous glitter which + betrays how young and how rich we are. But I cannot understand + why it is that their eyes, thus trained, should fail to see the + exceptional picturesqueness of human life in this country. The + live man is surely always more dramatic and suggestive than a + house or a costume, provided we have eyes to interpret him; and + this people, as no other, are made up of the moving, active + deposits and results of world-old civilizations and experiments + in living.</p> + + <p>Outwardly, if you choose, the country is like one of the + pretentious houses of its rich citizens—new, smug, + complacently commonplace—but within, like the house + again, it is filled with rare bits gathered out of every age + and country and jumbled together in utter confusion. If you + ride down Seventh street in a horse-car, you are in a + psychological curio-shop. On one side, very likely, is a + Russian Jew just from the Steppes; on the other, a negro with + centuries of heathendom and slavery hinting themselves in lip + and eye; the driver is a Fenian, with the blood of the + Phoenicians in his veins; in front of you is a gentleman with + the unmistakable Huguenot nose, and chin; while an almond-eyed + pagan, disguised behind moustache and eye-glasses, courteously + takes your fare and drops it for you in the Slawson box. + Nowhere do all the elements of Tragedy and Comedy play so + strange a part as on the dead-level of this American stage. It + is because it is so dead a level that we fail to see the part + they play—because "furious Goth and fiery Hun" meet, not + on the battle-field, but in the horse-car, dropping their cents + together in a Slawson box.</p> + + <p>For example, as to the tragedy.</p> + + <p>I met at dinner not long ago a lady who was introduced to me + under a French name, but whose clear olive complexion, erect + carriage and singular repose of manner would indicate her + rather to be a Spaniard. She wore a red rose in the coils of + her jetty hair, and another fastened the black lace of her + corsage. Her eyes, which were slow, dark and brilliant, always + rested on you an instant before she spoke with that fearless + candor which is not found in the eyes of a member of any race + that has ever been enslaved. I was told that her rank was high + among her own people, and in her movements and voice there were + that quiet simplicity and total lack of self-consciousness + which always belong either to a man or woman of the highest + breeding, or to one whose purpose in life is so noble as to + lift him above all considerations of self. Although a + foreigner, she spoke English with more purity than most of the + Americans at the table, but with a marked and frequent + recurrence of forcible but half-forgotten old idioms; which was + due, as! learned afterward, to her having had no book of + English literature to study for several years but Shakespeare. + I observed that she spoke but seldom, and to but one person at + a time; but when she did, her casual talk was the brimming over + of a mind of great original force as yet full and unspent. She + was, besides, a keen observer who had studied much, but seen + more.</p> + + <p>This lady, in a word, was one who would deserve recognition + by the best men and women in any country; and she received it + here, as many of the readers of <i>Lippincott</i>, who will + recognize my description, will remember. She was caressed and + feted by literary and social celebrities in Washington and New + York; Boston made much of her; Longfellow and Holmes made + verses in her honor; prying reporters gave accounts of her + singular charm and beauty to the public in the daily + papers.</p> + + <p>She was accompanied by two of the men of her family. They + did not speak English, but they were men of strong practical + sense and business capacity, with the odd combination in their + character of that exaggerated perception of honorable dealing + which we are accustomed to call chivalric. They had, too, a + grave dignity and composure of bearing which would have + befitted Spanish hidalgos, and beside which our pert, sociable + American manner and slangy talk were sadly belittled. These men + (for I had a reason in making particular inquiries concerning + them) were in private life loyal friends, good citizens, + affectionate husbands and fathers—in a word, Christian + men, honest from the marrow to the outside.</p> + + <p>Now to the strange part of my story, revolting enough to our + republican ears. This lady and her people, in the country to + which they belong, are held in a subjection to which that of + the Russian serf was comparative freedom. They are held legally + as the slaves not of individuals, but of the government, which + has absolute power over their persons, lives and property. Its + manner of exercising that power is, however, peculiar. They are + compelled to live within certain enclosures. Each enclosure is + ruled by a man of the dominant race, usually of the lower + class, who, as a rule, gains the place by bribing the officer + of government who has charge of these people. The authority of + this man within the limits of the enclosure is literally as + autocratic as that of the Russian czar. He distributes the + rations intended by the government for the support of these + people, or such part of them as he thinks fit, retaining + whatever amount he chooses for himself. There is nothing to + restrain him in these robberies. In consequence, the funds set + aside by the government for the support of its wretched + dependants are stolen so constantly by the officers at the + capital and the petty tyrants of the separate enclosures that + the miserable creatures almost yearly starve and freeze to + death from want. Their resource would be, of course, as they + are in a civilized country, to work at trades, to farm, etc. + But this is not permitted to them. Another petty officer is + appointed in each enclosure to barter goods for the game or + peltry which they bring in or crops that they manage to raise. + He fixes his own price for both his goods and theirs, and + cheats them by wholesale at his leisure. There is no appeal: + they are absolutely forbidden to trade with any other person. + The men of my friend's family—educated men and shrewd in + business as any merchant of Philadelphia—when at home + were liable to imprisonment and a fine of five hundred dollars + if they bought from or sold to any other person than this one + man. They are, too, taught no trade or profession. Each + enclosure has its appointed blacksmith, carpenter, etc. of the + dominant class, who, naturally, will not share their profits by + teaching their trade to the others.</p> + + <p>Within the enclosures my friend and her people, no matter + how enlightened or refined they may be, are herded, and under + the same rules, as so many animals. They cannot leave the + enclosure without passes, such as were granted to our slaves + before the war when they wished to go outside of the + plantation. This woman, when seated at President Hayes's table, + the equal in mind and breeding of any of her companions, was, + by the laws of her country, a runaway, legally liable to be + haled by the police back to her enclosure, and shot if she + resisted. She and her people are absolutely unprotected by any + law. It is indeed the only case, so far as I know, in any + Christian country, in which a single class are so set aside, + unprotected by any law. When our slaves were killed or tortured + by inhuman masters, there was at least some show of justice for + them. The white murderer went through some form of trial and + punishment. The slave, though a chattel, was still a human + being. But these people are not recognized by the law as human + beings. They cannot buy nor sell; they cannot hold property: if + with their own hands they build a house and gather about them + the comforts of civilization and the wife and children to which + the poorest negro, the most barbarous savage, has a right, any + man of the dominant class can, without violating any law, take + possession of the house, ravage the wife and thrust the + children out to starve. The wrong-doer is subject to no + penalty. The victim has no right of appeal to the courts. Hence + such outrages are naturally of daily occurrence. Not only are + they perpetrated on individuals, but frequently there is a raid + made upon the whole of the inmates of one + enclosure—whenever, in fact, the people in the + neighborhood fancy they would like to take possession of their + land. The kinsmen of my friend, with their clan numbering some + seven hundred souls—a peaceable, industrious Christian + community, living on land which had belonged to their ancestors + for centuries—were swept off of it a few years ago at the + whim of two of their rulers: their houses and poor little + belongings were all left behind, and they were driven a + thousand miles into a sterile, malarious region where nearly + half of their number died. The story of their sufferings, their + homesickness and their despair on the outward journey, and of + how still later some thirty of them returned on foot, carrying + the bones of those who had died to lay them in their old homes, + is one of the most dramatic pages in history. De Quincey's + "Flight of a Tartar Clan" does not equal it in pathos or as a + story of heroism and endurance. At the end of their homeward + journey, when almost within sight of their homes, the heroic + little band were seized by order of the ruler of their + enclosure and committed to prison. The tribe are still in the + malarious swamps to which they were exiled. Strangers hold + their farms and the houses which they built with their own + hands.</p> + + <p>The anomalous condition of a people legally ranking as + animals, and not human beings, would naturally produce + unpleasant consequences when they are criminally the + aggressors. When they steal or kill they cannot be tried, sent + to jail or hung as if they were human in the eye of the law. + The ruler of each enclosure is granted arbitrary power in such + cases to punish at his discretion. He is judge, jury, and often + executioner. He has a control over the lives of these people + more absolute than that of any Christian monarch over his + subjects. If he thinks proper to shoot the offender, he can + call upon the regular army of the country to sustain him. If + the individual offender escapes, the whole of the inmates of + the enclosure are held responsible, and men, women and children + are slaughtered by wholesale and without mercy.</p> + + <p>My readers understand my little fable by this time. It is no + fable, but a disgraceful truth.</p> + + <p>The government under which a people—many of whom are + educated, enlightened Christian gentlemen—are denied the + legal rights of human beings and all protection of law is not + the absolute despotism of Siara or Russia, but the United + States, the republic which proclaims itself the refuge for the + oppressed of all nations—the one spot on earth where + every man is entitled alike to life, liberty and the pursuit of + happiness. The only people in the world to whom it denies these + rights are not its quondam slaves, not pagans, not runaway + convicts, not the offscourings of any nation however degraded, + but the original owners of the country.</p> + + <p>The legal disability under which the Indian is held is as + much of an outrage on human rights, and as bald a contradiction + of the doctrines on which our republic is based, as negro + slavery was.</p> + + <p class="author">R.H.D.</p> + + <h3>A LITTLE IRELAND IN AMERICA</h3> + + <p>The humorous side of life was never more vividly brought + before me than while living a few years ago in the vicinity of + an Irish settlement in one of the suburbs of New York. What we + call "characters" were to be found in every cottage—the + commonplace was the exception. Indeed, I do not remember that + it existed at all in "The Lane," as this locality was + called.</p> + + <p>Perhaps among the inhabitants of The Lane none more deserved + distinction than Mary Magovern. The grandmother of a numerous + family, she united all the masculine and feminine virtues. + About the stiff, spotless and colossal frill of her cap curled + wreaths of smoke from her stout dhudeen as she sat before the + door blacking the small boots of her grandchildren, stopping + from time to time to remove the pipe from her mouth, that she + might deliver in her full bass voice a peremptory order to the + large yellow dog that lay at her feet. It was usually on the + occasion of a carriage passing, when the dog would growl and + rise. Very quickly out came the pipe, and immediately followed + the words, "Danger, lay by thim intintions;" and the pipe was + used as an indicator for the next movement—namely, to + patiently lie down again upon the ground.</p> + + <p>Mary Magovern kept a drinking-shop behind the living-rooms + of her cottage, and the immense prestige she had in The Lane + must have had some foundation in the power which this thriving + business gave her, many of her neighbors being under the + obligation of debt to her.</p> + + <p>Mike Quinlan would have been her most frequent visitor had + it not been for the ever-open eye of Mrs. Quinlan, which caused + her husband to seek his delights by stealth at a village a mile + away. Mike was an elderly and handsome man, but his wits had + ebbed out as the contents of the wine-cup flowed in, and the + beauty that had won so remarkable a person as Mrs. Quinlan in + its first glow was somewhat marred. He was the owner of a small + cart and a mule, and those who had stones or earth to move + usually remembered to employ poor Mike. But it was on foot, as + a more inconspicuous method of eluding the watchfulness of Mrs. + Quinlan, that Mike slipped away to the neighboring village of + an afternoon, and it was on foot that I one night saw Mrs. + Quinlan going over the same road with an invincible + determination in her countenance and a small birch rod in her + hand. Mrs. Quinlan was somewhat younger than her lord and + master: she had a clear, bright-blue eye, a roseate color in + her little slender face, and gray hair tidily smoothed back + beneath the dainty ruffles of her cap, about which a black + ribbon was tied. She wore short petticoats and low shoes, and + as she walked briskly along she smoothed her apron with the + disengaged hand, as if, the balance of the family + respectability having so wholly fallen upon her own shoulders, + she would not disturb it by permitting a disorderly wrinkle. + Half an hour later she passed again over the road, her face + turned homeward and wearing an even greater austerity, the + birch rod grasped firmly in her hand, and her worser half + preceding her with a foolish smile upon his lips, half of + concession, half of pride in the power to which he stooped.</p> + + <p>Another of Mrs. Magovern's occasional visitors was Old + Haley, who had regular employment upon our own place. Like Mike + Quinlan, he rejoiced in a wife who was an ornament to her + sex—a most respectable, handsome and intelligent woman, + though education had done little to sharpen her wits or widen + her experience. She could tell a one from a five dollar bill, + as her husband would proudly inform you, and she could cook a + dinner, do up a skirt or a frilled cap, keep a house or tend a + sick friend, as well as any woman in the land. "Maggie's a + janeous!" her husband would remark with a look of intense + admiration.</p> + + <p>One evening Mrs. Haley made her appearance at our house, + asking for an audience of my mother. The object was to inform + her—these sympathetic people like to be advised in all + their affairs—that being in need of various household + supplies she proposed on the following day to go to the city + and purchase them at the Washington Market.</p> + + <p>"I suppose you have been to the city before, Mrs. Haley?" + remarked my mother.</p> + + <p>"I have not, ma'am," said Mrs. Haley.</p> + + <p>"Had you not better take some friend with you who has been + there before, lest you should get lost?"</p> + + <p>"Faith, I had, ma'am: I had a right to have moor sinse an' + think o' that."</p> + + <p>So Mrs. Haley departed, returning again in company with Mary + Magovern: "Here's Mary Magovern, ma'am: she's goin' along wid + me."</p> + + <p>"Ah, that's very well.—You know the city, Mary? you've + been there?"</p> + + <p>"I have not, ma'am."</p> + + <p>"Why, what, then, is the use of your going with Mrs. + Haley?"</p> + + <p>"We'll make a shtrict inquiry, ma'am."</p> + + <p>The next morning they started, and at four o'clock Old Haley + came in much anxiety of mind to seek comfort of my mother: + "Maggie's not come, ma'am. Faith, I'm throubled, for the city + is a quare place."</p> + + <p>When it grew late Haley returned again and again, in + ever-increasing anxiety, to be reassured. At last, when the + family were retiring to bed, came Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Magovern + to report their arrival. In spite of the lateness of the hour + my mother received them, and in spite of their wearied and worn + faces administered a gentle rebuke for the anxiety that Mrs. + Haley had caused her spouse.</p> + + <p>"Well, indade it's no wonder he was throubled," said Mrs. + Haley, "an' it's a wonder we got here at all. We got nothing at + the Washington Market, for we couldn't find it at all: I think + they tuk it away to Washington. It was in the mornin' airly + that we got to the city, ma'am, an' there was a koind of a + carr, an' a gintleman up on the top of it, an' anuther + gintleman at the dure of it, wid the dure in his hand, an' he + sez, sez he, 'Git in, ladies,' sez he.—'We're goin' to + the Washington Market, sur,' sez I.—That's where I'll + take yez, ladies,' sez he. 'Pay yer fares, ladies.' An' we got + in, ma'am, an' wint up to the top of the city, an' paid tin + cints, the both of us. An' there was a great many ladies an' + gintlemen got in an' done the same, ma'am, an' some got out one + place an' some another. An' whin we got up to the top of the + city, 'Mrs. Magovern,' sez I,' this isn't the Washington + Market,' sez I.—' It is not, Mrs. Haley,' sez + she.—'We'll git out, Mrs. Magovern,' sez I.—'We + will, Mrs. Haley,' sez she. An' thin, ma'am, there was a small + bit of a howl in the carr, and it was through the howl the + ladies an' gintlemen would cry out to the gintleman on the top + o' the carr, and he'd put his face down forninst it an' spake + wid thim; an' I cried up through the howl to him, an' sez I, + 'Me an' Mrs. Magovern will git out, sur,' sez I, 'for this + isn't the Washington Market at all.'—'It is not, ma'am,' + sez he, 'but that's where I'll take yez,' sez he. 'Sit down, + ladies,' sez he, 'and pay me the money,' sez he. 'I had a great + many paple to lave,' sez he. An' indade he had, ma'am. An' we + paid the money agin, an' we wint down to the bottom o' the + city. 'This is not the Washington Market, Mrs. Magovern,' sez + I.—'It is not, Mrs. Haley,' sez she.—'We'll git + out, Mrs. Magovern,' sez I.—'We will, Mrs. Haley,' sez + she. Thin came the gintleman that first had the dure in his + hand. 'What's the matther, ladies?' sez he.—'This isn't + the Washington Market, sur,' sez I.—'It is not, ma'am,' + sez he, 'but the city is a great place,' sez he, 'an' it's not + aisy to go everywhere at wonst,' sez he; 'an' if yez will have + patience,' sez he, 'ye'll git there,' sez he. 'Git in, ladies,' + sez he, 'an' pay yer fares.' Wid all the houses there's in the + city, an' all the sthrates there's in it, faith, it was no good + at all to thry to foind our way alone; but thim wur false + paple—they niver took us to the Washington Market at all; + an' it was all the day we wint up to the top o' the city and + down to the bottom o' the city, and spinding our money at it. + An' sez I, 'Mrs. Magovern, it would be better for us if we wint + home,' sez I.—'It would, Mrs. Haley,' sez she; an' we + come down to the boat, an' it was two hours agin befoor the + boat would go, an' thin we come home; an' it's toired we are, + an' it's an' awful place, the city is."</p> + + <p>Haley's statements could seldom be relied on, but his + untruth fulness was never a matter of self-interest, but rather + of amiability. He desired to tell you whatever you desired to + know, and to tell it as you would like to hear it, even if + facts were so perverse as to be contrary.</p> + + <p>One day I wanted to do an errand in the village, and called + for the horse and carriage. Haley brought them to the door. As + I took the reins I remembered that it was noon and the horse's + dinner-time: "Did the horse have his dinner, Haley?"</p> + + <p>"I just gave it to him, ma'am; and an ilegint dinner he + had."</p> + + <p>"Why did you feed him just when I was about to drive + him?"</p> + + <p>"Oh, well, it's not much he got."</p> + + <p>"He should have had nothing."</p> + + <p>"Faith, me lady, I ownly showed it to him."</p> + + <p>There were no more respectable people in The Lane than John + Godfrey and his family. His pretty little wife with an anxious + face tenderly watched over an ever-increasing family of + daughters, till on one most providential occasion the expected + girl turned out to be a boy, and I went with my sisters to + congratulate the happy mother. "What will you name the little + fellow, Mrs. Godfrey?" I asked, sympathetically.</p> + + <p>The poor woman looked up with a smile, saying weakly, "John + Pathrick, miss—John afther the father, an' Pathrick + afther the saint."</p> + + <p>The following year the same unexpected luck brought another + boy, and again we young girls, being much at leisure, carried + our congratulations: "What will be the name of this little boy, + Mrs. Godfrey?"</p> + + <p>"Pathrick John, miss—Pathrick afther the saint, an' + John afther the father."</p> + + <p>A confused sense of having heard that sentence before came + over me. "Why, Mrs. Godfrey," I said, "was not that the name of + your last child?"</p> + + <p>"To be shure, miss. Why would I be trating one betther than + the other?"</p> + + <p>A member of this same family, upon receiving a blow with a + stone in the eye, left her somewhat overcrowded paternal home + for the quieter protection of her widowed aunt, Mrs. King, and + one day my sister and myself knocked at Mrs. King's door to + inquire about the state of the injured organ.</p> + + <p>"Troth, miss, it's very bad," said Mrs. King.</p> + + <p>"What do you do for it, Mrs. King?"</p> + + <p>"Do?" said Mrs. King, suddenly applying the corner of her + apron to her overflowing eyes—"Do?" she continued in a + broken voice. "I've been crying these three days."</p> + + <p>"But what do you do to make it better?"</p> + + <p>Mrs. King took heart, folded her arms, and thus applied + herself to the setting forth of her humane exertions: "In comes + Mistress Magovern, an', 'Mrs. King,' sez she, 'put rar + bafesteak to the choild's oye;' an' that minit, ma'am, the rar + bafesteak wint to it. Thin comes Mrs. Haley. 'Is it rar + bafesteak ye'd be putting to it, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Biling + clothes, Mrs. King,' sez she. That minit, ma'am, the rar + bafesteak come afif an' the biling clothes wint to it. In comes + Mrs. Quinlan. 'Will ye be destryin' the choild's oye intirely, + Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Cowld ice, Mrs. King.' An' that minit, + ma'am, the biling clothes come aff an' the cowld ice wint to + it. Oh, I do be doin' iverything anybody do tell me."</p> + + <p>It was a memorable sight to see the Gunning twins wandering + down The Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had + gone out washing for the day and taken the door-key with her. + "Thim lads is big enough to take care of thimsilves," she would + remark, though "the lads" were not yet capable of coherent + speech. No doubt they wandered into some neighbor's at + meal-time and received a willingly-given potato or a drink of + milk. They seemed happy enough, and their funny, ugly little + faces were defaced by no tears. They grew in time old enough to + explain their position to inquiring passers-by and to pick up + and eat an amazing quantity of green apples. A lady passing one + day stopped and remonstrated with one of them. "Barney," she + said, "it will make you ill if you eat those green + apples."—"I do be always atin' of them, ma'am," replied + Barney, stolidly.</p> + + <p>Perhaps it may have been the green apples, but from whatever + cause Barney fell ill, and all that the doctor prescribed made + him no better. "It's no matther, stir," said Mrs. Gunning one + morning: "yer needn't come ag'in. I'll just go an' ask Mrs. + ———" (my mother).</p> + + <p>The next morning the doctor, meeting my mother, laughingly + remarked that it was very plain that they couldn't practise in + the same district: he had just met Mrs. Gunning, who informed + him that "what Mrs. ——— gave her the night + befoor done the choild a power of good."</p> + + <p>The day preceding our departure from the place my sister and + I passed through The Lane, and received the most amiable + farewells, accompanied with blessings, and even tears. The + figure I best remember is that of Mrs. Regan, who, bursting out + from her doorway, stood in our path, and, dissolving in tears, + sobbed out, "Faith, I'm sorry yez be goin'. I don't know what + I'll do at all widout yez;" and, seizing my sister's hand, gave + her this unique recommendation: "Ye were always passing by + mannerly—niver sassy nor impidint, nor nothing."</p> + + <p>The Lane has changed to-day. A Chinese grocer has, I hear, + set up a shop in its midst. Some of its most noted characters + have passed away, and the younger generation have taken on + habits more American than those of their predecessors.</p> + + <p class="author">M.R.O.</p> + + <h3>A CHILD'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</h3> + + <p>A quaint and charming volume, which has fallen in our way, + is <i>Little Charlie's Life</i>, "the autobiography of a child + between six and seven years of age, written with his own hand + and without any assistance whatever." It was at the urgent + request of the gentleman who acted as editor, Rev. W.R. + Clark—thus rescuing an inimitable little work from + comparative oblivion—that the parents of the youthful + author reluctantly consented to the publication of this curious + delineation of child-life. From the date of his birth (1833), + Charlie must have written his work some forty years ago. How + long he was engaged in its composition is not stated, but from + the internal evidence yielded by the spelling and the + handwriting (for the work is lithographed in exact imitation of + the manuscript) we should infer that it occupied two or three + years, the handwriting of the first seven chapters being in + imitation of ordinary printing, while the remaining chapters + appear in an ordinary schoolboy's hand. We may add that it is + copiously illustrated by himself, and that the illustrations + are worth their weight in gold, supplementing as they do, in a + superfluously exact and curiously quaint manner, this most + unique work.</p> + + <p>He starts with this account of himself: "My name is Charles + John Young, and I was born in Amfort, a pretty village in + Hampshire, 1833 in July, that pleasant time when the birds sing + merrily and flowers bloom sweetly. My father and mother are the + kindest in the world, and I love them dearly and both alike. I + shall give a description of them by and by. In the mean time I + shall just say that my papa is a clergyman."</p> + + <p>The earlier chapters describe the various migrations of the + family from one parish to another, and from them we have no + difficulty in recognizing in "papa" the Rev. Julian Young, who + possessed no small share of the talents that distinguished + <i>his</i> father, the celebrated tragedian, Charles Young, and + which seem to have been transmitted to our author, who, we + understand, has honorably served his country in Her Majesty's + army. From his earliest years Charlie seems to have been + strongly influenced by religious feelings. His creed was a + bright and trustful one, a realization of God's presence and of + the need of speaking to Him as to one who could always hear and + help. When he was about three years old, we are told in the + editor's interesting preface, he was often heard offering up + little petitions for the supply of his child-like wants. Once, + when, his nurse left him to fetch some more milk, his father + overheard him saying, "O God, please let there be enough milk + in the jug for me to have some more, for Jesus Christ's sake. + Amen." Many quaint little religious reflections and scriptural + allusions are interspersed throughout the book. In one place he + declares that "without papa and mamma the garden would be to me + what the wilderness was to John the Baptist;" while again he + offers up a pathetic prayer for a baby-brother; and throughout + we are struck by the fact that his religion was pre-eminently + one of love. Charlie's educational advantages were of the + noblest and best, home-training largely predominating. In the + ninth chapter he refers in a simple matter-of-fact way to his + early studies: "Mamma devotes her time in teaching me and in + reading instructive books with me. Papa tells me about the + productions of the earth, rivers, mountains, valleys, mines, + and, most wonderful of all, the formation of the human body." + Further on we read: "Nothing of any great importance occurred + now for some time. My life was spent quietly in the country, as + the child of a Wiltshire clergyman ought, mamma devoting her + time in teaching me, and my daily play going on the same, till + at last papa and mamma took me to the splendid capital of + England." However much this brilliant transition may have + dazzled him, he still prefers his quiet country home, arguing + thus: "As to living there [in London], I should not like it. + The reason why—because its noisy riots in the streets + suit not my mood like the tranquil streams and the waving trees + I love in England's country.... 'Tis true—oh, how + true!—in the poetic words of Mr. Shakespeare, 'Man made + the town, God made the country.'"</p> + + <p>Despite the stilted style and absurdly pompous descriptions, + with an occasional terrible breakdown, Charlie's love of + Nature, and especially of the animal creation, seems to have + been most genuine. He speaks of "the wide ocean which when + angry roars and clashes over the beach, but when calm crabs are + seen crawling on the shore and the sun shines bright over the + waves," and of "the billows rolling over each other and foaming + over the rough stones," with an apparently real enthusiasm. The + softer emotions of his nature were engrossed in this way, as we + infer from the negative evidence afforded by his autobiography + that he reached his seventh year without any experience of the + tender passion.</p> + + <p>His physiological ideas in the speculations regarding the + origin of a baby-brother are naïvely expressed: "One day I was + told that a baby was born [this was when he was three years and + a half old], and upon going into mamma's bedroom I saw a red + baby lying in an arm-chair wrapped in swaddling-clothes. It + puzzled me very much to think how he came into the world: it + was mysterious, very, and I cannot make it out now. My first + thought was, that he must have had airy wings, and after he had + come they had disappeared. My second thought was that he was so + very little as to be able to come through the keyhole, and + increased rapidly in size, just as it says in the Bible that a + grain of mustard-seed springs to be so large a tree that the + fowls of the air can roost upon it."</p> + + <p>In his sixth year Charlie evinced poetic tendencies. We have + in one of his poems a description of his grandpapa, "a + venerable old gentleman with dark eyes, gray hair, noble + features, and altogether very generous aspect." Here is "a song + appropriate to him:"</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Oh, venerable is our old + ancestor—<br /></span> <span class="i3">Cloud on + his brow,<br /></span> <span class="i3">Lightning in + his eyes,<br /></span> <span class="i0">His gray hair + streaming in the wind.<br /></span> <span class="i3">To + children ever kind,<br /></span> <span class="i3">To + merit never blind,—<br /></span> + <span class="i0">Oh, such is our old + ancestor,<br /></span> <span class="i0">With hair that + streameth wild.<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>At the head of this poem is a picture of the old ancestor, + consisting of a hat, a head, a walking-stick, one arm and two + legs, one of which—whether the right or left is doubtful, + as their origin is concealed by the aforesaid arm—is much + longer than the other, and walking in a contrary direction. The + most wonderful feature of this sketch is the "hair streaming in + the wind," the distance from the poll to the end of the flowing + locks being longer than the longest leg.</p> + + <p>We cannot conclude without an extract describing a "dreadful + accident" which happened to our youthful author; "perhaps," as + he solemnly says, "for a punishment of my sins, or to show me + that Death stands ready at the door to snatch my life away:" + "One night papa had been conjuring a penny, and I thought + <i>I</i> should like to conjure; so I took a round brass thing + with a verse out of the Bible upon it that I brought into bed + with me. I thought it went down papa's throat, so <i>I</i> put + it down <i>my</i> throat, and I was pretty near choked. I + called my nurse, who was in the next room. She fetched up papa, + and then my nurse brought the basin. Papa beat my back, and I + was sick. <i>Lo! there was the counter!</i> Papa said, 'Good + God!' and my nurse fainted, but soon recovered. Don't you think + papa was very clever when he beat my back? Papa then had a long + talk afterward with me about it—a very serious one."</p> + + <p>The above pathetic story is accurately illustrated, but we + especially regret that we cannot transfer to these pages some + of the marvellous delineations of the animals in the Clifton + Zoological Garden.</p> + + <p class="author">M.S. D.</p> + + <h3>WANTED—A REAL GAINSBOROUGH.</h3> + + <p>I am an unmarried man of twenty-four. After that confession + it is hardly necessary to add that I am in the habit of + thinking a great deal about a person not yet embodied into + actual existence—<i>i.e.</i>. my future wife. I have not + yet met her—she is a purely ideal being—but at the + same time I so often have a vivid conception of her looks, her + air, her walk, her tones even, that she seems to be present. My + misery is that I cannot find her in real life.</p> + + <p>No one need fancy that I am an imaginative man: quite the + contrary is the fact. I am a lawyer, and have an office in Bond + street. Every morning at eight o'clock I take the Sixth Avenue + horse-cars and ride down to Fourteenth street. I have a fancy + for walking the rest of the way, and toward evening I saunter + back homeward along Broadway and Union Square.</p> + + <p>Prosaic as these journeys may seem, they are nevertheless + the inspiration of my hopes, the feeders of my visions. It is + at such times that I enjoy my glimpses of the lady I long to + meet. I jostle gentle creatures at every step: feminine shapes + and feminine tones are on every side presented to eyes and + ears. I trust nobody will be prejudiced against me when I + confess that I see the fair one of my dreams in the + shop-windows. Once having seen her, I become immeasurably + happy, and go on dreaming about her until we meet again. It may + seem a curious admission, but this beautiful although + impalpable being is suggested by the charming dresses, hats and + bonnets displayed on the milliners' blocks. None of our artists + can paint portraits now-a-days: Art seems to have withdrawn her + gifts from them and endowed the dressmakers and milliners + instead.</p> + + <p>It was at first difficult for me to decide on the + personality of my beloved. My earliest fancy was for a blond: + at least the dress was of pale blue silk with a profusion of + lace trimmings. Her hat was of straw faced with azure velvet, + and the crown surrounded by a long plume, also of ciel blue. I + knew by heart the features of this fair young creature, + invisible although she was to others. They seemed to belong + more to a flower than to a face: her eyes were large and blue, + full of appealing love; her hair was of course golden; her + smile was angelic; and her whole expression was one of + sweetness and goodness. She was my first dream: little although + she belonged to actual life, she used to trip about by my side + and sit with me in my room at home. Suddenly, however, I became + enamored of a different creature, and my dream changed. I began + to think of my lovely blond regretfully as of a beautiful + creature too good for earth who died young. It is the habit of + the shopkeepers to change the figures in their windows, and one + morning I fell in love with quite a different creature. She + wore when I first saw her a long dress of black silk and velvet + sparkling with jet; over her shoulders was thrown carelessly a + mantle of cream-colored cloth; on her head was a plush + hat—what they call a Gainsborough—trimmed with a + long graceful plume, also of cream-color. Although only her + back was toward me, I knew by instinct exactly what her face + was. She was dark of course, with a low broad forehead, about + which clustered little short curls; her eyes were superb, at + once laughing and melancholy; her features suggested rather + pride than softness; but her smile was enchanting, open, sunny, + like a burst of light from behind a cloud. Nothing could be + more real than this vision. At first the discovery of this + magnificently-endowed woman rendered me happy: I used to walk + past the shop half a dozen times a day to look at her. Her + costumes varied, but they always suggested the same dark but + brilliant lineaments, the same graceful movements, the same + peculiarly lovely tones. She often looked back at me over her + shoulder, but had an air of evading me. All at once, with + surprise and delight, I remembered that she might be found in + actual existence, in real flesh and blood. I deserted the image + for a week in the hope of finding the reality. I paced Fifth + Avenue; I went to the dry-goods stores; I attended the + theatres. Often I seemed to see her before me—the + picturesque hat, the long plume, the rich mantle and dress. At + such moments while I pressed forward my heart beat. When the + cheek turned toward me and the eyes lighted up with surprise at + my disappointed stare, it was easy enough to see that I had + made a mistake. There was the hat, the cloak, the bewitching + little frippiness of lace and net and ribbon about the bust. + She had, however, copied the masterpiece without investing + herself with its soul: her face was vague and characterless, + her whole personality void of that eloquent womanliness which + had so wrought upon me. This experience was so many times + repeated that I was frightfully tormented by it. The familiar + dress seemed to reveal with appalling truthfulness the lack of + those qualities of heart and soul which I demanded. Those + lovely, picturesque outlines suggest not only rounded cheeks + colored with girlish bloom, but something more; and the + graceful draping is not a meaningless husk.</p> + + <p>I have gone back to my shop-window image. She never + disappoints me. She is as beautiful, as magnificently endowed, + as full of fascinating life and spirit, as ever. I sometimes + think, unless I find her actual prototype, of buying that + Gainsborough hat, that cloth mantle and velvet dress, and + hanging them up in my room.</p> + <hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + <h2><a name="LITERATURE_OF_THE_DAY" + id="LITERATURE_OF_THE_DAY"></a>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h2> + + <div class="blockquot"> + <p>History of the English People. By John Richard Green. + New York: Harper & Brothers.</p> + </div> + + <p>Most readers interested in English history have long felt + the need of such a work as this, in which the results of recent + research among original sources and of the critical examination + of earlier labors are gathered up and summarized in a narrative + at once clear and concise, free from disquisition, minuteness + of detail and elaborate descriptions, without being meagre or + superficial, devoid of suggestiveness or of animation. In + calling his work a <i>History of the English People</i>, Mr. + Green has not undertaken to deviate from the beaten track, + devoting his attention to social development and leaving + political affairs in the background. What he has evidently had + in view is the fact that English history is in a special sense + that of the rise and growth of free institutions, exhibiting at + every stage the mutual influence or combined action of + different classes, permeated even when the Crown or the + aristocracy was most powerful by a popular spirit, and + contrasting in this respect with that of France and Spain, in + which during many centuries the mass of the people lost instead + of gaining ground, representative bodies analogous to the + English Parliament were deprived of their rights or swept out + of existence, and liberty was sacrificed to national + consolidation and unity. Whence this difference came need + hardly be pointed out. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were + neither freer nor more enterprising than the Franks and other + Teutonic families; but the fortune which carried them to + Britain saved them from inheriting any onerous share of the + great legacy of the Roman Empire—with the task of + absorbing and transmitting its language and + civilization—secured them against the risk of being + either merged in a more numerous race or submerged by a new + influx, and thus preserved an identity and continuity which + link their latest achievements with their earliest exploits, + and stamp their whole career with the same character.</p> + + <p>With such a subject, Mr. Green has had no difficulty in so + marking its divisions as to concentrate attention on successive + epochs without dropping the thread that runs through the whole. + The earlier portions of his work are naturally the most + instructive and the fullest of interest. The last volume, + indeed, which covers the ground from the Revolution to the + battle of Waterloo, besides including the index to the whole + work, gives far too rapid a survey of momentous and familiar + events to afford profit or satisfaction. One feels that, while + the style retains its fluency, the tone has lost its warmth, + and that much of the writing must have been perfunctory: the + reading, at all events, cannot but be so. But scarcely any one, + however well acquainted with the ground, can follow without + pleasure and an enlargement of view Mr. Green's account of + "Early England," "England under Foreign Kings," "The Charter" + and "The Parliament" (from 1307 to 1461), which form the + subjects of the first four books; while the next four, + occupying the second and third volumes, and entitled "The + Monarchy," "The Reformation," "Puritan England" and "The + Revolution," are marked by a grasp of thought, a fine sense of + proportion, a thorough knowledge and well-balanced judgment of + men and events, and not unfrequently a dramatic force, which + sustain the interest throughout, and which make them a valuable + addition, and sometimes a necessary corrective, to the fuller + and more brilliant narratives in which the same periods and + subjects have been separately treated.</p> + + <p>Mr. Green does not appear to have gone deeply into the study + of original sources, but it is only in his incidental treatment + of continental history that his deficiencies in this respect + become palpable. Here he is often inaccurate, and even when his + facts are correct his mode of stating them shows that he is not + master of the whole field, and has little appreciation of + mingled motives and attendant circumstances. Such a sentence as + this: "The restoration of the towns on the Somme to Burgundy, + the cession of Normandy to the king's brother, Francis, the + hostility of Brittany, not only detached the whole western + coast from the hold of Lewis, but forced its possessors to look + for aid to the English king who lay in their rear," could not + have been written with any clear ideas of either the political + or the geographical relations of the places mentioned. What is + meant by the "western coast"? Not, certainly, the towns on the + Somme, which lie in the north-east, nor Normandy, which has + indeed a western coast of its own, but cannot be said to form + part of the western coast of France. Nor does Brittany include + "the <i>whole</i> western coast," or even the larger portion of + it, while it could not have been "detached from the hold of + Lewis," inasmuch as he had never held it. As little will that + remark apply to the other provinces on the western coast, as + these were still in his possession. Who are meant, therefore, + by the "possessors" of this misty coast, and why the English + king is said to have lain "in their rear," can only be + conjectured. It is a small blunder that the French king's + brother is called "Francis" instead of Charles, since we must + not suspect Mr. Green of confounding him with the duke of + Brittany, who bore the former name. But the whole passage, in + connection with what follows it, indicates that the author has + mixed up the state of affairs at two very close, but very + distinct, conjunctures. Many similar instances of defective + knowledge might be cited, nor are they confined to this early + period. The remark, in regard to Charles of Austria (the + emperor Charles V.), that "the madness of his mother left him + <i>next heir</i> of Castille" is nonsense: he was her heir in + any case, while through her madness he became nominally joint, + and virtually sole, ruler of the kingdom. His son Philip had + not been "twice a widower" when he married Mary of England, and + the assertion that "he owed his victory at Gravelines mainly to + the opportune arrival of ten English ships of war" is + patriotic, but foolish. That "Catholicism alone united the + burgher of the Netherlands to the noble of Castille, or + Milanese and Neapolitan to the Aztec of Mexico and Peru," would + be an incomprehensible statement even if Peru had been + inhabited by the Aztecs. Such errors, however, cannot seriously + impair the value of Mr. Green's work. Its merits, as regards + both matter and form, are solid and varied. The scale on which + it was planned adapts it admirably to the gap which it was + intended to fill, and, except in the latter portions, its + comparative brevity of treatment excludes neither important + facts nor modifying views. No shorter work could give the + reader any adequate knowledge or conceptions in regard to + English history, and no longer work is needed to make him fully + acquainted with its essential features.</p> + + <div class="blockquot"> + <p>White Wings: A Yachting Romance. By William Black. New + York: Harper & Brothers.—Roy and Viola. By Mrs. + Forrester. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & + Co.—The Wellfields. By Jessie Fothergill. + (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Holt & + Co.—Troublesome Daughters. By L.B. Walford. + (Leisure—Hour Series.) New York: Holt & + Co.—Brigitta. By Berthold Auerbach. + (Leisure—Hour Series.) New York: Holt & Co.</p> + </div> + + <p>There is a time appointed to read novels—a time which + belongs, like that of other good things, to youth, when the + real and the ideal merge into each other, and even the most + practical beliefs turn upon the notion that the world was + created for ourselves, and that the general system of things is + bound to furnish circumstances and incidents which shall + flatter our unsatisfied desires. It seems a pity that it should + not fall to the lot of the critic to write down his impression + of new books at this epoch, when he is most fitted to enjoy + them. When romance and other delights have blankly + vanished—" gone glimmering through the dreams of things + that were"—he is scarcely fitted to trust the worth of + his own impressions. Reading from mere idle curiosity or with + critical intentions, and reading with delight, with eager + absorption in the story and an eager desire to know how it + turns out, are two different matters. The loss of this capacity + for enjoyment of the every-day novel is not a subject for + self-gratulation, coming as it does from our own absence of + imagination and from narrowing instead of increasing powers. + That period of our existence when we could read anything which + offered should be looked back upon with a feeling of purely + admiring regret, and in our efforts to master the novel of + to-day we should endeavor to bring back the glory and the + sweetness of the early dream.</p> + + <p>It is not so very long ago that Mr. William Black's novels + began to charm us. He did not take Fame at a single leap, but + wooed her patiently, and suffered many a repulse. His first + book, <i>Ion; or, Marriage</i>, was probably the very worst + novel ever written by a man who was finally to make a great + success. <i>The Daughter of Heth</i> achieved this result, and + <i>The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, A Princess of Thule</i> + and <i>Macleod of Dar</i> deepened, one by one, the witchery + the first threw over us. The author's power was especially + shown in investing his maidens with glamour and piquancy: + Coquette and Sheila led their captives away from the + suffocating dusts and the burning heats of life. Then his + backgrounds were so well chosen—those mysterious reaches + of the far northern seas, the slow twilights over the heaving + ocean, the swift dawns, the storms and the lightnings, and the + glad blue skies. Even the music of the bagpipes inspired + lamentations only less sweet than notes of joy. Mr. Black still + has lovely girls; his yachts still pitch and roll and scud over + the tossed and misty Hebridean seas; there are the same magical + splendors of air and sky and water and shores; the wail of the + pibroch is heard as of yore—</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <span class="i0">Dunvegan! oh, Dunvegan!<br /></span> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Why, then, is it that his last book fails to do more than + arouse dim memories of some previous enjoyment? Why are his + violets without perfume? Why is his music vacant of the old + melodies?</p> + + <p>In <i>Roy and Viola</i>, on the contrary, Mrs. Forrester is + seen at her best, and has given us a book of lively interest. + The situation in some respects suggests that of <i>Daniel + Deronda:</i> D'Arcy is a sort of Grandcourt cheapened and made + popular, acting out his instincts of tyranny and brutality with + more ostentation and less good taste. What is subtly indicated + by George Eliot is given with profuse effect by the present + writer. Viola, if not a Gwendolen, is yet an unloving wife. Sir + Douglas Roy plays a somewhat difficult rôle—that of + friend to the husband and undeclared lover to the + wife—without losing our respect. He is in many ways a + successful hero, and acts his part without either insipidity or + priggishness. A genial optimist like Mrs. Forrester, as her old + readers may well believe, sacrifices to a hopelessly unhappy + marriage no lot which interests us. Disagreeable husbands die + at an auspicious moment, and everybody is finally made happy in + his or her own way, which includes the possession of plenty of + money. The conversations are piquant, and the interest of the + story is well kept up.</p> + + <p><i>The Wellfields</i> is a falling off from + <i>Probation</i>, which in its turn was a distinct falling-off + from Miss Fothergill's initial story, <i>The First Violin</i>. + The characters are dim, intangible, remote, possessing no + reality even at the outset, and as they progress becoming even + more estranged from our belief and sympathy. Jerome is too + feeble to arouse even our resentment, which we mildly expend on + Sara instead for displaying grief for so poor a creature. When + an author publishes one successful book, it should be a matter + of serious thought whether it is not worth while to make such a + triumph the crowning event of his or her destiny, lest Fate + should have in reserve the tedious trials which await those who + are compelled to hear that their sun has set.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Walford's last book has, in a measure, retrieved a + certain reputation for interest which her <i>Cousins</i> had + lost. In <i>Troublesome Daughters</i>, however, one looks in + vain for the fulfilment of the promise of <i>Mr. Smith</i> and + her delightful <i>Van: A Summer Romance</i>.</p> + + <p>In <i>Brigitta</i> we find enough of Auerbach's charm to + like the story, simple as it is. It recalls his greater books + only by the fidelity of the tone and the clearness of the + pictures. Xander is well drawn, and the tragedy of his life, + portrayed as it is by those few strong touches which reveal the + real artist, is profoundly impressive.</p> + <hr class="short" /> + + <p class="center"><i>New Books Received.</i></p> + + <p>Geo. P. Rowell & Co.'s American Newspaper Directory, + containing Accurate Lists of all the Newspapers and Periodicals + published in the United States, Territories and the Dominion of + Canada, together with a description of the towns and cities in + which they are published. New York: George P. Rowell & + Co.</p> + + <p>The Skin in Health and Disease. By L. Duncan Bulkley, M.D. + (American Health Primers.) Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston.</p> + + <p>The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl. Edited by Robert Grant. + Vignette Illustrations. Boston: A. Williams & Co.</p> + + <p>The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield. By Major + J.M. Bundy. New York: A.D. Barnes & Co.</p> + + <p>The Mystery of Allanwold. By Mrs. Elizabeth Van Loon. + Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.</p> + + <p>Political and Legal Remedies for War. By Sheldon Amos, M.A. + New York: Harper & Brothers.</p> + + <p>Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale. By R.D. Blackmore. New York: + Harper & Brothers.</p> + + <p>A Selection of Spiritual Songs, with Music for the + Sunday-school. New York: Scribner & Co.</p><br /> + + + <div class='footnotes'> + <br /> + <br /> + + + <h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_1_1" + id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label"> + [1]</span></a> I use here the official nomenclature of + Pennsylvania: by whatever title the local officials are + known in the various States, the general fact is of + course the same in all.</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_2_2" + id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label"> + [2]</span></a> In some tests given in Richards' + <i>Treatise on Coal Gas</i> (p. 293) the following + results were shown: Obstruction of light by—</p> + </div> + + <div class='center'> + <table border="0" + cellpadding="4" + cellspacing="0" + summary="Obstruction of Light"> + <tr> + <td align='left'>A</td> + + <td align='left'>clear</td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='left'>glass</td> + + <td align='left'>globe,</td> + + <td align='left'>about</td> + + <td align='left'>12</td> + + <td align='left'>per cent.</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>An</td> + + <td align='left'>engraved</td> + + <td align='left'></td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>24</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>Obscured</td> + + <td align='center'>all</td> + + <td align='center'>over</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>40</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>Opal</td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>60</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align='left'>Painted</td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'></td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + + <td align='left'>64</td> + + <td align='center'>"</td> + </tr> + </table> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_3_3" + id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label"> + [3]</span></a> There is a recent method of adding + carbon to the gas which is not liable to the objection + of clogging the pipes. By a small apparatus a stick of + naphthaline is attached to the burner so as to be + slowly vaporized. It is not yet in the hands of dealers + in gas-fixtures.</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_4_4" + id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label"> + [4]</span></a> Our narrative is drawn from the <i>Libra + del Passo Honroso, defendido por el excelente caballero + Suero de Quiñones, copilado de un libro antiguo de mano + por Fr. Juan de Pineda, Religiose de la orden de San + Francisco. Segunda edicion</i>. Madrid, 1783, in the + <i>Crónicas españolas</i>, vol. v.</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_5_5" + id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label"> + [5]</span></a> In modern French, <i>Il faut + délivrer</i>—"It is necessary to release," + referring to the chain worn by Quiñones.</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_6_6" + id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label"> + [6]</span></a> "If it does not please you to show + moderation, I say, in truth, that I am + unfortunate."</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_7_7" + id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label"> + [7]</span></a> Prosper Mérimée, in a note to his + <i>History of Peter the Cruel</i> (London, 1849, vol. + i., p. 35), says, referring to the above episode, "I do + not think that at that period an example of similar + condescension could be found anywhere except in Spain. + A century later the <i>chevalier sans peur et sans + reproche</i>, the valiant Bayard, refused to mount a + breach in company with lansquenets."</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_8_8" + id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label"> + [8]</span></a> Beginning, "Libera me, Domine, de morte + æterna," etc.</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_9_9" + id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label"> + [9]</span></a> The Church as early as 1131 (Council of + Rheims) endeavored to prevent these dangerous + amusements by denying burial in consecrated ground with + funeral rites to those who were killed in + tournaments.</p> + </div> + + <div class="footnote"> + <p><a name="Footnote_10_10" + id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label"> + [10]</span></a> Puymaigre explains this almost total + absence of Frenchmen by the fact that in 1434 the wars + between Charles VII and the English were being waged. + The English pilgrims to Santiago (the large number of + whom we have previously mentioned) were probably + non-combatants.</p> + </div> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 16124-h.htm or 16124-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/1/2/16124/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +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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/dev/null +++ b/16124-h/images/0065.jpg diff --git a/16124-h/images/0068-tb.jpg b/16124-h/images/0068-tb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8dc2f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/16124-h/images/0068-tb.jpg diff --git a/16124-h/images/0068.jpg b/16124-h/images/0068.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7ed49a --- /dev/null +++ b/16124-h/images/0068.jpg diff --git a/16124-h/images/0071-tb.jpg b/16124-h/images/0071-tb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0cc371a --- /dev/null +++ b/16124-h/images/0071-tb.jpg diff --git a/16124-h/images/0071.jpg b/16124-h/images/0071.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fbea56 --- /dev/null +++ b/16124-h/images/0071.jpg diff --git a/16124.txt b/16124.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5b05e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/16124.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8807 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 24, 2005 [EBook #16124] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J.B. +LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at +Washington. + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + +DECEMBER, 1880. + + + + +AN HISTORICAL ROCKY-MOUNTAIN OUTPOST. + +[Illustration: GOING TO THE JUDGE'S.] + + +The day might have graced the month of June, so balmy was the air, so +warmly shone the sun from a cloudless sky. But the snow-covered +mountain-range whose base we were skirting, the leafless cottonwoods +fringing the Fontaine qui Bouille and the sombre plains that stretched +away to the eastern horizon told a different story. It was on one of +those days elsewhere so rare, but so common in Colorado, when a summer +sky smiles upon a wintry landscape, that we entered a town in whose +history are to be found greater contrasts than even those afforded by +earth and sky. Today Pueblo is a thriving and aggressive city, peopled +with its quota of that great pioneer army which is carrying civilization +over the length and breadth of our land. Three hundred and forty years +ago, as legend hath it, Coronado here stopped his northward march, and +on the spot where Pueblo now stands established the farthermost outpost +of New Spain. + +The average traveller who journeys westward from the Missouri River +imagines that he is coming to a new country. "The New West" is a +favorite term with the agents of land--companies and the writers of +alluring railway-guides. These enterprising advocates sometimes indulge +in flights of rhetoric that scorn the trammels of grammar and +dictionary. Witness the following impassioned utterances concerning the +lands of a certain Western railroad: "They comprise a section of country +whose possibilities are simply _infinitesimal_, and whose developments +will be revealed in glorious realization through the horoscope of the +near future." This verbal architect builded wiser than he knew, for what +more fitting word could the imagination suggest wherewith to crown the +possibilities of alkali wastes and barren, sun-scorched plains? + +A considerable part of the New West of to-day was explored by the +Spaniards more than three centuries ago. Before the English had landed +at Plymouth Rock or made a settlement at Jamestown they had penetrated +to the Rocky Mountains and given to peak and river their characteristic +names. Southern Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have been the theatres +wherein were enacted deeds of daring and bravery perhaps unsurpassed by +any people and any age; and that, too, centuries before they became a +part of our American Union. The whole country is strewn over with the +ruins of a civilization in comparison with which our own of to-day seems +feeble. And he who journeys across the Plains till he reaches the Sangre +del Cristo Mountains or the blue Sierra Mojadas enters a land made +famous by the exploits of Coronado, De Vaca and perhaps of the great +Montezuma himself. + +In the year 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was sent by the Spanish +viceroy of Mexico to explore the regions to the north. Those +mountain-peaks, dim and shadowy in the distance and seeming to recede as +they were approached, had ever been an alluring sight to the +gold-seeking Spaniards. But the coveted treasure did not reveal itself +to their cursory search; and though they doubtless pushed as far north +as the Arkansas River, they returned to the capital from what they +considered an unsuccessful expedition. The way was opened, however, and +in 1595 the Spaniards came to what is now the Territory of New Mexico +and founded the city of Santa Fe. They had found, for the most part, a +settled country, the inhabitants living in densely-populated villages, +or _pueblos_, and evincing a rather high degree of civilization. Their +dwellings of mud bricks, or _adobes_, were all built upon a single plan, +and consisted of a square or rectangular fort-like structure enclosing +an open space. Herds of sheep and goats grazed upon the hillsides, while +the bottom-lands were planted with corn and barley. Thus lived and +flourished the Pueblo Indians, a race the origin of which lies in +obscurity, but connected with which are many legends of absorbing +interest. All their traditions point to Montezuma as the founder and +leader of their race, and likewise to their descent from the Aztecs. But +their glory departed with the coming of Cortez, and their Spanish +conquerors treated them as an inferior race. Revolting against their +oppressors in 1680, they were reconquered thirteen years later, though +subsequently allowed greater liberty. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo +in 1848 they became citizens of the United States. From one extreme of +government to another has drifted this remnant of a stately race, till +now at last it finds itself safely sheltered in the arms of our great +republic. + +Such is the romantic history of a portion of our so-called "New West;" +but it was with a view of ascertaining some facts concerning occurrences +of more recent date, as well as of seeing some of the actors therein, +that we paid a visit to Pueblo. We found it a rather odd mixture of the +old and the new, the adobe and the "dug-out" looking across the street +upon the imposing structure of brick or the often gaudily-painted frame +cottage. It looked as though it might have been indulging in a Rip Van +Winkle sleep, except that the duration might have been a century or two. +High _mesas_ with gracefully rounded and convoluted sides almost +entirely surround it, and rising above their floor-like tops, and in +fine contrast with their sombre brown tints, appear the blue outlines of +the distant mountains. Pike's Peak, fifty miles to the north, and the +Spanish Peaks, the Wawatoyas, ninety to the south, are sublime objects +of which the eye never grows weary; while the Sierra Mojadas bank up the +western horizon with a frowning mountain-wall. A notch in the distant +range, forty miles to the north-west, indicates the place where the +Arkansas River breaks through the barriers that would impede its seaward +course, forming perhaps the grandest canon to be found in all this +mighty mountain-wilderness. Truly a striking picture was that on which +Coronado and his mail-clad warriors gazed. + +[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF PUEBLO, COLORADO, LOOKING +NORTH-WEST--PIKE'S PEAK IN THE DISTANCE.] + +A motley throng compose the inhabitants of Pueblo. The dark-hued +Mexican, his round face shaded by the inevitable _sombrero_, figures +conspicuously. But if you value his favor and your future peace of mind +have a care how you allude to his nationality. He is a Spaniard, you +should know--a pure Castilian whose ancestor was some old hidalgo with +as long an array of names and titles as has the Czar of All the Russias +himself. Though he now lives in a forsaken-looking adobe hut with dirt +floor and roof of sticks and turf that serves only to defile the +raindrops that trickle through its many gaps--though his sallow wife +and ill-favored children huddle round him or cook the scanty meal upon +the mud oven in a corner of the room--he is yet a Spaniard, and glories +in it. The tall, raw-boned man, straight as a young cottonwood, whose +long black hair floats out from beneath his hat as he rides into town +from his ranch down the river, may be a half-breed who has figured in a +score of Indian fights, and enjoys the proud distinction of having +killed his man. There is the hungry-looking prospector, waiting with +ill-disguised impatience till he can "cross the Range" and follow again, +as he has done year after year, the exciting chase after the +ever-receding mirage--the visions of fabulous wealth always going to be, +but never quite, attained. The time-honored symbol of Hope must, we +think, give place to a more forcible representation furnished by the +peculiar genius of our times; for is not our modern Rocky-Mountain +prospector the complete embodiment of that sublime grace? His is a hope +that even reverses the proverb, for no amount of deferring is able to +make him heartsick, but rather seems to spur him on to more earnest +endeavor. Has he toiled the summer long, endured every privation, +encountered inconceivable perils, only to find himself at its close +poorer than when he began? Reluctantly he leaves the mountain-side where +the drifting snows have begun to gather, but seemingly as light-hearted +as when he came, for his unshaken hope bridges the winter and feeds upon +the limitless possibilities of the future. Full of wonderful stories are +these same hope-sustained prospectors--tales that are bright with the +glitter of silver and gold. Not a single one of them who has not +discovered "leads" of wonderful richness or "placers" where the sands +were yellow with gold; but by some mischance the prize always slipped +out of his grasp, and left him poor in all but hope. And in truth so +fascinating becomes the occupation that men who in other respects seem +cool and phlegmatic will desert an almost assured success to join the +horde rushing toward some unexplored district, impelled by the +ever-flying rumors of untold wealth just brought to light. The golden +goal this season is the great Gunnison Country; and soon trains of +_burros_, packed with pick and shovel, tent and provisions, will be +climbing the Range. + +Pueblo has likewise its business-men, its men of to-day, who manage its +banks, who buy and sell and get gain as they might do in any +well-ordered city, though, truth to tell, there are very few of them who +do not sooner or later catch the prevailing infection--a part of whose +assets is not represented by some "prospect" away up in the mountains or +frisking about the Plains in herds of cattle and sheep. But perhaps the +most curiously-original character in all the town is Judge Allen A. +Bradford, of whose wonderful memory the following good story is told: +Years ago he, with a party of officers, was at the house of Colonel +Boone, down the river. While engaged in playing "pitch-trump," of which +the judge was very fond--and in fact the only game of cards with which +he was acquainted--a messenger rushed in announcing that a lady had +fallen from her horse and was doubtless much injured. The players left +their cards and ran to render assistance, and the game thus broken up +was not resumed. Some two years later the same parties found themselves +together again, and "pitch-trump" was proposed. To the astonishment of +all, the judge informed them how the score stood when they had so +hurriedly left the game, and with the utmost gravity insisted that it be +continued from that point! + +On a bright sunny morning we sought out the judge's office, only to +learn that he had not yet for the day exchanged the pleasures of rural +life across the Fontaine for less romantic devotions at the shrine of +the stern goddess. Later we were informed, upon what seemed credible +authority, that upon the morning in question he was intending to sow +oats. Though cold March still claimed the calendar, and hence such +action on the part of the judge might seem like forcing the season, yet +reflections upon his advanced years caused us to suppress the rising +thought that perhaps some allusions to _wild_ oats might have been +intended. Hence we looked forward to a rare treat--judicial dignity +unbending itself in pastoral pursuits, as in the case of some Roman +magistrate. "A little better'n a mile" was the answer to our +interrogatory as to how far the judge's ranch might be from town; but +having upon many former occasions taken the dimensions of a Colorado +mile, we declined the suggestion to walk and sought some mode of +conveyance. There chanced to be one right at hand, standing patiently by +the wayside and presided over by an ancient colored gentleman. The coach +had been a fine one in its day, but that was long since past, and now +its dashboard, bent out at an angle of forty-five degrees, the faded +trimmings and the rusty, stately occupant of the box formed a complete +and harmonious picture of past grandeur seldom seen in the Far West. Two +dubious-looking bronchos, a bay and a white, completed this unique +equipage, in which we climbed the _mesa_ and then descended into the +valley of the Fontaine. The sable driver was disposed to be +communicative, and ventured various opinions upon current topics. He had +been through the war, and came West fourteen years ago. + +"You have had quite an adventurous life," we remarked. + +"Why, sah," he returned, "if the history ob my life was wrote up it +would be wuth ten thousand dollars." + +While regarding the valuation as somewhat high, we yet regretted our +inability to profit by this unexpected though promising +business-opportunity, and soon our attention was diverted by a glimpse +of the judge's adobe, and that person himself standing by his carriage +and awaiting our by no means rapid approach. He was about to go to town, +and the oats were being sown by an individual of the same nationality as +our driver, to whom the latter addressed such encouraging remarks as +"Git right 'long dere now and sow dat oats. Don't stand roostin' on de +fence all day, like as you had the consumshing. You look powerful weak. +Guess mebbe I'd better come over dere and show you how." + +[Illustration: THE JUDGE.] + +Judge Bradford's career has been a chequered one, and it has fallen to +his lot to dispense justice in places and under circumstances as +various as could well be imagined. Born in Maine in 1815, he has lived +successively in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado, and held almost +every position open to the profession of the law. From the supreme +bench of Colorado he was twice called to represent the Territory as +delegate to Congress. In 1852, when he was judge of the Sixth Judicial +District of Iowa, his eccentricities of character seem to have reached +their full development. He exhibited that supreme disregard for dress +and the various social amenities which not infrequently betray the +superior mind. Never were his clothes known to fit, being invariably +too large or too small, too short or too long. As to his hair, the +external evidences were of a character to disprove the rumor that he +had a brush and comb, while the stubby beard frequently remained +undisturbed upon the judicial chin for several weeks at a time. The +atrocious story is even told that once upon a time, when half shaven, +he chanced to pick up a newspaper, became absorbed in its contents, +forgot to complete his task, and went to court in this most absurdly +unsymmetrical condition. But, despite these personal eccentricities, a +more honest or capable judge has rarely been called upon to vindicate +the majesty of the law. Upon the bench none could detect a flaw in his +assumption of that dignity so intimately associated in all minds with +the judiciary, but, the ermine once laid aside for the day, he was as +jolly and mirthful as any of his frontier companions. Judge Bradford +was no advocate, but by the action of a phenomenal memory his large +head was stored so full of law as to emphasize, to those who knew him, +the curious disproportion between its size and that of his legs and +feet. These latter were of such peculiarly modest dimensions as to call +to mind Goldsmith's well-known lines, though in this case we must, of +necessity, picture admiring frontiersmen standing round while + + Still the wonder grew + That two small feet could carry all he knew. + +The judge's mind is of the encyclopaedical type, and facts and dates are +his especial "strong holt." But his countenance fails to ratify the +inward structure when, pausing from a recital, he gazes upon your +reception of the knowledge conveyed with a kindly smile--a most innocent +smile that acts as a strong disposer to belief. Whether it has been a +simple tale of the early days enlivened with recollections of +pitch-trump and other social joys, or whether the performances of savage +Indians and treacherous half-breeds send a chill through the listener, +it is all the same: at its close the judge's amiable features wear the +same belief-compelling smile. Under its influence we sit for hours while +our entertainer ranges through the stores of his memory, pulling out +much that is dust-covered and ancient, but quickly renovated for our use +by his ready imagination and occasional wit. With a feeling akin to +reverence we listen--a reverence due to one who had turned his face +toward the Rocky Mountains before Colorado had a name, who had made the +perilous journey across the great Plains behind a bull-team, and who +has since been associated with everything concerned in the welfare and +progress of what has now become this great Centennial State, toward +which all eyes are turning. Not without its dark days to him has passed +this pioneer life, and none were more filled with discouragement than +those during which he represented the Territory in Congress. He +describes the position as one of peculiar difficulty--on one hand the +clamors of a people for aid and recognition in their rapid development +of the country, while on the other, to meet them, he found himself a +mere beggar at the doors of Congressional mercy and grace, voteless and +hence powerless. Truly, in the light of his experience, the office of +Territorial delegate is no sinecure. + +No one has more closely observed the course of events in the Far West +than Judge Bradford, and his opinions on some disputed points are very +decided and equally clear. Many have wondered that Pueblo, which had the +advantage of first settlement, had long been a rendezvous of trappers +and frontier traders, and lay upon the only road to the then so-called +Pike's Peak mines, that _via_ the Arkansas Canon--that this outpost, +situated thus at the very gateway of the Far West, should have remained +comparatively unimportant, while Denver grew with such astonishing +rapidity. But, in the judge's opinion, it was the war of the rebellion +that turned the scale in favor of the Queen City. The first emigrants +had come through Missouri and up the Arkansas, their natural route, and +as naturally conducting to Pueblo. But when Missouri and South-eastern +Kansas became the scenes of guerrilla warfare the emigrant who would +safely convey himself and family across the prairies must seek a more +northern parallel. Hence, Pueblo received a check from which it is only +now recovering, and Denver an impetus whose ultimate limits no man can +foresee. + +Many strange things were done in the olden time. When the Plains Indians +had gathered together their forces for the purpose of persistently +harassing the settlement, the Mountain Utes, then the allies of the +whites, offered their services to help repel the common enemy. Petitions +went up to the governor and Legislature to accept the proffered +services, but they were steadily refused. Our long-headed judge gives +the reason: The administration was under the control of men who were +feeding Uncle Sam's troops with corn at thirteen cents per pound, and +other staples in proportion, and the Indian volunteers promised a too +speedy ending of such a profitable warfare. + +Thus eventfully has passed the life of Judge Bradford. During his +threescore-and-five years he has moved almost across a continent, never +content unless he was on the frontier. Long may he live to ride in his +light coverless wagon in the smile of bright Colorado sunshine, honored +by all who know him, and affording his friends the enjoyment of his rare +good presence! + +[Illustration: OLD ADOBE FORT.] + +Thirty years ago this whole Rocky-Mountain region, now appropriated by +an enterprising and progressive people, contained, besides the native +Indians and the Mexicans in the south, only a few trappers and frontier +traders, most of them in the employ of the American Fur Company. These +were the fearless and intrepid pioneers who so far from fleeing danger +seemed rather to court it. Accounts of their adventures--now a struggle +with a wounded bear, again the threatened perils of starvation when lost +in some mountain-fastness--have long simultaneously terrified and +fascinated both young and old. We all have pictured their dress--the +coat or cloak, often an odd combination of several varieties of skins +pieced together, with fur side in; breeches sometimes of the same +material, but oftener of coarse duck or corduroy; and the slouched hat, +under whose broad brim whatever of the face that was not concealed by a +shaggy, unkempt beard shone out red from exposure to sun and weather. +The American Fur Company had dotted the country with forts, which served +the double purpose of storehouses for the valuables collected and of +places where the employes could barricade themselves against the +too-often troublesome savages. For such a purpose, though not actually +by the Fur Company, was built the old adobe fort the ruins of which are +still to be seen on the banks of the Arkansas at Pueblo. How old it may +have been no one seems to know, but certain it is that for long years, +and in the earliest times, it was a favorite rendezvous. Here was +always to be found a jolly good party to pass away the long winter +evenings with song and story. Here Kit Carson often stopped to rest from +his many perilous expeditions, enjoying, together with Fremont and other +noted Rocky-Mountain explorers, the hospitalities of the old fort. Many +times were its soft walls indented by the arrows of besieging Indians, +but its bloodiest tragedy was enacted in 1854, when the Utes surprised +the sleeping company and savagely massacred all. + +While these events were transpiring at the old fort a party of Mexicans +had journeyed from the south, crossed the Arkansas River and formed a +settlement on the east side of the Fontaine. A characteristically +squalid and miserable place it was, with the dwellings--they scarce +deserved the name of houses--built in the side of the bluffs very much +as animals might burrow in the ground. Part dug-out and part adobe were +those wretched habitations, and the shed-like parts which projected from +the hill were composed of all conceivable and inconceivable kinds of +rubbish. Sticks, stones, bits of old iron, worn-out mattings and +gunny-sacks entered more or less into the construction of these dens, +all stuck together with the inevitable adobe mud. The settlement +extended some distance along the side of the bluff, and the sloping +plain in front was dignified as the _plaza_. Perhaps the dark-hued +immigrants expected a large town to spring from these unpromising +beginnings, and their plaza to take on eventually all the importance +which a place so named ever deserves in the Spanish and Mexican mind. +But the Pike's Peak excitement, originating in 1852 with the finding of +gold by a party of Cherokee Indians, and reaching its culmination in +1859, brought a far different class of people to our Rocky-Mountain +outpost, and a civilization was inaugurated which speedily compelled the +ancient Mexican methods to go by the board. Thus, Fontaine was soon +absorbed by the rising town of Pueblo, though the ancient dug-outs still +picturesquely dot the hillside, inhabited by much the same idle and +vagabond class from which the prosperous ranchman soon learns to guard +his hen-roost. + +The growth of any of our Far Western towns presents a curious study. In +these latter days it frequently requires but a few months, or even +weeks, to give some new one a fair start upon its prosperous way. +Sometimes a mineral vein, sometimes the temporary "end of the track" of +a lengthening railway, forms the nucleus, and around it are first seen +the tents of the advance-guard. Before many weeks have elapsed some +enterprising individual has succeeded, in the face of infinite toil and +expense, in bringing a sawmill into camp. Soon it is buzzing away on the +neighboring hillside, and the rough pine boards and slabs are growing +into houses of all curious sizes and shapes, irregularly lining the main +street. Delightfully free from conventionality are matters in these new +towns. Former notions of things go for naught. Values are in a +highly-disturbed state, and you will probably be charged more for the +privilege of sleeping somewhere on the floor than for all the refined +elegancies of the Fifth Avenue. The board-walks along the street, where +they exist at all, plainly typify this absence of a well-defined dead +level or zero-point in the popular sentiment; for the various sections +are built each upon the same eccentric plan that obtains in the +corresponding house. The result is an irregular succession of steps +equally irregular, with enough literal jumping-off places to relieve any +possible monotony attending the promenade. If the growth of the town +seems to continue satisfactory, its houses--at least those in or near +its central portions--begin gradually to pass through the next stage in +their development. During this interesting period, which might be called +their chrysalid state, they are twisted and turned, sometimes sawn +asunder, parts lopped off here and applied elsewhere, and all those +radical changes made which would utterly destroy anything possessed of +protean possibilities inferior to those of the common Western frame +house. But, as a final result of this treatment and some small additions +of new material, at last emerges the shapely and often artistic +cottage, resplendent in paint, and bearing small resemblance to the +slab-built barn which forms its framework. If the sometime camp becomes +a city--if Auraria grows into a Denver and Fontaine develops into +Pueblo--the frame houses will sooner or later share a common fate, that +of being mounted on wheels or rollers for a journey suburbward, to make +room for the substantial blocks of brick or stone. By this curious +process of evolution do most of our Western towns rapidly acquire more +or less of a metropolitan appearance. + +[Illustration: MEXICAN INTERIOR.] + +Pueblo, while not a representative Western town in these respects, yet +in its early days presented some curious combinations, most of them +growing out of the heterogeneous human mixture that attempted to form a +settlement. The famous Green-Russell party, on its way from Georgia to +the Pike's Peak country, had passed through Missouri and Kansas in 1858, +and there found an element ripe for any daring and adventurous deeds in +unknown lands. Many of the border desperadoes, then engaged in that +hard-fought prelude to the civil war, found it desirable and expedient +to leave a place where their violent deeds became too well known; and +these, together with others who hoped to find in a new country relief +from the anarchy which reigned at home, fell into the wake of the +pioneers. Pueblo received its full share of Kansas outlaws about this +time, and, what with those it already contained, even a modicum of peace +seemed out of the question. Here, for instance, was found living with +the Mexicans by the plaza a quarrelsome fellow named Juan Trujillo, +better known by the sobriquet of Juan Chiquito or "Little John," which +his diminutive stature had earned for him. This worthy is represented as +a constant disturber of the peace, and he met the tragic fate which his +reckless life had invited. From being a trusted friend he had incurred +the enmitv of a noted character named Charley Antobees, than whom, +perhaps, no one has had a more varied frontier experience. Coming to the +Rocky Mountains in 1836 in the employ of the American Fur Company, he +has since served as hunter, trapper, Indian-fighter, guide to several +United States exploring expeditions, and spy in the Mexican war as well +as in the war of the rebellion. Antobees still lives on the outskirts of +Pueblo, and his scarred and bronzed face, framed by flowing locks of +jet-black hair, is familiar to all. The frame that has endured so much +is now bent, and health is at last broken, and about a year since an +effort was made by Judge Bradford and others to secure him a pension. +But twenty years back he was in his full vigor and able to maintain his +own against all odds. Whether or not it is true we cannot say, but +certain it is that he is credited with causing the death of Juan +Chiquito. An Indian called "Chickey" actually did the deed, lying in +ambush for his victim. Perhaps few were sorry at the Mexican's sudden +taking off, and in a country where Judge Lynch alone executes the laws +the whole transaction was no doubt regarded as eminently proper. + +Among those who came to Pueblo with the influx of 1858 were two brothers +from Ohio, Josiah and Stephen Smith. Stalwart young men were these, of a +different type from the Kansans and Missourians, yet not of the sort to +be imposed upon. They were crack rifle-shots, and even then held decided +opinions on the Indian question--opinions which subsequent experiences +have served to emphasize, but not change. And what with constant +troubles with the savages, as well as with the scarcely less intractable +Kansans, their first years in the Far West could not be called +altogether pleasant. Many a time have their lives been in danger from +bands of outlaw immigrants, who, dissatisfied with not finding gold +lying about as they had expected, sought to revenge themselves upon the +settlers, whom they considered in fault for having led the way. Their +personal bravery went far toward bringing to a close this reign of +terror and transforming the lawless settlement into a permanent and +prosperous town. Still in the prime of life, they look back with +pleasure over their most hazardous experiences, for time has softened +the dangers and cast over them the glow of romance. And while none are +more familiar with everything concerning the early history of Pueblo, it +is equally true that none are more ready to gratify an appreciative +listener, and the writer is indebted for much that follows to their +inimitable recitals. + +About the first work of any note undertaken in connection with the new +town was the building of a bridge across the Arkansas. This was +accomplished in 1860, when a charter was obtained from Kansas and a +structure of six spans thrown across the river. It was a toll-bridge, +and every crossing team put at least one dollar into the pockets of its +owners. But trouble soon overtook the management. While one of the +proprietors was in New Mexico, building a mill for Maxwell upon his +famous estate, the other was so unfortunate as to kill three men, and +was obliged, as Steph Smith felicitously expressed it, to "skip out." +Thus the bridge passed into other hands, where it remained till it was +partly washed away in 1863. The following little matter of history +connected with its palmy days will be best given in the narrator's own +words: "We had a blacksmith who misused his wife. The citizens took him +down to the bridge, tied a rope around his body and threw him into the +river. They kept up their lick until they nearly drowned the poor cuss, +then whispered to him to be good to his wife or his time would be short. +He took the hint, used his wife well, and everything was lovely. That +was the first cold-water cure in Pueblo, and I ain't sure but the last." +This incident serves to illustrate the inherent character of American +gallantry, for, however wild or in most respects uncivilized men may +appear to become under the influence of frontier life, instances are +rare in which women are not treated with all the honor and respect due +them. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that the general sentiment +concerning woman is more refined and reverential among the bronzed +pioneers at the outposts than under the influence of a higher +civilization. + +The Arkansas, ever changing its winding course after the manner of +prairie-rivers, has long since shifted its bed some distance to the +south, leaving only a portion of the old bridge to span what in high +water becomes an arm of the river, but which ordinarily serves to convey +the water from a neighboring mill. We lean upon its guard-rail while +fancy is busy with the past. We picture the prairie-schooners winding +around the mesas and through the gap: soon they have come to the grove +by the river-bank; the horses are picketed and the camp-fire is blazing; +brown children play in the sand while their parents lie stretched out in +the shadow of the wagons. They left civilization on the banks of the +Missouri more than a month ago, and their eyes are still turned toward +those grand old mountain-ranges in the west over which the declining sun +is now pouring its transfiguring sheen. The brightness dazzles the eyes, +and the Mexican who rides by on a scarce manageable broncho with nose +high in air might be old Juan Chiquito bent upon some murderous errand. +But no: the rider has stopped the animal, and is soliciting the peaceful +offices of a blacksmith, whose curious little shop, bearing the +suggestive name of "Ute," is seen near the bridge. Here bronchos, mules +and burros are fitted with massive shoes by this frontier Vulcan and +sent rejoicing upon their winding and rocky ways. Our sleepy gaze +follows along Santa Fe Avenue, and the eye sees little that is +suggestive of a modern Western town. But soon comes noisily along a +one-horse street-car, which asserts its just claims to popular notice in +consequence of its composing a full half of a system scarce a fortnight +old by filling the air with direful screeches as each curve is +laboriously described. And later, when the magnificent overland train, +twenty-six hours from Kansas City, steams proudly up to the station, +fancy can no longer be indulged. The old has become new. The great +Plains have been bridged, and the outposts of but a decade ago become +the suburbs of to-day. + +[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE.] + +Doubtless Old Si Smith now and then indulges in reveries somewhat +similar, but his retrospections would be of a minute and personal +character. To warm up the average frontiersman, however--and Old Si is +no exception--into a style at once luminous and emphatic and embellished +with all the richness of the border dialect, it is only necessary to +suggest the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his +yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is the +red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to become fervid +and impressive. To him the Indian is the embodiment of all that is +supremely vile, and hence merits his unmitigated hatred. Killing +Indians is his most delightful occupation, and the next in order is +talking about it. His contempt for government methods is unbounded, and +the popular Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith +brothers have had a varied experience in frontier affairs, in which the +Indian has played a prominent part. They hold the Western views, but +with less prejudice than is generally found. They argue the case with a +degree of fairness, and many of their opinions and deductions are novel +and equally just. Said Stephen Smith to the writer: "We've got this +thing reduced right down to vulgar fractions, and the Utes have got to +go. The mineral lands are worth more to us than the Indians are"--this +with a suggestive shrug--"and if the government don't remove them from +the reserves, why, we'll have to do it ourselves. There's a great fuss +been made about the whites going on the Indian reserves; and what did it +all amount to? Maybe fifty or sixty prospectors, all told, have got over +the lines, dug a few holes and hurt nobody. But I suppose the Indians +always stay where they ought to! I guess not. Some of them are off their +reserves half the time, and they go off to murder and kill. Do they ever +get punished for that? Not much, except when folks do it on their own +account. But let a white man get found on the Indian reserves and +there's a great howl. I want a rule that will work both ways, and I +don't give much for a government that isn't able to protect me on the +Indian reserves the same as anywhere else. Some years ago Indian +troubles were reported at Washington, and Sherman was sent out to +investigate. Of course they heard he was coming, and all were on their +good behavior. They knew where their blankets and ponies and provisions +came from. Consequently, Sherman reported everything peaceful: he hadn't +seen anybody killed. That's about the kind of information they get in +the East on the Indian question. + +"Misused? Yes, the Indians have been misused, badly misused. I know +that. But who have _they_ misused? This whole country is covered with +ruins, and they all go to show that it has been inhabited by a +highly-civilized race of people. And what has become of them? I believe +the Indians cleaned them out long years ago; and now their turn has +come. I find it's a law of Nature"--and here the narrator's tone grew +more reverent as if touching upon a higher theme--"that the weak go to +the wall. It's a hard law, but I don't see any way out of it. The old +Aztecs had to go under, and the Indians will have to follow suit." + +Whatever humanitarians and archaeologists may conclude concerning these +opinions, they are nevertheless extensively held in the Far West. The +frontiersman, who sees the Indian only in his native savagery, who has +found it necessary to employ a considerable part of his time in keeping +out of range of poisoned arrows, and who must needs be always upon the +alert lest his family fall a prey to Indian treachery, cannot be +expected to hold any ultra-humanitarian views upon the subject. He has +not been brought in contact with the several partially-civilized tribes, +in whose advancement many see possibilities for the whole race. He +cannot understand why the government allows the Indians to roam over +enormous tracts of land, rich in minerals they will never extract and +containing agricultural possibilities they will never seek to realize. +His plan would be to have only the same governmental care exercised over +the red man as is now enjoyed by the white, and then look to the law of +the survival of the fittest to furnish a solution of the problem. The +case seems so clear and the arguments so potent that he looks for some +outside reasons for their failure, and very naturally thinks he +discovers them in governmental quarters. "There's too many people living +off this Indian business for it to be wound up yet a while." Thus does a +representative man at the outposts express the sentiment of no +inconsiderable class. + +Next to the Indian himself, the frontiersman holds in slight esteem the +soldiers who are sent for the protection of the border. The objects of +his supreme hatred still often merit his good opinion for their bravery +and fighting qualities, but upon raw Eastern recruits and West-Point +fledglings he looks with mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods +by many hard knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity +toward those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to +this may be a lurking jealousy--which, however, would be stoutly +disclaimed--because the blue uniform is gaining honors and experience +more easily and under conditions more favorable than were possible with +him in the early days. "They be about the greenest set!" said an old +Indian-fighter to whom this subject was broached, "and the sight of an +Injun jest about scares 'em to death at first. I never saw any of 'em +_I_ was afraid of if I only had any sort of a show. Why, back in '59 I +undertook to take a young man back to the States, and we started off in +a buggy--a _buggy_, do you mind. When we got down the Arkansas a piece +we heard the red-skins was pretty thick, but we went right on, except +keeping more of a lookout, you know. But along in the afternoon we saw +fifteen or twenty coming for us, and we got ready to give 'em a +reception. We had a hard chase, but at last they got pretty sick of +the way I handled my rifle, and concluded to let us alone for a while. +They kept watch of us, though, and meant to get square with us that +night. Well, we travelled till dark, stopped just long enough to build +a big fire, and then lit out. When those Injuns came for us that night +we were some other place, and they lost their grip on that little +scalping-bee. They didn't trouble us any more, that's sure. And when we +got to the next post there were nigh a hundred teams, six stages and +two companies of soldiers, all shivering for fear of the Injuns. It +rather took the wind out of 'em to see us come in with that buggy, and +they didn't want to believe we had come through. But, like the man's +mother-in-law, we were _there_, and they couldn't get out of it. And, +sir, maybe you won't believe me, but those soldiers offered me +_seventy-five dollars_ to go back with them! That's the sort of an +outfit the government sends to protect us!" + +[Illustration: SANTA FE AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO.] + +We have had frequent occasion since our frontier experiences began to +ponder the untrammelled opulence of this Western word, _outfit_. From +the Mississippi to the Pacific its expansive possibilities are +momentarily being tested. There is nothing that lives, breathes or +grows, nothing known to the arts or investigated by the +sciences--nothing, in short, coming within the range of the Western +perception--that cannot with more or less appropriateness be termed an +"outfit." A dismal broncho turned adrift in mid-winter to browse on the +short stubble of the Plains is an "outfit," and so likewise is the +dashing equipage that includes a shining phaeton and richly-caparisoned +span. Perhaps by no single method can so comprehensive an idea of the +term in question be obtained in a short time, and the proper qualifying +adjectives correctly determined, as by simply preparing for a +camping-expedition. The horse-trader with whom you have negotiated for a +pair of horses or mules congratulates you upon the acquisition of a +"boss outfit." When your wagon has been purchased and the mules are duly +harnessed in place, you are further induced to believe that you have a +"way-up outfit," though, obviously, this should now be understood to +possess a dual significance which did not before obtain, since the wagon +represents a component part. The hardware clerk displays a tent and +recommends a fly as forming a desirable addition to an even otherwise +"swell outfit." The grocer provides you with what he modestly terms a +"first-class outfit," albeit his cans of fruits, vegetables and meats +are for the delectation of the inner man. Frying-pans and dutch-ovens, +camp-stools and trout-scales, receive the same designation. And now +comes the crowning triumph of this versatile term, as well as a happy +illustration of what might be called its agglutinative and assimilating +powers; for when horses and wagon have received their load of tent and +equipments, and father, mother and the babies have filled up every +available space, this whole establishment, this _omnium gatherum_ of +outfits, becomes neither more nor less than an "outfit." + +The last five years have witnessed a wonderful material progress in the +Far West. The mineral wealth discovered in Colorado and New Mexico has +caused a great westward-flowing tide to set in. The nation seems to be +possessed of a desire to reclaim the waste places and to explore the +unknown. Cities that were founded by "fifty-niners," and after a decade +seemed to reach the limits of their growth, have started on a new +career. And for none of these does the outlook seem brighter than in the +case of the city of Pueblo, the old outpost whose early history we have +attempted to sketch. Its growth has all along been a gradual one, and +its improvements have kept pace with this healthy advance. Its public +schools, like those of all Far Western towns which the writer has +visited are model institutions and an honor to the commonwealth. A +handsome brick court-house, situated on high ground, is an ornament to +the city, and differs widely from that in which Judge Bradford held +court eighteen years ago--the first held in the Territory, and that, +too, under military protection. Pueblo's wealth is largely derived from +the stock-raising business, the surrounding country being well adapted +to cattle and sheep. The _rancheros_ ride the Plains the year round, and +the cattle flourish upon the food which Nature provides--in the summer +the fresh grass, and in the winter the same converted into hay which has +been cured upon the ground. An important railway-centre is Pueblo, and +iron highways radiate from it to the four cardinal points. These +advantages of location should procure it a large share of the flood of +prosperity that is sweeping over the State. But enterprises are now in +progress which cannot fail to add materially to its importance as a +factor in the development of the country. On the highest lift of the +mesa south of the town, and in a most commanding position, it has been +decided to locate a blast-furnace which shall have no neighbor within a +radius of five hundred miles. With iron ore of finest quality easily +accessible in the neighboring mountains, and coal-fields of unlimited +extent likewise within easy reach, the production of iron in the Rocky +Mountains has only waited for the growth of a demand. This the +advancement and prosperity of the State have now well assured. Many +kindred industries will spring up around the furnace, the Bessemer +steel-works and the rail-mills that are now projected; and a few years +will suffice to transform the level mesa, upon which for untold +centuries the cactus and the yucca-lily have bloomed undisturbed, into a +thriving manufacturing city whose pulse shall be the throb of steam +through iron arms. The onlooking mountains, that have seen strange +sights about this old outpost, are to see a still stranger--the +ushering-in of a new civilization which now begins its march into the +land of the Aztecs. + +Perhaps these thoughts were occupying our minds as we climbed the +bluffs for a visit to this incipient Pittsburg. The equipage did no +credit to the financial status of the iron company, as it consisted of +a superannuated express-wagon drawn by a dyspeptic white horse which +the boy who officiated as driver found no difficulty in restraining. +Two gentlemen in charge of the constructions, their visitor and two +kegs of nails comprised this precious load. The day was cloudless and +fine, albeit a Colorado "zephyr" was blowing, and the party, with +perhaps the single exception of the horse, felt in fine spirits. The +jolly superintendent, who both in face and mien reminded one of the +typical German nobleman, was overflowing with story, joke and witty +repartee. The site of the works was reached in the course of time. +Excavations were in progress for the blast-furnace and accessory +buildings, and developed a strange formation. The entire mesa seems +built up of boulders packed together with a sort of alkali clay, dry +and hard as stone, and looking, as our _distingue_ guide remarked, as +though not a drop of water had penetrated five feet from the surface +since the time of the Flood. Two blast-furnaces, each with a capacity +of five hundred tons, will be speedily built, to be followed by +rail-mills, a Bessemer steel-plant and all the accessories of vast +iron-and steel-works. With the patronage of several thousand miles of +railway already assured, and its duplication in the near future +apparently beyond doubt, the success of this daring frontier enterprise +seems far removed from the domain of conjecture. + +[Illustration: OLD SI SMITH.] + +All this was glowingly set forth by the courtly superintendent, who, +though but three months in the country, is already at heart a Coloradan. +That there are some things about frontier life which he likes better +than others he is free to admit. Among the few matters he would have +otherwise he gives the first place to the tough "range" or "snow-fed" +beef upon which the dwellers in this favored land must needs subsist. "I +heard a story once," said he, "about a young man, a tenderfoot, who, +after long wondering what made the beef so fearfully tough, at length +arrived at the solution, as he thought, and that quite by accident. He +was riding out with a friend, an old resident, when they chanced to come +upon a bunch of cattle. The young man's attention seemed to be +attracted, and as the idea began to dawn upon him he faced his +companion, and, pointing to an animal which bore the brand "B.C. 45," +savagely exclaimed, 'Look there! How can you expect those antediluvians +to be anything but tough? Why don't you kill your cattle before they get +two or three times as old as Methuselah?'" + +We took a long ride that afternoon under a peerless sky, with blue +mountain-ranges on one hand, whose ridges, covered with snow, seemed +like folds of satin, and on the other the great billowy Plains, bare and +brown and smooth as a carpet. The white horse, relieved of the kegs of +nails, really performed prodigies of travel, all the more appreciated +because unexpected. A stone-quarry for which we were searching was not +found, but a teamster was, who, while everything solemnly stood still +and waited, and amid the agonies of an indescribable stutter, finally +managed to enlighten us somewhat as to its whereabouts. These adventures +served to put us in excellent humor, so that when the road was found +barricaded by a barbed wire fence, it only served to give one of the +party an opportunity to air his views upon the subject--to argue, in +fact, that the barbed wire fence had been an important factor in +building up the agricultural greatness of the West. "For what +inducements," he exclaims, "does the top rail of such a fence offer to +the contemplative farmer? None, sir! His traditional laziness has been +broken up, and great material prosperity is the result." + +Whatever causes have operated to produce the effect, certain it is that +the West is eminently prosperous to-day. Everywhere are seen growth, +enterprise and an aggressiveness that stops at no obstacles. Immigration +is pouring into Colorado alone at the rate of several thousands per +week. The government lands are being rapidly taken up, and the stable +industries of stock-raising and farming correspondingly extended. +Manufacturing, too, is acquiring a foothold, and many of the necessaries +of life, which now must be obtained in the East, will soon be produced +at home. The mountains are revealing untold treasures of silver and +gold, and the possibilities which may lie hid in the yet unexplored +regions act as a stimulus to crowds of hopeful prospectors. But while +Colorado is receiving her full share of the influx, a tide seems to be +setting in toward the old empire of the Aztecs, and flowing through the +natural gateway, our old Rocky-Mountain outpost. It is beginning to be +found out that the legends of fabulous wealth which have come down to us +from the olden time have much of truth in them, and mines that were +worked successively by Franciscan monks, Pueblo Indians, Jesuit priests +and Mexicans, and had suffered filling up and obliteration with every +change of proprietorship, are now being reopened; and that, too, under a +new dispensation which will ensure prosperity to the enterprise. +Spaniard and priest have long since abandoned their claim to the rich +possessions, and their doubtful sway, ever upon the verge of revolution +and offering no incentive to enterprise, has given place to one of a +different character. Under the protection of beneficent and fostering +laws this oldest portion of our Union may now be expected to reveal its +wealth of resources to energy and intelligent labor. And it may +confidently be predicted that American enterprise will not halt till it +has built up the waste places of our land, and in this case literally +made the desert to blossom as the rose. Thus gloriously does our new +civilization reclaim the errors of the past, building upon ancient ruins +the enlightened institutions of to-day, and grafting fresh vigor upon +effete races and nationalities. And now, at last, the Spanish Peaks, +those mighty ancient sentinels whose twin spires, like eyes, have +watched the slow rise and fall of stately but tottering dynasties in the +long ago, are to look out upon a different scene--a new race come in the +might of its freedom and with almost the glory of a conquering host to +redeem a waiting land from the outcome of centuries of avaricious and +bigoted misrule, and even from the thraldom of decay. + +GEORGE REX BUCKMAN. + +[Illustration] + + + + +LOST. + + + I. + + I lost my treasures one by one, + Those joys the world holds dear; + Smiling I said, "To-morrow's sun + Will bring us better cheer." + For faith and love were one. Glad faith! + All loss is naught save loss of faith. + + II. + + My truant joys come trooping back, + And trooping friends no less; + But tears fall fast to meet the lack + Of dearer happiness. + For faith and love are two. Sad faith! + 'Tis loss indeed, the loss of faith. + +MARY B. DODGE. + + + + +ADAM AND EVE. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +From the day on which Adam knew that the date of Jerrem's trial was +fixed all the hope which the sight of Eve had rekindled was again +completely extinguished, and, refusing every attempt at consolation, he +threw himself into an abyss of despair a hundred-fold more dark and +bitter than before. The thought that he, captain and leader as he had +been, should stand in court confronted by his comrades and neighbors +(for Adam, ignorant of the disasters which had overtaken them, believed +half Polperro to be on their way to London), and there swear away +Jerrem's life and turn informer, was something too terrible to be dwelt +on with even outward tranquillity, and, abandoning everything which had +hitherto sustained him, he gave himself up to all the terrors of remorse +and despair. It was in vain for Reuben to reason or for Eve to plead: so +long as they could suggest no means by which this dreaded ordeal could +be averted Adam was deaf to all hope of consolation. There was but one +subject which interested him, and only on one subject could he be got to +speak, and that was the chances there still remained of Jerrem's life +being spared; and to furnish him with some food for this hope, Eve began +to loiter at the gates, talk to the warders and the turnkeys, and mingle +with the many groups who on some business or pretext were always +assembled about the yard or stood idling in the various passages with +which the prison was intersected. + +One morning it came to her mind, How would it be for Adam to escape, and +so not be there to prove the accusation he had made of Jerrem having +shot the man? With scarce more thought than she had bestowed on many +another passing suggestion which seemed for the moment practical and +solid, but as she turned it round lost shape and floated into air, Eve +made the suggestion, and to her surprise found it seized on by Adam as +an inspiration. Why, he'd risk _all_ so that he escaped being set face +to face with Jerrem and his former mates. Adam had but to be assured the +strain would not be more than Eve's strength could bear before he had +adopted with joy her bare suggestion, clothed it with possibility, and +by it seemed to regain all his past energy. Could he but get away and +Jerrem's life be spared, all hope of happiness would not be over. In +some of those distant lands to which people were then beginning to go +life might begin afresh. And as his thoughts found utterance in speech +he held out his hand to Eve, and in it she laid her own; and Adam needed +nothing more to tell him that whither he went there Eve too would go. +There was no need for vows and protestations now between these two, for, +though to each the other's heart lay bare, a word of love scarce ever +crossed their lips. Life seemed too sad and time too precious to be +whiled away in pleasant speeches, and often when together, burdened by +the weight of all they had to say, yet could not talk about, the two +would sit for hours and neither speak a word. But with this proposition +of escape a new channel was given to them, and as they discussed their +different plans the dreadful shadow which at times had hung between them +was rolled away and lifted out of sight. + +Inspired by the prospect of action, of doing something, Adam roused +himself to master all the difficulties: his old foresight and caution +began to revive, and the project, which had on one day looked like a +desperate extremity, grew by the end of a week into a well-arranged plan +whose success seemed more than possible. Filled with anxiety for Eve, +Reuben gave no hearty sanction to the experiment: besides which, he felt +certain that now neither Adam's absence nor presence would in any way +affect Jerrem's fate; added to which, if the matter was detected it +might go hard with Adam himself. But his arguments proved nothing to +Eve, who, confident of success, only demanded from him the promise of +secrecy; after which, she thought, as some questions might be put to +him, the less he knew the less he would have to conceal. + +Although a prisoner, inasmuch as liberty was denied to him, Adam was in +no way subjected to that strict surveillance to which those who had +broken the law were supposed to be submitted. It was of his own free +will that he disregarded the various privileges which lay open to him: +others in his place would have frequented the passages, hung about the +yards and grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought +and sold. Money could do much in those days of lax discipline, and the +man who could pay and could give need have very few wants unsatisfied. +But Adam's only desire was to be left undisturbed and alone; and as this +entailed no undue amount of trouble after their first curiosity had been +satisfied, it was not thought necessary to deny him this privilege. From +constantly going in and out, most of the officials inside the prison +knew Eve, while to but very few was Adam's face familiar; and it was on +this fact, aided by the knowledge that through favor of a gratuity +friends were frequently permitted to outstay their usual hour, that most +of their hopes rested. Each day she came Eve brought some portion of the +disguise which was to be adopted; and then, having learnt from Reuben +that the Mary Jane had arrived and was lying at the wharf unloading, not +knowing what better to do, they decided that she should go to Captain +Triggs and ask him, in case Adam could get away, whether he would let +him come on board his vessel and give him shelter there below. + +"Wa-al, no," said Triggs, "I woan't do that, 'cos they as I'se got here +might smell un out; but I'll tell 'ee what: I knaws a chap as has in +many ways bin beholden to me 'fore now, and I reckon if I gives un the +cue he'll do the job for 'ee." + +"But do you think he's to be trusted?" Eve asked. + +"Wa-al, that rests on how small a part you'm foaced to tell un of," +said Triggs, "and how much you makes it warth his while. I'm blamed if +I'd go bail for un myself, but that won't be no odds agen' Adam's goin': +'tis just the place for he. 'T 'ud niver do to car'y a pitch-pot down +and set un in the midst o' they who couldn't bide his stink." + +"And the crew?" said Eve, wincing under Captain Triggs's figurative +language. + +"Awh, the crew's right enuf--a set o' gashly, smudge-faced raskils +that's near half Maltee and t' other Lascar Injuns. Any jail-bird that +flies their way 'ull find they's all of a feather. But here," he added, +puzzled by the event: "how's this that you'm still mixed up with Adam +so? I thought 'twas all 'long o' you and Reuben May that the Lottery's +landin' got blowed about?" + +Eve shook her head. "Be sure," she said, "'twas never in me to do Adam +any harm." + +"And you'm goin' to stick to un now through thick and thin? 'Twill niver +do for un, ye knaw, to set his foot on Cornish ground agen." + +"He knows that," said Eve; "and if he gets away we shall be married and +go across the seas to some new part, where no one can tell what brought +us from our home." + +Triggs gave a significant nod. "Lord!" he exclaimed, "but that's a poor +lookout for such a bowerly maid as you be! Wouldn't it be better for 'ee +to stick by yer friends 'bout here than--" + +"I haven't got any friends," interrupted Eve promptly, "excepting it's +Adam and Joan and Uncle Zebedee." + +"Ah, poor old Zebedee!" sighed Triggs: "'tis all dickey with he. The day +I started I see Sammy Tucker to Fowey, and he was tellin' that th' ole +chap was gone reg'lar tottlin'-like, and can't tell thickee fra that; +and as for Joan Hocken, he says you wouldn't knaw her for the same. And +they's tooked poor foolish Jonathan, as is more mazed than iver, to live +with 'em; and Mrs. Tucker, as used to haggle with everybody so, tends on +'em all hand and foot, and her's given up praichin' 'bout religion and +that, and 's turned quite neighborly, and, so long as her can save her +daughter, thinks nothin's too hot nor too heavy." + +"Dear Joan!" sighed Eve: "she's started by the coach on her way up here +now." + +"Whether she hath or no!" exclaimed Triggs in surprise. "Then take my +word they's heerd that Jerrem's to be hanged, and Joan's comin' up to be +all ready to hand for 't." + +"No, not that," groaned Eve, for at the mere mention of the word the +vague dread seemed to shape itself into a certainty. "Oh, Captain +Triggs, don't say that if Adam gets off you don't think Jerrem's life +will be spared." + +"Wa-al, my poor maid, us must hope so," said the compassionate captain; +"but 'tis the warst o' they doin's that sooner or later th' endin, of +'em must come. 'Twould never do to let 'em prosper allays," he added +with impressive certainty, "or where 'ud be the use o' parsons praichin' +up 'bout heaven and hell? Why, now, us likes good liquor cheap to Fowey; +and wance 'pon a time us had it too, but that ha'n't bin for twenty +year. Our day's gone by, and so 'ull theirs be now; and th' excise 'ull +come, and revenoos 'ull settle down, and folks be foaced to take to +lousterin' for the bit o' bread they ates, and live quiet and paceable, +as good neighbors should. So try and take heart; and if so be that Adam +can give they Bailey chaps the go-by, tell un to come 'longs here, and +us 'ull be odds with any o' they that happens to be follerin' to his +heels." + +Charmed with this friendly promise, Eve said "Good-bye," leaving the +captain puzzled with speculations on women and the many curious +contradictions which seem to influence their actions; while, the hour +being now too late to return to the prison, she took her way to her own +room, thinking it best to begin the preparations which in case of Adam's +escape and any sudden departure it would be necessary to have completed. + +Perhaps it was her interview with Captain Triggs, the sight of the wharf +and the ships, which took her thoughts back and made them bridge the +gulf which divided her past life from her present self. Could the girl +she saw in that shadowy past--headstrong, confident, impatient of +suffering and unsympathetic with sorrow--be this same Eve who walked +along with all hope and thought of self merged in another's happiness +and welfare? Where was the vanity, where were the tricks and coquetries, +passports to that ideal existence after which in the old days she had so +thirsted? Trampled out of sight and choked beneath the fair blossoms of +a higher life, which, as in many a human nature, had needed sorrow, +humiliation and a great watering of tears before there could spring +forth the flowers for a fruit which should one day ripen into great +perfection. + +No wonder, then, that she should be shaken by a doubt of her own +identity; and having reached her room she paused upon the threshold and +looked around as if to satisfy herself by all those silent witnesses +which made it truth. There was the chair in which she had so often sat +plying her needle with such tardy grace while her impatient thoughts did +battle with the humdrum, narrow life she led. How she had beat against +the fate which seemed to promise naught but that dull round of +commonplace events in which her early years had passed away! How as a +gall and fret had come the thought of Reuben's proffered love, because +it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the life she then +most dreaded! To be courted and sought after, to call forth love, +jealousy and despair, to be looked up to, thought well of, praised, +admired,--these were the delights she had craved and these the longings +she had had granted. And a sigh from the depths of that chastened heart +rendered the bitter tribute paid by all to satiated vanity and outlived +desire. The dingy walls, the ill-assorted furniture (her mother's pride +in which had sometimes vexed her, sometimes made her laugh) now looked +like childhood's friends, whose faces stamp themselves upon our inmost +hearts. The light no longer seemed obscure, the room no longer gloomy, +for each thing in it now was flooded by the tender light of +memory--that wondrous gift to man which those who only sail along life's +summer sea can never know in all the heights and depths revealed to +storm-tossed hearts. + +"What! you've come back?" a voice said in her ear; and looking round Eve +saw it was Reuben, who had entered unperceived. "There's nothing fresh +gone wrong?" he asked. + +"No, nothing;" but the sad smile she tried to give him welcome with was +so akin to tears that Reuben's face assumed a look of doubt. "'Tis only +that I'm thinking how I'm changed from what I was," said Eve. "Why, once +I couldn't bear this room and all the things about it; but now--Oh, +Reuben, my heart seems like to break because perhaps 'twill soon now +come to saying good-bye to all of it for ever." + +Reuben winced: "You're fixed to go, then?" + +"Yes, where Adam goes I shall go too: don't you think I should? What +else is left for me to do?" + +"You feel, then, you'd be happy--off with him--away from all +and--everybody else?" + +"Happy! Should I be happy to know he'd gone alone--happy to know I'd +driven him away to some place where I wouldn't go myself?" and Eve +paused, shaking her head before she added, "If he can make another start +in life--try and begin again--" + +"You ought to help him to it," said Reuben promptly: "that's very plain +to see. Oh, Eve, do you mind the times when you and me have talked of +what we'd like to do--how, never satisfied with what went on around, we +wanted to be altogether such as some of those we'd heard and read about? +The way seems almost opened up to you, but what shall I do when all this +is over and you are gone away? I can't go back and stick to trade again, +working for nothing more but putting victuals in myself." + +For a moment Eve did not speak: then, with a sudden movement, she +turned, saying to Reuben, "There's something that before our lives are +at any moment parted I've wanted to say to you, Reuben. 'Tis that until +now, this time while we've been all together here, I've never known what +your worth is--what you would be to any one who'd got the heart to value +what you'd give. Of late it has often seemed that I should think but +very small of one who'd had the chance of your liking and yet didn't +know the proper value of such goodness." + +Reuben gave a look of disavowal, and Eve continued, adding with a little +hesitation, "You mustn't think it strange in me for saying this. I +couldn't tell you if you didn't know how everything lies between Adam +and myself; but ever since this trouble's come about all my thoughts +seem changed, and people look quite different now to what they did +before; and, most of all, I've learnt to know the friend I've got, and +always had, in you, Reuben." + +Reuben did not answer for a moment. He seemed struggling to keep back +something he was yet prompted to speak of. "Eve," he said at length, +"don't think that I've not made mistakes, and great ones too. When first +I fought to battle down my leaning toward you, why was it? Not because +of doubting that 'twould ever be returned, but 'cos I held myself too +good a chap in all my thoughts and ways to be taken up with such a +butterfly concern as I took you to be. I'd never have believed then that +you'd have acted as I've seen you act. I thought that love with you +meant who could give you the finest clothes to wear and let you rule the +roast the easiest; but you have shown me that you are made of better +woman's stuff than that. And, after all, a man thinks better of himself +for mounting high than stooping to pick up what can be had for asking +any day." + +"No, no, Reuben: your good opinion is more than I deserve," said Eve, +her memory stinging her with past recollections. "If you want to see a +dear, kind-hearted, unselfish girl, wait until Joan comes. I do so hope +that you will take to her! I think you will, after what you've been to +Jerrem and to Adam. I want you and Joan to like each other." + +"I don't think there's much fear of that," said Reuben. "Jerrem's spoke +so freely about Joan that I seem to know her before ever having seen +her. Let me see: her mind was at one time set on Adam, wasn't it?" + +"I think that she was very fond of Adam," said Eve, coloring: "and, so +far as that goes, I don't know that there is any difference now. I'm +sure she'd lay her life down if it would do him good." + +"Poor soul!" sighed Reuben, drawn by a friendly feeling to sympathize +with Joan's unlucky love. "Her cup's been full, and no mistake, of +late." + +"Did Jerrem seem to feel it much that Uncle Zebedee 'd been took so +strange?" asked Eve. + +"I didn't tell him more than I could help," said Reuben. "As much as +possible I made it out to him that for the old man to come to London +wouldn't be safe, and the fear of that seemed to pacify him at once." + +"I haven't spoken of it to Adam yet," said Eve. "He hasn't asked about +his coming, so I thought I'd leave the telling till another time. His +mind seems set on nothing but getting off, and by it setting Jerrem +free." + +But Reuben made no rejoinder to the questioning tone of Eve's words, and +after a few minutes' pause he waived the subject by reverting to the +description which Eve had given of Joan, so that, in case he had to meet +her alone, he might recognize her without difficulty. Eve repeated the +description, dwelling with loving preciseness on the various features +and points by which Joan might be known; and then Reuben, having some +work to do, got up to say good-bye. + +"Good-bye," said Eve, holding out her hand--"good-bye. Every time I say +it now I seem to wonder if 'tis to be good-bye indeed." + +"Why, no: in any way, you'd wait until the trial was over?" + +"Yes, I forgot: of course we should." + +"Well, then, do you think I'd let you go without a word? Ah, Eve, no! +Whatever others are, nobody's yet pushed you from your place, nor ever +will so long as my life lasts." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +At length the dreaded day was over, the trial was at an end, and, in +spite of every effort made, Jerrem condemned to die. The hopes raised by +the knowledge of Adam's escape seemed crowned with success when, to the +court's dismay, it was announced that the prisoner's accuser could not +be produced: he had mysteriously disappeared the evening before, and in +spite of a most vigorous search was nowhere to be found. But, with minds +already resolved to make this hardened smuggler's fate a warning and +example to all such as should henceforth dare the law, one of the +cutter's crew, wrought upon by the fear lest Jerrem should escape and +baffle the vengeance they had vowed to take, was got to swear that +Jerrem was the man who fired the fatal shot; and though it was shown +that the night was dark and recognition next to impossible, this +evidence was held conclusive to prove the crime, and nothing now +remained but to condemn the culprit. The judge's words came slowly +forth, making the stoutest there shrink back and let that arrow from the +bow of death glance by and set its mark on him upon whose face the crowd +now turned to gaze. + +"Can it be that he is stunned? or is he hardened?" + +For Jerrem stands all unmoved and calm while, dulled by the sound of +rushing waters, the words the judge has said come booming back and back +again. A sickly tremor creeps through every limb and makes it nerveless; +a sense of growing weight presses the flesh down as a burden on the +fainting spirit; one instant a thousand faces, crowding close, keep out +the air; the next, they have all receded out of sight back into misty +space, and he is left alone, with all around faded and grown confused +and all beneath him slipping and giving way. Suddenly a sound rouses him +back to life: a voice has smote his ear and cleaved his inmost soul; and +lifting his head his eyes are met by sight of Joan, who with a piercing +shriek has fallen back, deathlike and pale, in Reuben's outstretched +arms. + +Then Jerrem knows that hope is past and he must die, and in one flash +his fate, in all its misery and shame, stands out before him, and +reeling he totters, to sink down senseless and be carried off to that +dismal cell allotted to those condemned to death; while Reuben, as best +he can, manages to get Joan out of court and into the open air, where +she gradually comes back to life again and is able to listen to such +poor comfort as Reuben's sad heart can find to give her. For by reason +of those eventful circumstances which serve to cement friendships by +suddenly overthrowing the barriers time must otherwise gradually wear +away, Reuben May and Joan Hocken have (in the week which has intervened +between her arrival and this day of trial) become more intimate and +thoroughly acquainted than if in an ordinary way they had known each +other for years. A stranger in a large city, with not one familiar face +to greet her, who does not know the terrible feeling of desolation which +made poor Joan hurry through the crowded streets, shrinking away from +their bustle and throng toward Reuben, the one person she had to turn to +for sympathy, advice, assistance and consolation? With that spirit of +perfect trust which her own large heart gave her the certain assurance +of receiving, Joan placed implicit reliance in all Reuben said and did; +and seeing this, and receiving an inward satisfaction from the sight, +Reuben involuntarily slipped into a familiarity of speech and manner +very opposed to the stiff reserve he usually maintained toward +strangers. + +Ten days were given before the day on which Jerrem was to die, and +during this time, through the various interests raised in his behalf, no +restriction was put upon the intercourse between him and his friends; so +that, abandoning everything for the poor soul's welfare, Reuben, Joan +and Jerrem spent hour after hour in the closest intercourse. Happily, in +times of great extremity the power of realizing our exact situation is +mostly denied to us; and in the case of Joan and Jerrem, although +surrounded by the terrors and within the outposts of that dreaded end, +it was nothing unfrequent to hear a sudden peal of laughter, which often +would have as sudden an end in a great burst of tears. + +To point to hopes and joys beyond the grave when every thought is +centred and fixed on this life's interests and keen anxieties is but a +fruitless, vain endeavor; and Reuben had to try and rest contented in +the assurance of Jerrem's perfect forgiveness and good-will to all who +had shown him any malice or ill-feeling--to draw some satisfaction from +the unselfish love he showed to Joan and the deep gratitude he now +expressed to Uncle Zebedee. + +What would become of them? he often asked when some word of Joan's +revealed the altered aspect of their affairs; and then, overcome by the +helplessness of their forlorn condition, he would entreat Reuben to +stand by them--not to forget Joan, not to forsake her. And Reuben, +strangely moved by sight of this poor giddy nature's overwrought +emotion, would try to calm him with the ready assurance that while he +lived Joan should never want a friend, and, touched by his words, the +two would clasp his hands together, telling each other of all the +kindness he had showed them, praying God would pay him back in blessings +for his goodness. Nor were theirs the only lips which spoke of gratitude +to Reuben May: his name had now become familiar to many who through his +means were kept from being ignorant of the sad fate which awaited their +boon companion, their prime favorite, the once madcap, rollicking +Jerrem--the last one, as Joan often told Reuben, whom any in Polperro +would have fixed on for evil to pursue or misfortune to overtake, and +about whom all declared there must have been "a hitch in the block +somewheres, as Fate never intended that ill-luck should pitch upon +Jerrem." The repetition of their astonishment, their indignation and +their sympathy afforded the poor fellow the most visible satisfaction, +harassed as he was becoming by one dread which entirely swallowed up the +thought and fear of death. This ghastly terror was the then usual +consignment of a body after death to the surgeons for dissection; and +the uncontrollable trepidation which would take possession of him each +time this hideous recollection forced itself upon him, although +unaccountable to Reuben, was most painful for him to witness. What +difference could it make what became of one's body after death? Reuben +would ask himself, puzzled to fathom that wonderful tenderness which +some natures feel for the flesh which embodies their attractions. But +Jerrem had felt a passing love for his own dear body: vanity of it had +been his ruling passion, its comeliness his great glory--so much so that +even now a positive satisfaction would have been his could he have +pictured himself outstretched and lifeless, with lookers-on moved to +compassion by the dead grace of his winsome face and slender limbs. +Joan, too, was caught by the same infection. Not to lie whole and decent +in one's coffin! Oh, it was an indignity too terrible for contemplation; +and every time they were away from Jerrem she would beset Reuben with +entreaties and questions as to what could be done to avoid the +catastrophe. + +The one plan he knew of had been tried--and tried, too, with repeated +success--and this was the engaging of a superior force to wrest the body +from the surgeon's crew, a set of sturdy miscreants with whom to do +battle a considerable mob was needed; but, with money grown very scarce +and time so short, the thing could not be managed, and Reuben tried to +tell Joan of its impossibility while they two were walking to a place in +which it had been agreed they should find some one with a message from +Eve, who, together with Adam, was in hiding on board the vessel Captain +Triggs had spoken of. But instead of the messenger Eve herself arrived, +having ventured this much with the hope of hearing something that would +lessen Adam's despair and grief at learning the fate of Jerrem. + +"Ah, poor sawl!" sighed Joan as Eve ended her dismal account of Adam's +sad condition: "'tis only what I feared to hear of. But tell un, Eve, to +lay it to his heart that Jerrem's forgived un every bit, and don't know +what it is to hold a grudge to Adam; and if I speak of un, he says, +'Why, doan't I know it ain't through he, but 'cos o' my own headstrong +ways and they sneaks o' revenoo-chaps?' who falsely swored away his +blessed life." + +"Does he seem to dread it much?" asked Eve, the sickly fears which +filled her heart echoed in each whispered word. + +"Not _that_ he don't," said Joan, lifting her hand significantly to her +throat: "'tis after. Oh, Eve," she gasped, "ain't it too awful to think +of their cuttin' up his poor dead body into bits? Call theyselves +doctors!" she burst out--"the gashly lot! I'll never let wan o' their +name come nighst to me agen." + +"Oh, Reuben," gasped Eve, "is it so? Can nothing be done?" + +Reuben shook his head. + +"Nothing now," said Joan--"for want o' money, too, mostly, Eve; and the +guineas I've a-wasted! Oh, how the sight o' every one rises and chinks +in judgment 'gainst my ears!" + +"If we'd got the money," said Reuben soothingly, "there isn't time. All +should be settled by to-morrow night; and if some one this minute +brought the wherewithal I haven't one 'pon whom I dare to lay my hand to +ask to undertake the job." + +"Then 'tis no use harpin' 'pon it any more," said Joan; while Eve gave a +sigh, concurring in what she said, both of them knowing well that if +Reuben gave it up the thing must be hopeless indeed. + +Here was another stab for Adam's wounded senses, and with a heavy heart +and step Eve took her way back to him, while Reuben and Joan continued +to thread the streets which took them by a circuitous road home to +Knight's Passage. + +But no sooner had Eve told Adam of this fresh burden laid on poor Jerrem +than a new hope seemed to animate him. Something was still to be done: +there yet remained an atonement which, though it cost him his life, he +could strive to make to Jerrem. Throwing aside the fear of detection +which had hitherto kept him skulking within the little vessel, he set +off that night to find the Mary Jane, and, regardless of the terrible +shame which had filled him at the bare thought of confronting Triggs or +any of his crew, he cast himself upon their mercy, beseeching them as +men, and Cornishmen, to do this much for their brother-sailor in his sad +need and last extremity; and his appeal and the nature of it had so +touched these quickly-stirred hearts that, forgetful of the contempt and +scorn with which, in the light of an informer, they had hitherto viewed +Adam, they had one and all sworn to aid him to their utmost strength, +and to bring to the rescue certain others of whom they knew, by whose +help and assistance success would be more probable. Therefore it was +that, two days before the morning of his sentenced death, Eve was able +to put into Reuben's hand a scrap of paper on which was written Adam's +vow to Jerrem that, though his own life paid the forfeit for it, +Jerrem's body should be rescued and saved. + +Present as Jerrem's fears had been to Reuben's eyes and to his mind, +until he saw the transport of agitated joy which this assurance gave to +Jerrem he had never grasped a tithe of the terrible dread which during +the last few days had taken such complete hold of the poor fellow's +inmost thoughts. Now, as he read again and again the words which Adam +had written, a torrent of tears burst forth from his eyes: in an ecstasy +of relief he caught Joan to his heart, wrung Reuben's hand, and from +that moment began to gradually compose himself into a state of greater +ease and seeming tranquillity. Confident, through the unbroken trust of +years, that Adam's promise, once given, might be implicitly relied on, +Jerrem needed no further assurance than these few written words to +satisfy him that every human effort would be made on his behalf; and the +knowledge of this, and that old comrades would be near, waiting to unite +their strength for his body's rescue, was in itself a balm and +consolation. He grew quite loquacious about the crestfallen authorities, +the surprise of the crowd and the disappointment of the ruffianly mob +deprived of their certain prey; while the two who listened sat with a +tightening grip upon their hearts, for when these things should come to +be the life of him who spoke them would have passed away, and the +immortal soul have flown from out that perishable husk on which his +last vain thoughts were still being centred. + +Poor Joan! The time had yet to come when she would spend herself with +many a sad regret and sharp upbraiding that this and that had not been +said and done; but now, her spirit swallowed up in desolation and sunk +beneath the burden of despair, she sat all silent close by Jerrem's +side, covering his hands with many a mute caress, yet never daring to +lift up her eyes to look into his face without a burst of grief sweeping +across to shake her like a reed. Jerrem could eat and drink, but Joan's +lips never tasted food. A fever seemed to burn within and fill her with +its restless torment: the beatings of her throbbing heart turned her +first hot, then cold, as each pulse said the time to part was hurrying +to its end. + +By Jerrem's wish, Joan was not told that on the morning of his death to +Reuben alone admittance to him had been granted: therefore when the eve +of that morrow came, and the time to say farewell actually arrived, the +girl was spared the knowledge that this parting was more than the shadow +of that last good-bye which so soon would have to be said for ever. +Still, the sudden change in Jerrem's face pierced her afresh and broke +down that last barrier of control over a grief she could subdue no +longer. In vain the turnkeys warned them that time was up and Joan must +go. Reuben entreated too that they should say good-bye: the two but +clung together in more desperate necessity, until Reuben, seeing that +further force would be required, stepped forward, and stretching out his +hand found it caught at by Jerrem and held at once with Joan's, while in +words from which all strength of tone seemed to die away Jerrem +whispered, "Reuben, if ever it could come to pass that when I'm gone you +and she might find it some day in your minds to stand +together--_one_--say 'twas the thing he wished for most before he went." +Then, with a feeble effort to push her into Reuben's arms, he caught her +back, and straining her close to his heart again cried out, "Oh, Joan, +but death comes bitter when it means good-bye to such as you!" Another +cry, a closer strain, then Jerrem's arms relax; his hold gives way, and +Joan falls staggering back; the door is opened--shut; the struggle is +past, and ere their sad voices can come echoing back Jerrem and Joan +have looked their last in life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + +When Reuben found that to be a witness of Jerrem's death Joan must take +her stand among the lawless mob who made holiday of such sad scenes as +this, his decision was that the idea was untenable. Jerrem too had a +strong desire that Joan should not see him die; and although his +avoidance of anything that directly touched upon that dreaded moment had +kept him from openly naming his wishes, the hints dropped satisfied +Reuben that the knowledge of her absence would be a matter of relief to +him. But how get Joan to listen to his scruples when her whole mind was +set on keeping by Jerrem's side until hope was past and life was over? + +"Couldn't 'ee get her to take sommat that her wouldn't sleep off till +'twas late?" Jerrem had said after Reuben had told him that the next +morning he must come alone; and the suggestion made was seized on at +once by Reuben, who, under pretence of getting something to steady her +shaken nerves, procured from the apothecary near a simple draught, which +Joan in good faith swallowed. And then, Reuben having promised in case +she fell asleep to awaken her at the appointed hour, the poor soul, worn +out by sorrow and fatigue, threw herself down, dressed as she was, upon +the bed, and soon was in a heavy sleep, from which she did not rouse +until well into the following day, when some one moving in the room made +her start up. For a moment she seemed dazed: then, rubbing her eyes as +if to clear away those happy visions which had come to her in sleep, she +gazed about until Reuben, who had at first drawn back, came forward to +speak to her. "Why, Reuben," she cried, "how's this? Have I been +dreamin', or what? The daylight's come, and, see, the sun!" + +And here she stopped, her parched mouth half unclosed, as fears came +crowding thick upon her mind, choking her further utterance. One look at +Reuben's face had told the tale; and though she did not speak again, the +ashen hue that overspread and drove all color from her cheeks proclaimed +to him that she had guessed the truth. + +"'Twas best, my dear," he said, "that you should sleep while he went to +his rest." + +But the unlooked-for shock had been too great a strain on body and mind, +alike overtaxed and weak, and, falling back, Joan lay for hours as one +unconscious and devoid of life. And Reuben sat silent by her side, +paying no heed as hour by hour went by, till night had come and all +around was dark: then some one came softly up the stairs and crept into +the room, and Eve's whispered "Reuben!" broke the spell. + +Yes, all had gone well. The body, rescued and safe, was now placed +within a house near to the churchyard in which Eve's mother lay: there +it was to be buried. And there, the next day, the commonplace event of +one among many funerals being over, the four thus linked by fate were +brought together, and Adam and Joan again stood face to face. Heightened +by the disguise which in order to avoid detection he was obliged to +adopt, the alteration in Adam was so complete that Joan stood aghast +before this seeming stranger, while a fresh smart came into Adam's open +wounds as he gazed upon the changed face of the once comely Joan. + +A terrible barrier--such as, until felt, they had never dreaded--seemed +to have sprung up to separate and divide these two. Involuntarily they +shrank at each other's touch and quailed beneath each other's gaze, +while each turned with a feeling of relief to him and to her who now +constituted their individual refuge and support. Yes, strange as it +seemed to Adam and unaccountable to Joan, _she_ clung to Reuben, _he_ to +Eve, before whom each could be natural and unrestrained, while between +their present selves a great gulf had opened out which naught but time +or distance could bridge over. + +So Adam went back to his hiding-place, Reuben to his shop, and Joan and +Eve to the old home in Knight's Passage, as much lost amid the crowd of +thronged London as if they had already taken refuge in that far-off land +which had now become the goal of Adam's thoughts and keen desires. Eve, +too, fearing some fresh disaster, was equally anxious for their +departure, and most of Reuben's spare time was swallowed up in making +the necessary arrangements. A passage in his name for himself and his +wife was secured in a ship about to start. At the last moment this +passage was to be transferred to Adam and Eve, whose marriage would take +place a day or two before the vessel sailed. The transactions on which +the successful fulfilment of these various events depended were mostly +conducted by Reuben, aided by the counsels of Mr. Osborne and the +assistance of Captain Triggs, whose good-fellowship, no longer withheld, +made him a valuable coadjutor. + +Fortunately, Triggs's vessel, through some detention of its cargo, had +remained in London for an unusually long time, and now, when it did +sail, Joan was to take passage in it back to Polperro. + +"Awh, Reuben, my dear," sighed Joan one evening as, Eve having gone to +see Adam, the two walked out toward the little spot where Jerrem lay, +and as they went discussed Joan's near departure, "I wish to goodness +you'd pack up yer alls and come 'longs to Polperro home with me: 't 'ud +be ever so much better than stayin' to this gashly London, where there +ain't a blow o' air that's fresh to draw your breath in." + +"Why, nonsense!" said Reuben: "you wouldn't have me if I'd come." + +"How not have 'ee?" exclaimed Joan. "Why, if so be I thought you'd come +I'd never stir from where I be until I got the promise of it." + +"But there wouldn't be nothin' for me to do," said Reuben. + +"Why, iss there would--oceans," returned Joan. "Laws! I knaws clocks by +scores as hasn't gone for twenty year and more. Us has got two +ourselves, that wan won't strike and t' other you can't make tick." + +Reuben smiled: then, growing more serious, he said, "But do you know, +Joan, that yours isn't the first head it's entered into about going down +home with you? I've had a mind toward it myself many times of late." + +"Why, then, do come to wance," said Joan excitedly; "for so long as they +leaves me the house there'll be a home with me and Uncle Zebedee, and +I'll go bail for the welcome you'll get gived 'ee there." + +Reuben was silent, and Joan, attributing this to some hesitation over +the plan, threw further weight into her argument by saying, "There's the +chapel too, Reuben. Only to think o' the sight o' good you could do +praichin' to 'em and that! for, though it didn't seem to make no odds +before, I reckons there's not a few that wants, like me, to be told o' +some place where they treats folks better than they does down here +below." + +"Joan," said Reuben after a pause, speaking out of his own thoughts and +paying no heed to the words she had been saying, "you know all about Eve +and me, don't you?" + +Joan nodded her head. + +"How I've felt about her, so that I believe the hold she's got on me no +one on earth will ever push her off from." + +"Awh, poor sawl!" sighed Joan compassionately: "I've often had a feelin' +for what you'd to bear, and for this reason too--that I knaws myself +what 'tis to be ousted from the heart you'm cravin' to call yer own." + +"Why, yes, of course," said Reuben briskly: "you were set down for Adam +once, weren't you?" + +"Awh, and there's they to Polperro--mother amongst 'em, too--who'll tell +'ee now that if Eve had never shawed her face inside the place Adam 'ud +ha' had me, after all. But there! all that's past and gone long ago." + +There was another pause, which Reuben broke by saying suddenly, "Joan, +should you take it very out of place if I was to ask you whether after a +bit you could marry me? I dare say now such a thought never entered +your head before." + +"Well, iss it has," said Joan; 'and o' late, ever since that blessed +dear spoke they words he did, I've often fell to wonderin' if so be 't +'ud ever come to pass. Not, mind, that I should ha' bin put out if 't +had so happened that you'd never axed me, like, but still I thought +sometimes as how you might, and then agen I says, 'Why should he, +though?'" + +"There's many a reason why _I_ should ask _you_, Joan," said Reuben, +smiling at her unconscious frankness, "though very few why you should +consent to take a man whose love another woman has flung away." + +"Awh, so far as that goes, the both of us is takin' what's another's +orts, you knaw," smiled Joan. + +"Then is it agreed?" asked Reuben, stretching out his hand. + +"Iss, so far as I goes 'tis, with all my heart." Then as she took his +hand a change came to her April face, and looking at him through her +swimming eyes she said, "And very grateful too I'm to 'ee, Reuben, for I +don't knaw by neither another wan who'd take up with a poor heart-broke +maid like me, and they she's looked to all her life disgraced by others +and theyselves." + +Reuben pressed the hand that Joan had given to him, and drawing it +through his arm the two walked on in silence, pondering over the +unlooked-for ending to the strange events they both had lately passed +through. Joan's heart was full of a contentment which made her think, +"How pleased Adam will be! and won't mother be glad! and Uncle Zebedee +'ull have somebody to look to now and keep poor Jonathan straight and +put things a bit in order;" while Reuben, bewildered by the thoughts +which crowded to his mind, semed unable to disentangle them. Could it be +possible that he, Reuben May, was going down to live at Polperro, a +place whose very name he had once taught himself to abominate?--that he +could be willingly casting his lot amid a people whom he had but lately +branded as thieves, outcasts, reprobates? Involuntarily his eyes turned +toward Joan, and a nimbus in which perfect charity was intertwined with +great love and singleness of heart seemed to float about her head and +shed its radiance on her face; and its sight was to Reuben as the first +touch of love, for he was smitten with a sense of his own unworthiness, +and, though he did not speak, he asked that a like spirit to that which +filled Joan might rest upon himself. + +That evening Eve was told the news which Joan and Reuben had to tell, +and as she listened the mixed emotions which swelled within her +perplexed her not a little, for even while feeling that the two wishes +she most desired--Joan cared for and Reuben made happy--were thus +fulfilled, her heart seemed weighted with a fresh disaster: another +wrench had come to part her from that life soon to be nothing but a +lesson and a memory. And Adam, when he was told, although the words he +said were honest words and true, and truly he did rejoice, there yet +within him lay a sadness born of regret at rendering up that love so +freely given to him, now to be garnered for another's use; and +henceforth every word that Reuben spoke, each promise that he gave, +though all drawn forth by Adam's own requests, stuck every one a +separate thorn within his heart, sore with the thought of being an +outcast from the birthplace that he loved and cut off from those whose +faces now he yearned to look upon. + +No vision opened up to Adam's view the prosperous life the future held +in store--no still small voice then whispered in his ear that out of +this sorrow was to come the grace which made success sit well on him and +Eve; and though, as years went by and intercourse became more rare, +their now keen interest in Polperro and its people was swallowed up amid +the many claims a busy life laid on them both, each noble action done, +each good deed wrought, by Adam, and by Eve too, bore on it the unseen +impress of that sore chastening through which they now were passing. + +Out of the savings which from time to time Adam had placed with Mr. +Macey enough was found to pay the passage-money out and keep them from +being pushed by any pressing want on landing. + +Already, at the nearest church, Adam and Eve had been married, and +nothing now remained but to get on board the vessel, which had already +dropped down the river and was to sail the following morning, Triggs had +volunteered to put them and their possessions safely on board, and +Reuben and Joan, with Eve's small personal belongings, were to meet them +at the steps, close by which the Mary Jane's boat would be found +waiting. The time had come when Adam could lay aside his disguise and +appear in much the same trim he usually did when at Polperro. + +Joan was the first to spy him drawing near, and holding out both her +hands to greet the welcome change she cried, "Thank the Lord for lettin' +me see un his ownself wance more!--Awh, Adam! awh, my dear! 't seems as +if I could spake to 'ee now and know 'ee for the same agen.--Look to un, +Reuben! you don't wonder now what made us all so proud of un at home." + +Reuben smiled, but Adam shook his head: the desolation of this sad +farewell robbed him of every other power but that of draining to the +dregs its bitterness. During the whole of that long day Eve and he had +hardly said one word, each racked with thoughts to which no speech gave +utterance. Mechanically each asked about the things the other one had +brought, and seemed to find relief in feigning much anxiety about their +safety, until Triggs, fearing they might outstay their time, gave them a +hint it would not do to linger long; and, with a view to their +leavetaking being unconstrained, he volunteered to take the few +remaining things down to the boat and stow them safely away, adding that +when they should hear his whistle given it would be the signal that they +must start without delay. + +The spot they had fixed on for the starting-place was one but little +used and well removed from all the bustle of a more frequented landing. +A waterman lounged here and there, but seeing the party was another's +fare vouchsafed to them no further interest. The ragged mud-imps stayed +their noisy pranks to scrutinize the country build of Triggs's boat, +leaving the four, unnoticed, to stand apart and see each in the other's +face the reflection of that misery which filled his own. + +Parting for ever! no hopes, no expectations, no looking forward, nothing +to whisper "We shall meet again"! "Good-bye for ever" was written on +each face and echoed in each heart. Words could not soothe that +suffering which turned this common sorrow into an individual torture, +which each must bear unaided and alone; and so they stood silent and +with outward calm, knowing that on that brink of woe the quiver of an +eye might overthrow their all but lost control. + +The sun was sinking fast; the gathering mists of eventide were rising to +shadow all around; the toil of day was drawing to its close; labor was +past, repose was near at hand; its spirit seemed to hover around and +breathe its calm upon those worn, tried souls. Suddenly a shrill whistle +sounds upon their ears and breaks the spell: the women start and throw +their arms around each other's necks. Adam stretches his hand out, and +Reuben grasps it in his own. + +"Reuben, good-bye. God deal with you as you shall deal with those you're +going among!" + +"Adam, be true to her, and I'll be true to those you leave behind." + +"Joan!" and Adam's voice sounds hard and strained, and then a choking +comes into his throat, and, though he wants to tell her what he feels, +to ask her to forgive all he has made her suffer, he cannot speak a +word. Vainly he strives, but not a sound will come; and these two, whose +lives, so grown together, are now to be rent asunder, stand stricken and +dumb, looking from out their eyes that last farewell which their poor +quivering lips refuse to utter. + +"God bless and keep you, Eve!" Reuben's voice is saying as, taking her +hands within his own, he holds them to his heart and for a moment lets +them rest there.--"Oh, friends," he says, "there is a land where +partings never come: upon that shore may we four meet again!" + +Then for a moment all their hands are clasped and held as in a vice, and +then they turn, and two are gone and two are left behind. + +And now the two on land stand with their eyes strained on the boat, +which slowly fades away into the vapory mist which lies beyond: then +Reuben turns and takes Joan by the hand, and silently the two go back +together, while Adam and Eve draw near the ship which is to take them +to that far-off shore to which Hope's torch, rekindled, now is pointing. + +Good-bye is said to Triggs, the boat pushes off, and the two left +standing side by side watch it away until it seems a speck, which +suddenly is swallowed up and disappears from sight. Then Adam puts his +arm round Eve, and as they draw closer together from out their lips come +sighing forth the whispered words, "Fare-well! farewell!" + +_The Author of "Dorothy Fox"_. + + + + +OUR GRANDFATHERS' TEMPLES. + + +If on the fourteenth day of May, 1607, when the Rev. Robert Hunt +celebrated the first sacramental service of the Church of England on +American soil, there had suddenly sprung up at Jamestown the pillars and +arches of a fully-equipped cathedral, whose stones had remained to tell +us of the days when they first enshrined the worship of the earliest +colonists, our most ancient Christian church would still be less than +three hundred years old--a hopelessly modern structure in comparison +with many an abbey and cathedral of England and the Continent. + +[Illustration: THE OLD SOUTH, BOSTON.] + +In a comparative sense, we look in vain for old churches in a new +country, for in our architecture, if nowhere else, we are still a land +of yesterday, where age seems venerable only when we refuse to look +beyond the ocean, and where even a short two hundred years have taken +away the larger share of such perishable ecclesiastical monuments as we +once had. Our grandfathers' temples, whether they stood on the banks of +the James River or on the colder shores of Massachusetts Bay, were built +cheaply for a scanty population: their material was usually wood, +sometimes unshapen logs, and their sites, chosen before the people and +the country had become fitted to each other, were afterward often needed +for other uses. So long as London tears down historic churches, even in +the present days of fashionable devotion to the old and the quaint, and +so long as the Rome of 1880 is still in danger from vandal hands, we +need only be surprised that the list of existing American churches of +former days is so long and so honorable as it is. If we have no York +Minster or St. Alban's Abbey or Canterbury Cathedral, we may still turn +to an Old South, a St. Paul's and a Christ Church. It is something, +after all, to be able to count our most famous old churches on the +fingers of both hands, and then to enumerate by tens those other temples +whose legacy from bygone times is scarcely less rich. + +[Illustration: KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON, IN 1872.] + +The American churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were +plain structures, unpretending without and unadorned within; and this +for other reasons than the poverty of the community, the lack of the +best building-materials, and the absence both of architects and of +artistic tastes. It was a simple ritual which most of them were to +house, and the absence of an ornate service demanded the absence of +ornamentation, which would be meaningless because it would symbolize +nothing. The influence of the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Baptists in +Rhode Island, the Dutch Reformed in New York, the Lutherans and +Presbyterians in the Middle and Southern colonies, and the Friends in +Pennsylvania, whatever their denominational differences, was a unit in +favor of the utmost simplicity consistent with decency and order; and +though there was a difference between Congregational churches like the +Old South in Boston and the Friends' meeting-houses in Philadelphia, the +difference was far less marked than that existing between the new and +old buildings of the Old South society, which the modern tourist may +compare at his leisure in the Boston of to-day. Even the Episcopalians +shared, or deferred to, the prevailing spirit of the time: they put no +cross upon their Christ Church in Cambridge, nearly a hundred and thirty +years after the settlement of the place, lest they should offend the +tastes of their neighbors. The Methodists, the "Christians," the +Swedenborgians, the Unitarians and the Universalists were not yet, and +the Moravians were a small and little-understood body in Eastern +Pennsylvania. + +[Illustration: KING'S CHAPEL BOSTON, IN 1872.] + +Nearly all the colonists, of whatever name, brought from Europe a +conscientious love of religious simplicity and unpretentiousness: for +the most part, the English-speaking settlers were dissenters from the +Church which owned all the splendid architectural monuments of the +country whence they came; and it was not strange that out of their +religious thought grew churches that symbolized the sturdy qualities of +a faith which, right or wrong, had to endure exile and poverty and +privation--privation not only from social wealth, but from the rich +store of ecclesiastical traditions which had accumulated for centuries +in cathedral choirs and abbey cloisters. + +[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON.] + +Therefore, the typical New England meeting-house of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries may perhaps be taken as the best original example +of what America has to show in the way of church-building. To be sure, +its cost was modest, its material was perishable wood, its architectural +design was often a curious medley of old ideas and new uses, and even +its few ornaments were likely to be devoid of the beauty their designers +fancied that they possessed. But it was, at any rate, an honest +embodiment of a sincere idea--the idea of "freedom to worship God;" and +it was adapted to the uses which it was designed to serve. It stood upon +a hill, a square box with square windows cut in its sides--grim without +and grim within, save as the mellowing seasons toned down its ruder +aspects, and green grass and waving boughs framed it as if it were a +picture. Within, the high pulpit, surmounted by a sounding-board, +towered over the square-backed pews, facing a congregation kept orderly +by stern tithing-man and sterner tradition. There was at first neither +organ nor stove nor clock. The shivering congregation warmed itself as +best it might by the aid of foot-stoves; the parson timed his sermon by +an hour-glass; and in the singing-seats the fiddle and the bass--viol +formed the sole link (and an unconscious one) between the simple +song-service of the Puritan meeting-house and the orchestral +accompaniments to the high masses of European cathedrals. The men still +sat at the end of the pew--a custom which had grown up in the days when +they went to the meeting-house gun in hand, not knowing when they should +be hastily summoned forth to fight the Indians. In the earliest days the +drum was the martial summons to worship, but soon European bells sent +forth their milder call. Behind the meeting-houses were the horse-sheds +for the use of distant comers--a species of ecclesiastical edifice still +adorning the greater number of American country churches, and not likely +to disappear for many a year to come. + +In the elder day there was no such difference as now between city and +country churches, for the limitations of money and material bore upon +both more evenly. But with growing wealth and the choice of permanent +locations for building came brick and stone; English architects received +orders; and the prevailing revival led by Sir Christopher Wren and his +followers dotted the Northern colonies with more pretentious churches, +boasting spires not wholly unlike those which were then piercing London +skies. With costlier churches of permanent material there came also the +English fashion of burial in churchyards and chancel-vaults, and mural +tablets and horizontal tombstones were laid into the mortar which has +been permitted, in not a few cases, to preserve them for our own eyes. + +[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL'S, MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS.] + +But our oldest churches, as a rule, have been made more notable by the +political events with which they have been associated than by the +honorable interments that have taken place beneath their shadow. Their +connection with the living has endeared them to our memories more than +their relations to the dead. Not because it is Boston's Westminster +Abbey or Temple Church has the Old South been permitted to come down to +us as the best example of the Congregational meeting-houses of the +eighteenth century, but because of the Revolutionary episodes of which +it was the scene, and which are commemorated in the stone tablet upon +its front. The Old South Church, built in 1729, belonged to the common +class of brick structures which replaced wooden ones; for, like +Solomon's temple, its predecessor had been built of cedar sixty years +before. The convenient location of the Old South and the capaciousness +of its interior brought to it the colonial meetings which preceded the +Revolution, and especially that famous gathering of December 13, 1773, +whence marched the disguised patriots to destroy the taxed tea in Boston +harbor. The convenient access and spacious audience-room of the old +church also led to its occupancy as a riding-school for British cavalry +in 1775. Even now, in the quiet days following the recent excitement +attending its escape from fire and from sale and demolition, the ancient +church still finds occasional use as a place for lectures and public +gatherings. Its chequered days within the past decade have at least +served to make its appearance and its part in colonial history more +familiar to us, and have done something to save other churches from the +destruction which might have overtaken them. + +As the Old South stands as the brick-and-mortar enshrinement of the best +Puritan thought of the eighteenth century, so King's Chapel in Boston, +built twenty-five years later, represents the statelier social customs +and the more conservative political opinions of the early New England +Episcopalians. Its predecessor, of wood, was the first building of the +Church of England in New England. The present King's Chapel, with its +sombre granite walls and its gently-lighted interior, suggests to the +mind an impression of independence of time rather than of age. One reads +on the walls, to be sure, such high-sounding old names as Vassall and +Shirley and Abthorp, and on a tomb in the old graveyard near by one sees +the inscriptions commemorating Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts +and his son John, governor of Connecticut. But King's Chapel seems the +home of churchly peace and gracious content; so that, as we sit within +its quaint three-sided pews, it is hard to remember the stormy scenes in +which it has had part. Its Tory congregation, almost to a man, fled from +its walls when the British general, Gage, evacuated Boston; the sterner +worshippers of the Old South occupied its Anglican pews for a time; and +later it was the scene of a theological movement which caused, in 1785, +the first Episcopal church in New England--or rather its remnant--to +become the first Unitarian society in America. + +In Salem street, Boston, left almost alone at the extreme north end of +the city, is Christ Church, built in 1723. Its tower contains the oldest +chime of bells in America, and from it, according to some antiquarians, +was hung the lantern which on April 18, 1775, announced to the waiting +Paul Revere, and through him to the Middlesex patriots in all the +surrounding country, that General Gage had despatched eight hundred men +to seize and destroy the military stores gathered at Concord by the +Massachusetts Committees of Safety and Supplies. Thus opened the +Revolutionary war, for the battles at Lexington and Concord took place +only the next day. + +The white-spired building at the corner of Park and Tremont streets, +Boston, known as the Park Street Church, is hardly so old as its +extended fame would lead one to suppose, for it dates no farther back +than the first quarter of the present century. Its position as the +central point of the great theological controversies of 1820 in the +Congregational churches of Eastern Massachusetts has made it almost as +familiar as the "Saybrook Platform." The meeting-house was built at the +time when the greater part of the Boston churches were modifying their +creeds, and when the Old South itself would have changed its +denominational relations but for the vote of a State official, cast to +break a tie. Its inelegance and rawness are excused in part by its +evident solidity and sincerity of appearance. In its shadow rest +Faneuil, Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. + +Boston has other churches which, like the Park Street, are neither +ancient nor modern, the Hollis Street Church and the First Church in +Roxbury being good examples. New England has hardly a better specimen of +the old-fashioned meeting-house on a hill than this old weather-beaten +wooden First Church in Roxbury, the home of a parish to which John +Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, once ministered. Another quaint +memorial of the old colonial days survives in the current name, +"Meeting-house Hill," of a part of the annexed Dorchester district of +Boston. + +[Ilustration: ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, NEW YORK.] + +St. Paul's Church, on Boston Common, was the first attempt of the +Episcopalians of the city, after the loss of King's Chapel, +to build a temple of imposing appearance. Controversies theological and +architectural rose with its walls, and young Edward Everett, if report +is to be credited, was the author of a tract, still in circulation, in +which its design and its principles formed the text for a criticism on +the religion to whose furtherance it was devoted. Standing as it does +next the United States court-house, the uses of the two buildings seem +to have been confused in the builders' minds; for there is something +ecclesiastical in the appearance of the hall of justice, which was +originally a Masonic temple, and something judicial in the face of the +church. + +In Cambridge, three miles from Boston, the eighteenth-century +Episcopalians not only possessed a church, but also displayed to +unwilling eyes a veritable "Bishop's Palace"--the stately house of the +Rev. East Apthorp, "missionary to New England" and reputed candidate for +the bishopric of that region. Mr. Apthorp was rich and influential, but +his social and ecclesiastical lot was not an easy one, and he soon +returned to England discouraged, leaving his "palace" to come down to +the view of our own eyes, which find in it nothing more dangerous to +republican institutions than is to be discovered in a hundred other of +the three-story wooden houses which used so to abound in Massachusetts. +Christ Church, Cambridge, in which the bishop _in posse_ used to +minister, and which stands opposite Harvard College, was designed by the +architect of King's Chapel, and has always been praised for a certain +shapely beauty of proportion. For the last twenty years it has boasted +the only chime of bells in Cambridge, whose quiet shades of a Sunday +evening have been sweetly stirred by the music struck from them by the +hands of a worthy successor of the mediaeval bell-ringers, to whom bells +are books, and who can tell the story of every ounce of bell-metal +within twenty miles of his tower. It was of this church, with its +Unitarian neighbor just across the ancient churchyard where so many old +Harvard and colonial worthies sleep, that Holmes wrote: + + Like sentinel and nun, they keep + Their vigil on the green: + One seems to guard, and one to weep, + The dead that lie between. + +The suburbs of Boston are not poor in churches of the eighteenth, or +even of the seventeenth, century. The oldest church in New England--the +oldest, indeed, in the Northern States--still standing in Salem, was +built in 1634, and its low walls and tiny-paned windows have shaken +under the eloquence of Roger Williams. It has not been used for +religious purposes since 1672. In Newburyport is one of the American +churches, once many but now few, in which George Whitefield preached, +and beneath it the great preacher lies buried. A curious little reminder +of St. Paul's, London, is found here in the shape of a whispering +gallery. Another landmark is the venerable meeting-house of the +Unitarian society in Hingham, popularly known as the "Old Ship." Built +in 1681, it was a Congregational place of worship for nearly a century +and a half. Its sturdiness and rude beauty form a striking illustration +of the lasting quality of good, sound wooden beams as material for the +sanctuary. Preparations have already been undertaken for celebrating the +second centennial of the ancient building. Nearly as old, and still more +picturesque with its quaint roof, its venerable hanging chandelier of +brass, its sober old reredos and its age-hallowed communion-service, is +St. Michael's, Marblehead, built in 1714, where faithful rectors have +endeavored to reach six generations of the fishermen and aristocracy of +the rocky old port. The antiquarian who has seen these old temples and +asks for others on the New England coast will turn with scarcely less +interest to St. John's, Portsmouth; the forsaken Trinity Church, +Wickford, Rhode Island, built in 1706; or Trinity, Newport, where Bishop +Berkeley used to preach. In Newport, indeed, one may also speculate +beneath the Old Mill on the fanciful theory that the curious little +structure was a baptistery long before the days of Columbus--the most +ancient Christian temple on this side the sea. + +It is not uncommon to find comparatively new American churches to which +their surroundings or their sober material or their quiet architecture +have given a somewhat exaggerated appearance of age. Such is the case +with the curious row of three churches--the North and Centre +Congregational and Trinity Episcopalstanding side by side on the New +Haven green in a fashion unknown elsewhere in our own country. Any one +of these three churches looks quite as old as that shapely memorial of +pre-Revolutionary days, St. Paul's Chapel, New York, built in 1766 in +the prevailing fashion of the London churches. As with St. Paul's, there +was also no marked appearance of antiquity in the North Dutch Church, +New York, removed in recent years. The poor old Middle Dutch Church in +the same city, with its ignoble modern additions and its swarm of busy +tenants, would have looked old if it could have done so, but for modern +New Yorkers it has no more venerable memory, in its disfigurement and +disguise, than that furnished by its use, for a time, as the city +post-office. + +[Illustration: OLD SWEDES' CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.] + +New York is poor in old buildings, and especially poor in old churches. +Besides St. Paul's, the comparatively modern St. John's Chapel and the +John Street Methodist Church, it really has nothing to show to the +tourist in search of ancient places of worship. The vicinity can boast a +few colonial temples--the quaint old Dutch church at Tarrytown, dear to +the readers of Irving; the Tennent Church on the battle-ground of +Monmouth, New Jersey, with its blood-stains of wounded British soldiers; +and a charmingly plain little Friends' meeting-house, no bigger than a +small parlor, near Squan, New Jersey, being the most strikingly +attractive. In Newark one notes the deep-set windows and solid stone +walls of the old First Presbyterian Church, and the quiet plainness of +Trinity Episcopal Church, which looks like Boston's King's Chapel, with +the addition of a white wooden spire. + +Philadelphia is richer than any other American city in buildings of the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the older streets it is a +frequent sight to see quaint little houses of imported English brick +modestly laid in alternate red and black, curiously like the latest +modern fashion. The ample room for growth possessed by this +widespreading city has saved many an ancient house for present use as +dwelling or store. One is not surprised, therefore, to find on the old +streets near the Delaware three churches of weather-stained brick which +seem trying to make the piety of an elder age useful to the worshippers +of to-day. All three of these churches--Gloria Dei, Christ and St. +Peter's--now have their chief work among the poor people whom one always +finds in a business quarter near the river-front, but each attracts, by +its old-time associations and its modern missionary spirit, a goodly +circle of attendants from the western parts of the city. Gloria Dei +Church, the oldest of the three, was built in 1700 by Swedish Lutherans +on the spot where the Swedish predecessors of the Friends had located +their fortified log church twenty-three years earlier. Its bell and +communion-service and some of its ornamental woodwork were presented by +the king of Sweden. It is surrounded by the usual graveyard, in which +lies Alexander Wilson, the lover and biographer of birds, who asked to +be buried here, in a "silent, shady place, where the birds will be apt +to come and sing over my grave." The Old Swedes' Church retained its +Lutheran connection until recent years, when it became an Episcopal +parish. + +Christ Church and St. Peter's were formerly united in one parochial +government, and to the two parishes ministered William White, the first +Church-of-England minister in Pennsylvania, the friend and pastor of +Washington, the chaplain of Congress and one of the first two bishops of +the American Church. The present structure of Christ Church was begun in +1727, but not finished for some years. The parish is older, dating from +1695. Queen Anne gave it a communion-service in 1708. In 1754 came from +England its still-used chime of bells, which were laboriously +transferred during the Revolution to Allentown, Pennsylvania, lest they +should fall into British hands and be melted up for cannon. At Christ +Church a pew was regularly occupied by Washington during his frequent +residence in Philadelphia; and here have been seated Patrick Henry, +Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and many another patriot, besides +Cornwallis, Howe, Andre and others on the English side. Around and +beneath the church are many graves covered by weather-worn stones, and +on the walls of the interior there are a number of mural tablets. + +St. Peter's Church was begun in 1758, and completed three years later. +In quiet graciousness of appearance it is like another Christ Church, +and its interior arrangements are still more quaint, the chancel being +at the eastern end of the church, while the pulpit and lectern are at +the western. In the adjoining churchyard is a monument to Commodore +Decatur. + +One cannot find in all America sweeter and quainter memorials of a +gentle past--memorials still consecrated to the gracious work of the +present--than the churches and other denominational houses in the old +Moravian towns of Pennsylvania. At Bethlehem, as one stands in the +little three-sided court on Church street and looks up at the heavy +walls, the tiny dormer windows and the odd-shaped belfry which mark the +"Single Sisters' House" and its wings, one may well fancy one's self, as +a travelled visitor has said, in Quebec or Upper Austria. Still more +quaint and quiet is Willow Square, behind this curious house, where, +beneath drooping willow-boughs, one finds one's self beside the door of +the old German chapel, with the little dead-house, the boys' school and +the great and comparatively modern Moravian church near by. Through +Willow Square leads the path to the burying-ground, where lie, beneath +tall trees, long rows of neatly-kept graves, each covered with a plain +flat stone, the men and the women lying on either side of the broad +central path. Several of the ancient Moravian buildings date from the +middle of the last century. The Widows' House stands, opposite the +Single Sisters' Range, and across the street from the large church is +the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, established in 1749, and by far +the oldest girls' school in the United States. + +It was in 1778 that the Single Sisters gave to Pulaski that banner of +crimson, silk which is commemorated in Longfellow's well-known "Hymn of +the Moravian Nuns at Bethlehem." The poem, however, written in the +author's early youth, and preserved for its rare beauty of language and +fine choice of subject, rather than for its historical accuracy, has +done much to perpetuate a wrong idea of the Moravian spirit and ritual. +Mr. Longfellow writes in his first stanza + + When the dying flame of day + Through the chancel shot its ray, + Far the glimmering tapers shed + Faint light on the cowled head, + And the censer burning swung, + When before the altar hung + That proud banner, which, with care, + Had been consecrated there; + And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, + Sung low in the dim, mysterious aisle. + +But the Moravians know nothing of chancels, tapers, cowled heads, +censers, altars or nuns. Their faith has always been the simplest +Protestantism, their churches are precisely such as Methodists or +Baptists use, and their ritual is plainer than that of the most +"evangelical" Episcopal parish. Their "single sisters' houses," "widows' +houses" and "single brethren's houses"--the last long disused--are +simply arrangements for social convenience or co-operative housekeeping. +Mr. Longfellow's poetic description applies to the Moravian ceremonial +no more accurately than to a Congregational prayer-meeting or a +Methodist "love-feast." + +[Illustration: THE MORAVIAN CEMETERY, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.] + +Beside the deep and silent waters of the James River in Virginia, +undisturbed by any sound save the flight of birds and the rustle of +leaves, stands all that is left of the first church building erected by +Englishmen in America. A good part of the tower remains, the arched +doorways being still intact, and it seems a pitiable misfortune that the +honestly-laid bricks of the venerable building could not have come down +to our day. But, as it is, this ancient square block of brick forms our +one pre-eminent American ruin. Nothing could be a more solemn monument +of the past than the lonely tower, surrounded by thick branches and +underbrush and looking down upon the few crumbling gravestones still +left at its base. Jamestown, long abandoned as a village, has now become +an island, the action of the waters having at last denied it the +remaining solace of connection with the mainland of the Old Dominion, +of whose broad acres it was once the chief town and the seat of +government--the forerunner of all that came to America at the hands of +English settlers. + +In the slumberous old city of Williamsburg, three miles from Jamestown, +stands the Bruton parish church, two hundred and two years old, and +still the home of a parish of sixty communicants. Built of brick, with +small-paned windows and wooden tower, its walls have listened to the +eloquence of the learned presidents of the neighboring William and Mary +College, and its floor has been honored by the stately tread of many a +colonial governor, member of the legislature or Revolutionary patriot; +for Williamsburg was the capital and centre of Virginia until the end of +the eighteenth century, and shared whatever Virginia possessed of +political or personal renown. Washington, of course, was more than once +an attendant at Bruton Church, and so were Jefferson and Patrick Henry +and an honorable host. In the church and in the chapel of William and +Mary College--which the ambitious colonists used to think a little +Westminster Abbey--was the religious home of a good share of what was +stateliest or most honorable in the early colonial life of the South. + +Other old churches still dot the Virginia soil--St. John's, Richmond; +Pohick Church, Westmoreland county; Christ Church, Lancaster county; St. +Anne's, Isle of Wight county. Their antiquities, and those of other +ancient sanctuaries of the Old Dominion, have been painstakingly set +forth by Bishop Meade and other zealous chroniclers, and their +attractiveness is increased, in most cases--as at Jamestown--by the +loneliness of their surroundings. Another old church, left in the midst +of sweet country sights and gentle country sounds, is St. James's, Goose +Creek, South Carolina. St. Michael's and St. Philip's at Charleston in +the same State have heard the roar of hostile cannon, but have come +forth unscathed. The demolished Brattle Street Church in Boston was not +the only one of our sacred edifices to be wounded by cannonballs, for +the exigences of the fight more than once, during the Revolution and +the civil war, brought flame and destruction within the altar-rails of +churches North and South. + +The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in America has been so recent +that it can show but few historical landmarks. The time-honored +cathedral at St. Augustine, Florida, and the magnificent ruin of the San +Jose Mission near San Antonio, Texas, and one or two weather-stained +little chapels in the North-west, are nearly all the churches that bring +to us the story of the priestly work of the Roman ecclesiastics during +the colonial days. + +We have no State Church, and the different Presidents have made a wide +variety of choice in selecting their places of worship in Washington. +St. John's, just opposite the White House, has been the convenient +Sunday home of some of them: others have followed their convictions in +Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian and other churches. But the city of +Washington is itself too young to be able to boast any very ancient +associations in its churches, and few of its temples have been permitted +to record the names of famous occupants during a series of years. Our +whole country, indeed, is a land of many denominations and a somewhat +wandering population; and older cities than Washington have found one +church famous for one event in its history, and another for another, +rather than, in any single building, a series of notable occurrences +running through the centuries. The nearest approach to the record of a +succession of worthies occupying the same church-seats year after year +is to be found in the chronicles of our oldest college-chapels, as, for +instance, at Dartmouth, where the building containing the still-used +chapel dates from 1786. But though poverty and custom unite in making +our colleges conservative, their growth in numbers demands, from time to +time, new and more generous accommodations for public worship; and so +the little buildings of an earlier day are either torn down or kept for +other and more ignoble uses, like Holden Chapel at Harvard. This quaint +little structure was built in 1744, and is now used for +recitation-rooms, but at one period in its career it served as the +workshop of the college carpenter. + +[Illustration: RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA.] + +In the years since our grandfathers built their places of worship we +have seen strange changes in American church buildings--changes in +material, location and adaptation to ritual uses. We have had a revival +of pagan temple-building in wood and stucco; we have seen Gothic +cathedrals copied for the simplest Protestant uses, until humorists have +suggested that congregations might find it cheaper to change their +religion than their unsuitable new churches; we have ranged from four +plain brick walls to vast and costly piles of marble or greenstone; we +have constructed great audience-rooms for Sunday school uses alone, and +have equipped the sanctuary with all culinary attachments; we have built +parish-houses whose comfort the best-kept mediaeval monk might envy, and +we have put up evangelistic tabernacles only to find the most noted +evangelists preferring to work in regular church edifices rather than in +places of easy resort by the thoughtless crowd of wonder-seekers. But +not all these doings have been foolish or mistaken: some of them have +been most hopeful signs, and the next century will find excellent work +in the church-building of our day. The Gothic and Queen Anne revivals, +at their best, have promoted even more than the old-time honesty in the +use of sound and sincere building-material; and not a few of our newer +churches prove that our ecclesiastical architects have something more to +show than experiments in fanciful "revivals" that are such only in name. +We shall continue to do well so long as we worthily perpetuate the best +material lesson taught by our grandfathers' temples--the lesson of +downright honesty of construction and of a union between the spirit of +worship and its local habitation. + +CHARLES F. RICHARDSON. + + + +WILL DEMOCRACY TOLERATE A PERMANENT CLASS OF NATIONAL OFFICE-HOLDERS? + + +It is no doubt a public misfortune that so much of that thoughtful +patriotism which, both on account of its culture and its independence, +must always be valuable to the country, should have been wasted, for +some time past, upon what are apparently narrow and unpractical, if not +radically unsound, propositions of reform in the civil service. There is +unquestionably need of reform in that direction: it would be too much to +presume that in the generally imperfect state of man his methods of +civil government would attain perfection; but it must be questioned +whether the subject has been approached from the right direction and +upon the side of the popular sympathy and understanding. At this time +propositions of civil-service reform have not even the recognition, much +less the comprehension, of the mass of the people. Their importance, +their limitations, their possibilities, have never been demonstrated: no +commanding intellectual authority has ever taken up the subject and +worked it out before the eyes of the people as a problem of our national +politics. It remains a question of the closet, a merely speculative +proposition as to the science of government. + +What, then, are the metes and bounds of this reform? How much is +demanded? How much is practicable? + +Not attempting a full answer to all of these questions, and intending no +dogmatic treatment of any, let us give them a brief consideration from +the point of view afforded by the democratic system upon which the whole +political fabric of the United States is established. We are to look at +_our_ civil-service reform from that side. Whatever in it may be +feasible, that much must be a work in accord with the popular feeling. +It may be set down at the outset, as the first principle of the problem, +that any practicable plan of organizing the public service of the United +States must not only be founded upon the general consent of the people, +but must also have, in its actual operation, their continual, easy and +direct participation. Any scheme, no matter by what thoughtful patriot +suggested, no matter upon what model shaped, no matter from what +experience of other countries deduced, which does not possess these +essential features can never be worth the serious attention of any one +who expects to accomplish practical and enduring results. + +(Possibly this may seem dogmatic, to begin with; but if we agree to +treat the question as one in democratic politics, the principle stated +becomes perfectly apparent.) + +It must be fair, then, and for the purposes of this article not +premature, to point out that the measure which is especially known as +"civil-service reform," and which has been occasionally recognized in +the party platforms along with other generalities, is one whose essence +is _the creation of a permanent office-holding class_. Substantially, +this is what it amounts to. A man looking forward to a place in the +public service is to regard it as a life occupation, the same as if he +should study for a professional career or learn a mechanical trade. Once +in office, after a "competitive examination" or otherwise, he will +expect to stay in: he will hold, as the Federal judges do, by a +life-tenure, "during good behavior." This is now substantially the +system of Great Britain, which, in the judgment of Mr. Dorman B. Eaton, +is so much better than our own as to actually reduce the rate of +criminality in that country, and which, he declares, only political +baseness can prevent us from imitating. A change of administration +there, Mr. Eaton adds, only affects a few scores of persons occupying +the highest positions: the great mass of the officials live and die in +their places, indifferent to the fluctuation of parliamentary +majorities or the rise and fall of ministries. + +We must ask ourselves does this system accord with American democracy? + +A little more than half a century has passed since John Quincy Adams, +unquestionably the best trained and most experienced American +administrator who ever sat in the Presidency, undertook to establish in +the United States almost precisely the same system as that which Great +Britain now has. Admission to the places was not, it is true, by means +of competitive examination, but the feature--the essential feature--of +permanent tenure was present in his plan. Mr. Adams took the government +from Mr. Monroe without considering any change needful: his Cabinet +advisers even included three of those who had been in the Cabinet of his +predecessor, and these he retained to the end, though at least one of +the three, he thought, had ceased to be either friendly or faithful to +him. Retaining the old officers, and reappointing them if their +commissions expired, selecting new ones, in the comparatively rare cases +of death, resignation or ascertained delinquency, upon considerations +chiefly relating to their personal capabilities for the vacant places, +Mr. Adams was patiently and faithfully engaged during the four years of +his Presidency in establishing almost the precise reform of the national +service which has been in recent times so strenuously urged upon us as +the one great need of the nation--the administrative purification which, +if effectually performed, would prove that our system of government was +fit to continue in existence. Mr. Adams's plan did, indeed, seem +excellent. It commanded the respect of honest but busy citizens absorbed +in their private affairs and desirous that the government might be +fixed, once for all, in settled grooves, so that its functions would +proceed like the steady progress of the seasons. It was an attempt to +run the government, as has been sometimes said, "on business +principles." The President was to proceed, and did proceed, as if he had +in charge some great estate which he was to manage and direct as a +faithful and exact trustee. This, no one can deny, had the superficial +look of most admirable administration. + +But President Adams had left out of account largely what we are +compelled to sedulously consider--public opinion. He had acquired most +of his experience abroad, and his principal service at home, as +Secretary of State, had been in a remarkably quiet time, when party +movements were neither ebbing nor flowing, so that he had forgotten how +strong and vigorous the democratic feeling was amongst the population of +these States. This is a forgetfulness to which all men are liable who +long occupy official position, and who seldom have to submit themselves +to that severe and rude competitive examination which the plan of +popular elections establishes. Unfortunately for him, he was not +responsible to a court of chancery for the management of his trust, but +to a tribunal composed of a multitude of judges. His accounts were to be +passed upon not by one learned and conservative auditor guided by +familiar precedents and rules of law, but a great, tumultuous popular +assembly, which would approve or disapprove by a majority vote. When, +therefore, it appeared to the people that he was forming a body of +permanent office-holders--was recruiting a civil army to occupy in +perpetuity the offices which they, the mass, had created and were taxed +to pay for--the fierce, and in many respects scandalous, partisan +assault which Jackson represented, if he did not direct, gathered +overwhelming force. It seemed to the popular view that a narrow, an +exclusive, an aristocratic system was being formed. The President +appeared to be, while honestly and carefully preserving their trust from +waste or loss, committing it to a control independent of them--an +official body which, having a permanent tenure, would be altogether +indifferent to their varying desires. Such a scheme of government was +therefore no more than an attempt to stand the pyramid on its apex: Mr. +Adams's administration, supported chiefly by those whose aspirations +were for an honest and capable bureaucracy, and who could not or would +not face the rude questionings of democracy, ended with his first four +years, and went out in such a whirlwind of partisan opposition as +brought in, by reaction, the infamous "spoils system" that at the end of +half a century we are but partially recovered from. + +To designate more particularly the great fact which had been disregarded +in this notable experiment of fifty years ago, and which is apparently +not sufficiently considered in the measures of reform that have been +more recently pressed upon us, we may declare that the government of the +United States is, as yet, the direct outcome of what may be called _the +political activity of the people_. Whether or not, having read history, +we must anticipate a time here when the many, weary of preserving their +own liberties, will resign their power to a few, it is certain that no +such inclination yet appears. The government is the product of the +public mind and will when these are moved with reference to the subject. +It is created freshly at short intervals, and the manner of the creation +is seldom languid or careless, but usually earnest, intense and heated. +Upon this point there has no doubt been much misapprehension. As it has +happened--perhaps rather oddly--that those of our thoughtful patriots +whose warnings and appeals have reached public notice have had their +experiences mostly in city life, surrounded by the peculiar conditions +which exist there, the conclusions they have drawn in some respects are +applicable only to their own surroundings. They have discovered persons +who had forgotten or did not believe that liberty could be bought only +with the one currency of eternal vigilance, and coupled with these +others who were too busy to attend to the active processes by which the +government is from time to time renewed; and they have concluded, with +fatal inaccuracy of judgment, that this exceptional disposition of a +small number of persons was a type of the whole population. Nothing +could be more absurdly untrue. Outside of a very limited circle no such +political fatigue exists. The people generally are deeply interested in +public affairs and willing to attend to their own public duties. Their +concern in regard to measures, methods and candidates is seldom laid +aside. The _political activity_ to which we have called attention thus +at some length is earnest, persistent and exacting. + +It will be useful for the reformer of the civil service to give some +study to the manifestations of this activity. He will find it one of the +most marked and characteristic features in the life of the American +people. If he will take the pains to examine the civil organization of +the country, he will find that its roots run to every stratum of +society. The number of persons interested in politics, not as a +speculative subject, but as a practical and personal one, is wonderfully +great. Thus, in most of the States there exists that modification of the +ancient Saxon system of local action by "hundreds"--the township +organization. This alone carries a healthy political movement into the +farthest nook and corner of the body politic: every citizen of common +sense may well be consulted in this primary activity, and every +household may be interested in the question whether its results are good +or bad. But besides this, simple and slightly compensated as are the +positions belonging to the township, there are in every community many +willing to fill them. To be a supervisor of the roads,[1] to be township +constable and collector of the taxes, to audit the township accounts, to +be a member of the school board, to be a justice of the peace, is an +inclination--it may be a desire--entertained by many citizens; and if +the ambition may seem to be a narrow one, its modesty does not make it +unworthy or discreditable. But these men alone, active in the politics +of townships, form a surprising array. If we consider that in +Pennsylvania there are sixty-seven counties, with an average of say +forty townships in each, here are twenty-six hundred and eighty +townships, having each not less than ten officials, and making nearly +twenty-seven thousand persons actually on duty at one time in a single +State in this fundamental branch of the service. And if we estimate that +besides those who are in office at least two persons are inclined and +willing, if not actually desirous, to occupy the place now filled by +each one--a very moderate calculation--we multiply twenty-six thousand +eight hundred by three, and have over eighty thousand persons whose minds +are quick and active in local politics on this one account. But we may +proceed further. There are the cities and boroughs, their official +business more complex and laborious, and in most cases receiving much +higher compensation. The competition for these is in many instances very +great: in the case of large cities we need not waste words in +elaborating the fact. It is difficult to estimate the number of persons +to whom the municipal corporations give place and pay compensation in +the State of Pennsylvania, but five thousand is not an extravagant +surmise, while it would be equally reasonable to presume that for each +place occupied at least three others would be willing to fill it, so +that on this account we may make a total of twenty thousand. But there +are also the county offices. Besides the judicial positions, altogether +honorable, held by long terms of election and receiving liberal +compensation, there are in each county an average of fifteen other +officials, making in the State, in round numbers, one thousand. These, +again, may be multiplied by four: there are certainly three waiting +aspirants for each place. But ascend now to the State system, with its +several executive departments, the legislature, the charitable and penal +institutions and the appointments in the gift of the governor. Great and +small, these may reach one thousand (the Legislature alone, with its +officers and employes, accounts for over three hundred), and certainly +there are at least five persons looking toward each of the several +places. + +Upon such an estimate, then, of the political activities of one State we +have such a showing as this: + +Citizens politically active as to townships, 80,000 +Citizens politically active as to cities and boroughs, 20,000 +Citizens politically active as to counties, 4,000 +Citizens politically active as to the State, 5,000 + Making a total of 109,000 + +Some allowance should be made, no doubt, for persons whose inclinations +for position cover all the different fields--who may be said to be +watching several holes. But we have not considered how many citizens of +Pennsylvania are inclined to national positions--the Presidency, seats +in Congress or some of the numerous places in the general service of the +Federal government. These two classes, it is probable, would offset each +other. + +Subtracting, however, the odd thousands from the total stated, we may +fix at one hundred thousand the number of citizens in the one State who, +by reason of occupying some position of public duty or of being inclined +to fill one, are actively interested in the subject of politics. This is +almost exactly one-seventh of the whole number of voters in the State: +it presents the fact that in every group of seven citizens there is one, +presumably of more than the average in capacity and intelligence, whose +mind is quick and sensitive to every question affecting political +organization. We are brought thus to the same point which we reached by +an observation of the township system--the fact that every part of +society is permeated by the general political circulation. It is like +the human organism: nerves and blood-vessels extend, with size and +capacity proportioned for their work, to the most remote extremity, and +the whole is alive. + +Let us, however, guard strictly, at this point, against a possible +misconception. It is not to be understood that these one hundred +thousand citizens are simply "office-seekers," using the ordinary and +offensive sense of the term. The activity in affairs which we describe +is distinct from a sordid desire to grab the emoluments of office. The +vast majority of the places, including all those in the +townships--which, with the aspirants to them, make four-fifths of the +whole--are either without any pay at all or have an amount so small as +to be beneath our consideration. But a small part of the offices which +we have enumerated carry emoluments sufficient to furnish a living for +the most economical incumbent. The inspiration of the political +interest evidenced by this one-seventh part of the citizenship is not an +unworthy one at all: on the contrary, it is that essential democratic +inclination without which our form of government must quickly stagnate. +It would be foolish to say that no selfish motive enters into this +tremendous manifestation of energy and effort (until humanity assumes a +higher form the moving power of the mercenary principle must be very +great), but it is fair and it is accurate to ascribe to the men in +affairs a much loftier and more honorable impulse--the aspiration to +share in the conduct of their own government, the unwillingness to be +ignored or excluded in the administration of what is universally +denominated a common trust. That they enjoy, if they do not covet, such +pecuniary advantage as their places bring is reasonable, but it is true, +to their credit, that they do appreciate more than this the honor that +attaches to the public station and the pleasure which may be experienced +in the discharge of its conspicuous duties. + +Let us presume that even this imperfect study of the political +activities of a single State may present some conception of the +tremendous force and energy that go to the making, year by year, of the +various branches of our government. Certainly, any student of this field +may accept with respect the admonition that there is no languor, no +fatigue, no feeling of genteel disgust with politics, in what has thus +been presented him. If, then, his plan of reorganization for the civil +service is intended to be set up without consulting the popular +inclination, or possibly even in opposition to it, he may well stand +hesitant as to his likelihood of success. The question may confront him +at once: Is the organization of a permanent official class in the +administration of the general government likely to accord with the +desires of the people? And we may add, Is it consistent with the general +character of our form of government? Is it not attended by conclusive +objections? + +It is not the purpose of this article to attempt answering these +questions fully. We do not propose to throw ourselves across the path +of those undoubtedly sincere, and probably wise, students of this +subject who have arrived at the positive conclusion that to establish a +permanent tenure for the great body of the national office-holders, and +to appoint to vacancies among them upon the tests of a competitive or +other examination, is the panacea for all our public disorders, the +regenerative process which will lift our whole system into a higher and +purer atmosphere. We do not say that these gentlemen may not be right, +but we are willing to examine the subject. + +Upon viewing, then, the tremendous popular activity in local and State +affairs--and we must reflect that there is "more politics to the square +foot" in some of the newer States than there is in Pennsylvania--the +inquiry is natural whether this stops short of all national politics. +Certainly it does not. The offices in the general government, though +their importance and their influence are usually overestimated, are a +great object of attention with the whole country. The vehement +democratic movement toward them that marked the time of Jackson is still +apparent, though it proceeds with diminished force and is regulated and +tempered by the strong protest which has been made against the scandals +of the "spoils system," and against the theory that government by +parties must be a continual struggle for plunder. It is noticeable that +no administration has ever really attempted the formation of an +irremovable body of officials. No party has ever yet explicitly declared +itself in favor of such a policy. No actual leader of any party, bearing +the responsibility of its success or failure in the elections, has ever +yet sincerely and persistently advocated the measure. None wish to +undertake so tremendous a task. He would indeed be a powerful orator who +could carry a popular gathering with him in favor of the proposition +that hereafter the holding of office was to be made more exclusive--that +the people were to put away from themselves, by a renunciation of their +own powers, the expectancy of occupying a great part of the public +places. Rare as may be the persuasive ability of the true stump-orator, +and serene as his confidence may be in his powers, there would be but +few volunteers to enter a campaign upon such a platform as that. It +would be a forlorn hope indeed. + +The view of the people undoubtedly is (1) that the public places are +common property; (2) that any one may aspire to fill them; and (3) that +the elevation to them is properly the direct or nearly direct result of +election. The elective principle is democratic. It has been, since the +beginning of the government, steadily consuming all other methods of +making public officers. In most States the appointing power of the +governor, which years ago was usually large, has been stripped to the +uttermost. It is thirty years in Pennsylvania since even the judiciary +became elective by the people. And in those States--of which Delaware +furnishes an example--where most of the county officers are still the +appointees of the governor, the tendency to control his action by a +display of the popular wish--such an array of petitions, etc. as amounts +to a polling of votes--is unmistakable. The governor is moved, +obviously, by the people. And if to some this general tendency toward +the elective idea seems dangerous, it must be answered that it is not +really so if the people are in fact capable of self-government. +Conceding this as the foundation of our system, we cannot, at this point +and that, expect to interpose a guardianship over their expression. + +To the permanency of tenure it is that we have given, and expect will +generally be given, most attention. This is the essence of the proposed +"reform." The manner of selecting new appointees is of no great +consequence if the vacancies are to occur so seldom as must be the case +where incumbents hold for life. Whether the new recruits come in upon +the certificates of a board of examiners, such as the British +Civil-Service Commission, or upon the scrutiny of the Executive and his +advisers, as now, is a consideration of minor importance. It is the idea +of an official class, an order of office-holders, which appears to throw +itself across the path of the democratic activity which we have +attempted to describe. This is the point of conflict--if any. We might, +it is true, take many measures to ensure the colorless and harmless +character of the system. Up to a recent time the government clerks in +England were deprived of the suffrage, in order that they might be +perfectly indifferent to politics. It is probable that in time our own +officials would lose the ordinary instincts of a democratic citizenship, +and would regard with coldness, if not contempt, the activities that +lead to a renewal of the government. But however smoothly they might +move in the pursuance of their clerical routine, however faultless they +might become in their round of prescribed duties, would they not still +obstruct the public purpose? Would not even this emasculate order of +placemen, standing apart a sacrificed though favored class, still +present themselves as unpardonable offenders? When it should be +discovered that they claimed the possession in perpetuity of the offices +in the national government, and had organized themselves as a standing +army of placemen, can it be believed that they would not be swept aside +by the same iconoclastic onset which ended the Adams administration? + +We do not pause here to represent the apparent inconsistency of desiring +to de-citizenize a large number of intelligent members of the community, +or the risk of creating a class in the republic forbidden to take any +active interest in the renewals of its organization, or the impolicy of +diminishing the force and courage of the popular will in its grapple +with the problem of self-government; but all these comments may suggest +themselves. + +Popular expectancy, it may fairly be declared, follows all the stations +of public life with a jealous if not an eager eye. There is abundant +evidence of this in the county and township systems. Taking, for +example, the administration of county affairs in any of the States, it +will be found that the officers, by a rule that seems generally +satisfactory, hold during short terms, and are seldom re-elected +immediately to the same place. The rule is rotation--giving a large +number of persons their "turn"--and changes are regularly made. A man +disappointed this year for a particular place waits until the time comes +to fill it again, and in many counties, other things being about equal, +the fact that he has waited patiently and now presents the oldest claim +governs the selection. The antipathy to one who seeks to hold on to his +place beyond the ordinary term--the dislike for a grabber who desires +more than is usually assigned--is a perfectly well-known feature in +politics. The county system of Pennsylvania will afford abundant proof +of the statements here made: the terms of the officers, who are all +elective, do not average more than four years, even including such +court-officials as the clerks and prothonotaries, whose duties are in +some particulars technical and difficult, requiring an acquaintance with +the forms of legal procedure. But it is further true that in the States +where county officers are appointed by the governor no protracted tenure +results. On the contrary, the pressure upon him of the public +expectation seldom permits the reappointment of an officer whose +commission is expiring. + +With this rule of change, primary as its application is, and within the +direct comprehension and control of the people, there does not appear to +be any general discontent. It is accepted, so far as we can discover, as +a just and proper system by which an equality of claims upon the common +favor is maintained. It is reasonable to presume, therefore, that +amongst a people fairly acquainted with their own business, and +possessing a fair education both of the schools and of experience in +life, many persons in every community are competent to serve as its +officials. At any rate, in the midst of these usages we discover no +demand that the terms of office be made permanent, and that the +place-holders be put beyond the reach of a removal. There is no apparent +realization that such a "reform" is demanded; and if it be difficult, as +has been stated, to awaken popular enthusiasm in behalf of a permanent +tenure in the national civil service, there seems to be nothing in the +rules of primary politics to help smooth the way. + +It may be asked now whether it is not almost certainly true that some +sound principle lies in the methods which an intelligent community, +unrestrained by ancient conventional ideas or repressive systems of law, +applies to its own political organization. Is not this instinctive +democratic plan an essential principle of a government founded upon +equal rights? _Is it not a law of Change which characterizes the civil +service of a democracy, and not a law of Permanence?_ + +We can hardly doubt that the facts which have been stated concerning the +disposition of the people toward the offices in their government are +capable of a philosophical explanation; and as they proceed with evident +freedom and naturalness from the very bosom of communities accustomed to +independent thought and action, the conclusion is irresistible that this +is the temper and the tendency of a free government. Startling as it may +be to propose change rather than permanency in the civil service, that +may prove to be best adapted to our wants. Consciously or not, such a +rule has been established by the people themselves; and while it has +scarcely found a formal presentation, much less had careful examination +and argument, there can be little doubt that such a principle, +substantially as we have described, lies close to the hearts of the +people. The right of election, the idea that public officers should be +elective, and the expectation that there will be a rotation of duties +and honors, are popular principles which are unmistakable. + +Apart from the consideration that whatever is fundamental in popular +government, whatever tends to the preservation of individual freedom and +equality of rights, must be a safe principle, there could be much said +from the most practical stand-point in favor of rotation in office. All +human experience proves the usefulness of change. Rest is the next thing +to rust. In physics things without motion are usually things without +life; and in government it is the bureaus least disturbed by change that +are most stagnated and most circumlocutory. The apparent misfortune of +having men experienced in public affairs make way, at intervals, for +others of less experience is itself greatly exaggerated. There are facts +so important in compensation that the assumed evil becomes one of very +moderate proportions. For it will be seen upon careful observation that +no important function of the government, not even in the national +service, calls for a character or qualification--sometimes, but rarely, +for any sort of special or technical skill--which is not being +continually formed and trained either in the movements of private life +and business experience or in the political schools which are furnished +by the State, the county and the township. The functions of the +government are substantially the guardianship of the same interests for +which the State, the county, the township and the individual exercise +concern. Government has lost its mystery: even diplomacy has somewhat +changed from lying and chicanery to common-sense dealing. The qualities +that are required in the government--industry, economy, integrity, +knowledge of men and affairs--are precisely those which are of value to +every individual citizen, and which are taught day by day everywhere--to +the lads in school and college and to the men in their occupations of +life. Such qualities a community fit to govern itself must abundantly +possess. There is nothing occult in the science of government. The +administration in behalf of the people of the organization which they +have ordered is nothing foreign to their own knowledge. They have ceased +to consider themselves unfit for self-rule: they no longer think of +calling in from other worlds a different order of beings to govern them. + +We may accept without fear principles which seem startling, but which +are proved to be rooted in democratic ground, so long as we have faith +in the democratic system itself. There is no road open for the doubter +and questioner of popular rights but that which leads back to abandoned +ground. We may proceed, then, with an attempt to explain the philosophy +of the rule of Change. Shall it not be stated thus: + +_That, due regard being had to the preservation of simplicity and +economy--forbidding thus the needless increase of offices and +expenses--it is then true that the active participation by the largest +number of persons in the practical administration of their own +government is an object highly to be desired in every democratic +republic._ + +The government must be the highest school of affairs. Shall it be +declared that to study there and to have its diploma is not desirable +for all? Is it not perfectly evident that the more who can learn to +actually discharge the duties belonging to their own social +organization, the better for them and the better for it? + +All these propositions necessarily imply the existence of an intelligent +and patriotic people, at least of such a majority. So always does every +plan of popular government. Whatever of disappointment presents itself +to the author of any scheme of "reform," upon finding that he has +constructed a system which is ridden down by the political activity of +the people, he must blame the plan upon which our fabric is built. If he +is chagrined to find that his _imperium in imperio_ is not practicable, +and that nothing can make here a power stronger than the source of +power, he must solace his hurt feelings with the reflection that the +system was never adapted to his contrivance, and that our fathers, when +in the beginning they resolved to establish a government by the people, +gave consent thereby to all the apparent risks and inconveniences of +having the people continually minding their own affairs. + +With a just comprehension of the democratic forces that give motion and +life to the governmental system of the United States, and of the manner +in which they affect the public service in all its departments, the wise +advocate of reform must approach his work. His patriotism and +thoughtfulness are both necessary. To proceed against the democratic law +is not practicable: to establish a new system which is inconsistent with +the abundant vitality and conscious strength of that already established +is a futile proposition indeed. + + + + +THE PRICE OF SAFETY. + + +Thirty-three years ago--that is, shortly before Christmas, 1847--I went +over to Paris to pass a few weeks with my family. The great railway +schemes of the two previous years in England had broken down a good many +men in our office--draughtsmen, surveyors and so on. I wonder if the +present public recollects those days, when the _Times_ brought out +double supplements to accommodate the advertisements of railroads, when +King Hudson was as much a potentate as Queen Victoria, when Brunel and +Stephenson were autocrats, and when everybody saw a sudden chance of +getting rich by shares or damages? Those days were the beginning of that +period of prosperity of which the recent "hard times" were the reaction. +_Then_ twenty guineas a night for office-work was sometimes paid to +youngsters not yet out of their teens. In the great offices the young +men worked all day and the alternate nights to get plans ready for +Parliament, sustained by strong coffee always on the tap, till some of +them went mad with the excitement and the strain. + +I had worked hard both in the field and office during the closing months +of 1847, but I broke down at last, and was sent to recover my health +under the care of my family. That family consisted of my father--a +half-pay English officer--my mother and three sisters, then living _au +troisieme_ in the Rue Neuve de Berri, not far from the newly-erected +Russian church, and the windows of the _appartement_ commanded a side +view down the Champs Elysees. I only needed rest and recreation, both of +which my adoring family eagerly provided me. My sisters were three +lively, simple-hearted, honest English girls, who had a large +acquaintance in Paris, and took great pride and pleasure in introducing +to it their only brother. We were not only invited to our embassy and on +visiting terms with all the English Colony (that colony whose annals at +that period are written in _The Adventures of Philip_, and to which +Thackeray's mother and nearest relatives, like ourselves, belonged), but +we were, in virtue of some American connections, admitted to the +American embassy on the footing of semi-Americans. + +We enjoyed our American friends greatly. I formed the opinion then, +which I retain now, that cultivated Americans, the top-skimming of the +social cream, are some of the most charming people to be met with in +cultivated society. To all that constitutes "nice people" everywhere +they join a _soupcon_ of wild flavor which gives them individuality. +They are to society what their own wild turkeys and canvasbacks are to +the _menu_. + +One of my sisters, Amy, the eldest, had been ill that winter, and was +not equal to joining in the gayeties that the others enjoyed. Her +principal amusement was walking in the Gardens of Monceaux, a private +domain of King Louis Philippe in the Batignolles, a quiet, humdrum spot, +where she could set her foot upon green turf and gravel. The streets of +Paris, the Boulevards, and the Champs Elysees were too attractive to a +pleasure-seeker like myself to allow me to content myself with the pale +attractions of Monceaux, but I went there with my sister once or twice, +because French etiquette forbade her walking even in these quiet +garden-paths alone. + +One day it was proposed by her that we should go again. I could not, in +common humanity, refuse, and so consented. Poor Amy "put on her things," +as our girls called it, and we descended to the porte-cochere, intending +to engage the first passing citadine. As we stepped into the street, +however, a gay carriage with high-stepping gray horses, a chasseur with +knife and feathers, and a coachman in a modest livery on a hammer-cloth +resplendent with yellow fringes and embroideries, drew up at our door: a +pretty hand was laid upon the portiere and a voice cried, "Amy! Amy! I +was coming for you." + +"My brother--Miss Leare," said Amy. + +Miss Leare bowed to me gracefully and motioned to her chasseur to open +the carriage-door. "Get in," she said. "_I_ have the carriage for two +hours: what shall we do with it? Mamma is at the dentist's.--Amy, I +thought you would enjoy a drive, and so I came for you." + +I helped Amy in, and was making my bow when Miss Leare stopped me. "Come +too," she said cordially: "Amy's brother surely need not be taboo. Shall +we drive to the Bois?" + +"I was going to Monceaux," said Amy. "Would it be quite the thing for us +to drive alone to the Bois?" + +"Oh-h-h!" said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the +vocative.--"You see," she added, turning to me, "I am so unprepared by +previous training that I shall never become _au fait_ in French +proprieties. Indeed, I hold them in great reverence, but they seem to be +for ever hedging me in; nor can I understand the meaning of half of +them. In America I was guided by plain right and wrong.--Why shall we +not outrage etiquette, Amy, by 'going alone,' as you call it, to +Monceaux? Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way +that we may walk there without a chaperon? I should have thought +seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that there be any danger +at all.--In America, Mr. Farquhar, your escort would be enough for us, +and the fact that Amy is your sister would give a sort of double +security to your protection." + +"Oh, dear Miss Leare--" began Amy. + +"Hermie, Amy--Hermione, which is English and American for Tasso's +Erminia.--Do you like my name, Mr. Farquhar? We have strange names in +America, English people are pleased to say.--Victor!" she went on, +calling to the chasseur without pausing for any reply, "stop at some +place where they sell candy. Mr. Farquhar will get out and buy us some." + +Obediently to her order, we stopped at a confectioner's. I was directed +to put my hand into the carriage-pocket, where I should find some +"loose change," kept there for candy and the hurdy-gurdy boys. Then I +was directed to go into the "store" and choose a pound of all sorts of +"mixed candy." + +I had not more than made myself intelligible to a young person behind +the counter when the carriage-door was opened and both the girls came +in, Miss Hermione declaring that she knew I should be embarrassed by the +multitude of "sweeties," and that I should need their experience to know +what I was about. + +With dawdling, laughing and good-comradeship we chose our bonbons, and +getting back into the barouche we proceeded to crunch them as we drove +on to Monceaux. It was like being children over again, with a slight +sense of being out of bounds. I had never seen confectionery eaten +wholesale in that fashion. Such bonbons were expensive, too. Trained in +the personal economy of English middle-class life, it would never have +occurred to me to buy several francs' worth of sugar-plums and to eat +them by the handful. But as the fair American sat before me, smiling, +laughing, petting Amy and saying fascinating impertinences to myself, I +thought I had never seen so bewitching a creature. Her frame, though +_svelte_ and admirably proportioned, gave me an idea of vigor and +strength not commonly associated at that time with the girls of America. +Her complexion, too, was healthy: she was not so highly colored as an +English country girl, but her skin was bright and clear. Her face was a +perfect oval, her hair glossy and dark, her eyes expressive hazel. Her +points were all good: her ears, her hands, her feet, her upper lip and +nostrils showed blood, and the daintiness and taste of her rich dress +seemed to denote her good taste and fine breeding. My sisters, could not +tie their bonnet-strings as she tied hers, nor were their dresses +anything like hers in freshness, fit or daintiness of trimming. + +We alighted at last at old Monceaux, and walked about its solemn alleys. +Sometimes Miss Leare talked sense, and talked it well. Those were +exciting days in Paris. It was February, 1848, and a great crisis was +nearer at hand in politics than we suspected; besides which there had +been several events in private life which had increased the general +excitement of the period--notably the murder of Marshal Sebastiani's +daughter, the poor duchesse de Praslin. Hermione could talk of these +things with great spirit, but sometimes relapsed into her grown-up +childishness. She talked, too, with animation of the freedom and +happiness of her American girlhood. My sister Amy had always taken life +_au grand serieux_; Ellen was a little too prompt to flirt with officers +and gay young men, and needed repression; Laetitia went in for +book-learning, and measured every one by what she called their +"educational opportunities." My sisters were as different as possible +from this butterfly creature, who seemed to sip interest and amusement +out of everything. + +At the end of two hours we drove back to Mrs. Leare's hotel, which was +opposite our own apartment in the Rue Neuve de Berri, the hotel that a +few weeks later was occupied by Prince Jerome. Here Hermione insisted +upon our coming in while the carriage drove to the dentist's for her +mother. + +The reception-rooms in Mrs. Leare's hotel were very showy. They were +filled with buhl and knick-knacks gathered on all parts of the +Continent, and lavishly displayed, not always in good keeping. A little +sister, Claribel, came running up to us when we entered, and clung +fondly to Hermione, who sat down at the Erard grand piano and sang to +us, without suggestion, a gay little French song. She was taking +lessons, Amy afterward told me, of the master most in vogue in Paris and +of all others the most expensive. Amy, who could sing well herself, +disparaged Hermione's voice to me, and sighed as she thought of the +waste of those inestimable lessons. + +Then Miss Hermione lifted the top of an ormolu box on the chimney-piece +of a boudoir and showed Amy and me, under the rose as it were, some +cigarettes, with a laugh. "Mamma's," she said: "she has a _faiblesse_ +that way." + +"Oh, Hermione! you don't?" cried Amy. + +"No, _I_ don't," said Hermione more gravely. + +I was so amused by her, so fascinated, so completely at my ease with +her, that I could have stayed on without taking note of time had not Amy +remembered that it was our dinner-hour. We took our leave, and met Mrs. +Leare on the staircase ascending to her apartment. She greeted Amy with +as much effusion as was compatible with her ideas of fashion, and said +she was "right glad" to hear we had been passing the morning with +Hermione. + +"I wish you would come very often. I like her to see English girls: you +do her so much good, Amy.--Mr. Farquhar, we shall hope to see you often +too. I have a little reception here every Sunday evening." + +With that she continued her course up stairs, and we descended to the +porte-cochere. + +She was a faded woman, "dressed to death," as Amy phrased it, and none +of my people had a good word for her. + +"The Leares are rolling in riches, I believe," remarked my father, "and +an American who is rich has no hereditary obligations to absorb his +wealth, so that it becomes all 'spending-money,' as Miss Hermione says. +The head of the family--King Leare I call him--stays at home in some +sort of a counting-room in New York and makes money, giving Mrs. Leare +and Miss Hermione _carte blanche_ to spend it on any follies they +please. I never heard anything exactly wrong concerning Mrs. Leare, but +she does not seem to me the woman to be trusted with that very nice +young daughter. I feel great pity for Miss Leare." + +"Miss Leare has plenty of sense and character," said my mother: "I do +not think her mother's queer surroundings seem to affect her in any way. +She moves among the Frenchmen, Poles and Italians of her mother's court +like that lady Shakespeare--or was it Spenser?--wrote about among the +fauns and satyrs. With all her American freedom she avoids improprieties +by instinct. I have no fears for her future if she marries the right +man." + +"Indeed, mamma," said Amy, "I wish she would keep more strictly within +the limit of the proprieties. She makes me nervous all the time we are +together." + +"My dear, you never heard her breathe a really unbecoming word or saw +her do an immodest thing?" said my mother interrogatively. + +"Oh no, of course not," said Amy. + +"They say Mrs. Leare wants to marry her to that Neapolitan marquis who +is so often there," put in Ellen. "_On dit_, she will have a _dot_ of +two millions of francs, or, as they call it, half a million of dollars." + +"Such a rumor," I broke in, rather annoyed by this turn in the +conversation, "may well buy her the right to be a marchioness if she +will." + +"Indeed it won't, then," said Ellen sharply, "for she thinks Americans +should not 'fix' themselves permanently abroad. She says she means to +marry one of her own folks, as she calls her countrymen." + +"She knows an infinite variety of things, and has had all kinds of +masters," sighed Laetitia: "she speaks all the languages in Europe. I +believe Americans have a peculiar facility for pronunciation, like the +Russians, and she learned at her school in America philosophy, rhetoric, +logic, Latin, algebra, chemistry." + +"I wonder she should be so sweet a woman," said my father. "She seems a +good girl--I never took her for a learned one--but her mother is a fool, +and I should think her father must be that or worse. I wonder what he +can be like? It seems to an Englishman so strange that a man should stay +at home alone for years, and suffer his wife and family to travel all +over the Continent without protection." + +Though my father, mother and sisters declined the Sunday invitation of +Mrs. Leare, I went to her reception. The guests were nearly all +Italians, Poles, Spaniards or Frenchmen. There was no Englishman +present, but myself, and only one or two Americans. I felt at once how +out of place my mother, the country matron, and my father, _ce +respectable viellard,_ would have been in such a circle. But Mrs. +Leare's guests were not the _jeunesse doree_ nor the dubious nobility I +had expected to meet in her _salon_. The Frenchmen among them were all +men whose names were familiar in French political circles--men of +revolutionary tendencies and of advanced opinions. I afterward +discovered they had taken advantage of Mrs. Leare's desire to be the +head of a salon to use her rooms as a convenient rendezvous. It was safe +ground on which to simmer their revolutionary cauldron. It was seething +and bubbling that night, although neither the Leares nor myself were +aware of what was brewing. The talk was all about the Banquets, +especially the impending reform banquet in the Rue Chaillot. The +gentlemen present were not exactly conspirators: they were for the most +part political reformers, who, being cut off from the usual modes of +expressing themselves through a recognized parliamentary opposition or +by the medium of petition, had devised a system of political banquets, +some fifty of which had already been held in the departments, and they +were now engaged in getting one up in Paris in the Twelfth +arrondissement. + +At that time, in a population of thirty-five millions, there were but a +quarter of a million of French voters, and as in France all places (from +that of a railroad guard to a seat on the bench) were disposed of by the +government, it was very easy for ministers to control the legislature. A +reform, really needed in the franchise, was the object proposed to +themselves by the original heads of the Revolution of 1848, though when +they had set their ball in motion they could neither control it nor keep +up with it as it rolled downward. + +The prevalent idea in Mrs. Leare's salon was that the banquet of the Rue +Chaillot would go off quietly, that the prefect of police would protest, +and that the affair would then pass into the law-courts, where it would +remain until all interest in the subject had passed away. One was +sensible, however, that there was a general feeling of excitement in the +atmosphere. Paris swarmed with troops, evidently under stricter +discipline than usual. People looked into each other's faces +interrogatively and read the daily papers with an anxious air. + +Though I did not at the time fully appreciate what I saw, I was struck +by the business-like character of the men about me. The guests, I +thought, took very little notice of the lady of the house. I did not +then suspect that they were using her hospitality for their own +purposes, and that they felt secure in her total incapacity to +understand what they were doing. She, meantime, intent on filling her +reception-rooms with celebrities and titled persons, was charmed to have +collected so many distinguished men around her. + +Hermione appeared bewildered, uncomfortable and restless, like a +spectator on the edge of a great crowd. "There are too many strangers +here to-night," she said: "mamma and I do not know one half of them. +They have been brought here by their friends. To have a salon is mamma's +ambition, but this is not my idea of it. I feel as if we were out of +place among these men, who talk to each other and hardly notice us at +all." + +We sat together and exchanged our thoughts in whispers. It was one of +those crowds that create a solitude for lovers. Not that we talked +sentiment or that we were lovers. We conversed about the excitements of +the day--of the Leste affair, in which the king and the king's ministry +were accused of protecting dishonesty; of the Beauvallon and +D'Equivilley duel and the Praslin murder, in connection with both of +which the royal family and the ministry were popularly accused of +protecting criminals--and at last the conversation strayed away from +France to Hermione's own girlhood. She told me of her happy country home +in Maryland with her grandmother, and sighed. I asked her if she was +going to the English ball to be given on Wednesday night at the +beautiful Jardin d'Hiver in the Champs Elysees. + +"I suppose so," she replied, "but I don't care for large assemblies: I +feel afraid of the men I meet. I wish your mother could chaperon me: it +would be much nicer to be with her than with my own. Mamma understands +nothing about looking after me; she wants to have a good time herself, +and I am only in her way. Do you know, Mr. Farquhar, I have a theory +that when women have missed anything they ought to have enjoyed in early +life, they always want to go back and pick it up. Mamma had no pleasures +in her youth, no attentions, no gayety. If I am to be chaperoned, I like +the real thing. If I were at home in Maryland, where my father came +from, I should need no one to protect me: _you_ could take me to the +ball." + +"I, Miss Hermione?" + +"Yes, you. You would call for me, and wait till I was ready to come +down. Then you and I would go _alone_," she added, enjoying my look of +incredulity. "It is the custom: no harm could come of it," she added. +"We would walk to our ball." + +"No harm in the case that you have supposed, but in some other cases--" + +"You suppose a good deal," she interrupted. "You suppose a girl without +self-respect or good sense, and perhaps a man without honor. Here, of +course, things cannot be like that. Society seems founded upon different +ideas from those prevalent with us about men and women. _Here_, I admit, +a girl finds comfort and protection and ease of mind in a good chaperon. +Yet it seemed strange to me to put on leading-strings when I came out +here: I had been used to take care of myself for so many years." + +"Why, Miss Leare," I said, laughing, "you cannot have been many years in +society." + +"I am twenty," she said frankly, "and we came to Europe about three +years ago. But before that time I had been in company a good deal. Not +in the city, for I was not 'out,' but in the hotels at Newport, at the +Springs and in the country. In America one has but to do what one knows +is kind and right, and no one will think evil: here one may do, without +suspecting it, so many compromising things." + +"Does the instinct that you speak of to be kind and right always guide +the young American lady?" + +"I suppose so--so far as I know. It _must_. She walks by it, and sets +her feet down firmly. Here I feel all the time as if I were walking +among traps blindfolded." + +The ball of the Jardin d'Hiver in the Champs Elysees was a superb +success. The immense glass-house was fitted up for dancing, and all went +merry as a marriage-bell, with a crater about to open under our feet, as +at the duchess of Richmond's ball at Brussels. + +Miss Leare was there, but quiet and dignified. There was not the +smallest touch of vulgarity about her. The coarse readiness to accept +publicity which distinguishes the underbred woman, whether in England or +America, the desire to show off a foreign emancipation from what appear +ridiculous French rules, were not in her. + +Yet she might have amused herself as she liked with complete impunity, +for Mrs. Leare appeared to leave her entirely alone. I danced with her +as often as she would permit me, and my heart was no longer in my own +possession when I put-her into her carriage about dawn. + +Two or three days after I called, but the ladies were not in, so that +except at church at the Hotel Marboeuf on Sunday morning I saw nothing +of Miss Hermione. Monday, February 21st, was sunny and bright. The +public excitement was such that an unusual number of working-men were +keeping their St. Crispin. The soldiers, however, were confined to their +quarters: not a uniform was to be seen abroad. Our night had been +disturbed by the continuous rumble of carts and carriages. + +"Is it a fine day for the banquet?" I heard Amy say as our maid opened +her windows on Tuesday morning. + +"There is to be no banquet," was the answer. "_Voyez done_ the +proclamation posted on the door of the barrack at the corner of the Rue +Chaillot." + +I sprang from my bed and looked out of my window. A strange change had +taken place in the teeming little caserne at the corner. Instead of the +usual groups of well-behaved boy-soldiers in rough uniforms, the barrack +looked deserted, and its lower windows had been closed up to their top +panes with bags of hay and mattresses. Not a soldier, not even a sentry, +was to be seen. + +I dressed myself and went out to collect news. The carts that had +disturbed us during the night had been not only employed in removing all +preparations for the banquet, but in taking every loose paving-stone out +of the way. I found the Place de la Madeleine full of people, all +looking up at the house of Odillon Barrot, asking "What next?" and "What +shall we do?" Odillon Barrot was the hero of the moment--literally _of +the moment_. In forty-eight hours from that time his name had faded from +the page of history. In the Place de la Concorde there was more +excitement, for threats were being made to cross the bridge and to +insult the Chambers. The Pont de l'Institut, notwithstanding the efforts +of the garde municipale or mounted police, was greatly crowded. A party +of dragoons, on sorrel ponies barely fourteen hands high, rode up and +began to clear the bridge, but gently and gradually. The crowd was +retiring as fast as its numbers would permit, when some of the municipal +guard rode through the ranks of the dragoons and set themselves, with +ill-judged roughness, to accelerate the operation. The crowd grew angry, +and stones began to be thrown at the guard and soldiers. + +Growing anxious for the women I had left in the Rue Neuve de Berri, I +returned home by side-streets. A crowd had collected on the Champs +Elysees about thirty yards from the corner of our street, and was +forming a barricade. All were shouting, all gesticulating. Citadines at +full speed were driving out of reach of requisition; horses were going +off disencumbered of their vehicles; the driver of a remise was seated +astride his animal, the long flaps of his driving-coat covering it from +neck to tail; a noble elm was being hewn down by hatchets and even +common knives. An omnibus, the remise, a few barrels and dining-tables, +a dozen yards of _pave_ torn up by eager hands, a sentry-box, some +benches and the tree, formed the barricade. _Gamins_ and _blouses_ +worked at it. The respectables looked on and did not trouble the +workers. Suddenly there was a general stampede among them. A squadron of +about fifty dragoons charged up the Champs Elysees. One old +peasant-woman in a scanty yellow-and-black skirt, which she twitched +above her knees, led the retreat. But soon they stopped and turned +again, while the dragoons rode slowly back, breathing their horses. +Nobody was angry, for nobody had been hurt, but they were frightened +enough. + +At this moment, stealing from a porte-cochere where she had taken refuge +during the fright and _sauve gui peut_, came a figure wrapped in dark +drapery. Could it be possible? Hermione Leare! In a moment I was at her +side. She was very pale and breathless, and she was glad to take my arm. +"What brings you here?" I whispered. + +"Our servants have all run away: they think mamma is compromised. +Victor, our chasseur, broke open mamma's secretary and took his wages. +She is almost beside herself. She wanted to send a letter to the post, +and as it is steamer-day I thought papa had better know that thus far +nothing has happened to us. There was nobody to take the letter: I said +I would put it in the box in the Rue Ponthieu." + +"And did you post it?" + +"No: I could not get to the Rue Ponthieu. They were firing down the +street, and now I dare not." + +"Trust it to me, Miss Leare, and promise me to send for me if you have +any more such errands. You must never run such risks again." + +"I have to be the man of the family," she answered, almost with an +apologetic air. + +"Do not say that again. I shall come over three times a day while this +thing lasts to see if you have any commissions." + +She smiled and pressed my hand as she turned into her own porte-cochere. +Frightened servants and their friends were in the porter's lodge, who +gazed after her with exclamations as she went up the common stair. + +The remainder of that day passed with very little fighting. Up to that +time it had been a riot apropos of a change of ministry, but in the +night the secret societies met and flung aside the previous question. + +When we awoke on Wednesday morning, February 23d, we were struck by the +strange quiet of the streets. No provisions entered Paris through the +barrier, no vehicles nor venders of small wares. The absolute silence, +save when "Mourir pour la Patrie" sounded hoarsely in the distance, was +as strange as it was unexpected. I had always connected an insurrection +with noise. It was rumored that Guizot the Unpopular had been dismissed, +and that Count Mole, a man of half measures, had been called to the +king's councils. The affair looked to me as if it were going to die out +for want of fuel. But I was mistaken: the blouses, who had not had one +gun to a hundred the day before, had been all night arming themselves by +domiciliary requisitions. The national guard was not believed to be +firm. + +The night before, an hour after I had parted with Miss Hermione, I had +made an attempt to see her and Mrs. Leare, without any success. Not even +bribery would induce the concierge to let me in. His orders were +peremptory: "_Pas un seul, monsieur, personne_"--madame received nobody. + +Early on Wednesday morning I again presented myself: the ladies were not +visible. Later in the day I called again, and was again refused. But +several times Amy had seen Hermione at a window, and they had made signs +across the street to one another. I began to understand that Mrs. Leare +was overwhelmed by the responsibility she had incurred in opening her +salon to men whom she now perceived to have been conspirators, and that +she was obstinately determined not to compromise herself further by +giving admittance to any one. + +Our bonne had been able to ascertain from the concierge of the Leare +house that madame was hysterical, and could hardly be controlled by +mademoiselle. + +I was in the streets till five o'clock on Wednesday, when, concluding +all was over, I came home, intending to make another effort to see the +Leares, and if possible to take Miss Hermione, with Ellen and Laetitia, +to view the debris of the two days' fight--to let them get their first +glimpse of real war in the Place de la Concorde, where a regiment was +littering down its horses for the night, and a peep into the closed +gardens of the Tuileries. + +When I got up to our rooms I found my sisters at a window overlooking +the courtyard of Mrs. Leare's hotel, and they all cried out with one +voice, "Mrs. Leare's carriage is just ready to drive away." + +I looked. A travelling-equipage stood in the courtyard. On it the +concierge was hoisting trunks, and into it was being heaped a +promiscuous variety of knick-knackery and wearing apparel. A country +postilion--who, but for his dirt, would have looked more like a +character in a comedy than a real live, serviceable post-boy--was +standing in carpet slippers (having divested himself of his boots of +office) harnessing three undersized gray Normandy mares to an elegant +travelling-carriage. + +Hermione herself, Claribel her little sister, Mrs. Leare and the old +colored nurse got quickly in. Mrs. Leare was in tears, with her head +muffled in a yard or two of green _barege_, then the distinctive mark of +a travelling American woman. The child's-nurse had long gold ear-drops +and a head-dress of red bandanna. There was not a man of any kind with +them except the postilion. The concierge opened the gates of the +courtyard. + +"Stop! stop!" I cried, and rushed down our own staircase and out of our +front door. + +As I ran past their entrance a woman put a paper into my hand. I had no +time to glance at it, for the carriage had already turned into the Rue +Ponthieu. For some distance I ran after it, encountering at every step +excited groups of people, some of whom seemed to me in search of +mischief, while some had apparently come out to gather news. There were +no other carriages in the streets, and that alone enabled me to track +the one I was in chase of, for everybody I met had noticed which way it +had turned. It wound its way most deviously through by-streets to avoid +those in which paving-stones had been torn up or barricades been formed, +and the postilion made all possible speed, fearing the carriage might be +seized and detached from his horses. But the day's work was finished and +the disorders of the night were not begun. + +Forced at last to slacken my speed and to take breath, I glanced at the +paper that I still held in my hand. It contained a few words from +Hermione: "Thank you for all the kindness you have tried to show us, +dear sir. My mother has heard that all the English in Paris are to be +massacred at midnight by the mob, and directs me to give you notice, +which is the reason I address this note to you and not to Amy. Mamma is +afraid of being mistaken for an Englishwoman. We have secured +post-horses and are setting out for Argenteuil, where we shall take the +railway. Again, thank you: your kindness will not be forgotten by H. +LEARE." + +This note reassured me. I no longer endeavored to overtake the carriage, +but I pushed my way as fast as possible beyond the nearest barrier. Once +outside the wall of Paris, I was in the Banlieu, that zone of rascality +whose inhabitants are all suspected by the police and live under the +ban. Of course on such a gala-day of lawlessness this hive was all +astir. At a village I passed through I tried to hire a conveyance to +Argenteuil. I also tried to get some railway information, but nobody +could tell me anything and all were ravenous for news. I secured, +however, without losing too much time, a seat with a stout young +country-man who drove a little country cart with a powerful gray horse, +and was going in the direction I wanted to travel. + +"What will be the result of this affair?" I said to him when he had got +his beast into a steady trot. + +He shrugged his shoulders. A French workingman has a far larger +vocabulary at his command than the English laborer. "Bon Dieu!" he +exclaimed: "who knows what will come of it? A land without a master is +no civilized land. We shall fall back into barbarism. What there is +certain is, that we shall all be ruined." + +At length, to my great relief, we saw a carriage before us; and we drove +into the railway-station at the same moment as the Leares. + +Before the ladies could alight I was beside the window of their +carriage. + +"You here, Mr. Farquhar?" cried Hermione. "How good of you! You cannot +guess the relief. Help me to get them out, these helpless ones." + +We lifted Mrs. Leare on to the platform of the railway, weeping and +trembling. The old colored nurse could not speak French, and seemed to +think her only duty was to hold the hand of little Claribel and to stand +where her young mistress placed her. All looked to Hermione. She carried +a canvas bag of five-franc pieces and paid right and left. I tried to +interfere, as she was giving the postilion an exorbitant sum. + +"No, hush!" she whispered: "we can afford to pay, but in our situation +we cannot afford to dispute." + +She then deputed me to see after the "baggage," as she called the +luggage of the party, and went with her mother into the glass cage that +the French call a _salle d'attente_ at a railway-station. + +We had come from the seat of war, and every one crowded around us asking +for news. I had little to tell, but replied that I believed the affair +was nearly over. I did not foresee that two hours later a procession +roaring "Mourir pour la Patrie" under the windows of the Hotel des +Affaires Etrangeres would be fired into by accident, and that the +_emeute_ of February, 1848, would be converted into a revolution. + +It was nine o'clock in the evening. The lamps were lighted in the +station. The night was cloudy, but far off on the horizon we could see a +gleam of radiance, marking the locality of the great city. + +After an hour of very anxious waiting, during which Mrs. Leare was +beside herself with nervous agitation, the locked doors of our prison +were flung open and we were permitted to seat ourselves in a +railway-carriage. + +Hermione's tender devotion to her mother, the old servant and the child +was beautiful to witness. Now that Mrs. Leare was helpless on her +daughter's hands, they seemed to have found their natural relations. +Hermione said few words to me, but a glance now and then thanked me for +being with them. The train started. For about three miles all went on +well, although we travelled cautiously, fearing obstructions. Suddenly +the speed of our train was checked, and there was a cry of consternation +as we rounded a sharp curve. The bridge over the Seine at its third bend +was ablaze before us! + +All the men upon the train sprang out upon the track as soon as the +carriage-doors were opened, and in a few moments we were surrounded by +ruffians refusing to let us go on. + +"Back the train!" cried the railroad official in charge. + +No, they were not willing to let us go back to Paris. Conspirators +against the people might be making their escape. They had set fire to +the bridge, they said, to prevent the train from passing over. It must +remain where it was. If we passengers desired to return to Paris, we +must walk there. + +"Walk?" I exclaimed: "it is ten miles! Women--delicate +ladies--children!" + +My remonstrance was drowned in the confusion. Suddenly the party of +women under my charge stood at my elbow: Mrs. Leare was leaning on +Hermione's arm; Mammy Christine and Claribel cowered close and held her +by her drapery. + +"Make no remonstrances," she said in a low voice: "let us not excite +attention. An Englishman never knows when not to complain: an American +accepts his fate more quietly. These people mean to sack the train. We +had better get away as soon as possible." + +"But how?" I cried. + +"I can walk. We must find some means of transporting mamma, Mammy Chris +and Clary." + +As Hermione said this she turned to an official and questioned him upon +the subject. He thought that there was a little cart and horse which +might be hired at a neighboring cottage. + +"Let us go and see about it, Mr. Farquhar," said Hermione. + +"I will." + +"No: I put greater trust in my own powers of persuasion.--Mammy dear, +take good care of mamma: we shall be back directly." + +Her _we_ was very sweet to me, and I shared her mistrust of my French +and my diplomacy. + +The glare of the burning bridge lighted our steps: the air was full of +falling flakes of fire. The cottage was a quarter of a mile off. +Hermione refused my arm, but, holding her skirts daintily, stepped +bravely at my side. She exhibited no bashfulness, no excitement, no +confusion, no fear: she was simply bent on business. We reached the +peasant's farmyard. He and his family were outside the house. We like to +say a Frenchman has no word for _home_. But the conclusion that the man +of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces from this lack in his vocabulary is false: +no man cares more for the domicile that shelters him. Hermione made her +request with sweet persuasiveness. I saw at once it would have been +refused if I had made it, but to her they made excuses. The old horse, +they said, was very old, the old cart was broken. + +"Let me look at it," said Hermione. At this they led us into an +outhouse, where she assisted me to make a careful inspection. I might +have rejected the old trap at once, but she offered a few suggestions, +which she told me in an aside were the fruit of her experiences in +Maryland and Virginia, and the cart was pronounced safe enough to be +driven slowly with a light load. + +A half-grown son of the house was put in charge of it. Hermione +suggested he should bring the family clothes-line in case of a +breakdown, and prevailed upon the farmer's wife to put in plenty of +fresh straw, a blanket and a pillow. She made a bargain, less +extravagant than I expected, with the peasant proprietor, promising, +however, a very handsome _pourboire_ to his son in the event of our good +fortune. The farmer stipulated, in his turn, that cart, horse and lad +were not to pass the barrier, that the boy should walk at the horse's +head, and that the cart was to contain only two women and little +Claribel. + +It was harnessed up immediately. Hermione and I followed it on foot back +to the little band of travellers waiting beside the railway. + +"Can we not get some of your trunks out?" I said to her. + +"No," she answered: "leave them to their fate. I dare not overload the +cart, and I doubt whether those men with hungry eyes would let us take +them. Mamma," she whispered, "has her diamonds." + +"You will get into the cart, Miss Leare?" I said as I saw her motioning +to the old colored woman to take the place beside her mother. + +"No indeed," she replied: "our contract stipulated only for mamma, Mammy +and Clary: Mammy is crippled with rheumatism. If you have no objection I +will walk with you." + +"Objection? No. But it is ten miles." + +"A long stretch," she said with a half sigh, "but I am young, strong, +and excitement counts for something: besides, there is no remedy. We +must consider them." + +There had been about fifteen other persons on the train. A dozen of +these, finding we were going to walk back to Paris, proposed to join us. +The night was growing dark, and we pushed on. There was no woman afoot +but Hermione. "Madame" they called her, evidently taking her for my +wife, but by no word or smile did she notice the blunder. After a while +she accepted my arm, drawing up her skirts by means of loops or pins. We +had one lantern among us, and from time to time its glare permitted me +to see her dainty feet growing heavy with mud and travel. + +It was not what could be called a lovers' walk, tramping in the dark +through mud and water, on a French country road, at a cart's tail, and +hardly a word was exchanged between us; yet had it not been for fears +about her safety it would have been the most delightful expedition I had +ever known. + +From time to time Mrs. Leare and the old nurse in the cart complained of +their bones. Hermione was always ready with encouragement, but she said +little else to any one. She appeared to be reserving all her energies to +assist her physical endurance and to strengthen her for her task of +taking care of the others. + +I had always seen my sisters and other girls protected, sheltered, cared +for: it gave me a sharp pang to see this beautiful and dainty creature +totally unthought of by those dependent on her. Nor did Mrs. Leare seem +to feel any anxiety about my comradeship with her daughter. I could +fully appreciate Hermione's remark about her chaperonage being very +unsatisfactory. + +Every now and then we passed through villages along whose straggling +streets the population was aswarm, eager for news and wondering at our +muddy procession. In one of the villages I suggested stopping, but Mrs. +Leare was now as frantic to get home again as she had been to get away. +She said, and truly, that it had been a wild plan to start from +Paris--that if she had seen me and had heard that I thought the emeute +was at an end and that the report about the English was untrue, she +should never have left her apartment. She had been frightened out of her +senses by some men _en blouse_ who had made their way into her rooms and +had carried off her pistol and a little Turkish dagger. Victor's theft +of his own wages had upset her. She had insisted upon setting out. +Hermione had got post-horses somehow: Hermione ought never to have let +her come away. + +About three in the morning we reached a larger village than we had +hitherto passed. The inhabitants had been apprised of the events in the +Rue Neuve des Capucines before the ministry of the Affaires Etrangeres, +and the revolutionary element had increased in audacity. A crowd of +turbulent-looking working-men dressed in blouses, armed with muskets, +old sabres and all kinds of miscellaneous weapons, stopped our way. Some +seized the head of the old horse, some gathered round the cart and +lifted lanterns into the faces of the ladies. The French workman is a +much more athletic man than the French soldier. I own to a sensation of +deadly terror for a moment when I saw the ladies in the midst of a +lawless rabble whose brawny arms were bared as if prepared for butchery +of any kind. Far off, too, a low rattle of distant musketry warned us +that the tumult in Paris was renewed. + +"Mourir pour la Patrie" appeared to come from every throat, and many of +the crowd were the worse for liquor. Indeed, these patriots had +rendezvoused at a cabaret at the entrance of the village, and swarmed +from its tables to intercept us. The ladies, they insisted, must alight +and be examined. Mammy Chris was drawn out of the cart, looking as if +her face had been rubbed in ashes: Mrs. Leare was nervously excited, +Hermione went up to her, supported her and drew her bag of diamonds out +of her hand. I took Claribel in my arms. + +"Vos passeports," they demanded. + +"Here are our American passports," said Hermione: "we are Americans." + +"Yes, Americans, republicans!" cried Mrs. Leare: "we fraternize with all +republicans in France." + +"Aristos," said a man between his teeth, glancing at her dress and at +that of Hermione. + +"What does he say?" cried Mrs. Leare, who did not catch the word. + +"Hush, mother!" said Hermione. + +"But what did he say?" she shrieked. "Tell me at once: do not keep it +from me." + +Hermione replied (unwilling to use the word "aristocrat") by an American +idiom: "He said we belonged to the Upper Ten." + +"But we don't! Oh, Hermie, your father belongs to a good family in +Maryland, but _my_ grandfather made shoes. I was quite poor when he +married me. I was only sixteen." + +"What you say?" said a railroad-hand who knew a little English. "You say +you are not some aristos?" + +"No, sir," said I: "these ladies claim to be Americans and republicans." + +"Vive la Republique!" cried the man. + +"Vive la Republique!" quickly echoed Hermione. + +"C'est bien! c'est bien!" cried another, raising his lantern to her +blanched and beautiful face. + +"You will let us all pass, monsieur?" she said persuasively: "you will +even be our escort a little way. We will pay handsomely for your +protection." + +Before he could answer her two or three fellows, more drunk than the +rest, burst out with a proposition: "She says they are not aristos, but +republicans. Let her prove it. She cannot, if she be a true republican, +refuse to kiss her fellow-patriots." + +I started and was about to knock the rascal down with the bag of +diamonds. + +But Hermione laid a restraining hand upon my arm. "Gentlemen," she said +in clear tones and perfect French, "it is quite true that we are +Americans and republicans. We wish you well, and if it be for the good +of France to be free under a republican form of government, no one can +wish her prosperity more than ourselves. But in our free country, +messieurs, a woman is held free to give her kiss to whom she will, and +according to our custom she gives it only to her betrothed or to her +husband." Here stooping she picked up a little boy who had worked +himself into the forefront of the crowd, and before I knew what she was +about to do she had lifted him upon the cart beside her. She looked a +moment steadily at the men around her, holding the boy's hand in both +her own, then turning toward him and pressing her lips upon his face, +she said, "Messieurs, I kiss your representative: I cannot embrace a +multitude;" and placed a piece of money in the gamin's hand. + +For a moment there was some doubt what view the crowd might take of +this, but her beauty, her fearlessness, and, above all, the awe inspired +by her womanliness, prevailed. They shouted "Vive la Republique!" + +"With all my heart," replied Hermione. "Now shout for me, gentlemen: +Vive la Republique des Etats Unis!" + +They were completely won. A French crowd is never dangerous or +unmanageable till it has tasted blood, and besides it has--or at least +in those days it used to have--_sentiments_, to which it was possible +with a little tact to appeal successfully. + +The opposition to our progress came to an end. Mrs. Leare and old Mammy +were helped back into the cart, and a man offered them some wine. They +brought some also to Hermione. I pressed her to drink it, which she did +to their good health, and giving back the glass placed in it a napoleon. +"Do me the favor, messieurs," she said, "to drink your next toast to our +American republic." + +Cheers rose for her. There was no longer any talk of detaining us: the +old horse was urged forward. Hermione took my arm. We marched on, +escorted by the rabble. At the end of the village-street they all gave +us an unsteady cheer and turned back to their wine-tables. Hermione +proceeded in silence a little farther. Then I felt her slipping from my +arm, and was just in time to catch her. + +Without compunction I requested Mammy Chris to get out of the cart and +put her young lady in her place, pillowing her head as carefully as I +could on my own coat, and proceeding in my shirtsleeves. + +We were then not half a mile from the Banlieu, which we passed without +adventure, much to my surprise, its inhabitants having taken advantage +of the confusion to pour into Paris and infest its richer quarters. + +The ladies were obliged to get out at the barrier and to send back the +cart to its proprietor. Again I had the happiness of supporting Hermione +while I carried little Claribel, and Mrs. Leare and Mammy walked on +ahead. + +"I feel humiliated," I said, "that the whole burden of those dreadful +moments should have fallen upon you." + +"And to avoid that feeling you were ready to knock down a drunken blouse +in English style?" she said, smiling. "No, Mr. Farquhar, nothing but the +power that a woman finds in her own womanhood could have brought us +through safely. Those men had all had mothers, and each man had some +sort of womanly ideal. I could not have managed a crowd of _poissardes_, +but, thank Heaven, there is yet a chord that a woman may strike in the +hearts of men." + +The dawn of Thursday, February 24, 1848, was breaking at the eastward +when I arrived with Mrs. Leare, Hermione, the nurse and child at their +own apartment. I went up stairs with them. All was cold and cheerless in +the rooms. There were no servants. Mrs. Leare sat down; the old nurse +bemoaned her rheumatism and her aching bones; Hermione, with the +assistance of the concierge's wife, lighted a fire, made some tea and +waited on her mother. + +For several days afterward she was very ill. She knew nothing of passing +events--of the king's flight, of the triumphal and victorious +processions that passed up the Champs Elysees, of the sudden +impossibility of procuring supplies of change, and of the consequent +difficulty of paying household bills with _billets de mille francs_ +without gold or silver. + +Each day I went several times to make inquiries, and twice I saw Mrs. +Leare in bed, but Hermione was invisible. + +My father, an honorable British officer of the old school, perceived how +things were with me. "My son," he said one clay, "there are two courses +open to you. You have nothing but your profession. Your education and +the premium on your admittance to the office of the great man for whom +you work have been my provision for you: the little property I have to +leave must support your sisters. You cannot under such circumstances +address Miss Leare. You must either go back at once to your work in +England and forget this episode, or you may go out to America and see +her father. You can tell him you have nothing on which to support his +daughter, and ask if he will give you leave to address the young lady. +No son of mine, situated like yourself, shall offer himself in any other +way to an heiress whose father is three thousand miles away, and who is +supposed to have two millions of francs for her dowry." + +I saw he was right, but, forlorn as the hope was of any appeal to Mr. +Leare, I would not relinquish it. I resolved to go out to America and +see him, and wrote to England to secure letters of introduction to the +chief engineers in the United States and Canada. Meantime, my father +proposed that we should go together and call upon Mrs. and Miss Leare. + +Hermione received us in the boudoir, looking like a bruised lily: her +mother came in afterward. + +"We are going right straight home," she said, "the moment we can get +money to get away. I have written to Mr. Leare that he must find some +means to send me some." + +"I am glad to hear you say this, madame," said my father. "My son has +just made up his mind to go out to America and seek employment on one of +your railways." + +Hermione looked up with a question in her eyes: so did her mother. + +"Why, Mr. Farquhar, that will suit us exactly," cried Mrs. +Leare.--"Hermione, won't it be lovely if Mr. Farquhar takes care of us +on the voyage?--You will engage your passage--won't you?--in the same +steamer as we do?--No one was ever so good a squire of dames as your +son, Captain Farquhar. Hermione and I shall never forget our obligations +to him." + +"No, madame," said my father; and he got up and walked to the fireplace, +where in his embarrassment he laid his hand upon the ornamented box +which held the cigarettes of the fast lady. + +She rose up too and went hastily toward him, anxious he should not +surprise her little frailty. + +"The truth is, madame," whispered my father, who never could restrain +his tongue from any kindly indiscretion, "the poor fellow is suffering +too much from the attractions of Miss Leare. He has nothing but his +profession, and I tell him he must not dare to address her in her +father's absence." + +"My dear captain, what does that matter? And I believe Hermione would +have him too," said her mother. + +"Disparity of means--" began my father. + +"Oh, no matter," interrupted Mrs. Leare: "her father always told her +just to please herself. Mr. Farquhar is an Englishman and of good +family. He has his profession to keep him out of mischief, and Hermie +will more than pay her own expenses. Indeed, I dare not go home without +a gentleman to look after us on the passage: my nerves have been too +shattered, and I never again shall trust a courier. Do let your son go +back with us," she implored persuasively; and added, as she saw that he +still hesitated, "Besides, what rich man in America knows how long he +may be rich? 'Spend your money and enjoy yourself' has always been my +motto." + +Thus urged, what could my father do but suppose that Mrs. Leare knew Mr. +Leare's views better than he did? He no longer held out on the point of +honor. + +In twenty-four hours Hermione and I were engaged to be married. + +During the voyage to New York I learned to understand her father's +character, and when he met us on the wharf I was no longer afraid of +him. + +Hermione's choice in marriage seemed to be wholly left to herself. Mr. +Leare told me, when I had that formidable talk with him dreaded by all +aspirants to the hand of a man's daughter, that Hermione had too much +good sense, self-respect and womanliness to give herself away to a man +unworthy of her. "That she can love you, sir," he said, "is sufficient +recommendation." + +That it might be sufficient in my case I hoped with all my soul, but +felt, as Hermione had expressed it early in our acquaintance, that +society in America must be founded upon very different opinions than our +own in regard to the relations of men and women. + +E.W. LATIMER. + + + + +THE AUTHORS OF "FROUFROU." + + +No doubt it will surprise some theatre-goers who are not special +students of the stage to be told that the authors of _Froufrou_ are the +authors also of the _Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein_ and of _La Belle +Helene_, of _Carmen_ and of _Le Petit Duc_. There are a few, I know, who +think that _Froufrou_ was written by the fertile and ingenious M. +Victorien Sardou, and who, without thinking, credit M. Jacques Offenbach +with the composition of the words as well as the music of the _Grande +Duchesse_; and as for _Carmen_, is it not an _Italian_ opera, and is not +the book, like the music, the work of some Italian? As a matter of fact, +all these plays, unlike as they are to each other, and not only these, +but many more--not a few of them fairly well known to the American +play-goer--are due to the collaboration of M. Henri Meilhac and M. +Ludovic Halevy. + +Born in 1832, M. Henri Meilhac, like M. Emile Zola, dealt in books +before he began to make them. He soon gave up trade for journalism, and +contributed with pen and pencil to the comic _Journal pour Rire_. He +began as a dramatist in 1855 with a two-act play at the Palais Royal +Theatre: like the first pieces of Scribe and of M. Sardou, and of so +many more who have afterward abundantly succeeded on the stage, this +play of M. Meilhac's was a failure; and so also was his next, likewise +in two acts. But in 1856 the _Sarabande du Cardinal_, a delightful +little comedy in one act, met with favor at the Gymnase. It was followed +by two or three other comediettas equally clever. In 1859, M. Meilhac +made his first attempt at a comedy in five acts, but the _Petit fils de +Mascarille_ had not the good fortune of his ancestor. In 1860, for the +first time, he was assisted by M. Ludovic Halevy, and in the twenty +years since then their names have been linked together on the +title-pages of two score or more plays of all kinds--drama, comedy, +farce, opera, operetta and ballet. M. Meilhac's new partner was the +nephew of the Halevy who is best known out of France as the composer of +the _Jewess_, and he was the son of M. Leon Halevy, poet, philosopher +and playwright. Two years younger than M. Henri Meilhac, M. Ludovic +Halevy held a place in the French civil service until 1858, when he +resigned to devote his whole time, instead of his spare time, to the +theatre. As the son of a dramatist and the nephew of a popular composer, +he had easy access to the stage. He began as the librettist-in-ordinary +to M. Offenbach, for whom he wrote _Ba-ta-clan_ in 1855, and later the +_Chanson de Fortunio_, the _Pont des Soupirs_ and _Orphee aux Enfers_. +The first very successful play which MM. Meilhac and Halevy wrote +together was a book for M. Offenbach; and it was possibly the good +fortune of this operetta which finally affirmed the partnership. Before +the triumph of the _Belle Helene_ in 1864 the collaboration had been +tentative, as it were: after that it was as though the articles had been +definitely ratified--not that either of the parties has not now and then +indulged in outside speculations, trying a play alone or with an +outsider, but this was without prejudice to the permanent partnership. + +This kind of literary union, the long-continued conjunction of two +kindred spirits, is better understood amongst us than the indiscriminate +collaboration which marks the dramatic career of M. Eugene Labiche, for +instance. Both kinds were usual enough on the English stage in the days +of Elizabeth, but we can recall the ever-memorable example of Beaumont +and Fletcher, while we forget the chance associations of Marston, +Dekker, Chapman and Ben Jonson. And in contemporary literature we have +before us the French tales of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian and the English +novels of Messrs. Besant and Rice. The fact that such a union endures is +proof that it is advantageous. A long-lasting collaboration like this of +MM. Meilhac and Halevy must needs be the result of a strong sympathy and +a sharp contrast of character, as well as of the possession by one of +literary qualities which supplement those of the other. + +One of the first things noticed by an American student of French +dramatic literature is that the chief Parisian critics generally refer +to the joint work of these two writers as the plays of M. Meilhac, +leaving M. Halevy altogether in the shade. At first this seems a curious +injustice, but the reason is not far to seek. It is not that M. Halevy +is some two years the junior of M. Meilhac: it lies in the quality of +their respective abilities. M. Meilhac has the more masculine style, and +so the literary progeny of the couple bear rather his name than his +associate's. M. Meilhac has the strength of marked individuality, he has +a style of his own, one can tell his touch; while M. Halevy is merely a +clever French dramatist of the more conventional pattern. This we detect +by considering the plays which each has put forth alone and unaided by +the other. In reading one of M. Meilhac's works we should feel no doubt +as to the author, while M. Halevy's clever pictures of Parisian society, +wanting in personal distinctiveness, would impress us simply as a +product of the "Modern French School." + +Before finally joining with M. Halevy, M. Meilhac wrote two comedies in +five acts of high aim and skilful execution, and two other five-act +pieces have been written by MM. Meilhac and Halevy together. The _Vertu +de Celimene_ and the _Petit fils de Mascarille_ are by the elder +partner--_Fanny Lear_ and _Froufrou_ are the work of the firm. Yet in +these last two it is difficult to see any trace of M. Halevy's +handiwork. Allowing for the growth of M. Meilhac's intellect during the +eight or ten years which intervened between the work alone and the work +with his associate, and allowing for the improvement in the mechanism of +play-making, I see no reason why M. Meilhac might not have written +_Fanny Lear_ and _Froufrou_ substantially as they are had he never met +M. Halevy. But it is inconceivable that M. Halevy alone could have +attained so high an elevation or have gained so full a comic force. +Perhaps, however, M. Halevy deserves credit for the better technical +construction of the later plays: merely in their mechanism the first +three acts of _Froufrou_ are marvellously skilful. And perhaps, also, +his is a certain softening humor, which is the cause that the two later +plays, written by both partners, are not so hard in their brilliance as +the two earlier comedies, the work of M. Meilhac alone. + +It may seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals, but I think +M. Halevy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's plays a fuller ethical +richness. To the younger writer is due a simple but direct irony, as +well as a lightsome and laughing desire to point a moral when occasion +serves. Certainly, I shall not hold up a play written to please the +public of the Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all +the virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of all the +cardinal sins. The frequenters of the Palais Royal Theatre are not +babes; young people of either sex are not taken there; only the +emancipated gain admittance; and to the seasoned sinners who haunt +theatres of this type these plays by MM. Meilhac and Halevy are +harmless. Indeed, I do not recall any play of theirs which could hurt +any one capable of understanding it. Most of their plays are not to be +recommended to ignorant innocence or to fragile virtue. They are not +meant for young men and maidens. They are not wholly free from the taint +which is to be detected in nearly all French fiction. The mark of the +beast is set on not a little of the work done by the strongest men in +France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too clever ever to delve in +indecency from mere wantonness: he has no liking for vice, but his +virtue sits easily on him, and though he is sound on the main question, +he looks upon the vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halevy, it +seems to me, is made of somewhat sterner stuff. He raises a warning +voice now and then--in _Fanny Lear_, for instance, the moral is pointed +explicitly--and even where there is no moral tagged to the fable, he who +has eyes to see and ears to hear can find "a terrible example" in almost +any of these plays, even the lightest. For the congregation to which it +was delivered there is a sermon in _Toto chez Tata_, perhaps the piece +in which, above all others, the Muse seems Gallic and _egrillarde_. That +is a touch of real truth, and so of a true morality, where Tata, the +fashionable courtesan, leaning over her stairs as Toto the school-boy +bears off her elderly lover, and laughing at him, cries out, "Toi, mon +petit homme, je te repincerai dans quatre ou cinq ans!" And a cold and +cutting stroke it is a little earlier in the same little comedy where +Toto, left alone in Tata's parlor, negligently turns over her basket of +visiting-cards and sees "names which he knew because he had learnt them +by heart in his history of France." Still, in spite of this truth and +morality, I do not advise the reading of _Toto chez Tata_ in young +ladies' seminaries. Young ladies in Paris do not go to hear Madame +Chaumont, for whom _Toto_ was written, nor is the Varietes, where it was +played, a place where a girl can take her mother. + +It was at the Varietes in December, 1864, that the _Belle Helene_ was +produced: this was the first of half a score of plays written by MM. +Meilhac and Halevy for which M. Jacques Offenbach composed the music. +Chief among these are _Barbe-bleue_, the _Grande Duchesse de +Gerolstein_, the _Brigands_ and _Perichole_. When we recall the fact +that these five operas are the most widely known, the most popular and +by far the best of M. Offenbach's works, there is no need to dwell on +his indebtedness to MM. Meilhac and Halevy, or to point out how +important a thing the quality of the opera-book is to the composer of +the score. These earlier librettos were admirably made: they are models +of what a comic opera-book should be. I cannot well imagine a better bit +of work of its kind than the _Belle Helene_ or the _Grande Duchesse_. +Tried by the triple test of plot, characters and dialogue, they are +nowhere wanting. Since MM. Meilhac and Halevy have ceased writing for M. +Offenbach they have done two books for M. Charles Lecoq--the _Petit Duc_ +and the _Grande Demoiselle_. These are rather light comic operas than +true _operas-bouffes_, but if there is an elevation in the style of the +music, there is an emphatic falling off in the quality of the words. +From the _Grande Duchesse_ to the _Petit Duc_ is a great descent: the +former was a genuine play, complete and self-contained--the latter is a +careless trifle, a mere outline sketch for the composer to fill up. The +story--akin in subject to Mr. Tom Taylor's fine historical drama +_Clancarty_--is pretty, but there is no trace of the true poetry which +made the farewell letter of Perichole so touching, or of the true comic +force which projected General Bourn. _Carmen_, which, like _Perichole_, +owes the suggestion of its plot and characters to Prosper Merimee, is +little more than the task-work of the two well-trained play-makers: it +was sufficient for its purpose, no more and no less. + +Of all the opera-books of MM. Meilhac and Halevy, that one is easily +first and foremost which has for its heroine the Helen of Troy whom +Marlowe's Faustus declared + + Fairer than the evening air, + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. + +In the _Belle Helene_ we see the higher wit of M. Meilhac. M. Halevy had +been at the same college with him, and they had pored together over the +same legends of old time, but working without M. Meilhac on _Orphee aux +Enfers_, M. Halevy showed his inferiority, for _Orphee_ is the +old-fashioned anachronistic skit on antiquity--funny if you will, but +with a fun often labored, not to say forced--the fun of physical +incongruity and exaggeration. But in the _Belle Helene_ the fun, easy +and flowing, is of a very high quality, and it has root in mental, not +physical, incongruity. Here indeed is the humorous touchstone of a whole +system of government and of theology. And, allowing for the variations +made with comic intent, it is altogether Greek in spirit--so Greek, in +fact, that I doubt whether any one who has not given his days and nights +to the study of Homer and of the tragedians, and who has not thus taken +in by the pores the subtle essence of Hellenic life and literature, can +truly appreciate this French farce. Planche's _Golden Fleece_ is in the +same vein, but the ore is not as rich. Frere's _Loves of the Triangles_ +and some of his _Anti-Jacobin_ writing are perhaps as good in quality, +but the subjects are inferior and temporary. Scarron's vulgar burlesques +and the cheap parodies of many contemporary English play-makers are not +to be mentioned in the same breath with this scholarly fooling. There is +something in the French genius akin to the Greek, and here was a Gallic +wit who could turn a Hellenic love-tale inside out, and wring the +uttermost drop of fun from it without recourse to the devices of the +booth at the fair, the false nose and the simulation of needless +ugliness. The French play, comic as it was, did not suggest hysteria or +epilepsy, and it was not so lacking in grace that we could not recall +the original story without a shudder. There is no shattering of an +ideal, and one cannot reproach the authors of the _Belle Helene_ with +what Theophrastus Such calls "debasing the moral currency, lowering the +value of every inspiring fact and tradition." + +Surpassed only by the _Belle Helene_ is the _Grande Duchesse de +Gerolstein_. It is nearly fifteen years since all the world went to +Paris to see an Exposition Universelle and to gaze at the "sabre de mon +pere," and since a Russian emperor, going to hear the operetta, said to +have been suggested by the freak of a Russian empress, sat incognito in +one stage-box of the little Varietes Theatre, and glancing up saw a +Russian grand duke in the other. It is nearly fifteen years since the +tiny army of Her Grand-ducal Highness took New York by storm, and since +American audience after audience hummed its love for the military and +walked from the French Theatre along Fourteenth street to Delmonico's to +supper, sabring the waiters there with the venerated weapon of her sire. +The French Theatre is no more, and Delmonico's is no longer at that +Fourteenth-street corner, and Her Highness Mademoiselle Tostee is dead, +and M. Offenbach's sprightly tunes have had the fate of all over-popular +airs, and are forgotten now. _Ou sont les neiges d'antan?_ + +It has been said that the authors regretted having written the _Grande +Duchesse_, because the irony of history soon made a joke on Teutonic +powers and principalities seem like unpatriotic satire. Certainly, they +had no reason to be ashamed of the literary quality of their work: in +its class it yields only to its predecessor. There is no single figure +as fine as Calchas--General Boum is a coarser outline--but how humorous +and how firm is the drawing of Prince Paul and Baron Grog! And Her +Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch of youthful femininity +than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard to judge the play now. Custom +has worn its freshness and made it too familiar: we know it too well to +criticise it clearly. Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action +with over-much "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits +of the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can be +remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best bits of +exposition on the modern French stage. + +Besides these plays for music, and besides the more important five-act +comedies to be considered later, MM. Meilhac and Halevy are the authors +of thirty or forty comic dramas--as they are called on the English +stage--or farce-comedies in one, two, three, four, and even five acts, +ranging in aim from the gentle satire of sentimentality in _La Veuve_ to +the outspoken farce of the _Reveillon_. Among the best of the longer of +these comic plays are _Tricoche et Cacolet_ and _La Boule_. Both were +written for the Palais Royal, and they are models of the new dramatic +species which came into existence at that theatre about twenty years +ago, as M. Francisquc Sarcey recently reminded us in his interesting +article on the Palais Royal in _The Nineteenth Century_. This new style +of comic play may be termed realistic farce--realistic, because it +starts from every-day life and the most matter-of-fact conditions; and +farce, because it uses its exact facts only to further its fantasy and +extravagance. Consider _La Boule_. Its first act is a model of accurate +observation; it is a transcript from life; it is an inside view of a +commonplace French household which incompatibility of temper has made +unsupportable. And then take the following acts, and see how on this +foundation of fact, and screened by an outward semblance of realism, +there is erected the most laughable superstructure of fantastic farce. I +remember hearing one of the two great comedians of the Theatre Francais, +M. Coquelin, praise a comic actor of the Varietes whom we had lately +seen in a rather cheap and flimsy farce, because he combined "la verite +la plus absolue avec la fantasie la plus pure." And this is the merit of +_La Boule_: its most humorous inventions have their roots in the truth. + +Better even than _La Boule_ is _Tricoche et Cacolet_, which is the name +of a firm of private detectives whose exploits and devices surpass those +imagined by Poe in America, by Wilkie Collins in England, and by +Gaboriau in France. The manifold disguises and impersonations of the two +partners when seeking to outwit each other are as well-motived and as +fertile in comic effect as any of the attempts of Crispin or of some +other of Regnard's interchangeable valets. Is not even the _Legataire +Universel_, Regnard's masterpiece, overrated? To me it is neither higher +comedy nor more provocative of laughter than either _La Boule_ or +_Tricoche et Cacolet_; and the modern plays, as I have said, are based +on a study of life as it is, while the figures of the older comedies are +frankly conventional. Nowhere in Regnard is there a situation equal in +comic power to that in the final act of the _Reveillon_--a situation +Moliere would have been glad to treat. + +Especially to be commended in _Tricoche et Cacolet_ is the satire of the +hysterical sentimentality and of the forced emotions born of luxury and +idleness. The parody of the amorous intrigue which is the staple of so +many French plays is as wholesome as it is exhilarating. Absurdity is a +deadly shower-bath to sentimentalism. The method of Meilhac and Halevy +in sketching this couple is not unlike that employed by Mr. W.S. Gilbert +in _H.M.S. Pinafore_ and _The Pirates of Penzance_. Especially to be +noted is the same perfectly serious pushing of the dramatic commonplaces +to an absurd conclusion. There is the same kind of humor too, and the +same girding at the stock tricks of stage-craft--in _H.M.S. Pinafore_ at +the swapping of children in the cradle, and in _Tricoche et Cacolet_ at +the "portrait de ma mere" which has drawn so many tears in modern +melodrama. But MM. Meilhac and Halevy, having made one success, did not +further attempt the same kind of pleasantry--wiser in this than Mr. +Gilbert, who seems to find it hard to write anything else. + +As in the _Chateau a Toto_ MM. Meilhac and Halevy had made a modern +perversion of _Dame Blanche_, so in _La Cigale_ did they dress up afresh +the story of the _Fille du R'egiment_. As the poet asks-- + + Ah, World of ours, are you so gray, + And weary, World, of spinning, + That you repeat the tales to-day + You told at the beginning? + For lo! the same old myths that made + The early stage-successes + Still hold the boards, and still are played + With new effects and dresses. + +I have cited _La Cigale_, not because it is a very good play--for it is +not--but because it shows the present carelessness of French +dramatists in regard to dramatic construction. _La Cigale_ is a very +clever bit of work, but it has the slightest of plots, and this made out +of old cloth; and the situations, in so far as there are any, follow +each other as best they may. It is not really a play: it is a mere +sketch touched up with Parisianisms, "local hits" and the wit of the +moment. This substitution of an off-hand sketch for a full-sized picture +can better be borne in a little one-act play than in a more ambitious +work in three or four acts. + +And of one-act plays Meilhac and Halevy have written a score or +more--delightful little _genre_ pictures, like the _Ete de +Saint-Martin_, simple pastels, like _Toto chez Tata_, and vigorous +caricatures, like the _Photographe_ or the _Bresilien_. The Frenchman +invented the ruffle, says Emerson: the Englishman added the shirt. These +little dramatic trifles are French ruffles. In the beginning of his +theatrical career M. Meilhac did little comedies like the _Sarabande_ +and the _Autographe_, in the Scribe formula--dramatized anecdotes, but +fresher in wit and livelier in fancy than Scribe's. This early work was +far more regular than we find in some of his latest, bright as these +are: the _Petit Hotel_, for instance, and _Lolotte_ are etchings, as it +were, instantaneous photographs of certain aspects of life in the city +by the Seine or stray paragraphs of the latest news from Paris. + +It is perhaps not too much to say that Meilhac and Halevy are seen at +their best in these one-act plays. They hit better with a single-barrel +than with a revolver. In their five-act plays, whether serious like +_Fanny Lear_ or comic like _La Vie Parisienne_, the interest is +scattered, and we have a series of episodes rather than a single story. +Just as the egg of the jelly-fish is girt by circles which tighten +slowly until the ovoid form is cut into disks of independent life, so if +the four intermissions of some of Meilhac and Halevy's full-sized plays +were but a little longer and wider and deeper they would divide the +piece into five separate plays, any one of which could fairly hope for +success by itself. I have heard that the _Roi Candaule_ was originally +an act of _La Boule_, and the _Photographe_ seems as though it had +dropped from _La Vie Parisienne_ by mistake. In M. Meilhac's earlier +five-act plays, the _Vertu de Celimene_ and the _Petit fils de +Mascarille_, there is great power of conception, a real grip on +character, but the main action is clogged with tardy incidents, and so +the momentum is lost. In these comedies the influence of the new school +of Alexandre Dumas _fils_ is plainly visible. And the inclination toward +the strong, not to say violent, emotions which Dumas and Angier had +imported into comedy is still more evident in _Fanny Lear_, the first +five-act comedy which Meilhac and Halevy wrote together, and which was +brought out in 1868. The final situation is one of truth and immense +effectiveness, and there is great vigor in the creation of character. +The decrepit old rake, the Marquis de Noriolis, feeble in his folly and +wandering in helplessness, but irresistible when aroused, is a striking +figure; and still more striking is the portrait of his wife, now the +Marquise de Noriolis, but once Fanny Lear the adventuress--a woman who +has youth, beauty, wealth, everything before her, if it were not for the +shame which is behind her: gay and witty, and even good-humored, she is +inflexible when she is determined; hers is a velvet manner and an iron +will. The name of Fanny Lear may sound familiar to some readers because +it was given to an American adventuress in Russia by a grand-ducal +admirer. + +After _Fanny Lear_ came _Froufrou_, the lineal successor of _The +Stranger_ as the current masterpiece of the lachrymatory drama. Nothing +so tear-compelling as the final act of _Froufrou_ had been seen on the +stage for half a century or more. The death of Froufrou was a watery +sight, and for any chance to weep we are many of us grateful. And yet it +was a German, born in the land of Charlotte and Werther,--it was Heine +who remarked on the oddity of praising the "dramatic poet who possesses +the art of drawing tears--a talent which he has in common with the +meanest onion." It is noteworthy that it was by way of Germany that +English tragedy exerted its singular influence on French comedy. +Attracted by the homely power of pieces like _The Gamester_ and _Jane +Shore_, Diderot in France and Lessing in Germany attempted the _tragedie +bourgeoise_, but the right of the "tradesmen's tragedies"--as Goldsmith +called them--to exist at all was questioned until Kotzebue's pathetic +power and theatrical skill captured nearly every stage in Europe. In +France the bastard offspring of English tragedy and German drama gave +birth to an equally illegitimate _comedie larmoyante_. And so it happens +that while comedy in English literature, resulting from the clash of +character, is always on the brink of farce, comedy in French literature +may be tinged with passion until it almost turns to tragedy. In France +the word "comedy" is elastic and covers a multitude of sins: it includes +the laughing _Boule_ and the tearful _Froufrou_: in fact, the French +Melpomene is a sort of _Jeanne qui pleure et Jeanne qui rit_. + +So it happens that _Froufrou_ is a comedy. And indeed the first three +acts are comedy of a very high order, full of wit and rich in character. +I mentioned _The Stranger_ a few lines back, and the contrast of the +two plays shows how much lighter and more delicate French art is. The +humor to be found in _The Stranger_ is, to say the least, Teutonic; and +German humor is like the simple Italian wines: it will not stand export. +And in _The Stranger_ there is really no character, no insight into +human nature. _Misanthropy and Repentance_, as Kotzebue called his play +(_The Stranger_ was Sheridan's title for the English translation he +revised for his own theatre), are loud-sounding words when we capitalize +them, but they do not deceive us now: we see that the play itself is +mostly stalking sententiousness, mawkishly overladen with gush. But in +_Froufrou_ there is wit of the latest Parisian kind, and there are +characters--people whom we might meet and whom we may remember. Brigard, +for one, the reprobate old gentleman, living even in his old age in that +Bohemia which has Paris for its capital, and dyeing his few locks +because he feels himself unworthy to wear gray hair,--Brigard is a +portrait from life. The Baron de Cambri is less individual, and I +confess I cannot quite stomach a gentleman who is willing to discuss the +problem of his wife's virtue with a chance adorer. But the cold Baronne +herself is no commonplace person. And Louise, the elder daughter of +Froufrou, the one who had chosen the better part and had kept it by much +self-sacrifice,--she is a true woman. Best, better even than Brigard, is +Gilberte, nicknamed "Froufrou" from the rustling of her silks as she +skips and scampers airily around. Froufrou, when all is said, is a real +creation, a revelation of Parisian femininity, a living thing, breathing +the breath of life and tripping along lightly on her own little feet. +Marrying a reserved yet deeply-devoted husband because her sister bid +her; taking into her home that sister, who had sacrificed her own love +for the husband; seeing this sister straighten the household which she +in her heedless seeking for idle amusement had not governed, then +beginning to feel herself in danger and aware of a growing jealousy, +senseless though it be, of the sister who has so innocently supplanted +her by her hearth, and even with her child; making one effort to regain +her place, and failing, as was inevitable,--poor Froufrou takes the +fatal plunge which will for ever and at once separate her from what was +hers before. What a fine scene is that at the end of the third act, in +which Froufrou has worked herself almost to a frenzy, and, hopeless in +her jealousy, gives up all to her sister and rushes from the house to +the lover she scarcely cares for! And how admirably does all that has +gone before lead up to it! These first three acts are a wonder of +constructive art. Of the rest of the play it is hard to speak so highly. +The change is rather sudden from the study of character in the first +part to the demand in the last that if you have tears you must prepare +to shed them now. The brightness is quenched in gloom and despair. Of a +verity, frivolity may be fatal, and death may follow a liking for +private theatricals and the other empty amusements of fashion; but is it +worth while to break a butterfly on the wheel and to put a humming-bird +to the question? To say what fate shall be meted out to the woman taken +in adultery is always a hard task for the dramatist. Here the erring and +erratic heroine comes home to be forgiven and to die, and so after the +fresh and unforced painting of modern Parisian life we have a finish +full of conventional pathos. Well, death redeems all, and, as Pascal +says, "the last act is always tragedy, whatever fine comedy there may +have been in the rest of life. We must all die alone." + +J. BRANDER MATTHEWS. + + + + +THE KING'S GIFTS. + + + Cyrus the king in royal mood + Portioned his gifts as seemed him good: + To Artabasus, proud to hold + The priceless boon, a cup of gold-- + A rare-wrought thing: its jewelled brim + Haloed a nectar sweet to him. + No flavor fine it seemed to miss; + But when the king stooped down, a kiss + To leave upon Chrysantas' lips, + The jewels paled in dull eclipse + To Artabasus: hard and cold + And empty grew the cup of gold. + "Better, O Sire, than mine," cried he, + "I deem Chrysantas' gift to be." + Yet the wise king his courtiers knew, + And unto each had given his due. + + To all who watch and all who wait + The king will come, or soon or late. + Choose well: thy secret wish is known, + And thou shalt surely have thine own-- + A golden cup thy poor wealth's sign, + Or on thy lips Love's seal divine. + + EMILY A. BRADDOCK. + + + + +BAUBIE WISHART. + + +"I have taken you at your word, you see, Miss Mackenzie. You told me not +to give alms in the street, and to bring the begging children to you. So +here is one now." + +Thus introduced, the begging child was pushed forward into the room by +the speaker, a lady who was holding her by one shoulder. + +She was a stunted, slim creature, that might have been any age from nine +to fourteen, barefooted and bareheaded, and wearing a Rob Roy tartan +frock. She entered in a sidelong way that was at once timid and +confidently independent, and stared all round her with a pair of large +brown eyes. She did not seem to be in the least frightened, and when +released by her guardian stood at ease comfortably on one foot, tucking +the other away out of sight among the not too voluminous folds of her +frock. + +It was close on twelve o'clock of a March day in the poor sewing-women's +workroom in Drummond street. The average number of women of the usual +sort were collected together--a depressed and silent gathering. It +seemed as if the bitter east wind had dulled and chilled them into a +grayer monotony of look than usual, so that they might be in harmony +with the general aspect which things without had assumed at its grim +bidding. A score or so of wan faces looked up for a minute, but the +child, after all, had nothing in her appearance that was calculated to +repay attention, and the lady was known to them all. So "white seam" +reasserted its old authority without much delay. + +Miss Mackenzie laid down the scissors which she had been using on a bit +of coarse cotton, and advanced in reply to the address of the newcomer. +"How do you do? and where did you pick up this creature?" she asked, +looking curiously at the importation. + +"Near George IV. Bridge, on this side of it, and I just took hold of her +and brought her off to you at once. I don't believe"--this was said +_sotto voce_--"that she has a particle of clothing on her but that +frock." + +"Very likely.--What is your name, my child?" + +"Baubie Wishart, mem." She spoke in an apologetic tone, glancing down at +her feet, the one off duty being lowered for the purpose of inspection, +which over, she hoisted the foot again immediately into the recesses of +the Rob Roy tartan. + +"Have you a father and mother?" + +"Yes, mem." + +"What does your father do?" + +Baubie Wishart glanced down again in thought for an instant, then raised +her eyes for the first time directly to her questioner's face: "He used +to be a Christy man, but he canna be that any longer, sae he goes wi' +boords." + +"Why cannot he be a Christy man any longer?" + +Down came the foot once more, and this time took up its position +permanently beside the other: "Because mother drinks awfu', an' pawned +the banjo for drink." This family history was related in the most +matter-of-fact, natural way. + +"And does your father drink too?" asked Miss Mackenzie after a short +pause. + +Baubie Wishart's eyes wandered all round the room, and with one toe she +swept up a little mass of dust before she answered in a voice every tone +of which spoke unwilling truthfulness, "Just whiles--Saturday nichts." + +"Is _he_ kind to you?" + +"Ay," looking up quickly, "excep' just whiles when he's fou--Saturday +nichts, ye ken--and then he beats me; but he's rale kind when he's +sober." + +"Were you ever at school?" + +"No, mem," with a shake of the head that seemed to convey that she had +something else, and probably better, to do. + +"Did you ever hear of God?" asked the lady who had brought her. + +"Ay, mem," answered Baubie quite readily: "it's a kind of a bad word I +hear in the streets." + +"How old are you?" asked both ladies simultaneously. + +"Thirteen past," replied Baubie, with a promptness that made her +listeners smile, suggesting as it did the thought that the question had +been put to her before, and that Baubie knew well the import of her +answer. + +She grew more communicative now. She could not read, but, all the same, +she knew two songs which she sang in the streets--"Before the Battle" +and "After the Battle;" and, carried away by the thought of her own +powers, she actually began to give proof of her assertion by reciting +one of them there and then. This, however, was stopped at once. "Can +knit too," she added then. + +"Who taught you to knit?" + +"Don' know. Wis at a Sunday-schuil too." + +"Oh, you were? And what did you learn there?" + +Baubie Wishart looked puzzled, consulted her toes in vain, and then +finally gave it up. + +"I should like to do something for her," observed her first friend: "it +is time this street-singing came to an end." + +"She is intelligent, clearly," said Miss Mackenzie, looking curiously at +the child, whose appearance and bearing rather puzzled her. There was +not a particle of the professional street-singer about Baubie Wishart, +the child of that species being generally clean-washed, or at least +soapy, of face, with lank, smooth-combed and greasy hair; and usually, +too, with a smug, sanctimonious air of meriting a better fate. Baubie +Wishart presented none of these characteristics: her face was simply +filthy; her hair was a red-brown, loosened tangle that reminded one +painfully of oakum in its first stage. And she looked as if she deserved +a whipping, and defied it too. She was just a female arab--an arab +_plus_ an accomplishment--bright, quick and inconsequent as a sparrow, +and reeking of the streets and gutters, which had been her nursery. + +"Yes," continued the good lady, "I must look after her." + +"Poor little atom! I suppose you will find out where the parents live, +and send the school-board officer to them. That is the usual thing, is +it not? I must go, Miss Mackenzie. Good-bye for to-day. And do tell me +what you settle for her." + +Miss Mackenzie promised, and her friend took her departure. + +"Go and sit by the fire, Baubie Wishart, for a little, and then I shall +be ready to talk to you." + +Nothing loath apparently, Baubie established herself at the end of the +fender, and from that coign of vantage watched the on-goings about her +with the stoicism of a red Indian. She showed no symptom of wonder at +anything, and listened to the disquisitions of Miss Mackenzie and the +matron as to the proper adjustment of parts--"bias," "straights," +"gathers," "fells," "gussets" and "seams," a whole new language as it +unrolled its complexities before her--with complacent indifference. + +At last, all the web of cotton being cut up, the time came to go. Miss +Mackenzie buttoned up her sealskin coat, and pulling on a pair of warm +gloves beckoned Baubie, who rose with alacrity: "Where do your father +and mother live?" + +"Kennedy's Lodgings, in the Gressmarket, mem." + +"I know the place," observed Miss Mackenzie, to whom, indeed, most of +these haunts were familiar. "Take me there now, Baubie." + +They set out together. Baubie trotted in front, turning her head, +dog-fashion, at every corner to see if she were followed. They reached +the Grassmarket at last, and close to the corner of the West Bow found +an entry with the whitewashed inscription above it, "Kennedy's +Lodgings." Baubie glanced round to see if her friend was near, then +vanished upward from her sight. Miss Mackenzie kilted her dress and +began the ascent of the stairs, the steps of which, hollowed out as they +were by the tread of centuries of human feet, afforded a not too safe +footing. + +Arrived at the third floor, she found Baubie waiting for her, +breathless and panting. + +"It's here," she said--"the big kitchen, mem." + +A long, narrow passage lay before them, off which doors opened on all +sides. Precipitating herself at one of these doors, Baubie Wishart, who +could barely reach the latch, pushed it open, giving egress to a +confusion of noises, which seemed to float above a smell of cooking, in +which smell herrings and onions contended for the mastery. + +It was a very large room, low-ceilinged, but well enough lighted by a +couple of windows, which looked into a close behind. The walls had been +whitewashed once upon a time, but the whitewash was almost lost to view +under the decorations with which it was overlaid. These consisted of +pictures cut out of the illustrated weekly papers or milliners' books. +All sorts of subjects were represented: fashion-plates hung side by side +with popular preachers and statesmen, race-horses and Roman Catholic +saints; red-and white-draped Madonnas elbowed the "full-dress" heroines +of the penny weeklies. It was a curious gallery, and a good many of the +works of art had the merit of being antique. Generations of flies had +emblazoned their deeds of prowess on the papers: streaks of +candle-grease bore witness to the inquiring turn of mind, attracted by +the letter-press, or the artistic proclivities of Kennedy's lodgers. It +was about two, the dinner-hour probably, which accounted for the +presence of so many people in the room. Most, but not all, seemed to be +of the wandering class. They were variously employed. Some were sitting +on the truckle-beds that ran round the walls; one or two were knitting +or sewing; a cripple was mending baskets in one of the windows; and +about the fire a group were collected superintending the operations +which produced, though not unaided, the odors with which the room was +reeking. + +Miss Mackenzie stood for a few minutes, unnoticed apparently, looking +about her at the motley crowd. Baubie on entering the room had raised +herself for a second on tiptoe to look into a distant corner, and then, +remarking to herself, half audibly, "His boords is gane," subsided, and +contented herself with watching Miss Mackenzie's movements. + +There seemed to be no one to do the honors. The inmates all looked at +each other for a moment hesitatingly, then resumed their various +occupations. A young woman, a sickly, livid-faced creature, rose from +her place behind the door, and, advancing with a halting step, said to +Miss Mackenzie, "Mistress Kennedy's no' in, an' Wishart's oot wi's +boords." + +"I wanted to see him about this child, who was found begging in the +streets to-day." + +Miss Mackenzie looked curiously at the woman, wondering if she could +belong in any way to the Wishart family. She was a miserable object, +seemingly in the last stage of consumption. + +"Eh, mem," she answered hurriedly, and drawing nearer, "ye're a guid +leddy, I ken, an' tak' t' lassie away oot o' this. The mither's an awfu' +wuman: tak' her away wi' ye, or she'll sune be as bad. She'll be like +mysel' and the rest o' them here." + +"I will, I will," Miss Mackenzie said, shocked and startled, recoiling +before the spirit-reeking breath of this warning spectre. "I will, I +will," she repeated hastily. There was no use remaining any longer. She +went out, beckoning to Baubie, who was busy rummaging about a bed at the +top of the room. + +Baubie had bethought her that it was time to take her father his dinner. +So she slipped over to that corner of the big kitchen which was allotted +to the Wishart family and possessed herself of a piece of a loaf which +was hidden away there. As she passed by the fire she profited by the +momentary abstraction of the people who were cooking to snap up and make +her own a brace of unconsidered trifles in the shape of onions which +were lying near them. These, with the piece of bread, she concealed on +her person, and then returned to Miss Mackenzie, who was now in the +passage. + +"Baubie," said that lady, "I will send some one here about you. Now, +don't let me hear of your singing in the streets or begging again. You +will get into trouble if you do." + +She was descending the stairs as she spoke, and she turned round when +she had reached the entry: "You know the police will take you, Baubie." + +"Yes, mem," answered Baubie, duly impressed. + +"Well, now, I am going home. Stay: are you hungry?" + +Without waiting for her answer, Miss Mackenzie entered a tiny shop close +by, purchased a mutton-pie and handed it to Baubie Wishart, who received +it with wondering reverence. Miss Mackenzie took her way home westward +up the Grassmarket. She turned round before leaving it by way of King's +Stables, and caught sight of Bauble's frock by the entry of Kennedy's +Lodgings--a tiny morsel of color against the shadow of the huge gray +houses. She thought of the big kitchen and its occupants, and the face +and words of the poor girl, and promised herself that she would send the +school-board officer to Kennedy's Lodgings that very night. + +Baubie waited till her friend was well out of sight: then she hid her +mutton-pie in the same place with the onions and the piece of bread, and +started up the Grassmarket in her turn. She stopped at the first shop +she passed and bought a pennyworth of cheese. Then she made her way to +the Lothian road, and looked up and down it anxiously in search of the +walking advertisement-man. He was not there, so she directed her course +toward Princes street, and after promenading it as far east as the +Mound, she turned up into George street, and caught sight of her father +walking along slowly by the curbstone. It was not long before she +overtook him. + +"Od, lassie, I wis thinkin' lang," he began wearily as soon as he +realized her apparition. Baubie did not wait for him to finish: with a +peremptory nod she signified her will, and he turned round and followed +her a little way down Hanover street. Then Baubie selected a flight of +steps leading to a basement store, and throwing him a look of command +flitted down and seated herself at the bottom. It was sheltered from +the cold wind and not too much overlooked. Wishart shifted the boards +from about his shoulders, and, following her, laid them against the wall +at the side of the basement-steps, and sat down heavily beside her. He +was a sickly-looking man, sandy-haired, with a depressed and shifty +expression of face--not vicious, but weak and vacillating. Baubie seemed +to have the upper hand altogether: every gesture showed it. She opened +the paper that was wrapped about her fragment of rank yellow cheese, +laid it down on the step between them, and then produced, in their order +of precedence, the pie, the onions and the bread. + +"Wha gied ye that?" asked Wishart, gazing at the mutton-pie. + +"A leddy," replied Baubie, concisely. + +"An' they?" pointing to the onions. + +A nod was all the answer, for Baubie, who was hungry, was busy breaking +the piece of loaf. Wishart with great care divided the pie without +spilling much more than half its gravy, and began on his half of it and +the biggest onion simultaneously. Baubie ate up her share of pie, +declined cheese, and attacked her onion and a great piece of crust. The +crust was very tough, and after the mutton-pie rather dry and tasteless, +and she laid it down presently in her lap, and after a few minutes' +passive silence began: "That," nodding at the cheese, or what was left +of it rather, "wis all I got--ae penny. The leddy took me up till a +hoose, an' anither are that wis there came doon hame and gaed in ben, +an' wis speirin' for ye, an' says she'll gie me till the polis for +singin' an' askin' money in t' streets, an' wants you to gie me till her +to pit in schuil." + +She stopped and fixed her eyes on him, watching the effect of her words. +Wishart laid down his bread and cheese and stared back at her. It seemed +to take some time for his brain to realize all the meaning of her +pregnant speech. + +"Ay," he said after a while, and with an effort, "I maun tak' ye to +Glasgae, to yer aunt. Ye'll be pit in schuil if yer caught." + +"I'll no bide," observed Baubie, finishing off her onion with a +grimace. The raw onion was indeed strong and hot, even for Bauble's not +too epicurean palate, but it had been got for nothing--a circumstance +from which it derived a flavor which many people more dainty than Bauble +Wishart find to be extremely appetizing. + +"Bide!" echoed her father: "they'll mak' ye bide. Gin I had only the +banjo agen!" sighed the whilom Christy man, getting up and preparing to +adjust the boards once more. + +The last crumb of the loaf was done, and Bauble, refreshed, got up too. +"Whenll ye be hame?" she questioned abruptly when they had reached the +top of the steps. + +"Seven. Gaeway hame wi' ye, lassie, noo. Ye didna see _her_?" he +questioned as he walked off. + +"Na," replied Bauble, standing still and looking about her as if to +choose which way she should take. + +He sighed deeply, and moved off slowly on his way back to his post, with +the listless, hopeless air that seems to belong to the members of his +calling. + +Bauble obeyed her parent's commands in so far as that she did go home, +but as she took Punch and Judy in her course up the Mound, and diverged +as far as a football match in the Meadows, it was nearly seven before +Kennedy's Lodgings saw her again. + +The following morning, shortly after breakfast, Miss Mackenzie's butler +informed her that there was a child who wanted to speak with her in the +hall. On going down she found Bauble Wishart on the mat. + +"Where is your father? and why did he not come with you?" asked Miss +Mackenzie, puzzled. + +"He thoucht shame to come an' speak wi' a fine leddy like you." This +excuse, plausible enough, was uttered in a low voice and with downcast +eyes, but hardly was it pronounced when she burst out rapidly and +breathlessly into what was clearly the main object of her visit: "But +please, mem, he says he'll gie me to you if ye'll gie him the three +shillin's to tak' the banjo oot o' the pawn." + +This candid proposal took Miss Mackenzie's breath away. To become the +owner of Baubie Wishart, even at so low a price, seemed to her rather a +heathenish proceeding, with a flavor of illegality about it to boot. +There was a vacancy at the home for little girls which might be made +available for the little wretch without the necessity of any preliminary +of this kind; and it did not occur to her that it was a matter of any +moment whether Mr. Wishart continued to exercise the role of +"sandwich-man" or returned to his normal profession of banjo-player. +Baubie was to be got hold of in any case. With the muttered adjuration +of the wretched girl in Kennedy's Lodgings echoing in her ears, Miss +Mackenzie determined that she should be left no longer than could be +helped in that company. + +How earnest and matter of fact she was in delivering her extraordinary +errand! thought Miss Mackenzie to herself, meeting the eager gaze of +Baubie Wishart's eyes, looking out from beneath her tangle of hair like +those of a Skye terrier. + +"I will speak to your father myself, Baubie--tell him so--to-morrow, +perhaps: tell him I mean to settle about you myself. Now go." + +The least possible flicker of disappointment passed over Baubie's face. +The tangled head drooped for an instant, then she bobbed by way of adieu +and vanished. + +That day and the next passed before Miss Mackenzie found it possible to +pay her long-promised visit to Mr. Wishart, and when, about eleven in +the forenoon, she once more entered the big kitchen in Kennedy's +Lodgings, she was greeted with the startling intelligence that the whole +Wishart family were in prison. + +The room was as full as before. Six women were sitting in the middle of +the floor teasing out an old hair mattress. There was the same odor of +cooking, early as it was, and the same medley of noises, but the people +were different. The basket-making cripple was gone, and in his place by +the window sat a big Irish beggar-woman, who was keeping up a +conversation with some one (a compatriot evidently) in a window of the +close behind. + +The mistress of the house came forward. She was a decent-looking little +woman, but had rather a hard face, expressive of care and anxiety. On +recognizing her visitor she curtsied: "The Wisharts, mem? Yes, they're +a' in jail." + +"All in jail?" echoed Miss Mackenzie. "Will you come outside and speak +to me? There are so many people--" + +"Eh yes, mem: I'm sure ye fin' the room closs. Eh yes, mem, the Wisharts +are a' in the lock-up." + +They were standing outside in the passage, and Mrs. Kennedy held the +door closed by the latch, which she kept firmly grasped in her hand. It +struck Miss Mackenzie as being an odd way to secure privacy for a +privileged communication, to fasten the door of their room upon those +inside. It was expressive, however. + +"Ye see, mem," began the landlady, "Wishart's no a very bad man--jist +weak in the heid like--but's wife is jist something awfu', an' I could +not let her bide in a decent lodging-house. We hae to dra' the line +somewhere, and I dra' it low enough, but she wis far below that. Eh, +she's jist terrible! Wishart has a sister in Glasgae verra weel to do, +an' I h'ard him say he'd gie the lassie to her if it wer na for the +wife. The day the school-board gentleman wis here she came back: she'd +been away, ye ken, and she said she'd become a t'otaller, an' so I sed +she micht stay; but, ye see, when nicht came on she an' Wishart gaed out +thegither, an' jist to celebrate their bein' frien's again she an' him +gaed intil a public, an' she got uproarious drunk, an' the polis took +her up. Wishart wis no sae bad, sae they let him come hame; but, ye see, +he had tasted the drink, an' wanted mair, an' he hadna ony money. Ye +see, he'd promised the gentleman who came here that he widna send Baubie +oot to sing again. But he _did_ send her oot then to sing for money for +him, an' the polis had been put to watch her, an' saw her beg, an' took +her up to the office, an' came back here for Wishart. An' so before the +day was dune they were a' lockit up thegither." + +Such was the story related to Miss Mackenzie. What was to be done with +Baubie now? It was hardly fair that she should be sent to a reformatory +among criminal children. She had committed no crime, and there was that +empty bed at the home for little girls. She determined to attend the +sheriff-court on Monday morning and ask to be given the custody of +Baubie. + +When Monday morning came, ten o'clock saw Miss Mackenzie established in +a seat immediately below the sheriff's high bench. The Wisharts were +among the first batch tried, and made their appearance from a side-door. +Mrs. Wishart came first, stepping along with a resolute, brazen bearing +that contrasted with her husband's timid, shuffling gait. She was a +gypsy-looking woman, with wandering, defiant black eyes, and her red +face had the sign-manual of vice stamped upon it. After her came Baubie, +a red-tartan-covered mite, shrinking back and keeping as close to her +father as she could. Baubie had favored her mother as to complexion: +that was plain. The top of her rough head and her wild brown eyes were +just visible over the panel as she stared round her, taking in with +composure and astuteness everything that was going on. She was the most +self-possessed of her party, for under Mrs. Wishart's active brazenness +there could easily be seen fear and a certain measure of remorse hiding +themselves; and Wishart seemed to be but one remove from imbecility. + +The charges were read with a running commentary of bad language from +Mrs. Wishart as her offences were detailed; Wishart blinked in a +helpless, pathetic way; Baubie, who seemed to consider herself as +associated with him alone in the charge, assumed an air of indifference +and sucked her thumb, meantime watching Miss Mackenzie furtively. She +felt puzzled to account for her presence there, but it never entered her +head to connect that fact with herself in any way. + +"Guilty or not guilty?" asked the sheriff-clerk. + +"There's a kin' lady in coort," stammered Wishart, "an' she kens a' +aboot it." + +"Guilty or not guilty?" reiterated the clerk: "this is not the time to +speak." "She kens it a', an' she wis to tak' the lassie." + +"Guilty or not guilty? You must plead, and you can say what you like +afterward." Wishart stopped, not without an appealing look at the kind +lady, and pleaded guilty meekly. A policeman with a scratched face and +one hand plastered up testified to the extravagances Mrs. Wishart had +committed on the strength of her conversion to teetotal principles. + +Baubic heard it all impassively, her face only betraying anything like +keen interest while the police-officer was detailing his injuries. Three +months' imprisonment was the sentence on Margaret Mactear or Wishart. +Then Wishart's sentence was pronounced--sixty days. + +He and Baubie drew nearer to each other, Wishart with a despairing, +helpless look. Baubie's eyes looked like those of a hare taken in a gin. +Not one word had been said about her. She was not to go with her father. +What was to become of her? She was not long left in doubt as to her +fate. + +"I will take the child, sheriff," said Miss Mackenzie eagerly and +anxiously. "I came here purposely to offer her a home in the refuge." + +"Policeman, hand over the child to this lady at once," said the +sheriff.-- + +"Nothing could be better, Miss Mackenzie. It is very good of you to +volunteer to take charge of her." + +Mrs. Wishart disappeared with a parting volley of blasphemy; her +husband, casting, as he went, a wistful look at Miss Mackenzie, shambled +fecklessly after the partner of his joys and sorrows; and the child +remained alone behind. The policeman took her by an arm and drew her +forward to make room for a fresh consignment of wickedness from the +cells at the side. Baubie breathed a short sigh as the door closed upon +her parents, shook back her hair, and looked up at Miss Mackenzie, as if +to announce her readiness and good will. Not one vestige of her internal +mental attitude could be gathered from her sun-and wind-beaten little +countenance. There was no rebelliousness, neither was there guilt. One +would almost have thought she had been told beforehand what was to +happen, so cool and collected was she. + +"Now, Baubie, I am going to take you home. Come, child." + +Pleased with her success, Miss Mackenzie, so speaking, took the little +waif's hand and led her out of the police-court into the High street. +She hardly dared to conjecture that it was Baubie Wishart's first visit +to that place, but as she stood on the entrance-steps and shook out her +skirts with a sense of relief, she breathed a sincere hope that it might +be the child's last. + +A cab was waiting. Baubie, to her intense delight and no less +astonishment, was requested to occupy the front seat. Miss Mackenzie +gave the driver his order and got in, facing the red tartan bundle. + +"Were you ever in a cab before?" asked Miss Mackenzie. + +"Na, niver," replied Baubie in a rapt tone and without looking at her +questioner, so intent was she on staring out of the windows, between +both of which she divided her attention impartially. + +They were driving down the Mound, and the outlook, usually so +far-reaching from that vantage-ground, was bounded by a thick sea-fog +that the east wind was carrying up from the Forth and dispensing with +lavish hands on all sides. The buildings had a grim, black look, as if a +premature old age had come upon them, and the black pinnacles of the +Monument stood out sharply defined in clear-cut, harsh distinctness +against the floating gray background. There were not many people +stirring in the streets. It was a depressing atmosphere, and Miss +Mackenzie observed before long that Baubie either seemed to have become +influenced by it or that the novelty of the cab-ride had worn off +completely. They crossed the Water of Leith, worn to a mere brown thread +owing to the long drought, by Stockbridge street bridge, and a few yards +from it found themselves before a gray stone house separated from the +street by a grass-plot surrounded by a stone wall: inside the wall grew +chestnut and poplar trees, which in summer must have shaded the place +agreeably, but which this day, in the cold gray mist, seemed almost +funereal in their gloomy blackness. The gate was opened from within the +wall as soon as Miss Mackenzie rang, and she and Baubie walked up the +little flagged path together. As the gate clanged to behind them Baubie +looked back involuntarily and sighed. + +"Don't fear, lassie," said her guide: "they will be very kind to you +here. And it will be just a good home for you." + +It may be questioned whether this promise of a good home awoke any +pleasing associations or carried with it any definite meaning to Baubie +Wishart's mind. She glanced up as if to show that she understood, but +her eyes turned then and rested on the square front of the little +old-fashioned gray house with its six staring windows and its front +circumscribed by the wall and the black poplars and naked chestnuts, and +she choked down another sigh. + +"Now, Mrs. Duncan," Miss Mackenzie was saying to a comfortably-dressed +elderly woman, "here's your new girl, Baubie Wishart." + +"Eh, ye've been successful then, Miss Mackenzie?" + +"Oh dear, yes: the sheriff made no objection. And now, Mrs. Duncan, I +hope she will be a good girl and give you no trouble.--Come here, +Baubie, and promise me to do everything you are told and obey Mrs. +Duncan in everything." + +"Yes, mem," answered Bauble reverently, almost solemnly. + +There seemed to be no necessity for further exhortation. Baubie's +demeanor promised everything that was hoped for or wanted, and, +perfectly contented, Miss Mackenzie turned her attention to the minor +details of wardrobe, etc.: "That frock is good enough if it were washed. +She must get shoes and stockings; and then underwear, too, of some sort +will be wanted." + +"That will it," responded the matron; "but I had better send her at +once to get a bath." + +A big girl was summoned from a back room and desired to get ready a tub. +It was the ceremony customary at the reception of a neophyte--customary, +and in general very necessary too. + +Baubie's countenance fell lower still on hearing this, and she blinked +both eyes deprecatingly. Nevertheless, when the big girl--whom they +called Kate--returned, bringing with her a warm whiff of steam and soap, +she trotted after her obediently and silently. + +After a while the door opened, and Kate's yellow head appeared. "Speak +with ye, mem?" she said. "I hae her washen noo, but what for claes?" + +"Eh yes.--Miss Mackenzie, we can't put her back into those dirty +clothes." + +"Oh no.--I'll come and look at her clothes, Kate." As she spoke Miss +Mackenzie rose and followed the matron and Kate into a sort of kitchen +or laundry. + +In the middle of the floor was a tub containing Miss Wishart mid-deep in +soapsuds. Her thick hair was all soaking, and clung fast to her head: +dripping locks hung clown over her eyes, which looked out through the +tangle patient and suffering. She glanced up quickly as Miss Mackenzie +came in, and then resigned herself passively into Kate's hands, who with +a piece of flannel had resumed the scrubbing process. + +Miss Mackenzie was thinking to herself that it was possibly Baubie +Wishart's first experience of the kind, when she observed the child +wince as if she were hurt. + +"It's yon' as hurts her," said Kate, calling the matron's attention to +something on the child's shoulders. They both stooped and saw a long +blue-and-red mark--a bruise all across her back. Nor was this the only +evidence of ill-treatment: other bruises, and even scars, were to be +seen on the lean little body. + +"Puir thing!" said the matron in a low tone, sympathizingly. + +"Baubie, who gave you that bruise?" asked Miss Mackenzie. + +No answer from Baubie, who seemed to be absorbed in watching the drops +running off the end of her little red nose, which played the part of a +gargoyle to the rest of her face. + +Miss Mackenzie repeated the question, sternly almost: "Bauble Wishart, I +insist upon knowing who gave you that bruise." + +"A didna gie't to mysel', mem." was the answer from the figure in the +soapsuds. There was a half sob in the voice as of terror, and her manner +had all the appearance of ingenuousness. + +The matron and Miss Mackenzie looked at each other significantly, and +agreed tacitly that there was no use in pushing the question. + +"Od!" said Kate, who had paused in the act of taking a warm towel from +the fireplace to listen, "a'body kens ye didna gie it till yoursel', +lassie." + +"Where are her clothes?" said the matron. "Oh, here. Yon frock's good +enough if it was washed; but, losh me! just look at these for clothes!" +She was exhibiting some indescribable rags as she spoke. + +"Kate," said Miss Mackenzie, "dress her in the lassie Grant's clothes: +they are the most likely to fit her. Don't lose time: I want to see her +again before I go." + +Kate fished up her charge, all smoking, from the soapsuds and rubbed her +down before the fire. Then the tangled wet hair was parted evenly and +smoothed into dark locks on either side of her face. Raiment clean, but +the coarsest of the coarse, was found for her. A brown wincey dress +surmounted all. Shoes and stockings came last of all, probably in the +order of importance assigned to them by Kate. + +From the arm-chair of the matron's sitting-room Miss Mackenzie surveyed +her charge with satisfaction. Baubie looked subdued, contented, perhaps +grateful, and was decidedly uncomfortable. Every vestige of the +picturesque was gone, obliterated clean by soap and water, and Kate's +hair-comb, a broken-toothed weapon that had come off second best in its +periodic conflicts with her own barley-mow, had disposed for ever of the +wild, curly tangle of hair. Her eyes had red rims to them, caused by +superfluous soap and water, and in its present barked condition, when +all the dirt was gone, Baubie's face had rather an interesting, wistful +expression. She seemed not to stand very steadily in her boots, which +were much too big for her. + +Miss Mackenzie surveyed her with great satisfaction. The brown wincey +and the coarse apron seemed to her the neophyte's robe, betokening +Baubie's conversion from arab nomadism to respectability and from a +vagabond trade to decorous industry. + +"Now, Baubie, you can knit: I mean to give you needles and worsted to +knit yourself stockings. Won't that be nice? I am sure you never knitted +stockings for yourself before." + +"Yes, mem," replied Baubie, shuffling her feet. + +"Now, what bed is she to get, Mrs. Duncan? Let us go up stairs and see +the dormitory." + +"I thought I would put her in the room with Kate: I changed the small +bed in there. If you will just step up stairs, Miss Mackenzie?" + +The party reached the dormitory by a narrow wooden staircase, the +whiteness of which testified to the scrubbing powers of Kate's red arms +and those of her compeers. All the windows were open, and the east wind +came in at its will, nippingly cold if airy. They passed through a +large, low-ceilinged room into a smaller one, in which were only four +beds: a small iron stretcher beside the window was pointed out as +Baubie's. Miss Mackenzie turned down the red-knitted coverlet and looked +at the blankets. They were perfectly clean, like everything else, and, +like everything else too, very coarse and very well worn. + +"This will do very nicely.--Baubie, this is to be your bed." + +Baubie, fresh from the lock-up and Kennedy's Lodgings, might have been +expected to show some trace of her sense of comparison, but not a +vestige of expression crossed her face: she looked up in civil +acknowledgment of having heard: that was all. + +"I shall look in again in the course of a week," announced Miss +Mackenzie.--"Good-bye, Baubie: do everything Mrs. Duncan tells you." + +With this valedictory Miss Mackenzie left the matron, and Kate attended +her down stairs; and Baubie was at last alone. + +She remained standing stock-still when they left her by the +bedside--when the door, shut by Kate, who went out last, hid them from +her view. She listened in a stupid kind of way to the feet tramping on +the bare boards of the outer dormitory and down the stairs: then all was +still, and Baubie Wishart, clean, clothed and separated from her father +for the first time in her life, was left alone to consider how she liked +"school." She felt cold and strange and lonely, and for about three +minutes' space she abandoned herself without reserve to the sensation. +Then the heavy shoes troubled her, and in a fit of anger and impatience +she suddenly began to unlace one. Some far-off sound startled her, and +with a furtive, timorous look at the door she fastened it up again. No +one came, but instead of returning to the boot she sprang to the window, +and, mounting the narrow sill, prepared to survey the domain that lay +below it. There was not much to see. The window looked out on the back +green, which was very much like the front, save that there was no +flagged walk. A few stunted poplars ran round the walls: the grass was +trodden nearly all off, and from wall to wall were stretched cords from +which fluttered a motley collection of linen hung out to dry. There was +no looking out of it. Baubie craned her adventurous small neck in all +directions. One side of the back green was overlooked by a +tenement-house; the other was guarded by the poplars and a low stone +wall; at the bottom was a dilapidated outhouse. The sky overhead was all +dull gray: a formless gray sea-mist hurried across it, driven by the +east wind, which found time as well to fill, as it passed, all the +fluttering garments on the line and swell them into ridiculous +travesties of the bodies they belonged to, tossing them the while with +high mockery into all manner of weird contortions. + +Baubie looked at them curiously, and wondered to herself how much they +would all pawn for--considerably more than three shillings no doubt. +She established that fact to her own satisfaction ere long, although she +was no great arithmetician, and she sighed as she built and demolished +an air-castle in her own mind. Though there was but little attraction +for her in the room, she was about to leave the window when her eye fell +on a large black cat crouched on the wall, employed in surveillance of +the linen or stalking sparrows or in deadly ambush for a hated rival. +Meeting Baubie's glance, he sat up and stared at her suspiciously with a +pair of round yellow, unwinking orbs. + +"Ki! ki! ki!" breathed Baubie discreetly. She felt lonely, and the cat +looked a comfortable big creature, and belonged to the house doubtless, +for he stared at her with an interested, questioning look. Presently he +moved. She repeated her invitation, whereon the cat slowly rose to his +feet, humped his back and yawned, then deliberately turned quite round, +facing the other way, and resumed his watchful attitude, his tail tucked +in and his ears folded back close, as if to give the cold wind as little +purchase as possible. Baubie felt snubbed and lonely, and drawing back +from the window she sat down on the edge of her bed to wait events. + +Accustomed as she was to excitement, the experiences of the last few +days were of a nature to affect even stronger nerves than hers, and the +unwonted bodily sensations caused by the bath and change of garments +seemed to intensify her consciousness of novelty and restraint. There +was another not very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had +not taken account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly +enough. It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the parting +from her father. Baubie herself would have been greatly puzzled had any +person designated her feelings by these names. There were many things in +that philosophy of the gutter in which Baubie Wishart was steeped to the +lips undreamt of by her. What she knew she knew thoroughly, but there +was much with which most children, even of her age and class in life, +are, it is to be hoped, familiar, of which Baubie Wishart was utterly +ignorant. Her circumstances were different from theirs--fortunately for +them; and amongst the poor, as with their betters, various conditions +breed various dispositions. Baubie was an outer barbarian and savage in +comparison with some children, although they perhaps went barefooted +also; but, like a savage too, she would have grown fat where they would +have starved. And this she knew well. + +Kate's yellow head, appearing at the door to summon her to dinner, put +an end to her gloomy reverie. And with this, her first meal, began +Baubie's acquaintance with the household of which she was to form an +integral portion from that hour. + +They gave her no housework to do. Mrs. Duncan, whom a very cursory +examination satisfied as to the benighted ignorance of this latest +addition to her flock, determined that Baubie should learn to read, +write and sew as expeditiously as might be. In order that she might +benefit by example, she was made to sit by the lassie Grant, the child +whose clothes had been lent to her, and her education began forthwith. + +It was tame work to Baubie, who did not love sitting still: "white seam" +was a vexation of spirit, and her knitting, in which she had beforehand +believed herself an adept, was found fault with. The lassie Grant, as +was pointed out to her, could knit more evenly and possessed a superior +method of "turning the heel." + +Baubie Wishart listened with outward calmness and seeming acquiescence +to the comparison instituted between herself and her neighbor. Inwardly, +however, she raged. What about knitting? Anybody could knit. She would +like to see the lassie Grant earn two shillings of a Saturday night +singing in the High street or the Lawnmarket. Baubie forgot in her flush +of triumphant recollection that there had always been somebody to take +the two shillings from her, and beat her and accuse her of malversation +and embezzlement into the bargain. Artist-like, she remembered her +triumphs only: she could earn two shillings by her braced of songs, and +for a minute, as she revelled in this proud consciousness, her face lost +its demure, watchful expression, and the old independent, confident +bearing reappeared. Baubie forgot also in her present well-nourished +condition the never-failing sensation of hunger that had gone hand in +hand with these departed glories. But even if she had remembered every +circumstance of her former life, and the privations and sufferings, she +would still have pined for its freedom. + +The consequence of her being well fed was simply that her mind was freed +from what is, after all, the besetting occupation of creatures like her, +and was therefore at liberty to bestow its undivided attention upon the +restraints and irksomeness of this new order of things. Her gypsy blood +began to stir in her: the charm of her old vagabond habits asserted +itself under the wincey frock and clean apron. To be commended for +knitting and sewing was no distinction worth talking about. What was it +compared with standing where the full glare of the blazing windows of +some public-house fell upon the Rob Roy tartan, with an admiring +audience gathered round and bawbees and commendations flying thick? She +never thought then, any more than now, of the cold wind or the day-long +hunger. It was no wonder that under the influence of these cherished +recollections "white seam" did not progress and the knitting never +attained to the finished evenness of the lassie Grant's performance. + +None the less, although she made no honest effort to equal this model +proposed for her example, did Baubie feel jealous and aggrieved. Her +nature recognized other possibilities of expression and other fields of +excellence beyond those afforded by the above-mentioned useful arts, and +she brooded over her arbitrary and forcedly inferior position with all +the intensity of a naturally masterful and passionate nature. It was all +the more unbearable because she had no real cause of complaint: had she +been oppressed or ill-treated in the slightest degree, or had anybody +else been unduly favored, there would have been a pretext for an +outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her discontent. But it was not so. +The matron dispensed even-handed justice and motherly kindness +impartially all round. And if the lassie Grant's excellences were +somewhat obtrusively contrasted with Baubie's shortcomings, it was +because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to +rouse thereby a spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any +pharisaical self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a +sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in the +refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair any +comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught Baubie. + +Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in the refuge, +when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise, called to inquire how her +_protegee_ was getting on. + +The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie. "She's just no +trouble--a quiet-like child. She knows just nothing, but I've set her +beside the lassie Grant, and I don't doubt but she'll do well yet; but +she is some dull," she added. + +"Are you happy, Baubie?" asked Miss Mackenzie. "Will you try and learn +everything like 'Lisbeth Grant? See how well she sews, and she is no +older than you." + +"Ay, mem," responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up. She was +still wearing 'Lisbeth Grant's frock and apron, and the garments gave +her that odd look of their real owner which clothes so often have the +power of conveying. Baubie's slim figure had caught the flat-backed, +square-shoulder form of her little neighbor, and her face, between the +smooth-laid bands of her hair, seemed to have assumed the same +gravely-respectable air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the +time, could they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed +lips and studied pose. + +That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance from the +wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and shrunken in size, as +was the nature of its material for one reason, and for another because +it had parted, in common with its owner when subjected to the same +process, with a great deal of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar +garb again with joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction. + +That same night, when the girls were going to bed--whether the +inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock, +and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the +prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her +of late--Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of +consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock in trade. + +The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of the house when +the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder, hastened up to know what was +the meaning of this departure from the regular order of things. Baubie +heard their approach, and only sang the louder. She had a good and by no +means unmusical voice, which the rest had rather improved; and by the +time the authorities arrived on the scene there was an audience gathered +round the daring Baubie, who, with shoes and stockings off and the Rob +Roy tartan half unfastened, was standing by her bed, singing at the +pitch of her voice. The words could be heard down the stairs: + +Hark! I hear the bugles sounding: 'tis the signal for the fight. +Now, may God protect us, mother, as He ever does the right. + +"Baubie Wishart," cried the astonished mistress, "what do you mean?" + +The singer was just at the close of a verse: + +Hear the battle-cry of Freedom! how it swells upon the air! +Yes, we'll rally round the standard or we'll perish nobly there. + +She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes and flushed +face toward the speaker. + +"Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart," went on the angry matron, "to make +yon noise? You ought to think shame of such conduct, singing your +good-for-nothing street-songs like a tinkler. One would think ye would +feel glad never to hear of such things again. Let me have no more of +this, do ye hear? I just wonder what Miss Mackenzie would say to +ye!--Kate, stop here till they are all bedded and turn off yon gas." + +Long before the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into darkness +beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification swelling her small +heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs! Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan's scornful +epithets rang in her ears and cut her to the quick. She lay awake, +trembling with anger and indignation, until long after Kate had followed +the younger fry to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears +listened for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the +weary occupants were safely asleep: then she sat up in bed. The +moonlight was streaming into the room through the uncurtained window, +and lit up her tumbled head and hot face. After a cautious pause she +stepped out on the floor and went round the foot of her bed to the +window. She knelt down on the floor, as if she were in search of +something, and began feeling with her hand on the lower part of the +shutter. Then, close to the floor, and in a place where they were likely +to escape detection, she marked clearly and distinctly eight deep, short +scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She ran her +fingers over them until she could feel each scratch distinctly. Eight! +She counted them thrice to make sure, then jumped back into bed, and in +a few minutes was as fast asleep as her neighbors. + +The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a month, and time, +as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter and more diligent--diligent +apparently at least, for the knitting, though it advanced, showed no +sign of corresponding improvement, and the rest of her work was simply +scamped. March had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at +last began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown +glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks became +covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like branches of the +poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began to knot and swell; the +Water of Leith overflowed, and ran bubbling and mud-colored under the +bridge; and the grass by its banks, and even that in the front green of +the refuge, showed here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer +and longer, and of a mild evening the thrush's note was to be heard +above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean Terrace +Gardens. + +Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more docile and +demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her tally on the +window-shutter behind her bed. + +May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their goal, now +close; on reaching which they return slowly and unwillingly, but just as +surely; and to her joy, about, the third week in May, Baubie Wishart +counted one warm, clear night fifty-nine scratches on the shutter. +Fifty-nine! She knew the number well without counting them. + +Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but the next +morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather more simple toilette +than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash herself, brush her hair or +put on her shoes and stockings. Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she +had come, she went. She stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer +dormitory, passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not +without a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival, +Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare feet +waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room, which looked +out on the front green. She opened the window easily, hoisted herself on +the sill, crept through and let herself drop on the grass below. To +scramble up the trunk of one of the chestnuts and swing herself over the +wall was quickly done, and then she was once more on the flagged path of +the street, and the world lay before her. + +As she stood for one moment, breathless with her haste and excitement, +she was startled by the sudden apparition of the house cat, who was on +his way home as surreptitiously as she was on hers abroad. He had one +bloody ear and a scratched nose, and stared at her as he passed: then, +probably in the hope of finding an open door after her, he jumped over +the wall hurriedly. Baubie was seized with a sudden panic lest the cat +should waken some one in the house, and she took to her heels and ran +until she reached the bridge. The morning sun was just beginning to +touch the tall tops of the houses, and the little valley through which +the Water of Leith ran lay still in a kind of clear grayish light, in +which the pale tender hues of the young leaves and the flowering trees +were all the more vividly beautiful. The stream was low, and it hurried +along over its stony bed, as if it too were running away, and in as +great a hurry to be free of all restraints as truant Baubie Wishart, +whose red frock was now climbing the hilly gray street beyond. + +She could hear, as she strained herself to listen for pursuing voices, +the rustle and murmur of the water with an odd distinctness as it rose +upon the still air of the summer morning. + +Not a creature was to be seen as she made her way eastward, shaping her +course for Princes street, and peering, with a gruesome fear of the +school-board officer, round every corner. That early bird, however, was +not so keenly on the alert as she gave him the credit of being, and she +reached her goal unchallenged after coasting along in parallel lines +with it for some time. + +The long beautiful line of Princes street was untenanted as the Rob Roy +tartan tacked cautiously round the corner of St. David street and took a +hasty look up and down before venturing forth. + +The far-reaching pale red beams of the morning sun had just touched and +kindled as with a flame the summit of the Rock, and the windows of the +Castle caught and flashed back the greeting in a dozen ruddy +reflections. The gardens below lay partly veiled in a clear transparent +mist, faintly blue, that hovered above the trees and crept up the banks, +and over which the grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its +head majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond. + +Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as Baubie +darted along. Fixing her eye on that portion of the High School which is +visible from Princes street, she pushed along at a pace that was almost +a run, and a brief space saw her draw up and fall exhausted on the steps +that lead up to the Calton Hill. + +Right before her was the jail-gate. + +The child's feet, unused now for some time to such hardships, were hot +and bruised, for she had not stopped to pick her footing in her hasty +course, and she was so out of breath and heated that it seemed to her as +if she would never get cool or her heart cease fluttering as if it would +choke her. She shrank discreetly against the stone wall at her side, and +there for three long hours she remained crouched, watching and waiting +for the hour to chime when the grim black gate opposite would open. + +The last tinge of crimson and purple had faded before the golden glories +of the day as the sun climbed higher and higher in the serene blue sky. +The red cliffs of Salisbury Crags glared with a hot lustre above the +green slopes of the hill, and in the white dust of the high-road a +million tiny stars seemed to sparkle and twinkle most invitingly to +Baubie's eyes. The birds had long been awake and busy in the bushes +above her head, and from where she sat she could see, in the distant +glitter of Princes street, all the stir of the newly-raised day. + +It was a long vigil, and her fear and impatience made it seem doubly +longer. At last the clock began to chime eight, and before it was half +done the wicket in the great door opened with a noisy clang after a +preliminary rattle. + +First came a boy, who cast an anxious look round him, then set off at a +run; next a young woman, for whom another was waiting just out of sight +down the road; last of all (there were only three released), Baubie, +whose heart was beginning to beat fast again with anxiety, saw the +familiar, well-known figure shamble forth and look up and down the road +in a helpless, undecided way. The next moment the wicket had clapped to +again. Wishart glanced back at it, sighed once or twice, and blinked his +eyes as though the sunlight were too strong for them. + +Baubie, scarce breathing, watched him as a cat watches just before she +springs. + +After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward, obeying some +sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow those who had gone on +before. Baubie saw this, and, just waiting to let him get well under way +and settle into his gait, she gathered herself up and sprang across the +road upon him with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash. + +He fairly staggered with surprise. There she was, exactly as he had left +her, dusty, barefooted and bareheaded. The wind had tossed up her hair, +which indeed was only too obedient to its will, and it clustered all the +more wildly about her face because of having been cropped to the +regulation length of the refuge. + +"Lassie, is't you?" he ejaculated, lost in astonishment. Then, realizing +the fact, he gave expression to his feeling by grinning in a convulsive +kind of way and clapping her once or twice on the shoulder next him. +"Od! I niver! Didna the leddy--" + +Baubie cut him short. "Sed I widna bide," she observed curtly and +significantly. + +Gestures and looks convey, among people like the Wisharts, far more +meaning than words, and Baubie's father perfectly understood from the +manner and tone of her pregnant remark that she had run away from +school, and had severed the connection between herself and the "kind +leddy," and that in consequence the situation was highly risky for both. +They remained standing still for a moment, looking at each other. The +boy and the woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty +high-road seemed all their own domain. + +Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the direction +of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It was for her, as +usual, to decide. Baubie had been his Providence for as long as he had +memory for--no great length of time. He was conjecturing in his own mind +vaguely whether his Providence had, by any chance, got the desiderated +three shillings necessary for the redemption of the banjo hidden away in +the Rob Roy tartan. He would not have been surprised had it been so, and +he would have asked no questions. + +Seeing that her eyes followed the direction of his with a forbidding +frown, he said tentatively, "Ye didn'--didna--" + +"What?" snapped Baubie crossly: she divined his meaning exactly. "Come +awa' wi' ye!" she ordered, facing right round countryward. + +"We'll gae awa' til Glasgae, Baubie, eh? I'm thinkin' to yer auntie's. +_She_"--with a gesture of his head backward at the prison--"will no' be +oot this month; sae she'll niver need to ken, eh?" + +Baubie nodded. He only spoke her own thoughts, and he knew it. + +The first turn to the right past the High School brought them out on the +road before Holyrood, which lay grim and black under the sun-bathed +steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange and all round the +south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was +a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between +Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they +struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued +their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a +word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of +the horizon received into itself the two quaint figures, and Baubie +Wishart and the Rob Roy tartan faded together out of sight. + +_The Author of "Flitters, Tatters and the Counsellor_." + + + + +GAS-BURNING, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. + + +"It is remarkable what attention has been attracted all over the country +by the recent experiments with Edison's inventions," observed my friend +the traveller as our host turned a fuller flow of gas in the chandelier. +"Even in the little villages out West, of only one bank and _not_ one +good hotel, the topics which last spring generally excited most interest +in all circles were Edison's electric light and Bell's telephone." + +"Very likely," replied our host, an elderly gentleman of fortune. "If we +had such impure gas as is found in many of the villages and small cities +not so very far West, I'd never light a burner in my library again. As +it is, I do so very rarely. The products of gas combustion act on the +bindings until firm calf drops in pieces, and even law-sheep loses its +coherency, as the argument of the opposing counsel does when your own +lawyer begins to talk." + +"The effect on the upholstery and metallic ornaments is as bad as upon +the books," added our hostess. "This room will have to be refurnished in +the spring--all on account of the changes in color both of the paper and +the silk and cotton fabrics; and the bronze dressing on those statuettes +is softening, so that there are lines and spots of rust all over them." + +"Perhaps, my dear, they would have suffered equally from the atmosphere +without gas," replied the old gentleman, looking at his wife over his +glasses. + +"Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock than he had a +year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear in the market," said his +neighbor a chemist, who had just dropped in. + +"If I lose I shall lay it to your advice." + +"You did well to buy--if you sell at once," said the traveller, who was +interested in the electric light to some unknown extent: "gas stock will +finally have to go down." + +"When the sun shines in the night, not before," asserted a young +accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a private talk with +the daughter of the house at the other corner of the room. + +"Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly," said the +chemist. + +"But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the electric-light +boom for the temporary respite you have had from poor gas at high +prices." + +"Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they could +manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a time when people +almost believed that Edison's light would prove a success." + +"But it _was_ a success. It proved an excellent light, displayed a neat +lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the atmosphere or the eyes; +and the perfect carbons showed a surprising endurance. The only +difficulty is that the invention is not yet perfected so as to go +immediately into use." + +"But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with deposited carbon," +returned the chemist. "If carbons could be made to last long enough to +render the lamps cheap, this smoking of the globes would set a limit at +which the lamps would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the +exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive." + +"That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow dearer." + +"That isn't likely within a century. Besides, by the fault of the +consumer gas-light costs now one-third more than it should for the same +light. The best English authorities state this to be the case in Great +Britain, and I have no question that such is the fact here." + +"How would you remedy the evil of waste?" + +"By the use of economical burners and of governors to regulate the flow +of gas." + +"That is very easily said. What is the name of your economical burner?" + +"I am not an advocate of any special burner, but of all that are +constructed on right principles." + +"There are many kinds of burners. Do you not have some classification +for them?" inquired the young lady, who was fresh from Wellesley. + +"The usual forms of the burner," replied the chemist "--or, more +properly, the forms of the tip--are the fishtail, the batwing and the +argand. In the first the gas issues through two holes which come +together at the top, so that the two jets of gas impinge and form a flat +flame; in the batwing the gas issues in a thin sheet through a slit in a +hollow knob; while in the argand the gas enters a short cylinder or +broad ring, escaping thence through numerous holes at the upper edge. +There are many varieties of each of these, differing in the construction +of the part below the tip. The argand has long been the favorite burner +for the table and desk. Its advantages are a strong, steady light, but, +as you know, it is apt to smoke at every slight increase in the pressure +of the gas, though there are recent improved forms in which this fault +is in a measure corrected. A properly-made argand burner will give a +light equal to three whole candles (spermaceti, of the standard size and +quality) for every foot of gas burned. Of the argand burners, Guise's +shadowless argand has been considered the best, but of late years Sugg's +Letheby burner has carried off the palm. Wood's burner has been a +favorite, as, being a fishtail, it could be used with a short chimney, +which gives the flame steadiness. By the arms on the chimney-frame the +flame is broadened at the bottom, with a smaller dark space at the base +than in any other flat-flame burner. It is so constructed that the +quantity of gas passing is regulated by turning a tap in the lower part +of the burner, which changes the size of the orifice in the tube. Ten +years ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally +thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is now little +used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can be used in any +common burner except the argand. The old brass and iron tips are mostly +superseded by those of "lava," being liable to an early change of the +orifice from incrustation and rust. In the flat-flame burners there are +differences in the internal arrangement. Perhaps our young +gas-manufacturer here can tell us what is now the most approved burner." + +The young man confessed that he had specimens of the best kinds of +flat-flame burners in his pocket. He quickly brought from his overcoat +in the hall a small paper parcel from which he produced several bright +little brass tubes, explaining that he carried them because somebody was +always inquiring about the best kind of burner. "These save talk," said +he. + +With a small wrench he removed one of the old burners, and the several +kinds were successively tested in its place. Some gave a better light, +but it was objected that they might consume more gas. Whereupon the +chemist tore a strip from his well-worn handkerchief, and, having damped +it, wound the ribbon several times around the top of the old burner +(which had been replaced), leaving the orifice uncovered. The new burner +was screwed down over this, making a gas-tight connection. "There," said +he, "we have a gauge. The new burner will receive the same amount of gas +that the old one consumed--no more, no less--but the current is slightly +checked." + +The burner gave the same amount of light as before, so far as the eye +could perceive. + +"In the combustion of gas for heating purposes," continued the chemist, +"seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through small holes. For +light you want something different. Suppose you send a current of gas up +into this sewing-thimble: it can find an exit only by turning backward. +Then suppose it escapes from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity +above it, whence it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of +the usual size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken. +It will be seen that only the expansive force of the gas, together with +its buoyancy, acts upon the jets, instead of a direct current. Now, it +will always be found that the burner which best carries out the +principles just illustrated--other points being equal--will give more +light with a less quantity of gas than any other. This also exhibits +the chief principle of most of the governors or regulators. + +"You will observe that this checking of the current is attained in +various ways in different burners," continued the chemist as he +unscrewed and dissected the samples before him. "In some it is done by a +perforated metal disk in the orifice; in others, by a bit of wool, which +checks slightly a slow current, and by the pressure of a strong one +becomes compacted and forms a more effective obstacle. In most cases, +however, it soon becomes solid with condensed matters from the gas. +Another form of check is a small cap having perpendicular slits at the +sides. The cylinder of the cap, being smaller than the orifice of the +burner, screws down into it; the openings being shortened or lengthened +according as the cylinder is screwed up or down. One objection to this +is the trouble required in regulating. Here is another burner, in which +the orifice ends in a cap whose sides, near the bottom, are pierced with +four pin-holes directed downward. This reverses the direction of the +current of gas, which then escapes through the pin-holes downward into a +chamber, then turns upward along its sides to the tip, on entering which +it again turns. Each burner is able to consume economically a flow of +gas peculiar to itself, which can be ascertained by a minute's +experiment, and then regulated by the tap in the pipe. But this requires +much care, and is apt to be neglected. A very small tap in the burner +(as in the Wood and Ellis burners), which can be adjusted so as to +require no further attention, seems the best method of effecting this +graduation." + +The chemist now pulled a manuscript from his pocket and read from it as +follows: "The quantity of light decreases with disproportionate rapidity +by reduced consumption; for, as experiments have shown, when consuming +only two feet per hour, eighty-five per cent. of the gas is lost; with +two and a half feet the loss is sixty per cent.; and with three and a +half feet it is thirty-four per cent. of that derived from the gas when +burning the full quantity for which the burner is constructed. In some +experiments made upon this matter under the direction of referees +appointed by the London Board of Trade the loss at the other extreme is +given. They report: 'Instead of the gas giving increased light as the +rate of consumption is increased, it will be seen that _in every case_ +there is a point beyond which the _light decreases_ relatively to the +proportion of gas consumed. In every case, too, this point lies far +below the maximum of gas-consumption, observing the turning-points in +the case of the different burners.' Again, every burner has a certain +amount of gas which it will consume to the greatest advantage as to both +light and economy; which in a completely-regulated burner is quickly +found, and the delivery fixed by the small tap. When the gas is issuing +from the burner at so low a pressure that the flame is just on the point +of smoking, the maximum effect for the quantity of gas consumed in that +particular burner is attained, because in that case the quantity and +intensity of the light are most advantageously balanced. For the same +reason, the burner best suited for light is one in which the +jet-openings are proportionately large, so as to prevent as much as +possible too great contact with the air in the lower part of the flame. +In case the air-currents disturb the light, it is necessary to turn on a +stronger flow, which secures steadiness, but sets economy at naught." + +"It would be a good thing," said the young fellow, interrupting him, "if +some person would invent a burner that should heat the gas before its +discharge. We could then get a perfect combustion of the carbon, and so +greater brilliancy and economy." + +"That is a very common error. Mr. Leslie's burner was designed on that +very theory: the result was contrary to expectation." + +"What was the form of the burner?" inquired our host. + +"Leslie's burner is a form of the argand. The gas, instead of issuing +from holes pierced in a solid ring, is conducted to the flame in +separate small tubes upward of an inch long. Twenty-eight of these tubes +are inserted in a ring two inches in diameter, and converge to one inch +at the ends, where the gas escapes. These tubes become hot very quickly +when the gas is lighted, and it issues at a high temperature. Here is +the result of a test made by Mr. Clegg, and given on page 344 of his +valuable work on coal gas: + + COMMON ARGAND, FIFTEEN HOLES. + Consumption per hour in cubic feet: + 6 feet, light = 17.4 standard candles. + 5 feet, light = 13.64 standard candles + + LESLIE'S BURNER, TWENTY-EIGHT HOLES. + 6 feet, light = 14.73 standard candles. + 5 feet, light = 11.28 standard candles. + +"In experimenting with common burners, argand and others, it is found +that, if the aperture in the tip is too small for the orifice in the +body of the burner, the escaping gas is too highly heated and is +consumed too quickly. So with Leslie's burner in an increased degree. +Theories brought to the test of experiment are often disappointing." + +The chemist now proceeded to illustrate his harangue with the argand +upon the table, which he lighted and turned on full, without replacing +the chimney. The dull-red flame streamed up to a height of eight inches +or more, waving and smoking slightly. He now turned down the gas and +replaced the chimney, then set the tap at the same angle as before. +"Here," said he, "we have a flame barely four inches high--of brilliant +white--which gives more light than the taller flame did. The cause of +the shortening of the flame is the more rapid combustion of the gas, +owing to the increased draught or air-supply in the chimney. From the +greater intensity of this flame a much larger quantity of light is +produced than by the longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the +flame is shortened still more and its brilliancy increased, but not to a +degree sufficient to compensate for the diminished surface. The light, +you are doubtless aware, comes from the incandescence of the carbon, +heated by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with a portion of the +oxygen of the air." + +The chemist now read from his manuscript again: "Carburetted hydrogen of +a passably good quality requires two volumes of pure oxygen for its +complete combustion and conversion into carbonic acid and water. +Atmospheric air contains, in its pure state, about twenty per cent. of +oxygen; therefore, one cubic foot of gas requires for its perfect +combustion ten cubic feet of air. If less be admitted to the flame, a +quantity of free carbon will escape, and be deposited in the form of +black smoke. If an excess of air be admitted, we shall find that the +quantity of nitrogen accompanying this excess has a tendency to +extinguish the flame, while it takes no part in the elective affinity +constantly going on between the other elements--namely, hydrogen, oxygen +and the vapor of carbon. + +"Again," said he, turning down the gas, "if the flame be reduced to a +consumption of two feet per hour, its light will be equal to that of one +candle only; but on raising the chimney, thus, about half an inch from +the gallery or support the light is greatly increased, or by simply +placing a disk on top of the chimney the light is increased ninefold; +both of which effects seem to result from a diminished current of air, +while at the same time there is an ample supply. Lastly, with the +ordinary glass moon-globe so generally used in dwellings with the +fishtail burner little difference can be perceived between the light +given from the flame by four feet and that from six feet of gas per +hour, in consequence of the strong current of air passing up through the +globe; but if the top of the glass be enclosed by a talc cover having an +orifice in the centre about an inch in diameter, then the conditions of +the burner are completely changed. The light is greatly increased, +because the highest economical advantage is then approached."[2] + +"Smoke from the aperture and lamp-black on the cover must result from +such an arrangement," objected the old gentleman. + +"There need be very little of either," responded the chemist. "From some +burners there is little light without smoke. A smoky flame may arise +from too much carbon, but the gas companies in this part of the country +are not apt to make their product too rich; and such a condition is not +likely to occur except with vapor-gas when warm weather quickly succeeds +to a cold spell in the winter season. The consumer's immediate remedy in +any case is to use a smaller tip with the fishtail and batwing burners, +and a taller chimney with the argand; which devices will give a quicker +movement to the gas in one case and to the air in the other. The +smoking, however, may be caused by carbonic acid, which checks +combustion. There is always more or less of this in gas, arising from a +partial combustion in the retorts when charging them with coal or while +withdrawing the exhausted charge. But it is only by excessively slow and +careless work that this can happen to a serious extent. Only an expert +can tell when this condition exists, though if the symptoms do not yield +to manipulations of the chimney and tap, it may be suspected. There is +no effective remedy for this adulteration which can be applied by the +consumer except a vigorous complaint against the company which supplies +the stuff. + +"There remains one burner or lamp to be mentioned, contrived with +special reference to health," he continued--"the ventilating standard +lamp of Doctor Faraday, used in the House of Lords. In this there is an +outer glass by which the vitiated air passes away through the pipe +communicating with the external air. The lamp is interesting, but there +is a question whether there is any practical advantage in its use. +Rutter's ventilating lamp is of different form, having a globe instead +of an outer cylinder, the gas and air coming in from above. Some of the +best dwellings now being erected in the vicinity of New York are +provided with tin pipes leading from the burners to the open air. In +some the pipe receives the foul air from an open metallic or mineral +shade over the burner; others have a larger pipe enclosing the gas-pipe +for ventilation, the tops of the two pipes (including the burner) being +enclosed by a globe pierced with holes for fresh air. There is said to +result a good ventilation, with economy of gas, an increased steadiness +of the flame and power of light. A better arrangement is a third pipe +enclosing the gas-pipe and enclosed in the ventilating-pipe, opening to +the air, instead of the holes in the globe, which in this case should be +air-tight. This plan is said to have reached its perfection when the +three pipes are filled with wire gauze to some extent. This, being +heated by the escape of hot gases in the ventilating-pipe, sends both +the air and the gas to the flame already highly heated. The result is +said to be admirable as regards ventilation, steadiness and power of the +light and economy of gas. + +"With these lamps the pressure of the gas-current is of great +importance; and I now turn to that subject. It is a general complaint in +buildings whose rooms are high that the flow of gas on the lower floor +is deficient, while on the upper floors there is a greater supply than +is necessary. This inconvenience arises from the upper stories being +subjected to less atmospheric pressure than the lower, every rise of ten +feet making a difference in the pressure of about one-tenth of an inch +of water; and, consequently, a column of gas acquires that amount of +pressure additional. The following table, recording an experiment of Mr. +Richards, will show the result in respect to light: + + Gas issuing from the burner at a pressure of-- + 1/10 inch of water gave the light of 12 candles, + 5/10 " " " " " " " 6 " + 10/10 " " " " " " " 2 " + 40/10 " " " " no appreciable light. + +Suppose a building of six floors is supplied from the gas-mains at a +pressure of six-tenths, and that the difference of altitude between the +highest and lowest light is equal to fifty feet: the gas in the highest +or sixth floor will issue from the burners at a pressure of +eleven-tenths; the fifth floor, at ten-tenths; and so on. In order to +secure an entirely equable flow and economical light a regulator is +necessary on each floor above the first. The gas companies are +frequently obliged to supply mills at a much greater pressure than is +stated above as necessary, in order that the ground floors may have +sufficient light." + +"How about incorrect meters?" asked the traveller. + +"Little need be said of them, as they fall within the domain of the +companies and the public inspector of gas. Under favorable conditions +gas-meters will remain in order for ten years or more; and when they +become defective they as often favor the consumer, probably, as they do +the gas company. Their defects do not often occasion inconvenience; and +when they once get out of order they run so wild that their condition is +soon detected, when the errors in previous bills should be corrected by +estimate of other seasons." + +"You haven't mentioned the apparatus (carburetters) for increasing the +richness of the gas, which can be applied by the consumer upon his own +premises," said the old gentleman. + +"There is little need. The burners should be adjusted to the quality of +gas furnished. If there were any real gain in this method of enrichment, +the gas companies are the parties who could make the most of it: indeed, +many of them do to such an extent as can be made profitable. But +whenever the temperature of the atmosphere falls, the matter added to +the gas is deposited in the pipes, sometimes choking them entirely at +the angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas that +is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law and the +contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give all gas-improving +machines the go-by.[3] + +"Light having, perhaps, been sufficiently considered for the present +needs, we have now to note the effects of the combustion of gas upon the +atmosphere, and through this upon the furnishing of rooms and the health +of the persons living therein," said the chemist, again taking up his +manuscript. "The usual products from the combustion of common +illuminating gas are carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and +water-vapor. Every burner consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour +spoils as much air as two full-grown men: it is therefore evident that +the air of a room thus lighted would soon become vitiated if an ample +supply of fresh air were not frequently admitted. + +"Remember," said he, looking up from the paper, "that nearly the same +effects proceed from the combustion of candles and lamps of every kind +when a sufficient number of these are burned to give an equal amount of +light. Carbonic acid is easily got rid of, for the rooms where gas is +burned usually have sufficient ventilation near the floor by means of a +register, or even the slight apertures under the doors--together with +their frequent opening--to carry off the small quantity emitted by one +or two burners. But there are other gases which must have vent at the +upper part of the room, while fresh air should be admitted to supply the +place of that which is chemically changed." + +Returning to his manuscript, he continued: "The burners which give the +least light, burning instead with a low, blue flame, form the most +carbonic acid and free the most nitrogen. Such are all the burners for +heat rather than light. But the formation of sulphuric acid gas may be +the same in each. In the yellow flame the carbon particles escape to +darken the light colors of the room, not being heated sufficiently to +combine with the oxygen. This product of the combustion of gas (free +carbon) might be regarded as rather wholesome than otherwise (as its +nature is that of an absorbent) were it not the worst kind of dust to +breathe--in fact, clogging the lungs to suffocation. In vapor gas--made +at low heat--the carbon is in a large degree only mechanically mixed +with the hydrogen, and is liable, especially in cold weather, to be +deposited in the pipes. This leaves only a very poor, thin gas, mainly +hydrogen, which burns with a pale blue flame, as seen in cold spells in +winter. High heats and short charges in the retorts of the manufactory +give a purer gas and a larger production. Gas made at high heat will +reach the consumer in any weather very nearly as rich as when it leaves +the gas-holder; for, thus made, the hydrogen and carbon are chemically +combined, instead of the hydrogen merely bearing a quantity of +carbon-vapor mechanically mixed and liable to deposit with every +reduction of temperature. To relieve the atmosphere of the gases and +vapors proceeding from combustion is, of course, the purpose of +ventilation. The sulphuric acid gas and ammonia will be largely in +combination with the water-vapor, which also proceeds from combustion, +so that all will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries +to counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which causes +leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, would be of +doubtful utility, since it might only serve to carry into the porous +leather still more of the gases just mentioned. The action of both +sulphuric acid and ammonia is, undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of +leather, so that it crumbles to meal or falls apart in flakes. + +"In a very interesting paper read by Professor William R. Nichols of the +Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the American Association of +Science at its Saratoga meeting in 1879, the results of many analyses of +leather bindings were given, showing the presence of the above-named +substances in old bindings in many times greater quantity than in new. +Still, their presence did not prove them to be the cause of the decay; +and Professor Nichols proposes to ascertain the fact by experiments +requiring some years for demonstration. + +"In the hope of deciding the question with reasonable certainty at once, +I have made careful examinations of the books in the three largest +libraries of Boston and Cambridge, each differing from the others in age +and atmosphere. The bindings of the volumes examined bore their own +record in dates and ownership, by which the conditions of their +atmosphere in respect to gas and (approximately) to heat were made +known for periods varying from current time to over two hundred years. +In the Public Library the combined influences of gas, heat and effluvium +have wrought upon the leather until many covers were ready to drop to +pieces at a touch. The binding showed no more shrinkage than in the +other libraries, but in proportion to the time the books had been upon +the shelves the decay of the leather was about the same as in the +Athenaeum. I am informed that many of the most decayed have from time to +time been rebound, so that a full comparison cannot be made between this +and the others. In the Athenaeum less gas has been used, and there is +very little effluvium, but the mealy texture of the leather is general +among the older tenants of the shelves. Numbers of volumes in the +galleries were losing their backs, which were more or less broken off at +the joints from the shrinkage and brittleness of the leather. The plan +has been proposed of introducing the vapor of water to counteract the +effects of dryness upon the bindings. In this library the atmosphere has +the usual humidity of that out of doors, being warmed by bringing the +outer air in over pipes conveying hot water, while the other libraries +have the higher heat of steam-pipes. If, therefore, its atmosphere +differs from that of the other libraries in respect to moisture, the +variation is in the direction of greater humidity, without any +corresponding effect on the preservation of bindings. In fact, proper +ventilation and low shelves seem to be the true remedies for these +evils, or, rather, the best means of amelioration, since there is no +complete antidote to the decay common to all material things. The last +condition involves the disuse of galleries and of rooms upon more than +one flat, unless the atmosphere in the upper portions of the lower rooms +be shut off from the higher, as it should be. Another precaution which +might be taken with advantage is to use the higher shelves for cloth +bindings. + +"In the Harvard College Library no gas has ever been used, nor any other +artificial illuminator to much extent. Neither had any large number of +the volumes been exposed to the products of gas-combustion, except for +a brief time before they were placed here. The bindings in this library +showed very little crumbling, but many covers were breaking at the +joints from the shrinking which arises from excessive dryness. In common +with many other substances, leather yields moisture to the air much more +readily than it receives it from that medium. Cloth bindings showed no +decay at all here--very little in any of the libraries, except in the +loss of color. It should be stated that the volumes which I examined at +Harvard College were generally older than those inspected in the other +libraries. There are parchment bindings in each of the libraries +hundreds of years old, apparently just as perfect in texture as when +first placed upon the shelves of the original owner. The parchment was +often worn through at the angles, but there was no breakage from +shrinking, the material having been shrunken as much as possible when +prepared from the skin. At Harvard College I examined an embossed calf +binding stretched on wooden sides which was above a hundred years old. +It was in almost perfect preservation, and not much shrunken. This +volume, being very large, was on a shelf next the ground floor--a +position which it had probably held ever since the erection of the +building. + +"Professor Nichols does not mention morocco in his tables of analyses. +Indeed, morocco was so little used for bookbindings until within about +thirty years that it affords a less ample field for investigation than +any other of the leathers now in common use. My attention was therefore +directed specially to this material, of which I found some specimens +having a record of nearly fifty years. My observation was, that in all +the libraries these were less affected by decay, in proportion to their +age, than other leathers. In Harvard College Library the best Turkey +morocco, with forty years of exposure, showed no injury except from +chafing. The outer integument was often worn away, exposing the texture +of the skin, which was still of strong fibre. In the Athenaeum, on the +contrary, many of the moroccos showed the same decay as the calf, +russia and sheep. There was, however, a wide difference in the condition +of moroccos of the same age--some showing as much decay as the calf, +while others had scarcely any of the disintegration common to the older +calf bindings. The same might, indeed, be said of all leathers, those +tanned by the quick modern methods, with much more acid than is used in +old processes, in which time is a large factor, showing always a more +rapid deterioration. But, the methods being the same, morocco, the +oiliest of the common leathers and the one having the firmest cuticle, +endures the best. + +"The order of endurance of leather (as observed by librarians) against +atmospheric effects is as follows, descending from the first to the last +in order: Parchment, light-colored morocco, sheep, russia, calf. Cloth +wears out quickly by use, but appears--the linen especially--to be +affected by the atmosphere only in loss of color. These observations all +refer to the ordinary humidity of the air in frequented rooms. + +"This, then, is the result of my inquiries: I found the shrinking and +breaking resulting from heat much the same in all the libraries, but +most in that where the heating is from the outer air brought in over +hot-water pipes, the two other libraries examined being warmed by +steam-pipes having a higher temperature. I found the mealy structure--or +instead thereof flakiness--to prevail most in the Athenaeum, next in the +Public Library: in the latter, however, many volumes have been rebound, +thus raising the average of condition. In the Harvard College Library no +gas--in fact, little if any artificial light--is used, and here, too, +the mealy structure and disintegration are mostly absent. I conclude, +therefore, from these limited observations, that heat is responsible for +a large part of the damage to leather bindings, its effects being +evidently supplemented and hastened by gas-combustion. + +"The ventilating lamps before described, though rather cumbrous to eyes +accustomed to the small and simple apparatus commonly used, might prove +valuable in rooms containing fabrics liable; to be injured by the gases +from open burners." + +As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked to the +somewhat weary listeners, "You now see the vast amount of study and care +required to use gas with economy and safety. I could not have argued the +cause of a new, clean, gasless and vaporless light like electricity any +better myself." + +"It will be found," responded the chemist, "that there are more troubles +and dangers connected with the electric light--besides the larger +expense--than are thought of now." + +"That is so!" ejaculated the young fellow. + +"At any rate," said the old gentleman, "gas stock won't go lower for +twenty years than it has been this winter." + +"You are all wedded to your idols," was the final protest of the +traveller. + +"I wish I was," murmured the young fellow, with a side-glance at his +fair neighbor, who immediately removed to another part of the room. + +GEORGE J. VARNEY. + + + + +THE "_???? ??G?????_ IN SHAKESPEARE. + + +When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first strikes us is +its copiousness. His characters are countless, and each one speaks his +own dialect. His little fishes never talk like whales, nor do his whales +talk like little fishes. Those curious in such matters have detected in +his works quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin +alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two. + +Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of words is +multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics. Mrs. Cowden Clarke has +counted those words one by one, and ascertained their sum to be not less +than fifteen thousand. The total vocabulary of Milton's poetical remains +is no more than eight thousand, and that of Homer, including the _Hymns_ +as well as both _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, is about nine thousand. In the +English Bible the different words are reckoned by Mr. G.P. Marsh in his +lectures on the English language at rather fewer than six thousand. +Those in the Greek Testament I have learned by actual count to be not +far from five thousand five hundred. + +Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they could teach +Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning Greek moods and tenses, +even as the ancient Athenians, according to the fable of Phaedrus, +contended that they understood squealing better than a pig. However this +may be, any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke +and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard to +Shakespeare's use of language which Shakespeare himself cannot have +known. One particular as to which he must have been ignorant, while we +may have knowledge, is concerning his employment of terms denominated +_apa? ?e?? mue?a_. + +The phrase _apa? ?e?? mue?a_--literally, _once spoken_--may be traced +back, I think, to the Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, +who invented it to describe those words which they observed to occur +once, and _only once_, in any author or literature. It is so convenient +an expression for statistical commentators on the Bible, and on the +classics as well, that they will not willingly let it die. + +The list of _apa? ?e?? mue?a_--that is, words used once and _only +once_--in Shakespeare is surprisingly long. It embraces a greater +multitude than any man can easily number. Nevertheless, I have counted +those beginning with two letters. The result is that the apa? ?e?? mue?a +with initial _a_ are 364, and those with initial _m_ are 310. There is +no reason, that I know of, to suppose the census with these initials to +be proportionally larger than that with other letters. If it is not, +then the words occurring only once in all Shakespeare cannot be less +than five thousand, and they are probably a still greater legion. + +The number I have culled from one hundred and forty-six pages of Schmidt +is 674. At this rate the total on the fourteen hundred and nine pages of +the entire Lexicon would foot up 6504. It is possible, then, that +Shakespeare discarded, after once trying them, more different words than +fill and enrich the whole English Bible. The old grammarians tell us +that a certain part of speech was called _supine_, because it was very +seldom needed, and therefore almost always lying _on its back_--i.e. +in Latin, _supinus_. The supines of Shakespeare outnumber the employes +of most authors. + +The array of Shakespearian _apa? ?e?? mue?a_ appears still vaster if we +compare it with expressions of the same nature in the Scriptures and in +Homer. In the English Bible words with the initials _a_ and _m_ used +once only are 132 to 674 with the same initials in Shakespeare. The +scriptural _once-onlys_ would be more than twice as many as we find them +were they as frequent in proportion to their total vocabulary as his +are. + +The Homeric _apa? ?e?? mue?a_ with initial _m_ are 78, but were they as +numerous in proportion to Homer's whole world of words as Shakespeare's +are, they would run up to 186; that is, to more than twice as many as +their actual number. + +In the Greek New Testament I have enumerated 63 _apa? ?e?? mue?a_ +beginning with the letter _m_--a larger number than you would expect, +for it is as large as that in both English Testaments beginning with +that same letter, which is also exactly 63. It indicates a wider range +of expression in the authors of the Greek original than in their English +translators. + +The 310 Shakespearian words with initial _m_ used _once only_ I have +also compared with the whole verbal inventory of our language so far as +it begins with that letter. They make up one-fifth almost of that +entire stock, which musters in Webster only 1641 words. You will at once +inquire, "What is the _nature_ of these rejected Shakespearian vocables, +which he seems to have viewed as milk that would bear no more than one +skimming?" + +The percentage of _classical_ words among them is great--greater indeed +than in the body of Shakespeare's writings. According to the analysis of +Weisse, in an average hundred of Shakespearian words one-third are +classical and two-thirds Saxon. But then all the classical elements have +inherent meaning, while half of the Saxon have none. We may hence infer +that of the significant words in Shakespeare one-half are of classical +derivation. Now, of the apa? ?e?? mue?a with initial _a_, I call 262 words +out of 364 classical, and with initial _m_, 152 out of 310; that is, 414 +out of 674, or about four-sevenths of the whole Shakespearian host +beginning with those two letters. In doubtful cases I have considered +those words only as classical the first etymology of which in Webster is +from a classical or Romance root. In the biblical words used once only +the classical portion is enormous--namely, not less than sixty-nine per +cent.--while the classical percentage in Shakespearian words of the same +class is no more than sixty-one. + +Among the 674 _a_ and _m_ Shakespearian words occurring once only the +proportion of words now _obsolete_ is unexpectedly small. Of 310 such +words with initial _m_, only one-sixth, or 51 at the utmost, are now +disused, either in sense or even in form. Of this half-hundred a few are +used in Shakespeare, but not at present, as verbs; thus, to _maculate_, +to _miracle_, to _mud_, to _mist_, to _mischief_, to _moral_--also +_merchandized_ and _musicked_. Another class now wellnigh unknown are +_misproud, misdread, mappery, mansionry, marybuds, masterdom, +mistership, mistressship._ + +Then there are slight variants from our modern orthography or meanings, +as _mained_ for maimed, _markman_ for marksman, _make_ for mate, +_makeless_ for mateless, _mirable, mervaillous, mess_ for mass, +_manakin, minikin, meyny_ for many, _momentarry_ for momentary, +_moraler, mountainer, misgraffing, misanthropos, mott_ for motto, to +_mutine, mi'nutely_ for every minute. + +None seem wholly dead words except the following eighteen: To _mammock_, +tear; _mell_, meddle; _mose_, mourn; _micher_, truant; _mome_, fool; +_mallecho_, mischief; _maund_, basket; _marcantant_, merchant; _mun_, +sound of wind; _mure_, wall; _meacock_, henpecked; _mop_, grin; +_militarist_, soldier; _murrion_, affected with murrain; _mammering_, +hesitating; _mountant_, raised up; _mered_, only; _man-entered_, grown +up. + +About one-tenth of the remaining _apa? ?e?? mue?a_ with initial _m_ are +descriptive compounds. Among them are the following adjectives: +_Maiden-tongued, maiden-widowed, man-entered_ (before noted as +obsolete), _many-headed, marble-breasted, marble-constant, +marble-hearted, marrow-eating, mean-apparelled, merchant-marring, +mercy-lacking, mirth-moving, moving-delicate, mock-water, more-having, +mortal-breathing, mortal-living, mortal-staring, motley-minded, +mouse-eaten, moss-grown, mouth-filling, mouth-made, muddy-mettled, +momentary-swift, maid-pale_. From this list, which is nearly complete, +it is evident that such compounds as may be multiplied at will form but +a small fraction of the words that are used _once only_ by Shakespeare. + +The words used _once only_ by Shakespeare are often so beautiful and +poetical that we wonder how they could fail to be his favorites again +and again. They are jewels that might hang twenty years before our eyes, +yet never lose their lustre. Why were they never shown but once? They +remind me of the exquisite crystal bowl from which I saw a Jewess and +her bridegroom drink in Prague, and which was then dashed in pieces on +the floor of the synagogue, or of the Chigi porcelain painted by +Raphael, which as soon as it had been once removed from the Farnesina +table was thrown into the Tiber. To what purpose was this waste? Why +should they be used up with once using? Specimens of this sort, which +all poets but Shakespeare would have paraded as pets many a time, are +multifarious. Among a hundred others never used but once, we have +_magical, mirthful, mightful, mirth-moving, moonbeams, moss-grown, +mundane, motto, matin, mural, multipotent, mourningly, majestically, +marbled, martyred, mellifluous, mountainous, meander, magnificence, +magnanimity, mockable, merriness, masterdom, masterpiece, monarchize, +menaces, marrowless_. + +Again, a majority of Shakespearian _apa? ?e?? mue?a_ being familiar to us +as household words, it seems impossible that he who had tried them once +should have need of them no more. Instances--all with initial _m_--are +as follows: _mechanics, machine, maxim, mission, mode, monastic, marsh, +magnify, malcontent, majority, manly, malleable, malignancy, maritime, +manna, manslaughter, masterly, market-day-folks, maid-price, mealy, +meekly, mercifully, merchant-like, memorial, mercenary, mention, +memorandums, mercurial, metropolis, miserably, mindful, meridian, medal, +metaphysics, ministration, mimic, misapply, misgovernment, misquote, +misconstruction, monstrously, monster-like, monstrosity, mutable, +moneyed, monopoly, mortise, mortised, muniments_, to _moderate_, and +_mother-wit_ These words, and five thousand more equally excellent, +which have remained part of the language of the English-speaking world +for three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue to +belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have worn in +their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he as shy of +repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was of showing his +wit?-- + + Who bore it about, + As if afraid to wear it out + Except on holidays or so, + As men their best apparel do. + +This question, why a full third of Shakespeare's verbal riches was never +brought to light more than once, is probably one which nobody can at +present answer even to his own satisfaction. Yet the phenomenon is so +remarkable that every one will try after his own fashion to account for +it. My own attempt at a provisional explanation I will present in the +latter part of this paper. + +Let us first, however, notice another question concerning the _apa? +?e?? mue?a_--namely, that which respects their _origin_. Where did they +come from? how far did Shakespeare make them? and how far were they +ready to his hand? No approach to answering this inquiry can be made for +some years. Yet as to this matter let us rejoice that the unique +dictionary of the British Philological Society is now near publication. +This work, slowly elaborated by thousands of co-workers in many devious +walks of study on both sides of the Atlantic, aims to exhibit the first +appearance in a book of every English word. In regard to the great bulk +of Shakespeare's diction it will enable us ten years hence to determine +how much of it was known to literature before him, and how much of it he +himself gathered or gleaned in highways and byways, or caused to ramify +and effloresce from Saxon or classical roots and trunks, thus "endowing +his purposes with words to make them known." Meantime, we are left to +conjectures. As of his own coinage I should set down such vocables as +_motley-minded, mirth-moving, mockable, marbled, martyred, merriness, +marrowless, mightful, multipotent, masterdom, monarchize_, etc. etc. + +But, however much of his linguistic treasury Shakespeare shall be proved +to have inherited ready-made--whatever scraps he may have stolen at the +feast of languages--it is clear that he was an imperial creator of +language, and lived while his mother-tongue was still plastic. Having a +mint of phrases in his own brain, well might he speak with the contempt +he does of those "fools who for a tricksy word defy the matter;" that +is, slight or disregard it. He never needed to do that. Words were +"correspondent to his command, and, Ariel-like, did his spiriting +gently." + +In a thousand cases, however, Shakespeare cannot have rejected words +through fear lest he should repeat them. It has taken three centuries +for the world to ferret out his _apa? ?e?? mue?a_: can we believe that he +knew them all himself? Unless he were the Providence which numbers all +hairs of the head, he had not got the start of the majestic world so far +as that, however myriad-minded we may consider him. An instinct which +would have rendered him aware of each and every individual of five +thousand that he had employed once only would be as inconceivable as +that of Falstaff, which made him discern the heir-apparent in Prince Hal +when disguised as a highwayman. In short, Shakespeare could not be +conscious of all the words he had once used, more than Brigham Young +could recognize all the wives he had once wedded. + +In the absence of other theories concerning the reasons for +Shakespeare's _apa? ?e?? mue?a_ being so abundant, I throw out a +suggestion of my own till a better one shall supplant it. + +Shakespeare's forte lay in characterization, and that endlessly +diversified. But when he sketched each several character it seems that +he was never content till he had either found or fabricated the aptest +words possible for representing its form and pressure most true to life. +No two characters being identical in any particular more than two faces +are, no two descriptions, as drawn by his genius, could repeat many of +the selfsame characterizing words. Each of his vocables thus became like +each of the seven thousand constituents of a locomotive, which fits the +one niche it was ordained to fill, but everywhere else is out of place, +and even _dislocated_. The more numerous his ethical differentiations, +the more his language was differentiated. + +His personages were as multifarious as have been portrayed by the whole +band of Italian painters; but, as a wizard in words, he resembled the +magician in mosaic, who can delineate in stone every feature of those +portraits because he can discriminate and imitate shades of color more +numberless than even Shakespeare's words. + +It is hard to believe that the Shakespearian characters were born, like +Athene from the brain of Zeus, in panoplied perfection. They grew. The +play of _Troilus_ was a dozen years in growth. According to the best +commentators, "Shakespeare, after having sketched out a play on the +fashion of his youthful taste and skill, returned in after years to +enlarge it, remodel it, and enrich it with the matured fruits of years +of observation and reflection. _Love's Labor Lost_ first appeared in +print with the annunciation that it was 'newly corrected and augmented,' +and _Cymbeline_ was an entire _rifacimento_ of an early dramatic +attempt, showing not only matured fulness of thought, but laboring +intensity of compressed expression." So speaks Verplanck, and his +utterance is endorsed by Richard Grant White. + +Such being the facts, it is clear that Shakespeare treated his dramas as +Guido did the _Cleopatra_, which he would not let leave his studio till +ten years after the non-artistic world deemed that portrait fully +finished. Meantime, the painter in moments of inspiration was pencilling +his canvas with curious touches, each approximating nearer his ideal. So +the poet sought to find out acceptable words, or what he terms "an army +of good words." He poured his new wine into new bottles, and never was +at rest till he had arrayed his ideas in that fitness of phrase which +comes only by fits. + +Had he survived fifty years longer, I suppose he would to the last have +been perfecting his phrases, as we read in Dionysius of Halicarnassus +that Plato up to the age of eighty-one was "combing and curling, and +weaving and unweaving, his writings after a variety of fashions." +Possibly, the great dramatist would at last have corrected one of his +couplets as a modern commentator has done for him, so that it would +stand, + + Find _leaves_ on trees, _stones_ in the running brooks, + Sermons in _books_, and _all_ in everything. + +To speak seriously with a writer in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica:_ "His +manner in diction was progressive, and this progress has been deemed so +clearly traceable in his plays that it can enable us to determine their +chronological sequence." The result is, that while other authors satiate +and soon tire us, Shakespeare's speech for ever "breathes an +indescribable freshness." + + Age cannot wither + Nor custom stale his infinite variety. + +In the last line I have quoted there is a apa? ?e?? mue?a but it is a word +which I think you would hardly guess. It is the last word--_variety_. + +On every average page of Shakespeare you are greeted and gladdened by at +least five words that you never saw before in his writings, and that you +never will see again, speaking once and then for ever holding their +peace--each not only rare, but a nonsuch--five gems just shown, then +snatched away. Each page is studded with five stars, each as unique as +the century-flower, and, like the night-blooming cereus, "the perfume +and suppliance of a minute"--_ipsa varietate variora_. The mind of +Shakespeare was bodied forth as Montezuma was apparelled, whose costume, +however gorgeous, was never twice the same. Hence the Shakespearian +style is fresh as morning dew and changeful as evening clouds, so that +we remain for ever doubtful in relation to his manner and his matter, +which of them owes the greater debt to the other. The Shakespearian +plots are analogous to the grouping of Raphael, the characters to the +drawing of Michael Angelo, but the word-painting superadds the coloring +of Titian. Accordingly, in studying Shakespeare's diction I should long +ago have said, if I could, what I read in Arthur Helps, where he treats +of a perfect style--that "there is a sense of felicity about it, +declaring it to be the product of a happy moment, so that you feel it +will not happen again to that man who writes the sentence, nor to any +other of the sons of men, to say the like thing so choicely, tersely, +mellifluously and completely." + +In the central court of the Neapolitan Museum I saw grape-clusters, +mouldings, volutes, fingers and antique fragments of all sorts wrought +in rarest marble, lying scattered on the pavement, exposed to sun and +rain, cast down the wrong side up, and as it were thrown away, as when +the stones of the Jewish sanctuary were poured out in every street. +Nothing reveals the sculptural opulence of Italy like this apparent +wastefulness. It seems to proclaim that Italy can afford to make +nothing of what would elsewhere be judged worthy of shrines. We say to +ourselves, "If such be the things she throws away, what must be her +jewels?" A similar feeling rises in me while exploring Shakespeare's +prodigality in apa? ?e?? mue?a. His exchequer appears more exhaustless +than the Bank of England. + +James D. Butler. + + + + +AN EPISODE OF SPANISH CHIVALRY. + + +Don Quijote's readers are aware of the enormous popularity of the +romances of chivalry, but they are apt to imagine that these represent a +purely ideal state of things. This is undoubtedly the case as far as +knight-errantry is concerned, but certain distinctive habits and customs +of chivalry prevailed in Spain and elsewhere long after the feudal +system and the earlier and original form of chivalry had passed away. +One of the most curious instances of this survival of chivalry occurred +in Spain in the first half of the fifteenth century, and after +commanding the admiration of Europe furnished Don Quijote with an +admirable argument for the existence of Amadis of Gaul and his long line +of successors. The worthy knight had been temporarily released from his +confinement in the Enchanted Cage, and had begun his celebrated reply to +the canon's statement that there had never been such persons as Amadis +and the other knights-errant, nor the absurd adventures with which the +romances of chivalry abound. Don Quijote's answer is a marvellous +mixture of sense and nonsense: the creations of the romancer's brain are +placed side by side with the Cid, Juan de Merlo and Gutierre Ouijada, +whose names were household words in Spain: "Let them deny also that Don +Fernando de Guerara went to seek adventures in Germany, where he did +combat with Messer George, knight of the household of the duke of +Austria. Let them say that the jousts of Sucro de Quinones, him of the +Pass, were a jest." + +It is to these jousts, as one of the most characteristic episodes of the +reign of John II. and of the times, that we wish to call attention.[4] + +On the evening of Friday, the 1st of January, 1434, while the king and +his court were at Medina del Campo and engaged in the rejoicings +customary on the first day of the New Year, Suero de Quinones and nine +knights clad in white entered the saloon, and, coming before the throne, +kissed the hands and feet of the king, and presented him through their +herald with a petition of which the following is the substance: + +"It is just and reasonable for those who are in confinement or deprived +of their freedom to desire liberty; and since I, your vassal and +subject, have long been in durance to a certain lady--in witness whereof +I bear this chain about my neck every Thursday--now, therefore, mighty +sovereign, I have agreed upon my ransom, which is three hundred lances +broken by myself and these knights, as shall more clearly hereafter +appear--three with every knight or gentleman (counting as broken the +lance which draws blood) who shall come to a certain place this year; to +wit, fifteen days before and fifteen days after the festival of the +apostle St. James, unless my ransom shall be completed before the day +last mentioned. The place shall be on the highway to Santiago, and I +hereby testify to all strange knights and gentlemen that they will +there be provided with armor, horses and weapons. And be it known to +every honorable lady who may pass the aforesaid way that if she do not +provide a knight or gentleman to do combat for her, she shall lose her +right-hand glove. All the above saving two things--that neither Your +Majesty nor the constable Don Alvaro de Luna is to enter the lists." + +After the reading of this petition the king took counsel with his court +and granted it, for which Quinones humbly thanked him, and then he and +his companions retired to disarm themselves, returning shortly after in +dresses more befitting a festal occasion. + +After the dancing the regulations for the jousts, consisting of +twenty-two chapters, were publicly read. In addition to the declarations +in the petition, it is provided that in case two or more knights should +come to ransom the glove of any lady, the first knight only will be +received, and no one can ransom more than one glove. In the seventh +chapter Quinones offers a diamond to the first knight who appears to do +combat for one of three ladies to be named by him, among whom shall not +be the one whose captive he is. No knight coming to the Pass of Honor +shall select the defender with whom to joust, nor shall he know the name +of his adversary until the combat is finished; but any one after +breaking three lances may challenge by name any one of the defenders, +who, if time permits, will break another lance with him. If any knight +desires to joust without some portion of his armor named by Quinones, +his request shall be granted if reason and time permit. No knight will +be admitted to the lists until he declare his name and country. If any +one is injured, "as is wont to happen in jousts," he shall be treated as +though he were Quinones himself, and no one in the future shall ever be +held responsible for any advantage or victory he may have gained over +any of the defenders of the Pass. No one going as a pilgrim to Santiago +by the direct road shall be hindered by Quinones unless he approach the +aforesaid bridge of Orbigo (which was somewhat distant from the +highway). In case, however, any knight, having left the main road, +shall come to the Pass, he shall not be permitted to depart until he has +entered the lists or left in pledge a piece of his armor or right spur, +with the promise never to wear that piece or spur until he shall have +been in some deed of arms as dangerous as the Pass of Honor. Quinones +further pledges himself to pay all expenses incurred by those who shall +come to the Pass. + +Any knight who, after having broken one or two lances, shall refuse to +continue, shall lose his armor or right spur as though he had declined +to enter the lists. No defender shall be obliged to joust a second time +with any one who had been disabled for a day in any previous encounter. + +The twenty-first chapter provides for the appointment of two knights, +"_caballeros anliguos e probados en annas e dignas de fe_," and two +heralds, all of whom shall swear solemnly to do justice to all who come +to the Pass, and who shall decide all questions which may arise. + +The last chapter provides "that if the lady whose I [Quinones] am shall +pass that way, she shall not lose her glove, and no one but myself shall +do combat for her, for no one in the world could do it so truly as I." + +When the preceding provisions had been read, Quinones gave to the +king-at-arms a letter signed and sealed, which invited to the Pass all +knights so disposed, granting safe conduct to those of other kingdoms, +and declaring the cause of said trial of arms. Copies of the above +letter were also given to other heralds, who were provided with +everything necessary for long journeys, and in the six months that +intervened before the day fixed for the jousts the matter had been +proclaimed throughout all Christendom. Meanwhile, Quinones provided +horses and arms and everything necessary for "such an important +enterprise." + +In the kingdom of Leon, about ten miles east of Astorga and on the +highway from that city to the capital, is the bridge of Orbigo. Suero de +Quinones did not select Orbigo with reference to convenience of access +from the Castiles, but because it must be passed by pilgrims to +Santiago; and that year (1434) was especially sacred to the saint, whose +festival, on the 25th of July, has always been celebrated with great +pomp. The Spaniards having been forbidden to go to Jerusalem as +crusaders, and being too much occupied at home with the Moors to make +such a long pilgrimage, wisely substituted Santiago, where the remains +of St. James, the patron of Spain, is supposed to rest. His body is said +to have floated in a stone coffin from Joppa to Padron (thirteen miles +below Santiago) in seven days, and for nearly eight centuries lay +forgotten in a cave, but was at length miraculously brought to light by +mysterious flames hovering over its resting-place, and in 829 was +removed to Santiago. In 846 the saint made his appearance at the +celebrated battle of Clavijo, where he slew sixty thousand Moors, and +was rewarded by a grant of a bushel of grain from every acre in Spain. +His shrine was a favorite resort for pilgrims from all Christendom until +after the Reformation, and the saint retained his bushel of grain (the +annual value of which had reached the large sum of one million dollars) +until 1835. + +It was near the highway, in a pleasant grove, that Quinones erected the +lists, a hundred and forty-six paces long and surrounded by a palisade +of the height of a lance, with various stands for the judges and +spectators. At the opposite ends of the lists were entrances--one for +the defenders of the Pass--and there were hung the arms and banners of +Quinones, as well as at the other entrance, which was reserved for the +knights who should come to make trial of their arms. In order that no +one might mistake the way, a marble king-at-arms was erected near the +bridge, with the right arm extended and the inscription, "To the Pass." + +The final arrangements were not concluded until the 10th of July, the +first day of the jousts. Twenty-two tents had been erected for the +accommodation of those engaged in the enterprise as well as for mere +spectators, and Quinones had provided all necessary servants and +artisans, among whom are mentioned kings-at-arms, heralds, trumpeters +and other musicians, notaries, armorers, blacksmiths, surgeons, +physicians, carpenters, lance-makers, tailors, embroiderers, etc. In the +midst of the tents was erected a wooden dining--hall, hung with rich +French cloth and provided with two tables--one for Quinones and the +knights who came to the Pass, and the other for those who honored the +jousts with their presence. A curious fact not to be omitted is that the +king sent one of his private secretaries to prepare daily accounts of +what happened at the Pass, which were transmitted by relays to Segovia +(where he was engaged in hunting), so that he should receive them within +twenty-four hours. + +On Saturday, the 10th of July, 1434, all the arrangements having been +completed, the heralds proceeded to the entrance of the lists and +announced to Quinones that three knights were at the bridge of Orbigo +who had come to make trial of their arms--one a German, Messer Arnoldo +de la Floresta Bermeja of the marquisate of Brandenburg, "about +twenty-seven years old, blond and well-dressed;" the others two brothers +from Valencia, by name Juan and Per Fabla. Quinones was greatly +delighted at their coming, and sent the heralds to invite them to take +up their quarters with him, which they did, and were received with honor +at the entrance of the lists in the presence of the judges. It being +Saturday, the jousting was deferred until the following Monday, and the +spurs of the three knights were hung up in the judges' stand as a sort +of pledge, to be restored to their owners when they were ready to enter +the lists. + +The next morning the trumpets sounded, and Quinones and his nine +companions heard mass in the church of St. John at Orbigo, and took +possession of the lists in the following fashion: First came the +musicians with drums and Moorish fifes, preceded by the judge, Pero +Barba. Then followed two large and beautiful horses drawing a cart +filled with lances of various sizes pointed with Milan steel. The cart +was covered with blue and green trappings embroidered with bay trees and +flowers, and on every tree was the figure of a parrot. The driver of +this singular conveyance was a dwarf. Next came Quinones on a powerful +horse with blue trappings, on which were worked his device and a chain, +with the motto _Il faut deliberer_[5] He was dressed in a quilted jacket +of olive velvet brocade embroidered in green, with a cloak of blue +velvet, breeches of scarlet cloth and a tall cap of the same color. He +wore wheel-spurs of the Italian fashion richly gilt, and carried a drawn +sword, also gilt. On his right arm, near the shoulder, was richly +embroidered his device in gold two fingers broad, and around it in blue +letters, + + Si a vous ne plait de avoyr me sure, + Certes ie clis, + Que ie suis, + Sans venture.[6] + +With Quinones were his nine companions in scarlet velvet and blue cloaks +bearing Quinones' device and chain, and the trappings of their horses +blue, with the same device and motto. Near Quinones were many knights on +foot, some of whom led his horse to do him honor. Three pages +magnificently attired and mounted closed the procession, which entered +the lists, and after passing around it twice halted before the judges' +stand, and Quinones exhorted the judges to decide impartially all that +should happen, giving equal justice to all, and especially to defend the +strangers in case they should be attacked on account of having wounded +any of the defenders of the Pass. + +The next day, Monday, at dawn the drums beat the reveille, and the +judges, with the heralds, notaries and kings-at-arms, took their places +in their stands. The nine defenders meanwhile heard mass in a large tent +which served as a private chapel for Quinones, and where mass was said +thrice daily at his expense by some Dominicans. After the defenders were +armed they sent for the judges to inspect their weapons and armor. The +German knight, Arnoldo, had a disabled hand, but he declared he would +rather die than refrain from jousting. His arms and horse were approved, +although the latter was superior to that of Quinones. The judges had +provided a body of armed soldiers whose duty it was to see that all had +fair play in the field, and had a pile of lances of various sizes placed +where each knight could select one to suit him. + +Quinones and the German now entered the lists, accompanied by their +friends and with "much music." The judges commanded that no one should +dare to speak aloud or give advice or make any sign to any one in the +lists, no matter what happened, under penalty of having the tongue cut +out for speaking and a hand cut off for making signs; and they also +forbade any knight to enter the lists with more than two servants, one +mounted and the other on foot. The spur taken from the German the +previous Saturday was now restored to him, and the trumpets sounded a +charge, while the heralds and kings-at-arms cried _Legeres aller! +legeres aller! e fair son deber_. + +The two knights charged instantly, lance in rest, and Quinones +encountered his antagonist in the guard of his lance, and his weapon +glanced off and touched him in the armor of his right hand and tore it +off, and his lance broke in the middle. The German encountered him in +the armor of the left arm, tore it off and carried a piece of the border +without breaking his lance. In the second course Quinones encountered +the German in the top of his plastron, without piercing it, and the +lance came out under his arm-pit, whereupon all thought he was wounded, +for on receiving the shock he exclaimed _Olas!_ and his right vantbrace +was torn off, but the lance was not broken. The German encountered +Quinones in the front of his helmet, breaking his lance two palms from +the iron. In the third course Quinones encountered the German in the +guard of his left gauntlet, and passed through it, and the head of the +lance stuck in the rim without breaking, and the German failed to +encounter. In the fourth course Quinones encountered the German in the +armor of his left arm without breaking his lance, and the German failed +to encounter. In the next course both failed to encounter, but in the +sixth Quinones encountered the German in the joint of his left +vantbrace, and the iron passed half through without breaking, while the +shaft broke in the middle, and the German failed to encounter. After +this last course they went to the judges' stand, where their jousting +was pronounced finished, since they had broken three lances between +them. Quinones invited the German to supper, and both were accompanied +to their quarters by music, and Quinones disarmed himself in public. + +The two Valencian knights did not delay to challenge Quinones, since he +had remained uninjured; and, as they had the right to demand horses and +arms, they chose those which Quinones had used in the last joust. The +chronicler adds: "It seems to me that they did not ask it so much for +their honor as for the safety of their skins." The judges decided that +Quinones was not bound to give his own armor, as there were other suits +as good: nevertheless, he complied, and sent in addition four horses to +choose from. He was also anxious to joust with them, but Lope de +Estuniga refused to yield his place, and cited the chapter of the +regulations which provided that no one should single out his adversary. +Quinones offered him a very fine horse and a gold chain worth three +hundred doubloons, but Estuniga answered that he would not yield his +turn although he were offered a city. + +At vespers Estuniga and Juan Fabla were armed and the judges examined +their arms, and although Fabla had the better horse, they let it pass. +At the sound of the trumpet Estuniga entered the lists magnificently +attired, and attended by two pages in armor bearing a drawn sword and a +lance. Juan Fabla followed immediately, and at the given signal they +attacked each other lance in rest. Fabla encountered Estuniga in the +left arm, tearing off his armor, but neither of them broke his lance. In +the four following courses they failed to encounter. In the sixth Fabla +encountered his adversary in the breastplate, breaking his lance in the +middle, and the head remained sticking in the armor. They encountered in +the seventh course, and Estuniga's servant, who was in the lists, cried +out, "At him! at him!" The judges commanded his tongue to be cut out, +but at the intercession of those present the sentence was commuted to +thirty blows and imprisonment. They failed to encounter in the eighth +course, but in the ninth Estuniga broke his lance on Fabla's left arm: +the latter failed to encounter, and received a great reverse. After this +they ran nine courses without encountering, but in the nineteenth +Estuniga met Fabla in the plastron, and his lance slipped off on to his +helmet, but did not break, although it pierced the plastron and the iron +remained sticking in it. By this time it had grown so dark that the +judges could not distinguish the good from the bad encounters, and for +this reason they decided that the combat was finished the same as though +three lances had been broken. Estuniga invited Fabla to sup with +Quinones, "and at table there were many knights, and after supper they +danced." + +That same day there arrived at the Pass nine knights from Aragon, who +swore that they were gentlemen without reproach. Their spurs were taken +from them, according to the established custom, and hung up in the +judges' stand until they should enter the lists. + +The succeeding combats were but repetitions, with trifling variations, +of those just described. From dawn, when the trumpet sounded for battle, +until the evening grew so dark that the judges could not distinguish the +combatants, the defenders maintained the Pass against all comers with +bravery and honor. + +The third day there passed near Orbigo two ladies, and the judges sent +the king-at-arms and the herald to ascertain whether they were of noble +birth and provided with knights to represent them in the lists and win +them a passage through Orbigo, and also to request them to give up their +right-hand gloves. The ladies answered that they were noble and were on +a pilgrimage to Santiago; their names were Leonora and Guiomar de la +Vega; the former was married and accompanied by her husband; the latter +was a widow. The king-at-arms then requested their gloves to be kept as +a pledge until some knight should ransom them. Frances Davio, an +Aragonese knight, immediately offered to do combat for the ladies. The +husband of Dona Leonora said that he had not heard of this adventure, +and was unprepared to attempt it then, but if the ladies were allowed to +retain their gloves, as soon as he had accomplished his pilgrimage he +would return and enter the lists for them. The gloves, however, were +retained and hung in the judges' stand. The matter caused some +discussion, and finally the judges decided that the gloves should not be +kept, for fear it should seem that the defenders of the Pass were +interfering with pilgrims, and also on account of Juan de la Vega's +chivalrous response. So the gloves were sent on to Astorga to be +delivered to their owners, and Juan de la Vega was absolved from all +obligation to ransom them, "and there was strife among many knights as +to who should do battle for the sisters." + +On the 16th of July, Frances Davio jousted with Lope de Estuniga, and +when the trial of arms was ended with great honor to both, Davio swore +aloud, so that many knights heard him, "that never in the future would +he have a love-affair with a nun, for up to that time he had loved one, +and it was for her sake that he had come to the Pass; and any one who +had known it could have challenged him as an evil-doer, and he could not +have defended himself." Whereat Delena, the notary and compiler of the +original record of the Pass, exclaims, "To which I say that if he had +had any Christian nobleness, or even the natural shame which leads every +one to conceal his faults, he would not have made public such a +sacrilegious scandal, so dishonorable to the religious order and so +injurious to Christ." + +The same day the king-at-arms and herald announced to Quinones that a +gentleman named Vasco de Barrionuevo, servant of Ruy Diaz de Mendoza, +mayor-domo of the king, had come to make trial of his arms, but as he +was not a knight he prayed Quinones to confer that honor on him. +Quinones consented, and commanded him to wait at the entrance of the +lists, whither he and the nine defenders went on foot accompanied by a +great crowd. Quinones asked Vasco if he desired to become a knight, and +on his answering in the affirmative he drew his gilt sword and said, +"Sir, do you promise to keep and guard all the things appertaining to +the noble order of chivalry, and to die rather than fail in any one of +them?" He swore that he would do so, and Quinones, striking him on the +helmet with his naked sword, said, "God make thee a good knight and aid +thee to live and act as every good knight should do!" After this +ceremony the new knight entered the lists with Pedro de los Rios, and +they ran seven courses and broke three lances. + +On the festival of St. James (July 25th) Quinones entered the lists +without three of the principal pieces of his armor--namely, the visor of +his helmet, the left vantbrace and breastplate--and said, "Knights and +judges of this Passo Honroso, inasmuch as I announced through Monreal, +the king's herald, that on St. James's Day there would be in this place +three knights, each without a piece of his armor, and each ready to run +two courses with every knight who should present himself that day, know, +therefore, that I, Suero de Quinones, alone am those three knights, and +am prepared to accomplish what I proclaimed." The judges after a short +deliberation answered that they had no authority to permit him to risk +his life in manifest opposition to the regulations which he had sworn to +obey, and declared him under arrest, and forbade all jousting that day, +as it was Sunday and the festival of St. James. Quinones felt greatly +grieved at their decision, and told them that "in the service of his +lady he had gone into battle against the Moors in the kingdom of Granada +with his right arm bared, and God had preserved him, and would do so +now." The judges, however, were inflexible and refused to hear him. + +The last day of July, late in the afternoon, there arrived at the Pass +a gentleman named Pedro de Torrecilla, a retainer or squire of Alfonso +de Deza, but no one was willing to joust with him, on the ground that he +was not an hidalgo. The generous Lope de Estuniga, hearing this, offered +to dub him a knight, but Torrecilla thanked him and said he could not +afford to sustain in becoming manner the honor of chivalry, but he would +make good the fact that he was an hidalgo. Lope de Estuniga was so much +pleased by this discreet answer that he believed him truly of gentle +blood, and to do him honor entered the lists with him. It was, however, +so late that they had only time to run three courses, and then the +judges pronounced their joust finished. Torrecilla esteemed so highly +the fact that so renowned a knight as Lope de Estuniga should have +condescended to enter the lists with him that he swore it was the +greatest honor he had ever received in his life, and he offered him his +services. Estuniga thanked him, and affirmed that he felt as much +honored by having jousted with him as though he had been an emperor.[7] + +A few days after the above events an incident occurred which shows how +contagious the example of Quinones and his followers was, and to what +amusing imitations it led. A Lombard trumpeter made his appearance at +the Pass, and said that he had been to Santiago on a pilgrimage, and +while there had heard that there was at the Passo Honroso a trumpeter of +the king of Castile named Dalmao, very celebrated in his line, and he +had gone thirty leagues out of his way in order to have a trial of skill +with him; and he offered to stake a good trumpet against one of +Dalmao's. The latter took the Lombard's trumpet and blew so loud and +skilfully that the Italian, in spite of all his efforts, was obliged to +confess himself conquered, and gave up his trumpet. | + +So far, the encounters, if not entirely bloodless, had not been +attended by any fatal accident. The defenders had all been wounded, more +or less severely: once Quinones concealed the fact until the end of the +joust in which his antagonist had been badly hurt, and it was only when +the knights were disarmed that it was discovered that Quinones was +bleeding profusely. On another occasion his helmet was pierced by his +adversary's lance, the fragment of which he strove in vain to withdraw. +All believed him mortally wounded, but he cried, "It is nothing! it is +nothing! Quinones! Quinones!" and continued as though nothing had +occurred. After three encounters the judges descended from their stands +and made him remove his helmet to see whether he was wounded. When it +was found that he was not, "every one thought that God had miraculously +delivered him." Quinones was also wounded in his encounter with Juan de +Merlo, and again concealed the fact until the end of the combat, when he +asked the judges to excuse him from jousting further that day, as his +right hand, which he had previously sprained, was again dislocated, and +caused him terrible suffering; and well it might, for the flesh was +lacerated and the whole arm seemed paralyzed. + +The wounds received the 28th of July were, unfortunately, sufficiently +healed by the 6th of August to enable him to enter the lists with the +unhappy Esberte de Claramonte, an Aragonese. "Would to God," exclaims +the chronicler, "he had never come here!" In the ninth encounter +Quinones' lance entered his antagonist's left eye and penetrated the +brain. The luckless knight broke his lance in the ground, was lifted +from his saddle by the force of the blow, and fell dead without uttering +a word; "and his face seemed like the face of one who had been dead two +hours." The Aragonese and Catalans present bewailed his death loudly, +and Quinones was grieved in his soul at such a great misfortune. Every +possible honor was shown the dead knight, and the welfare of his soul +was not forgotten. Master Anton, Quinones' confessor, and the other +priests were sent for to administer the sacraments, and Quinones begged +them to chant the _Responsorium_[8] over the body, as was customary in +the Church, and do in all respects as though he himself were the dead +man. The priest replied that the Church did not consider as sons those +who died in such exercises, for they could not be performed without +mortal sin, neither did she intercede for their souls; in proof whereof +he referred to the canonical law, cap. _de Torneamentis_.[9] However, at +the earnest request of Quinones, Messer Anton went with a letter to the +bishop of Astorga to ask leave to bury Claramonte in holy ground, +Quinones promising if it were granted to take the dead knight to Leon +and bury him in his own family chapel. Meanwhile, they bore the body to +the hermitage of Santa Catalina, near the bridge of Orbigo, and there it +remained until night, when Messer Anton returned without the desired +license; so they buried Claramonte in unconsecrated ground near the +hermitage, with all possible honor and amid the tears of the assembled +knights. This mournful event does not seem, however, to have made a very +deep impression, for that same afternoon the jousting was continued. + +The remaining days were marked by no unusual occurrence: several were +seriously but not fatally wounded, and one by one the defenders of the +Pass were disabled; so that when the 9th of August, the last day of the +jousts, arrived, Sancho de Ravenal was the only one of the ten defenders +who was able to enter the lists. He maintained the Pass that day against +two knights, and then the jousts were declared ended. When the decision +was known there was great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, and the +lists were illuminated with torches. The judges returned the spurs which +still hung in the stand to the owners who through lack of time had not +been able to joust. Quinones and eight of his companions (Lope de Aller +was confined to his bed by his wounds) entered the lists in the same +manner and order as on the first day, and halting before the judges +Quinones addressed them as follows: "It is known to Your Honors how I +presented myself here thirty days ago with these companions, and the +cause of my so doing was to terminate the captivity in which until this +moment I was to a very virtuous lady, in token of which I have worn this +iron collar continually every Thursday. The condition of my ransom was, +as you know, three hundred lances broken or guarding this Pass thirty +days, awaiting knights and gentlemen who should free me from said +captivity; and whereas I believe, honorable sirs, that I have fulfilled +everything according to the terms set down at the beginning, I therefore +beg you will command me to remove this iron collar in testimony of my +liberty." + +The judges answered briefly as follows: "Virtuous gentleman and knight, +after hearing your declaration, which seems just and true, we hereby +declare your enterprise completed and your ransom paid; and be it known +to all present that of the three hundred lances mentioned in the +agreement but few remain yet to be broken, and these would not have +remained unbroken had it not been for lack of adversaries. We therefore +command the king-at-arms and the herald to remove the collar from your +neck and declare you from this time henceforth free from your enterprise +and ransom." | The king-at-arms and the herald then descended from the +stand, and in the presence of the notaries with due solemnity took the +collar from Quinones' neck in fulfilment of the judges' command. + +During the thirty days' jousting sixty-eight knights had entered the +lists: of these, one, Messer Arnoldo de la Floresta Bermeja (Arnold von +Rothwald?), was a German; one an Italian, Messer Luis de Aversa; one +Breton,[10] three Valencians, one Portuguese, thirteen Aragonese, four +Catalans, and the remaining forty-four were from the Castiles and other +parts of Spain. The number of courses run was seven hundred and +twenty-seven, and one hundred and sixty-six lances were broken. Quinones +was afterward killed by Gutierre Quijada, one of the knights who took +part in the Passo Honroso, and with whom he seems to have had some kind +of a feud. Quinones' sword may still be seen at Madrid in the Royal +Armory, No. 1917. + +T.F. CRANE. + + + + +AUTOMATISM. + +CONCLUDING PAPER. + + +A few months ago, walking along Fifteenth street, I came up behind a +friend and said, "Good-morning." No answer. "Good-morning, sir," a +little louder.--"Oh, excuse me: I did not hear you the first time."--" +How then did you know that I had spoken twice?" My friend was +nonplussed, but what had happened was this: on my first speaking the +impulse of the voice had fallen upon his ear and started a nerve-wave +which had struggled up as far as the lower apparatus at the base of the +brain, and, passing through this, had probably even reached the higher +nerve-centres in the surface of the cerebrum, near to which +consciousness resides, but not in sufficient force to arouse +consciousness. When, however, the attention was excited by my second +address, it perceived the first faint impulse which had been registered +upon the protoplasm of the nerve-centres, although unfelt. Probably most +of my readers have had a similar experience. A word spoken, but not +consciously heard, has a moment afterward been detected by an effort as +distinctly conscious as that made by the man who is attempting to +decipher some old faint manuscript. This incident and its explanation +will serve to illustrate the relation which seems to exist between +consciousness and sensation, and also between consciousness and the +general mental actions. + +It will perhaps render our thinking more accurate if we attempt to get a +clear idea just here as to what consciousness is and what it is not. +Various definitions of the term have been given, but the simplest and +truest seems to be that it is a knowledge of the present existence of +self, and perhaps also of surrounding objects, although it is +conceivable that a conscious person might be shut off from all contact +with the external world by abolition of the senses. Consciousness is +certainly not what the philosopher and the theologian call the Ego, or +the personality of the individual. A blow on the head puts an end for +the time being to consciousness, but not to the man's personality. +Neither is consciousness the same as the sense of personal identity, +although it is closely connected with it. The conviction of a man that +he is the same person through the manifold changes which occur in him as +the successive years go on is evidently based on consciousness and +memory. This is well illustrated by some very curious cases in which the +sense or knowledge of personal identity has been completely lost. Not +long ago an instance of such complete loss was recorded by Doctor +Hewater (_Hospital Gazette_, November, 1879). The gentleman who was the +subject of this loss found himself standing upon the depot-platform in +Belaire City, Ohio, utterly ignorant of who he was or where he came from +or where he was going to. He had a little money in his pocket, and in +his hand a small port-manteau which contained a pair of scissors and a +change of linen. He was well dressed, and on stating at the nearest +hotel his strange condition and asking for a bed, was received as a +guest. In the evening he went out and attended a temperance lecture. +Excited by the eloquence of the speaker, he was seized with an +uncontrollable impulse, rushed from the room and began to smash with a +club the windows of a neighboring tavern. The roughs ran out of the +saloon and beat him very badly, breaking his arm: this brought him to +the police-station, and thence to the hospital. For months every effort +was made to identify him, but at the date of reporting without avail. He +was known in the hospital as "Ralph," that name having been found on his +underclothing. His knowledge upon all subjects unconnected with his +identity is correct: his mental powers are good, and he has shown +himself expert at figures and with a pen. For a long time it was thought +that he was feigning, but every one about him was finally convinced that +he is what he says he is--namely, a man without knowledge of his +personal identity. This curious case, which is by no means unparalleled +in the annals of psychological medicine, shows how distinct memory is +from consciousness. Memory of the past was in Ralph entirely abolished +so far as concerned his own personality, but consciousness was perfect, +and the results of previous mental training remained, as is shown by his +use of figures. It was as though there was a dislocation between +consciousness and the memory of self. + +The distinctness of consciousness from memory is also shown by dreams. +Events which have passed are often recalled during the unconsciousness +of sleep. The curious although common carrying of the memory of a dream +over from the unconsciousness of sleep to the consciousness of waking +movements further illustrates the complete distinction between the two +cerebral functions. + +If memory, then, be not part of consciousness, what is its nature? There +is a law governing nervous actions both in health and disease which is +known as that of habitual action. The curious reflex movements made by +the frog when acid is put upon its foot, as detailed in my last paper, +were explained by this law. The spinal cord, after having frequently +performed a certain act under the stimulus of conscious sensation, +becomes so accustomed to perform that act that it does it when the +oft-felt peripheral impulse comes again to it, although the cerebral +functions and consciousness are suspended. A nerve-centre, even of the +lowest kind, once moulded by repeated acts, retains their +impression--i.e. remembers them. Learning to walk is, as was shown in +the last paper, training the memory of the lower nerve-centres at the +base of the brain until at last they direct the movements of walking +without aid from consciousness. The musician studies a piece of music. +At first the notes are struck in obedience to a conscious act of the +will founded upon a conscious recognition of the printed type. By and by +the piece is so well known that it is played even when the attention is +directed to some other subject; that is, the act of playing has been +repeated until the lower nerve-centres, which preside over the movements +of the fingers during the playing, have been so impressed that when once +the impulses are started they flow on uninterruptedly until the whole +set has been gone through and the piece of music is finished. This is +the result of memory of the lower nerve-centres. At first, the child +reads only by a distinct conscious effort of memory, recalling painfully +each word. After a time the words become so impressed upon the lower +nerve-centres that we may read on when our attention is directed to some +other thing. Thus, often we read aloud and are unconscious of what we +have read, precisely as the compositor habitually sets up pages of +manuscript without the faintest idea of what it is all about. This law +of habitual action applies not only to the lower nerve-centres in their +healthy condition, but with equal force in disease. It is notorious that +one of the great difficulties in the cure of epilepsy is the habit which +is acquired by the nerve-centres of having at intervals attacks of +convulsive discharge of nerve-force. Some years since I saw in +consultation a case which well illustrates this point. A boy was struck +in the head with a brick, and dropped unconscious. On coming to be was +seized with an epileptic convulsion. These convulsions continually +recurred for many months before I saw him. He never went two hours +without them, and had usually from thirty to forty a day--some, it is +true, very slight, but others very severe. Medicines had no influence +over him, and with the idea that there might be a point of irritation in +the wound itself causing the epilepsy, the scar was taken out. The +result was that the seizures were the same day reduced very much in +frequency, and in a short time became amenable to treatment, so that +finally complete recovery occurred. He had, however, probably fifty +convulsions in all after the removal of the scar before this result was +achieved. Undoubtedly, in this case the point of irritation was removed +by the operation. The cause of the convulsions having been taken away, +they should have stopped at once. But here the law of habitual action +asserted itself, and it was necessary to overcome the remembrance of the +disease by the nerve-centres. It is plain that the higher nerve-centre +remembers the idea or fact because it is impressed by ideas and facts, +precisely as the lower spinal nerve-centres in the frog remember +irritations and movements which have impressed them. The faculty of +memory resides in all nerve-centres: the nature of that which is +remembered depends upon the function of the individual centre. A +nerve-cell which thinks remembers thought--a nerve-cell which causes +motion remembers motion. + +The so-called cases of double consciousness are perfectly simple in +their explanation when the true nature of memory is borne in mind. In +these cases the subject seems to lead a double life. The attacks usually +come on suddenly. In the first attack all memory of the past is lost. +The person is as an untaught child, and is forced to begin re-education. +In some of these cases this second education has gone on for weeks, and +advanced perhaps beyond the stage of reading, when suddenly the patient +passes back to his original condition, losing now all memory of events +which had occurred and all the knowledge acquired in what may be called +his second state, but regaining all that he had originally possessed. +Weeks or months afterward the second state reoccurs, the individual now +forgetting all memory of the first or natural condition. It is usually +found that events happening and knowledge acquired during the first +attack of what we have called the second state are remembered in +subsequent returns, so that the second education can be taken up at the +point at which it was lost, and progress be made. This alternation of +conditions has in some instances gone on for years, the patient living, +as it were, two lives at broken intervals. This condition, usually +called double consciousness, is not double consciousness at all, but, if +the term may be allowed, double memory. It is evidently allied in its +nature to the loss of the sense of personal identity. Certain phenomena +of remembrance seen frequently in exhausting diseases, and especially in +old age, show the permanence of impressions made upon the higher +nerve-centres, and are also very similar in their nature to this +so-called double consciousness. Not long since a very aged lady of +Philadelphia, who was at the point of death, began to talk in an unknown +tongue, soon losing entirely her power of expressing herself in English. +No one could for a time make out the language she was speaking, but it +was finally found to be Portuguese; and in tracing the history of the +octogenarian it was discovered that until four or five years of age she +had been brought up in Rio Janeiro, where Portuguese is spoken. There is +little difference between the nature of such a case and that of the +so-called double consciousness, both involving the forgetting of that +which has been known for years. + +There is a curious mental condition sometimes produced by large doses of +hasheesh which might be termed double consciousness more correctly than +the state to which the name is usually applied. I once took an enormous +dose of this substance. After suffering from a series of symptoms which +it is not necessary here to detail, I was seized with a horrible +undefined fear, as of impending death, and began at the same time to +have marked periods when all connection seemed to be severed between the +external world and myself. During these periods I was unconscious in so +far that I was oblivious of all external objects, but on coming out of +one it was not a blank, dreamless void upon which I looked back, a mere +empty space, but rather a period of active but aimless life, full, not +of connected thought, but of disjointed images. The mind, freed from the +ordinary laws of association, passed, as it were, with lightning-like +rapidity from one idea to another. The duration of these attacks was but +a few seconds, but to me they seemed endless. Although I was perfectly +conscious during the intermissions between the paroxysms, all power of +measuring time was lost: seconds appeared to be hours--minutes grew to +days--hours stretched out to infinity. I would look at my watch, and +then after an hour or two, as I thought, would look again and find that +scarcely a minute had elapsed. The minute-hand appeared motionless, as +though graven in the face itself: the laggard second-hand moved so +slowly that it seemed a hopeless task to watch it during its whole +infinite round of a minute, and I always gave up in despair before the +sixty seconds had elapsed. When my mind was most lucid there was a +distinct duplex action in regard to the duration of time. I would think +to myself, "It has been so long since a certain event!"--an hour, for +example, since the doctor was summoned--but Reason would say, "No, it +has been only a few minutes: your thoughts and feelings are caused by +the hasheesh." Nevertheless, I was not able to shake off, even for a +moment, this sense of the almost indefinite prolongation of time. +Gradually the periods of unconsciousness became longer and more +frequent, and the oppressive feeling of impending death more intense. It +was like a horrible nightmare: each successive paroxysm was felt to be +the longest I had suffered. As I came out of it a voice seemed +constantly saying, "You are getting worse; your paroxysms are growing +longer and deeper; they will overmaster you; you will die." A sense of +personal antagonism between my will-power and myself, as affected by the +drug, grew very strong. I felt as though my only chance was to struggle +against these paroxysms--that I must constantly arouse myself by an +effort of will; and that effort was made with infinite toil and pain. It +seemed to me as if some evil spirit had the control of the whole of me +except the will, and was in determined conflict with that, the last +citadel of my being. Once or twice during a paroxysm I felt myself +mounting upward, expanding, dilating, dissolving into the wide confines +of space, overwhelmed by a horrible, unutterable despair. Then by a +tremendous effort I seemed to break loose and to start up with the +shuddering thought, "Next time you will not be able to throw this off; +and what then?" The sense of double consciousness which I had to some +extent is often, under the action of hasheesh, much more distinct. I +have known patients to whom it seemed that they themselves sitting upon +the chair were in continual conversation with a second self standing in +front of them. The explanation of this curious condition is a difficult +one. It is possible that the two sides of the brain, which are +accustomed in health to work as one organ, are disjoined by the poison, +so that one half of the brain thinks and acts in opposition to the other +half. + +From what has already been said it is plain that memory is entirely +distinct from consciousness, and that it is in a certain sense +automatic, or at least an attribute of all nerve-centres. If this be so, +it would seem probable, _a priori_, that other intellectual acts are +also distinct from consciousness. For present purposes the activities of +the cerebrum may be divided into the emotional and the more +strictly-speaking intellectual acts. A little thought will, I think, +convince any of my readers that emotions are as purely automatic as the +movements of the frog's hind leg. The Irishman who said that he was +really a brave man, although he had a cowardly pair of legs which always +ran away with him, was far from speaking absurdly. It is plain that +passion is something entirely beyond the conscious will, because it is +continually excited from without, and because we are unable to produce +it by a mere effort of the will without some external cause. The common +phrase, "He is working himself up into a passion," indicates a +perception of the fact that consciousness sometimes employs memories, +thoughts, associations, etc. to arouse the lower nerve-centres that are +connected with the emotion of anger. It is so also with various other +emotions. The soldier who habitually faces death in the foremost rank of +the battle, and yet shrinks in mortal fear or antipathy from a mouse, is +not an unknown spectacle. It is clear that his fear of the little animal +is based not upon reason, but upon an uncontrollable sensitiveness in +his nervous system acquired by inheritance or otherwise. It does not +follow from this that conscious will is not able to affect emotion. As +already pointed out, it can arouse emotion by using the proper means, +and it undoubtedly can, to a greater or less extent, directly subdue +emotion. The law of inhibition, as it is called by the physiologist, +dominates the whole nervous system. Almost every nerve-centre has above +it a higher centre whose function it is directly to repress or subdue +the activity of the lower centre. A familiar instance of this is seen in +the action of the heart: there are certain nerve-centres which when +excited lessen the rate of the heart's beat, and are even able to stop +it altogether. The relation of the will-power to the emotions is +directly inhibitory. The will is able to repress the activity of those +centres which preside over anger. In the man with red hair these centres +may be very active and the will-power weak; hence the inhibitory +influence of the will is slight and the man gets angry easily. In the +phlegmatic temperament the anger-centres are slow to action, the +will-power strong, and the man is thrown off his balance with +difficulty. It is well known that power grows with exercise, and when we +habitually use the will in controlling the emotional centres its power +continually increases. The man learning self-control is simply drilling +the lower emotional centres into obedience to the repressive action of +the higher will. Without further demonstration, it is clear that emotion +is distinct from conscious will, and is automatic in the sense in which +the term has been used in this article. + +Imagination also is plainly distinct from consciousness. It acts during +sleep. Often, indeed, it runs riot during the slumbers of the night, but +at times it works with an automatic regularity exceeding its powers +during the waking moments. It is also true that judgment is exercised in +sleep, and that reason sometimes exerts its best efforts in that state. +But not only do the intellectual nets go on without consciousness during +sleep, but also while we are awake. Some years since I was engaged in +working upon a book requiring a good deal of thought. Very frequently I +would be unable to solve certain problems, but leaving them would find a +day or two afterward, on taking pen in hand, that the solution traced +itself without effort on the paper clearly and logically. During the +sleeping hours, or during the waking hours of a busy professional life, +the brain had, without my consciousness, been solving the difficulties. +This experience is by no means a peculiar one. Many scientific workers +have borne testimony to a similar habit of the cerebrum. The late Sir W. +Rowan Hamilton, the discoverer of the mathematical method known as that +of the quaternions, states that his mind suddenly solved that problem +after long work when he was thinking of something else. He says in one +place: "Tomorrow will be the fifteenth birthday of the quaternions. They +started into life or light full grown on the 16th of October, 1843, as I +was walking with Lady Hamilton to Dublin and came up to Brougham Bridge; +that is to say, I then and there felt the galvanic circle of thought +closed, and the sparks which fell from it were the fundamental equations +between _I, F_ and _K_ exactly as I have used them ever since. I felt +the problem to have been at that moment solved--an intellectual want +relieved which had haunted me for at least fifteen years before." Mr. +Appolo, a distinguished scientific inventor, stated in the Proceedings +of the Royal Society that it was his habit to get the bearings and facts +of a case during the day and go to bed, and wake the next morning with +the problem solved. If the problem was a difficult one he always passed +a restless night. Examples might be multiplied. Sir Benjamin Brodie, +speaking of his own mental action, states that when he was unable to +proceed further in some investigation he was accustomed to let the +matter drop. Then "after an interval of time, without any addition to my +stock of knowledge, I have found the obscurity and confusion in which +the subject was originally enveloped to have cleared away. The facts +have seemed all to settle themselves in their right places, and their +mutual relations to have become apparent, although I have not been +sensible of having made any distinct effort for that purpose." + +Not only is there such a thing, then, as unconscious thought, but it is +probable that the best thinking is rarely, if ever, done under the +influence of consciousness. The poet creates his work when the +inspiration is on him and he is forgetful of himself and the world. +Consciousness may aid in pruning and polishing, but in creating it often +interferes with, rather than helps, the cerebral action. I think any one +of my readers who has done any literary or scientific writing will agree +that his or her best work is performed when self and surrounding objects +have disappeared from thought and consciousness scarcely exists more +than it does in a dream. Sometimes the individual is conscious of the +flow of an undercurrent of mental action, although this does not rise to +the level of distinct recognition. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a +business-man of Boston who, whilst considering a very important +question, was conscious of an action going on in his brain so unusual +and painful as to excite his apprehension that he was threatened with +palsy; but after some hours his perplexity was all at once cleared up by +the natural solution of the problem which was troubling him, worked out, +as he believed, in the obscure and restless interval. "Jumping to a +conclusion," a process to which the female sex is said to be especially +prone, is often due to unconscious cerebration, the reasoning being so +rapid that the consciousness cannot follow the successive steps. It is +related that Lord Mansfield once gave the advice to a younger friend +newly appointed to a colonial judgeship, "Never give reasons for your +decisions. Your judgments will very probably be right, but your reasons +will almost certainly be wrong." The brain of the young judge evidently +worked unconsciously with accuracy, but was unable to trace the steps +along which it really travelled. + +We are not left to the unaided study of our mental processes for proof +that the human brain is a mechanism. In the laboratory of Professor +Goltz in Strasburg I saw a terrier from which he had removed, by +repeated experiments, all the surface of the brain, thereby reducing the +animal to a simple automaton. Looked at while lying in his stall, he +seemed at first in no wise different from other dogs: he took food when +offered to him, was fat, sleek and very quiet. When I approached him he +took no notice of me, but when the assistant caught him by the tail he +instantly became the embodiment of fury. He had not sufficient +perceptive power to recognize the point of assault, so that his keeper, +standing behind him, was not in danger. With flashing eyes and hair all +erect the dog howled and barked furiously, incessantly snapping and +biting, first on this side and then on that, tearing with his fore legs +and in every way manifesting rage. When his tail was dropped by the +attendant and his head touched, the storm at once subsided, the fury was +turned into calm, and the animal, a few seconds before so rageful, was +purring like a cat and stretching out its head for caresses. This +curious process could be repeated indefinitely. Take hold of his tail, +and instantly the storm broke out afresh: pat his head, and all was +tenderness. It was possible to play at will with the passions of the +animal by the slightest touches. + +During the Franco-German contest a French soldier was struck in the head +with a bullet and left on the field for dead, but subsequently showed +sufficient life to cause him to be carried to the hospital, where he +finally recovered his general health, but remained in a mental state +very similar to that of Professor Goltz's dog. As he walked about the +rooms and corridors of the soldiers' home in Paris he appeared to the +stranger like an ordinary man, unless it were in his apathetic manner. +When his comrades were called to the dinner-table he followed, sat down +with them, and, the food being placed upon his plate and a knife and +fork in his hands, would commence to eat. That this was not done in +obedience to thought or knowledge was shown by the fact that his dinner +could be at once interrupted by awakening a new train of feeling by a +new external impulse. Put a crooked stick resembling a gun into his +hand, and at once the man was seized with a rage comparable to that +produced in the Strasburg dog by taking hold of his tail. The fury of +conflict was on him: with a loud yell he would recommence the skirmish +in which he had been wounded, and, crying to his comrades, would make a +rush at the supposed assailant. Take the stick out of his hand, and at +once his apathy would settle upon him; give him a knife and fork, and, +whether at the table or elsewhere, he would make the motions of eating; +hand him a spade, and he would begin to dig. It is plain that the +impulse produced by seeing his comrades move to the dining-room started +the chain of automatic movements which resulted in his seating himself +at the table. The weapon called into new life the well-known acts of the +battle-field. The spade brought back the day when, innocent of blood, he +cultivated the vineyards of sunny France. + +In both the dog and the man just spoken of the control of the will over +the emotions and mental acts was evidently lost, and the mental +functions were performed only in obedience to impulses from +without--i.e. were automatic. The human brain is a complex and very +delicate mechanism, so uniform in its actions, so marvellous in its +creation, that it is able to measure the rapidity of its own processes. +There are scarcely two brains which work exactly with the same rapidity +and ease. One man thinks faster than another man for reasons as purely +physical as those which give to one man a faster gait than that of +another. Those who move quickly are apt to think quickly, the whole +nervous system performing its processes with rapidity. This is not, +however, always the case, as it is possible for the brain to be +differently constructed, so far as concerns its rapidity of action, from +the spinal cord of the same individual. Our power of measuring time +without instruments is probably based upon the cerebral system of each +individual being accustomed to move at a uniform rate. Experience has +taught the brain that it thinks so many thoughts or does so much work in +such a length of time, and it judges that so much time has elapsed when +it has done so much work. The extraordinary sense of prolongation of +time which occurs in the intoxication produced by hasheesh is probably +due to the fact that under the influence of the drug the brain works +very much faster than it habitually does. Having produced a multitude of +images or thoughts in a moment, the organ judges that a corresponding +amount of time has elapsed. Persons are occasionally seen who have the +power of waking at any desired time: going to bed at ten o'clock, they +will rouse themselves at four, five or six in the morning, as they have +made up their minds to do the previous night. The explanation of this +curious faculty seems to be that in these persons the brain-functions go +on with so much regularity during sleep that the brain is enabled to +judge, though unconsciously, when the time fixed upon has arrived, and +by an unconscious effort to recall consciousness. + +Of course the subject of automatism might have been discussed at far +greater length than is allowable in the limits of two magazine articles, +but sufficient has probably been said to show the strong current of +modern physiological psychology toward proving that all ordinary mental +actions, except the exercise of the conscious will, are purely physical, +produced by an instrument which works in a method not different from +that in which the glands of the mouth secrete saliva and the tubules of +the stomach gastric juice. Some of my readers may say this is pure +materialism, or at least leads to materialism. No inquirer who pauses to +think how his investigation is going to affect his religious belief is +worthy to be called scientific. The scientist, rightly so called, is a +searcher after truth, whatever may be the results of the discovery of +the truth. Modern science, however, has not proved the truth of +materialism. It has shown that the human organism is a wonderful +machine, but when we come to the further question as to whether this +machine is inhabited by an immortal principle which rules it and directs +it, or whether it simply runs itself, science has not, and probably +cannot, give a definite answer. It has reached its limit of inquiry, and +is unable to cross the chasm that lies beyond. There are men who +believe that there is nothing in the body save the body itself, and that +when that dies all perishes: there are others, like the writer, who +believe that they feel in their mental processes a something which they +call "will," which governs and directs the actions of the machine, and +which, although very largely influenced by external surroundings, is +capable of rising above the impulses from without, leading them to +believe in the existence of more than flesh--of soul and God. The +materialist, so far as natural science is concerned, stands upon logical +ground, but no less logical is the foundation of him who believes in +human free-will and immortality. The decision as to the correctness of +the beliefs of the materialist or of the theist must be reached by other +data than those of natural science. + +H.C. WOOD, M.D. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM AND DEMOCRATIC IDEAS. + + +A movement which appeals not to the emotions, but to the +intellect--whose advocates aim at enlightening-the public mind and +convincing it of the truth of some new or disregarded principle, and the +necessity of enforcing it--needs above all things open and active +opposition, both as a stimulant to its supporters and as a means of +arousing general attention. It has been very unfortunate for our +Civil-Service Reformers that they have never been able to provoke +discussion. They have had the field of argument all to themselves. Their +repeated challenges have been received only with silent respect, +scornful indifference, or expressions of encouragement still more +depressing. Those whose hostility they were prepared to encounter have +been the readiest to acknowledge the truth of their propositions-- +considered as pure abstractions--and have even invited +them to apply their system--in conjunction with that which it seeks to +supplant. Meanwhile, the popular interest has been kept busily absorbed +by issues of a different nature; and the Reformers, snubbed in quarters +where they had confidently counted on aid, and hustled from the arena in +which they had fondly imagined they were to play a prominent part and +exert a decisive influence, are now, it is announced, about to devote +their energies to the quiet propagation of their views by means of +tracts and other publications, abstaining from any appearance in the +domain of actual politics either as a distinct party or as an organized +body of independent voters appealing to the hopes and fears of existing +parties, and ready to co-operate with one or the other according to the +inducements offered for their support. + +We heartily wish them success in this new enterprise, and it is as a +contribution to their efforts that we publish in this number of the +Magazine an article which, so far as our observation extends, is the +first direct argumentative attack upon their doctrines and open defence +of the system they have assailed. We shall not undertake to anticipate +their reply, but I shall content ourselves with pointing out, on the +principle of _fas est ab hoste doceri,_ what they may learn from this +attack, and especially what hints may be derived from it in regard to +the proper objective point of their proposed operations. Hitherto, if we +mistake not, they have been led to suppose that the only obstacles in +their way are the interested antagonism of the "politicians" and the +ignorant apathy of the great mass of the people, and it is because they +have found themselves powerless to make head against the tactics of the +former class that they intend to confine themselves henceforth to the +work of awaking and enlightening the latter. There is always danger, +however, when we are expounding our pet theories to a group of silent +listeners, of ignoring their state of mind in regard to the +subject-matter and mistaking the impression produced by our eloquence. +George Borrow tells us that when preaching in Rommany to a congregation +of Gypsies he felt highly flattered by the patient attention of his +hearers, till he happened to notice that they all had their eyes fixed +in a diabolical squint. Something of the same kind would, we fear, be +the effect on a large number of persons of well-meant expositions of the +English civil-service reform and its admirable results. Nor will any +appeals to the moral sense excite an indignation at the workings of our +present system sufficiently deep and general to demand its overthrow. +Civil-service reform had a far easier task in England than it has here, +and forces at its back which are here actively or inertly opposed to it. +There the system of patronage was intimately connected with +oligarchical rule; official positions were not so much monopolized by a +victorious party as by a privileged class; the government of the day had +little interest in maintaining the system, the bulk of the nation had a +direct interest in upsetting it, and its downfall was a natural result +of the growth of popular power and the decline of aristocracy. Our +system, however similar in its character and effects, had no such +origin; it does not belong to some peculiar institution which we are +seeking to get rid of: on the contrary, it has its roots in certain +conceptions of the nature of government and popular freedom--of the +relations between a people and those who administer its affairs--which +are all but universally current among us. + +It is this last point which is clearly and forcibly presented in the +article of our contributor, and which it will behoove the Reformers not +to overlook. Nothing is more characteristic of the American mind, in +reference to political ideas, than its strong conservatism. This fact, +which has often puzzled foreign observers accustomed to connect +democracy with innovating tendencies and violent fluctuations, is yet +easily explained. Though ours is a new country, its system of government +is really older than that of almost any other civilized country. In the +century during which it has existed intact and without any material +modification the institutions of most other nations have undergone a +complete change, in some cases of form and structure, in others of +theory and essence. Even England, which boasts of the stability of its +government and its immunity from the storms that have overturned so many +thrones and disorganized so many states, has experienced a fundamental, +though gradual and peaceable, revolution. There, as elsewhere, the +centre of power has changed, the chain of tradition has been broken, and +new conceptions of the functions of government and its relations to the +governed have taken the place of the old ones. But in America nothing of +this kind has occurred: the "old order" has not passed away, nor have +its foundations undergone the least change; the municipal and colonial +institutions under which we first exercised the right of +self-government, and the Constitution which gave us our national +baptism, are still the fountain of all our political ideas; and our +party struggles are not waged about new principles or animated by new +watch words, but are fenced and guided by the maxims transmitted by the +founders of the republic. This is our strength and our safeguard against +wild experiments, but it is also an impediment to every suggestion of +improvement. It binds us to the letter of tradition, leads us to +confound the accidental with the essential, and gives to certain notions +and certain words a potency which must be described as an anachronism. +We still use the language of the Revolutionary epoch, recognize no +perils but those against which our ancestors had to guard, and put faith +in the efficacy of methods that have no longer an object, and of phrases +that have lost their original significance. Because George III. +distributed offices at his pleasure as rewards, and bound the holders to +party services in conformity with his will, the sovereign people is to +do the same. "Rotation in office" having been the means in the +eighteenth century of dispelling political stagnation and checking +jobbery and corruption, it is still the only process for correcting +abuses and getting the public service properly performed. The prime duty +of all good citizens is to emulate the incessant political activity of +their patriotic forefathers, and it is owing solely to a too general +neglect of this duty that ballot-stuffing and machine-running, and all +the other evils unknown in early days and in primitive communities, have +come into existence and gained sway throughout the land. These and +similar views, according to our observation, characterize what we may +without disrespect, and without confining the remark to the rural +districts, term the provincial mind, and wherever they exist the ideas +of the Civil-Service Reformers are not only not understood or treated as +visionary, but are regarded with aversion and distrust as foreign, +monstrous and inconsistent with popular freedom and republican +government. + + +AN UNFINISHED PAGE OF HISTORY. + +I can easily understand why educated Americans cross the Atlantic every +year in shoals in search of the picturesque; and I can understand, too, +all that they say of the relief which ivied ruins and cathedrals and +galleries, or any other reminders of past ages, give to their eyes, +oppressed so long by our interminable rows of store-box houses, our +pasteboard villas, the magnificence of our railway accommodations for +Ladies and Gents, and all the general gaseous glitter which betrays how +young and how rich we are. But I cannot understand why it is that their +eyes, thus trained, should fail to see the exceptional picturesqueness +of human life in this country. The live man is surely always more +dramatic and suggestive than a house or a costume, provided we have eyes +to interpret him; and this people, as no other, are made up of the +moving, active deposits and results of world-old civilizations and +experiments in living. + +Outwardly, if you choose, the country is like one of the pretentious +houses of its rich citizens--new, smug, complacently commonplace--but +within, like the house again, it is filled with rare bits gathered out +of every age and country and jumbled together in utter confusion. If you +ride down Seventh street in a horse-car, you are in a psychological +curio-shop. On one side, very likely, is a Russian Jew just from the +Steppes; on the other, a negro with centuries of heathendom and slavery +hinting themselves in lip and eye; the driver is a Fenian, with the +blood of the Phoenicians in his veins; in front of you is a gentleman +with the unmistakable Huguenot nose, and chin; while an almond-eyed +pagan, disguised behind moustache and eye-glasses, courteously takes +your fare and drops it for you in the Slawson box. Nowhere do all the +elements of Tragedy and Comedy play so strange a part as on the +dead-level of this American stage. It is because it is so dead a level +that we fail to see the part they play--because "furious Goth and fiery +Hun" meet, not on the battle-field, but in the horse-car, dropping their +cents together in a Slawson box. + +For example, as to the tragedy. + +I met at dinner not long ago a lady who was introduced to me under a +French name, but whose clear olive complexion, erect carriage and +singular repose of manner would indicate her rather to be a Spaniard. +She wore a red rose in the coils of her jetty hair, and another fastened +the black lace of her corsage. Her eyes, which were slow, dark and +brilliant, always rested on you an instant before she spoke with that +fearless candor which is not found in the eyes of a member of any race +that has ever been enslaved. I was told that her rank was high among her +own people, and in her movements and voice there were that quiet +simplicity and total lack of self-consciousness which always belong +either to a man or woman of the highest breeding, or to one whose +purpose in life is so noble as to lift him above all considerations of +self. Although a foreigner, she spoke English with more purity than most +of the Americans at the table, but with a marked and frequent recurrence +of forcible but half-forgotten old idioms; which was due, as! learned +afterward, to her having had no book of English literature to study for +several years but Shakespeare. I observed that she spoke but seldom, and +to but one person at a time; but when she did, her casual talk was the +brimming over of a mind of great original force as yet full and unspent. +She was, besides, a keen observer who had studied much, but seen more. + +This lady, in a word, was one who would deserve recognition by the best +men and women in any country; and she received it here, as many of the +readers of _Lippincott_, who will recognize my description, will +remember. She was caressed and feted by literary and social celebrities +in Washington and New York; Boston made much of her; Longfellow and +Holmes made verses in her honor; prying reporters gave accounts of her +singular charm and beauty to the public in the daily papers. + +She was accompanied by two of the men of her family. They did not speak +English, but they were men of strong practical sense and business +capacity, with the odd combination in their character of that +exaggerated perception of honorable dealing which we are accustomed to +call chivalric. They had, too, a grave dignity and composure of bearing +which would have befitted Spanish hidalgos, and beside which our pert, +sociable American manner and slangy talk were sadly belittled. These men +(for I had a reason in making particular inquiries concerning them) were +in private life loyal friends, good citizens, affectionate husbands and +fathers--in a word, Christian men, honest from the marrow to the +outside. + +Now to the strange part of my story, revolting enough to our republican +ears. This lady and her people, in the country to which they belong, are +held in a subjection to which that of the Russian serf was comparative +freedom. They are held legally as the slaves not of individuals, but of +the government, which has absolute power over their persons, lives and +property. Its manner of exercising that power is, however, peculiar. +They are compelled to live within certain enclosures. Each enclosure is +ruled by a man of the dominant race, usually of the lower class, who, as +a rule, gains the place by bribing the officer of government who has +charge of these people. The authority of this man within the limits of +the enclosure is literally as autocratic as that of the Russian czar. He +distributes the rations intended by the government for the support of +these people, or such part of them as he thinks fit, retaining whatever +amount he chooses for himself. There is nothing to restrain him in these +robberies. In consequence, the funds set aside by the government for the +support of its wretched dependants are stolen so constantly by the +officers at the capital and the petty tyrants of the separate enclosures +that the miserable creatures almost yearly starve and freeze to death +from want. Their resource would be, of course, as they are in a +civilized country, to work at trades, to farm, etc. But this is not +permitted to them. Another petty officer is appointed in each enclosure +to barter goods for the game or peltry which they bring in or crops that +they manage to raise. He fixes his own price for both his goods and +theirs, and cheats them by wholesale at his leisure. There is no appeal: +they are absolutely forbidden to trade with any other person. The men of +my friend's family--educated men and shrewd in business as any merchant +of Philadelphia--when at home were liable to imprisonment and a fine of +five hundred dollars if they bought from or sold to any other person +than this one man. They are, too, taught no trade or profession. Each +enclosure has its appointed blacksmith, carpenter, etc. of the dominant +class, who, naturally, will not share their profits by teaching their +trade to the others. + +Within the enclosures my friend and her people, no matter how +enlightened or refined they may be, are herded, and under the same +rules, as so many animals. They cannot leave the enclosure without +passes, such as were granted to our slaves before the war when they +wished to go outside of the plantation. This woman, when seated at +President Hayes's table, the equal in mind and breeding of any of her +companions, was, by the laws of her country, a runaway, legally liable +to be haled by the police back to her enclosure, and shot if she +resisted. She and her people are absolutely unprotected by any law. It +is indeed the only case, so far as I know, in any Christian country, in +which a single class are so set aside, unprotected by any law. When our +slaves were killed or tortured by inhuman masters, there was at least +some show of justice for them. The white murderer went through some form +of trial and punishment. The slave, though a chattel, was still a human +being. But these people are not recognized by the law as human beings. +They cannot buy nor sell; they cannot hold property: if with their own +hands they build a house and gather about them the comforts of +civilization and the wife and children to which the poorest negro, the +most barbarous savage, has a right, any man of the dominant class can, +without violating any law, take possession of the house, ravage the +wife and thrust the children out to starve. The wrong-doer is subject to +no penalty. The victim has no right of appeal to the courts. Hence such +outrages are naturally of daily occurrence. Not only are they +perpetrated on individuals, but frequently there is a raid made upon the +whole of the inmates of one enclosure--whenever, in fact, the people in +the neighborhood fancy they would like to take possession of their land. +The kinsmen of my friend, with their clan numbering some seven hundred +souls--a peaceable, industrious Christian community, living on land +which had belonged to their ancestors for centuries--were swept off of +it a few years ago at the whim of two of their rulers: their houses and +poor little belongings were all left behind, and they were driven a +thousand miles into a sterile, malarious region where nearly half of +their number died. The story of their sufferings, their homesickness and +their despair on the outward journey, and of how still later some thirty +of them returned on foot, carrying the bones of those who had died to +lay them in their old homes, is one of the most dramatic pages in +history. De Quincey's "Flight of a Tartar Clan" does not equal it in +pathos or as a story of heroism and endurance. At the end of their +homeward journey, when almost within sight of their homes, the heroic +little band were seized by order of the ruler of their enclosure and +committed to prison. The tribe are still in the malarious swamps to +which they were exiled. Strangers hold their farms and the houses which +they built with their own hands. + +The anomalous condition of a people legally ranking as animals, and not +human beings, would naturally produce unpleasant consequences when they +are criminally the aggressors. When they steal or kill they cannot be +tried, sent to jail or hung as if they were human in the eye of the law. +The ruler of each enclosure is granted arbitrary power in such cases to +punish at his discretion. He is judge, jury, and often executioner. He +has a control over the lives of these people more absolute than that of +any Christian monarch over his subjects. If he thinks proper to shoot +the offender, he can call upon the regular army of the country to +sustain him. If the individual offender escapes, the whole of the +inmates of the enclosure are held responsible, and men, women and +children are slaughtered by wholesale and without mercy. + +My readers understand my little fable by this time. It is no fable, but +a disgraceful truth. + +The government under which a people--many of whom are educated, +enlightened Christian gentlemen--are denied the legal rights of human +beings and all protection of law is not the absolute despotism of Siara +or Russia, but the United States, the republic which proclaims itself +the refuge for the oppressed of all nations--the one spot on earth where +every man is entitled alike to life, liberty and the pursuit of +happiness. The only people in the world to whom it denies these rights +are not its quondam slaves, not pagans, not runaway convicts, not the +offscourings of any nation however degraded, but the original owners of +the country. + +The legal disability under which the Indian is held is as much of an +outrage on human rights, and as bald a contradiction of the doctrines on +which our republic is based, as negro slavery was. + +R.H.D. + + + + +A LITTLE IRELAND IN AMERICA. + + +The humorous side of life was never more vividly brought before me than +while living a few years ago in the vicinity of an Irish settlement in +one of the suburbs of New York. What we call "characters" were to be +found in every cottage--the commonplace was the exception. Indeed, I do +not remember that it existed at all in "The Lane," as this locality was +called. + +Perhaps among the inhabitants of The Lane none more deserved distinction +than Mary Magovern. The grandmother of a numerous family, she united all +the masculine and feminine virtues. About the stiff, spotless and +colossal frill of her cap curled wreaths of smoke from her stout +dhudeen as she sat before the door blacking the small boots of her +grandchildren, stopping from time to time to remove the pipe from her +mouth, that she might deliver in her full bass voice a peremptory order +to the large yellow dog that lay at her feet. It was usually on the +occasion of a carriage passing, when the dog would growl and rise. Very +quickly out came the pipe, and immediately followed the words, "Danger, +lay by thim intintions;" and the pipe was used as an indicator for the +next movement--namely, to patiently lie down again upon the ground. + +Mary Magovern kept a drinking-shop behind the living-rooms of her +cottage, and the immense prestige she had in The Lane must have had some +foundation in the power which this thriving business gave her, many of +her neighbors being under the obligation of debt to her. + +Mike Quinlan would have been her most frequent visitor had it not been +for the ever-open eye of Mrs. Quinlan, which caused her husband to seek +his delights by stealth at a village a mile away. Mike was an elderly +and handsome man, but his wits had ebbed out as the contents of the +wine-cup flowed in, and the beauty that had won so remarkable a person +as Mrs. Quinlan in its first glow was somewhat marred. He was the owner +of a small cart and a mule, and those who had stones or earth to move +usually remembered to employ poor Mike. But it was on foot, as a more +inconspicuous method of eluding the watchfulness of Mrs. Quinlan, that +Mike slipped away to the neighboring village of an afternoon, and it was +on foot that I one night saw Mrs. Quinlan going over the same road with +an invincible determination in her countenance and a small birch rod in +her hand. Mrs. Quinlan was somewhat younger than her lord and master: +she had a clear, bright-blue eye, a roseate color in her little slender +face, and gray hair tidily smoothed back beneath the dainty ruffles of +her cap, about which a black ribbon was tied. She wore short petticoats +and low shoes, and as she walked briskly along she smoothed her apron +with the disengaged hand, as if, the balance of the family +respectability having so wholly fallen upon her own shoulders, she would +not disturb it by permitting a disorderly wrinkle. Half an hour later +she passed again over the road, her face turned homeward and wearing an +even greater austerity, the birch rod grasped firmly in her hand, and +her worser half preceding her with a foolish smile upon his lips, half +of concession, half of pride in the power to which he stooped. + +Another of Mrs. Magovern's occasional visitors was Old Haley, who had +regular employment upon our own place. Like Mike Quinlan, he rejoiced in +a wife who was an ornament to her sex--a most respectable, handsome and +intelligent woman, though education had done little to sharpen her wits +or widen her experience. She could tell a one from a five dollar bill, +as her husband would proudly inform you, and she could cook a dinner, do +up a skirt or a frilled cap, keep a house or tend a sick friend, as well +as any woman in the land. "Maggie's a janeous!" her husband would remark +with a look of intense admiration. + +One evening Mrs. Haley made her appearance at our house, asking for an +audience of my mother. The object was to inform her--these sympathetic +people like to be advised in all their affairs--that being in need of +various household supplies she proposed on the following day to go to +the city and purchase them at the Washington Market. + +"I suppose you have been to the city before, Mrs. Haley?" remarked my +mother. + +"I have not, ma'am," said Mrs. Haley. + +"Had you not better take some friend with you who has been there before, +lest you should get lost?" + +"Faith, I had, ma'am: I had a right to have moor sinse an' think o' +that." + +So Mrs. Haley departed, returning again in company with Mary Magovern: +"Here's Mary Magovern, ma'am: she's goin' along wid me." + +"Ah, that's very well.--You know the city, Mary? you've been there?" + +"I have not, ma'am." + +"Why, what, then, is the use of your going with Mrs. Haley?" + +"We'll make a shtrict inquiry, ma'am." + +The next morning they started, and at four o'clock Old Haley came in +much anxiety of mind to seek comfort of my mother: "Maggie's not come, +ma'am. Faith, I'm throubled, for the city is a quare place." + +When it grew late Haley returned again and again, in ever-increasing +anxiety, to be reassured. At last, when the family were retiring to bed, +came Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Magovern to report their arrival. In spite of +the lateness of the hour my mother received them, and in spite of their +wearied and worn faces administered a gentle rebuke for the anxiety that +Mrs. Haley had caused her spouse. + +"Well, indade it's no wonder he was throubled," said Mrs. Haley, "an' +it's a wonder we got here at all. We got nothing at the Washington +Market, for we couldn't find it at all: I think they tuk it away to +Washington. It was in the mornin' airly that we got to the city, ma'am, +an' there was a koind of a carr, an' a gintleman up on the top of it, +an' anuther gintleman at the dure of it, wid the dure in his hand, an' +he sez, sez he, 'Git in, ladies,' sez he.--'We're goin' to the +Washington Market, sur,' sez I.--That's where I'll take yez, ladies,' +sez he. 'Pay yer fares, ladies.' An' we got in, ma'am, an' wint up to +the top of the city, an' paid tin cints, the both of us. An' there was a +great many ladies an' gintlemen got in an' done the same, ma'am, an' +some got out one place an' some another. An' whin we got up to the top +of the city, 'Mrs. Magovern,' sez I,' this isn't the Washington Market,' +sez I.--' It is not, Mrs. Haley,' sez she.--'We'll git out, Mrs. +Magovern,' sez I.--'We will, Mrs. Haley,' sez she. An' thin, ma'am, +there was a small bit of a howl in the carr, and it was through the howl +the ladies an' gintlemen would cry out to the gintleman on the top o' +the carr, and he'd put his face down forninst it an' spake wid thim; an' +I cried up through the howl to him, an' sez I, 'Me an' Mrs. Magovern +will git out, sur,' sez I, 'for this isn't the Washington Market at +all.'--'It is not, ma'am,' sez he, 'but that's where I'll take yez,' sez +he. 'Sit down, ladies,' sez he, 'and pay me the money,' sez he. 'I had a +great many paple to lave,' sez he. An' indade he had, ma'am. An' we paid +the money agin, an' we wint down to the bottom o' the city. 'This is not +the Washington Market, Mrs. Magovern,' sez I.--'It is not, Mrs. Haley,' +sez she.--'We'll git out, Mrs. Magovern,' sez I.--'We will, Mrs. Haley,' +sez she. Thin came the gintleman that first had the dure in his hand. +'What's the matther, ladies?' sez he.--'This isn't the Washington +Market, sur,' sez I.--'It is not, ma'am,' sez he, 'but the city is a +great place,' sez he, 'an' it's not aisy to go everywhere at wonst,' sez +he; 'an' if yez will have patience,' sez he, 'ye'll git there,' sez he. +'Git in, ladies,' sez he, 'an' pay yer fares.' Wid all the houses +there's in the city, an' all the sthrates there's in it, faith, it was +no good at all to thry to foind our way alone; but thim wur false +paple--they niver took us to the Washington Market at all; an' it was +all the day we wint up to the top o' the city and down to the bottom o' +the city, and spinding our money at it. An' sez I, 'Mrs. Magovern, it +would be better for us if we wint home,' sez I.--'It would, Mrs. Haley,' +sez she; an' we come down to the boat, an' it was two hours agin befoor +the boat would go, an' thin we come home; an' it's toired we are, an' +it's an' awful place, the city is." + +Haley's statements could seldom be relied on, but his untruth fulness +was never a matter of self-interest, but rather of amiability. He +desired to tell you whatever you desired to know, and to tell it as you +would like to hear it, even if facts were so perverse as to be contrary. + +One day I wanted to do an errand in the village, and called for the +horse and carriage. Haley brought them to the door. As I took the reins +I remembered that it was noon and the horse's dinner-time: "Did the +horse have his dinner, Haley?" + +"I just gave it to him, ma'am; and an ilegint dinner he had." + +"Why did you feed him just when I was about to drive him?" + +"Oh, well, it's not much he got." + +"He should have had nothing." + +"Faith, me lady, I ownly showed it to him." + +There were no more respectable people in The Lane than John Godfrey and +his family. His pretty little wife with an anxious face tenderly watched +over an ever-increasing family of daughters, till on one most +providential occasion the expected girl turned out to be a boy, and I +went with my sisters to congratulate the happy mother. "What will you +name the little fellow, Mrs. Godfrey?" I asked, sympathetically. + +The poor woman looked up with a smile, saying weakly, "John Pathrick, +miss--John afther the father, an' Pathrick afther the saint." + +The following year the same unexpected luck brought another boy, and +again we young girls, being much at leisure, carried our +congratulations: "What will be the name of this little boy, Mrs. +Godfrey?" + +"Pathrick John, miss--Pathrick afther the saint, an' John afther the +father." + +A confused sense of having heard that sentence before came over me. +"Why, Mrs. Godfrey," I said, "was not that the name of your last child?" + +"To be shure, miss. Why would I be trating one betther than the other?" + +A member of this same family, upon receiving a blow with a stone in the +eye, left her somewhat overcrowded paternal home for the quieter +protection of her widowed aunt, Mrs. King, and one day my sister and +myself knocked at Mrs. King's door to inquire about the state of the +injured organ. + +"Troth, miss, it's very bad," said Mrs. King. + +"What do you do for it, Mrs. King?" + +"Do?" said Mrs. King, suddenly applying the corner of her apron to her +overflowing eyes--"Do?" she continued in a broken voice. "I've been +crying these three days." + +"But what do you do to make it better?" + +Mrs. King took heart, folded her arms, and thus applied herself to the +setting forth of her humane exertions: "In comes Mistress Magovern, +an', 'Mrs. King,' sez she, 'put rar bafesteak to the choild's oye;' an' +that minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak wint to it. Thin comes Mrs. Haley. +'Is it rar bafesteak ye'd be putting to it, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Biling +clothes, Mrs. King,' sez she. That minit, ma'am, the rar bafesteak come +afif an' the biling clothes wint to it. In comes Mrs. Quinlan. 'Will ye +be destryin' the choild's oye intirely, Mrs. King?' sez she. 'Cowld ice, +Mrs. King.' An' that minit, ma'am, the biling clothes come aff an' the +cowld ice wint to it. Oh, I do be doin' iverything anybody do tell me." + +It was a memorable sight to see the Gunning twins wandering down The +Lane hand in hand when their maternal relative had gone out washing for +the day and taken the door-key with her. "Thim lads is big enough to +take care of thimsilves," she would remark, though "the lads" were not +yet capable of coherent speech. No doubt they wandered into some +neighbor's at meal-time and received a willingly-given potato or a drink +of milk. They seemed happy enough, and their funny, ugly little faces +were defaced by no tears. They grew in time old enough to explain their +position to inquiring passers-by and to pick up and eat an amazing +quantity of green apples. A lady passing one day stopped and +remonstrated with one of them. "Barney," she said, "it will make you ill +if you eat those green apples."--"I do be always atin' of them, ma'am," +replied Barney, stolidly. + +Perhaps it may have been the green apples, but from whatever cause +Barney fell ill, and all that the doctor prescribed made him no better. +"It's no matther, stir," said Mrs. Gunning one morning: "yer needn't +come ag'in. I'll just go an' ask Mrs. ------" (my mother). + +The next morning the doctor, meeting my mother, laughingly remarked +that it was very plain that they couldn't practise in the same +district: he had just met Mrs. Gunning, who informed him that "what +Mrs. ------ gave her the night befoor done the choild a power of good." + +The day preceding our departure from the place my sister and I passed +through The Lane, and received the most amiable farewells, accompanied +with blessings, and even tears. The figure I best remember is that of +Mrs. Regan, who, bursting out from her doorway, stood in our path, and, +dissolving in tears, sobbed out, "Faith, I'm sorry yez be goin'. I don't +know what I'll do at all widout yez;" and, seizing my sister's hand, +gave her this unique recommendation: "Ye were always passing by +mannerly--niver sassy nor impidint, nor nothing." + +The Lane has changed to-day. A Chinese grocer has, I hear, set up a shop +in its midst. Some of its most noted characters have passed away, and +the younger generation have taken on habits more American than those of +their predecessors. + +M.R.O. + + + + +A CHILD'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. + + +A quaint and charming volume, which has fallen in our way, is _Little +Charlie's Life_, "the autobiography of a child between six and seven +years of age, written with his own hand and without any assistance +whatever." It was at the urgent request of the gentleman who acted as +editor, Rev. W.R. Clark--thus rescuing an inimitable little work from +comparative oblivion--that the parents of the youthful author +reluctantly consented to the publication of this curious delineation of +child-life. From the date of his birth (1833), Charlie must have written +his work some forty years ago. How long he was engaged in its +composition is not stated, but from the internal evidence yielded by the +spelling and the handwriting (for the work is lithographed in exact +imitation of the manuscript) we should infer that it occupied two or +three years, the handwriting of the first seven chapters being in +imitation of ordinary printing, while the remaining chapters appear in +an ordinary schoolboy's hand. We may add that it is copiously +illustrated by himself, and that the illustrations are worth their +weight in gold, supplementing as they do, in a superfluously exact and +curiously quaint manner, this most unique work. + +He starts with this account of himself: "My name is Charles John Young, +and I was born in Amfort, a pretty village in Hampshire, 1833 in July, +that pleasant time when the birds sing merrily and flowers bloom +sweetly. My father and mother are the kindest in the world, and I love +them dearly and both alike. I shall give a description of them by and +by. In the mean time I shall just say that my papa is a clergyman." + +The earlier chapters describe the various migrations of the family from +one parish to another, and from them we have no difficulty in +recognizing in "papa" the Rev. Julian Young, who possessed no small +share of the talents that distinguished _his_ father, the celebrated +tragedian, Charles Young, and which seem to have been transmitted to our +author, who, we understand, has honorably served his country in Her +Majesty's army. From his earliest years Charlie seems to have been +strongly influenced by religious feelings. His creed was a bright and +trustful one, a realization of God's presence and of the need of +speaking to Him as to one who could always hear and help. When he was +about three years old, we are told in the editor's interesting preface, +he was often heard offering up little petitions for the supply of his +child-like wants. Once, when, his nurse left him to fetch some more +milk, his father overheard him saying, "O God, please let there be +enough milk in the jug for me to have some more, for Jesus Christ's +sake. Amen." Many quaint little religious reflections and scriptural +allusions are interspersed throughout the book. In one place he declares +that "without papa and mamma the garden would be to me what the +wilderness was to John the Baptist;" while again he offers up a pathetic +prayer for a baby-brother; and throughout we are struck by the fact that +his religion was pre-eminently one of love. Charlie's educational +advantages were of the noblest and best, home-training largely +predominating. In the ninth chapter he refers in a simple matter-of-fact +way to his early studies: "Mamma devotes her time in teaching me and in +reading instructive books with me. Papa tells me about the productions +of the earth, rivers, mountains, valleys, mines, and, most wonderful of +all, the formation of the human body." Further on we read: "Nothing of +any great importance occurred now for some time. My life was spent +quietly in the country, as the child of a Wiltshire clergyman ought, +mamma devoting her time in teaching me, and my daily play going on the +same, till at last papa and mamma took me to the splendid capital of +England." However much this brilliant transition may have dazzled him, +he still prefers his quiet country home, arguing thus: "As to living +there [in London], I should not like it. The reason why--because its +noisy riots in the streets suit not my mood like the tranquil streams +and the waving trees I love in England's country.... 'Tis true--oh, how +true!--in the poetic words of Mr. Shakespeare, 'Man made the town, God +made the country.'" + +Despite the stilted style and absurdly pompous descriptions, with an +occasional terrible breakdown, Charlie's love of Nature, and especially +of the animal creation, seems to have been most genuine. He speaks of +"the wide ocean which when angry roars and clashes over the beach, but +when calm crabs are seen crawling on the shore and the sun shines bright +over the waves," and of "the billows rolling over each other and foaming +over the rough stones," with an apparently real enthusiasm. The softer +emotions of his nature were engrossed in this way, as we infer from the +negative evidence afforded by his autobiography that he reached his +seventh year without any experience of the tender passion. + +His physiological ideas in the speculations regarding the origin of a +baby-brother are naively expressed: "One day I was told that a baby was +born [this was when he was three years and a half old], and upon going +into mamma's bedroom I saw a red baby lying in an arm-chair wrapped in +swaddling-clothes. It puzzled me very much to think how he came into the +world: it was mysterious, very, and I cannot make it out now. My first +thought was, that he must have had airy wings, and after he had come +they had disappeared. My second thought was that he was so very little +as to be able to come through the keyhole, and increased rapidly in +size, just as it says in the Bible that a grain of mustard-seed springs +to be so large a tree that the fowls of the air can roost upon it." + +In his sixth year Charlie evinced poetic tendencies. We have in one of +his poems a description of his grandpapa, "a venerable old gentleman +with dark eyes, gray hair, noble features, and altogether very generous +aspect." Here is "a song appropriate to him:" + + Oh, venerable is our old ancestor-- + Cloud on his brow, + Lightning in his eyes, + His gray hair streaming in the wind. + To children ever kind, + To merit never blind,-- + Oh, such is our old ancestor, + With hair that streameth wild. + +At the head of this poem is a picture of the old ancestor, consisting of +a hat, a head, a walking-stick, one arm and two legs, one of +which--whether the right or left is doubtful, as their origin is +concealed by the aforesaid arm--is much longer than the other, and +walking in a contrary direction. The most wonderful feature of this +sketch is the "hair streaming in the wind," the distance from the poll +to the end of the flowing locks being longer than the longest leg. + +We cannot conclude without an extract describing a "dreadful accident" +which happened to our youthful author; "perhaps," as he solemnly says, +"for a punishment of my sins, or to show me that Death stands ready at +the door to snatch my life away:" "One night papa had been conjuring a +penny, and I thought _I_ should like to conjure; so I took a round brass +thing with a verse out of the Bible upon it that I brought into bed with +me. I thought it went down papa's throat, so _I_ put it down _my_ throat, +and I was pretty near choked. I called my nurse, who was in the next +room. She fetched up papa, and then my nurse brought the basin. Papa +beat my back, and I was sick. _Lo! there was the counter!_ Papa said, +'Good God!' and my nurse fainted, but soon recovered. Don't you think +papa was very clever when he beat my back? Papa then had a long talk +afterward with me about it--a very serious one." + +The above pathetic story is accurately illustrated, but we especially +regret that we cannot transfer to these pages some of the marvellous +delineations of the animals in the Clifton Zoological Garden. + +M.S.D. + + + + +WANTED--A REAL GAINSBOROUGH. + + +I am an unmarried man of twenty-four. After that confession it is hardly +necessary to add that I am in the habit of thinking a great deal about a +person not yet embodied into actual existence--i.e. my future wife. I +have not yet met her--she is a purely ideal being--but at the same time +I so often have a vivid conception of her looks, her air, her walk, her +tones even, that she seems to be present. My misery is that I cannot +find her in real life. + +No one need fancy that I am an imaginative man: quite the contrary is +the fact. I am a lawyer, and have an office in Bond street. Every +morning at eight o'clock I take the Sixth Avenue horse-cars and ride +down to Fourteenth street. I have a fancy for walking the rest of the +way, and toward evening I saunter back homeward along Broadway and Union +Square. + +Prosaic as these journeys may seem, they are nevertheless the +inspiration of my hopes, the feeders of my visions. It is at such times +that I enjoy my glimpses of the lady I long to meet. I jostle gentle +creatures at every step: feminine shapes and feminine tones are on every +side presented to eyes and ears. I trust nobody will be prejudiced +against me when I confess that I see the fair one of my dreams in the +shop-windows. Once having seen her, I become immeasurably happy, and go +on dreaming about her until we meet again. It may seem a curious +admission, but this beautiful although impalpable being is suggested by +the charming dresses, hats and bonnets displayed on the milliners' +blocks. None of our artists can paint portraits now-a-days: Art seems to +have withdrawn her gifts from them and endowed the dressmakers and +milliners instead. + +It was at first difficult for me to decide on the personality of my +beloved. My earliest fancy was for a blond: at least the dress was of +pale blue silk with a profusion of lace trimmings. Her hat was of straw +faced with azure velvet, and the crown surrounded by a long plume, also +of ciel blue. I knew by heart the features of this fair young creature, +invisible although she was to others. They seemed to belong more to a +flower than to a face: her eyes were large and blue, full of appealing +love; her hair was of course golden; her smile was angelic; and her +whole expression was one of sweetness and goodness. She was my first +dream: little although she belonged to actual life, she used to trip +about by my side and sit with me in my room at home. Suddenly, however, +I became enamored of a different creature, and my dream changed. I began +to think of my lovely blond regretfully as of a beautiful creature too +good for earth who died young. It is the habit of the shopkeepers to +change the figures in their windows, and one morning I fell in love with +quite a different creature. She wore when I first saw her a long dress +of black silk and velvet sparkling with jet; over her shoulders was +thrown carelessly a mantle of cream-colored cloth; on her head was a +plush hat--what they call a Gainsborough--trimmed with a long graceful +plume, also of cream-color. Although only her back was toward me, I knew +by instinct exactly what her face was. She was dark of course, with a +low broad forehead, about which clustered little short curls; her eyes +were superb, at once laughing and melancholy; her features suggested +rather pride than softness; but her smile was enchanting, open, sunny, +like a burst of light from behind a cloud. Nothing could be more real +than this vision. At first the discovery of this magnificently-endowed +woman rendered me happy: I used to walk past the shop half a dozen +times a day to look at her. Her costumes varied, but they always +suggested the same dark but brilliant lineaments, the same graceful +movements, the same peculiarly lovely tones. She often looked back at me +over her shoulder, but had an air of evading me. All at once, with +surprise and delight, I remembered that she might be found in actual +existence, in real flesh and blood. I deserted the image for a week in +the hope of finding the reality. I paced Fifth Avenue; I went to the +dry-goods stores; I attended the theatres. Often I seemed to see her +before me--the picturesque hat, the long plume, the rich mantle and +dress. At such moments while I pressed forward my heart beat. When the +cheek turned toward me and the eyes lighted up with surprise at my +disappointed stare, it was easy enough to see that I had made a mistake. +There was the hat, the cloak, the bewitching little frippiness of lace +and net and ribbon about the bust. She had, however, copied the +masterpiece without investing herself with its soul: her face was vague +and characterless, her whole personality void of that eloquent +womanliness which had so wrought upon me. This experience was so many +times repeated that I was frightfully tormented by it. The familiar +dress seemed to reveal with appalling truthfulness the lack of those +qualities of heart and soul which I demanded. Those lovely, picturesque +outlines suggest not only rounded cheeks colored with girlish bloom, but +something more; and the graceful draping is not a meaningless husk. + +I have gone back to my shop-window image. She never disappoints me. She +is as beautiful, as magnificently endowed, as full of fascinating life +and spirit, as ever. I sometimes think, unless I find her actual +prototype, of buying that Gainsborough hat, that cloth mantle and velvet +dress, and hanging them up in my room. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + + History of the English People. By John Richard Green. New York: + Harper & Brothers. + +Most readers interested in English history have long felt the need of +such a work as this, in which the results of recent research among +original sources and of the critical examination of earlier labors are +gathered up and summarized in a narrative at once clear and concise, +free from disquisition, minuteness of detail and elaborate descriptions, +without being meagre or superficial, devoid of suggestiveness or of +animation. In calling his work a _History of the English People_, Mr. +Green has not undertaken to deviate from the beaten track, devoting his +attention to social development and leaving political affairs in the +background. What he has evidently had in view is the fact that English +history is in a special sense that of the rise and growth of free +institutions, exhibiting at every stage the mutual influence or combined +action of different classes, permeated even when the Crown or the +aristocracy was most powerful by a popular spirit, and contrasting in +this respect with that of France and Spain, in which during many +centuries the mass of the people lost instead of gaining ground, +representative bodies analogous to the English Parliament were deprived +of their rights or swept out of existence, and liberty was sacrificed to +national consolidation and unity. Whence this difference came need +hardly be pointed out. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were neither freer +nor more enterprising than the Franks and other Teutonic families; but +the fortune which carried them to Britain saved them from inheriting any +onerous share of the great legacy of the Roman Empire--with the task of +absorbing and transmitting its language and civilization--secured them +against the risk of being either merged in a more numerous race or +submerged by a new influx, and thus preserved an identity and continuity +which link their latest achievements with their earliest exploits, and +stamp their whole career with the same character. + +With such a subject, Mr. Green has had no difficulty in so marking its +divisions as to concentrate attention on successive epochs without +dropping the thread that runs through the whole. The earlier portions of +his work are naturally the most instructive and the fullest of interest. +The last volume, indeed, which covers the ground from the Revolution to +the battle of Waterloo, besides including the index to the whole work, +gives far too rapid a survey of momentous and familiar events to afford +profit or satisfaction. One feels that, while the style retains its +fluency, the tone has lost its warmth, and that much of the writing must +have been perfunctory: the reading, at all events, cannot but be so. But +scarcely any one, however well acquainted with the ground, can follow +without pleasure and an enlargement of view Mr. Green's account of +"Early England," "England under Foreign Kings," "The Charter" and "The +Parliament" (from 1307 to 1461), which form the subjects of the first +four books; while the next four, occupying the second and third volumes, +and entitled "The Monarchy," "The Reformation," "Puritan England" and +"The Revolution," are marked by a grasp of thought, a fine sense of +proportion, a thorough knowledge and well-balanced judgment of men and +events, and not unfrequently a dramatic force, which sustain the +interest throughout, and which make them a valuable addition, and +sometimes a necessary corrective, to the fuller and more brilliant +narratives in which the same periods and subjects have been separately +treated. + +Mr. Green does not appear to have gone deeply into the study of original +sources, but it is only in his incidental treatment of continental +history that his deficiencies in this respect become palpable. Here he +is often inaccurate, and even when his facts are correct his mode of +stating them shows that he is not master of the whole field, and has +little appreciation of mingled motives and attendant circumstances. Such +a sentence as this: "The restoration of the towns on the Somme to +Burgundy, the cession of Normandy to the king's brother, Francis, the +hostility of Brittany, not only detached the whole western coast from +the hold of Lewis, but forced its possessors to look for aid to the +English king who lay in their rear," could not have been written with +any clear ideas of either the political or the geographical relations +of the places mentioned. What is meant by the "western coast"? Not, +certainly, the towns on the Somme, which lie in the north-east, nor +Normandy, which has indeed a western coast of its own, but cannot be +said to form part of the western coast of France. Nor does Brittany +include "the _whole_ western coast," or even the larger portion of it, +while it could not have been "detached from the hold of Lewis," inasmuch +as he had never held it. As little will that remark apply to the other +provinces on the western coast, as these were still in his possession. +Who are meant, therefore, by the "possessors" of this misty coast, and +why the English king is said to have lain "in their rear," can only be +conjectured. It is a small blunder that the French king's brother is +called "Francis" instead of Charles, since we must not suspect Mr. Green +of confounding him with the duke of Brittany, who bore the former name. +But the whole passage, in connection with what follows it, indicates +that the author has mixed up the state of affairs at two very close, but +very distinct, conjunctures. Many similar instances of defective +knowledge might be cited, nor are they confined to this early period. +The remark, in regard to Charles of Austria (the emperor Charles V.), +that "the madness of his mother left him _next heir_ of Castille" is +nonsense: he was her heir in any case, while through her madness he +became nominally joint, and virtually sole, ruler of the kingdom. His +son Philip had not been "twice a widower" when he married Mary of +England, and the assertion that "he owed his victory at Gravelines +mainly to the opportune arrival of ten English ships of war" is +patriotic, but foolish. That "Catholicism alone united the burgher of +the Netherlands to the noble of Castille, or Milanese and Neapolitan to +the Aztec of Mexico and Peru," would be an incomprehensible statement +even if Peru had been inhabited by the Aztecs. Such errors, however, +cannot seriously impair the value of Mr. Green's work. Its merits, as +regards both matter and form, are solid and varied. The scale on which +it was planned adapts it admirably to the gap which it was intended to +fill, and, except in the latter portions, its comparative brevity of +treatment excludes neither important facts nor modifying views. No +shorter work could give the reader any adequate knowledge or conceptions +in regard to English history, and no longer work is needed to make him +fully acquainted with its essential features. + + White Wings: A Yachting Romance. By William Black. New York: Harper + & Brothers.--Roy and Viola. By Mrs. Forrester. Philadelphia: J.B. + Lippincott & Co.--The Wellfields. By Jessie Fothergill. + (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Holt & Co.--Troublesome Daughters. + By L.B. Walford. (Leisure--Hour Series.) New York: Holt & + Co.--Brigitta. By Berthold Auerbach. (Leisure--Hour Series.) New + York: Holt & Co. + +There is a time appointed to read novels--a time which belongs, like +that of other good things, to youth, when the real and the ideal merge +into each other, and even the most practical beliefs turn upon the +notion that the world was created for ourselves, and that the general +system of things is bound to furnish circumstances and incidents which +shall flatter our unsatisfied desires. It seems a pity that it should +not fall to the lot of the critic to write down his impression of new +books at this epoch, when he is most fitted to enjoy them. When romance +and other delights have blankly vanished--"gone glimmering through the +dreams of things that were"--he is scarcely fitted to trust the worth of +his own impressions. Reading from mere idle curiosity or with critical +intentions, and reading with delight, with eager absorption in the story +and an eager desire to know how it turns out, are two different matters. +The loss of this capacity for enjoyment of the every-day novel is not a +subject for self-gratulation, coming as it does from our own absence of +imagination and from narrowing instead of increasing powers. That period +of our existence when we could read anything which offered should be +looked back upon with a feeling of purely admiring regret, and in our +efforts to master the novel of to-day we should endeavor to bring back +the glory and the sweetness of the early dream. + +It is not so very long ago that Mr. William Black's novels began to +charm us. He did not take Fame at a single leap, but wooed her +patiently, and suffered many a repulse. His first book, _Ion; or, +Marriage_, was probably the very worst novel ever written by a man who +was finally to make a great success. _The Daughter of Heth_ achieved +this result, and _The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, A Princess of +Thule_ and _Macleod of Dar_ deepened, one by one, the witchery the +first threw over us. The author's power was especially shown in +investing his maidens with glamour and piquancy: Coquette and Sheila led +their captives away from the suffocating dusts and the burning heats of +life. Then his backgrounds were so well chosen--those mysterious reaches +of the far northern seas, the slow twilights over the heaving ocean, the +swift dawns, the storms and the lightnings, and the glad blue skies. +Even the music of the bagpipes inspired lamentations only less sweet +than notes of joy. Mr. Black still has lovely girls; his yachts still +pitch and roll and scud over the tossed and misty Hebridean seas; there +are the same magical splendors of air and sky and water and shores; the +wail of the pibroch is heard as of yore-- + + Dunvegan! oh, Dunvegan! + +Why, then, is it that his last book fails to do more than arouse dim +memories of some previous enjoyment? Why are his violets without +perfume? Why is his music vacant of the old melodies? + +In _Roy and Viola_, on the contrary, Mrs. Forrester is seen at her best, +and has given us a book of lively interest. The situation in some +respects suggests that of _Daniel Deronda:_ D'Arcy is a sort of +Grandcourt cheapened and made popular, acting out his instincts of +tyranny and brutality with more ostentation and less good taste. What is +subtly indicated by George Eliot is given with profuse effect by the +present writer. Viola, if not a Gwendolen, is yet an unloving wife. Sir +Douglas Roy plays a somewhat difficult role--that of friend to the +husband and undeclared lover to the wife--without losing our respect. He +is in many ways a successful hero, and acts his part without either +insipidity or priggishness. A genial optimist like Mrs. Forrester, as +her old readers may well believe, sacrifices to a hopelessly unhappy +marriage no lot which interests us. Disagreeable husbands die at an +auspicious moment, and everybody is finally made happy in his or her own +way, which includes the possession of plenty of money. The conversations +are piquant, and the interest of the story is well kept up. + +_The Wellfields_ is a falling off from _Probation_, which in its turn +was a distinct falling-off from Miss Fothergill's initial story, _The +First Violin_. The characters are dim, intangible, remote, possessing no +reality even at the outset, and as they progress becoming even more +estranged from our belief and sympathy. Jerome is too feeble to arouse +even our resentment, which we mildly expend on Sara instead for +displaying grief for so poor a creature. When an author publishes one +successful book, it should be a matter of serious thought whether it is +not worth while to make such a triumph the crowning event of his or her +destiny, lest Fate should have in reserve the tedious trials which await +those who are compelled to hear that their sun has set. + +Mrs. Walford's last book has, in a measure, retrieved a certain +reputation for interest which her _Cousins_ had lost. In _Troublesome +Daughters_, however, one looks in vain for the fulfilment of the promise +of _Mr. Smith_ and her delightful _Van: A Summer Romance_. + +In _Brigitta_ we find enough of Auerbach's charm to like the story, +simple as it is. It recalls his greater books only by the fidelity of +the tone and the clearness of the pictures. Xander is well drawn, and +the tragedy of his life, portrayed as it is by those few strong touches +which reveal the real artist, is profoundly impressive. + +------ + +_New Books Received._ + +Geo. P. Rowell & Co.'s American Newspaper Directory, containing Accurate +Lists of all the Newspapers and Periodicals published in the United +States, Territories and the Dominion of Canada, together with a +description of the towns and cities in which they are published. New +York: George P. Rowell & Co. + +The Skin in Health and Disease. By L. Duncan Bulkley, M.D. (American +Health Primers.) Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston. + +The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl. Edited by Robert Grant. Vignette +Illustrations. Boston: A. Williams & Co. + +The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield. By Major J.M. Bundy. +New York: A.D. Barnes & Co. + +The Mystery of Allanwold. By Mrs. Elizabeth Van Loon. Philadelphia: T. +B. Peterson & Brothers. + +Political and Legal Remedies for War. By Sheldon Amos, M.A. New York: +Harper & Brothers. + +Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale. By R.D. Blackmore. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +A Selection of Spiritual Songs, with Music for the Sunday-school. New +York: Scribner & Co. + +[Footnote 1: I use here the official nomenclature of Pennsylvania: by +whatever title the local officials are known in the various States, the +general fact is of course the same in all.] + +[Footnote 2: In some tests given in Richards' _Treatise on Coal Gas_ (p. +293) the following results were shown: Obstruction of light by-- + + A clear glass globe, about 12 per cent. + An engraved " " " 24 " + Obscured all over " " " 40 " + Opal " " " " " 60 " + Painted " " " " " 64 " ] + +[Footnote 3: There is a recent method of adding carbon to the gas which +is not liable to the objection of clogging the pipes. By a small +apparatus a stick of naphthaline is attached to the burner so as to be +slowly vaporized. It is not yet in the hands of dealers in +gas-fixtures.] + +[Footnote 4: Our narrative is drawn from the _Libra del Passo Honroso, +defendido por el excelente caballero Suero de Quinones, copilado de un +libro antiguo de mano por Fr. Juan de Pineda, Religiose de la orden de +San Francisco. Segunda edicion_. Madrid, 1783, in the _Cronicas +espanolas_, vol. v.] + +[Footnote 5: In modern French, _Il faut delivrer_--"It is necessary to +release," referring to the chain worn by Quinones.] + +[Footnote 6: "If it does not please you to show moderation, I say, in +truth, that I am unfortunate."] + +[Footnote 7: Prosper Merimee, in a note to his _History of Peter the +Cruel_ (London, 1849, vol. i., p. 35), says, referring to the above +episode, "I do not think that at that period an example of similar +condescension could be found anywhere except in Spain. A century later +the _chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_, the valiant Bayard, refused +to mount a breach in company with lansquenets."] + +[Footnote 8: Beginning, "Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna," etc.] + +[Footnote 9: The Church as early as 1131 (Council of Rheims) endeavored +to prevent these dangerous amusements by denying burial in consecrated +ground with funeral rites to those who were killed in tournaments.] + +[Footnote 10: Puymaigre explains this almost total absence of Frenchmen +by the fact that in 1434 the wars between Charles VII and the English +were being waged. The English pilgrims to Santiago (the large number of +whom we have previously mentioned) were probably non-combatants.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 16124.txt or 16124.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/1/2/16124/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +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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