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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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