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diff --git a/1868-0.txt b/1868-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2da3e7a --- /dev/null +++ b/1868-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3773 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Penelope's Postscripts, by Kate Douglas Wiggin + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Penelope's Postscripts + + +Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin + + + +Release Date: April 11, 2015 [eBook #1868] +[This file was first posted on January 7, 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENELOPE'S POSTSCRIPTS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1915 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + Penelope’s Postscripts + + + BY + KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + AUTHOR OF + “PENELOPE’S EXPERIENCES: ENGLAND, IRELAND,” + “TIMOTHY’S QUEST,” “REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM,” ETC. + + * * * * * + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + MCMXV + + * * * * * + + _Printed in Great Britain by Hazell_, _Watson & Viney_, _Ld._, + _London and Aylesbury_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I + PAGE +PENELOPE IN SWITZERLAND 3 + II +PENELOPE IN VENICE 39 + III +PENELOPE’S PRINTS OF WALES 105 + IV +PENELOPE IN DEVON 119 + V +PENELOPE AT HOME 165 + + + + +I +PENELOPE IN SWITZERLAND + + + A DAY IN PESTALOZZI-TOWN + +SALEMINA and I were in Geneva. If you had ever travelled through Europe +with a charming spinster who never sat down at a Continental _table +d’hôte_ without being asked by an American _vis-à-vis_ whether she were +one of the P.’s of Salem, Massachusetts, you would understand why I call +my friend Salemina. She doesn’t mind it. She knows that I am simply +jealous because I came from a vulgarly large tribe that never had any +coat-of-arms, and whose ancestors always sealed their letters with their +thumb nails. + +Whenever Francesca and I call her “Salemina,” she knows, and we know that +she knows, that we are seeing a group of noble ancestors in a sort of +halo over her serene and dignified head, so she remains unruffled under +her _petit nom_, inasmuch as the casual public comprehends nothing of its +spurious origin and thinks it was given her by her sponsors in baptism. + +Francesca, Salemina, and I have very different backgrounds. The +first-named is an extremely pretty person of large income who is +travelling with us simply because her relatives think that she will “see +Europe” more advantageously under our chaperonage than if she were +accompanied by persons of her own age or “set.” + +Salemina is a philanthropist and educator of the first rank, and is +collecting all sorts of valuable material to put at the service of her +own country when she returns to it, which will not be a moment before her +letter of credit is exhausted. + +I, too, am quasi-educational, for I had a few years of experience in +mothering and teaching little waifs and strays of the streets before I +began to paint pictures. Never shall I regret those nerve-racking, +back-breaking, heart-warming, weary, and beautiful years, when, all +unconsciously, I was learning to paint children by living with them. +Even now the spell still works and it is the curly head, the “shining +morning face,” the ready tear, the glancing smile of childhood that +enchains me and gives my brush whatever skill it possesses. + +We had not been especially high-minded or educational in Switzerland, +Salemina and I. The worm will turn; and there is a point where the +improvement of one’s mind seems a farce, and the service of humanity, for +the moment, a duty only born of a diseased imagination. + +How can one sit on a vine-embowered balcony facing lovely Lake Geneva and +think about modern problems,—Improved Tenements, Child Labour, Single +Tax, Sweat Shops, and the Right Training of the Rising Civilization? +Blue Lake Geneva!—blue as a woman’s eye, blue as the vault of heaven, +dropped into the lap of the green earth like a great sparkling sapphire! +Mont Blanc you know to be just behind the clouds on the other side, and +that presently, after hours or days of patient waiting, he may condescend +to unveil himself to your worshipful gaze. + +“He is wise in his dignity and reserve,” mused Salemina as we sat on the +veranda. “He is all the more sublime because he withdraws himself from +time to time. In fact, if he didn’t see fit to cover himself +occasionally, one could neither eat nor sleep, nor do anything but adore +and magnify.” + +The day before this interview we had sailed to the end of the sapphire +lake and visited the “snow-white battlements” of the Castle of Chillon; +seen its “seven pillars of Gothic mould,” and its dungeons deep and old, +where poor Bonnivard, Byron’s famous “Prisoner of Chillon,” lay captive +for so many years, and where Rousseau fixes the catastrophe of his +Héloïse. + +We had just been to Coppet too; Coppet where the Neckers lived and Madame +de Staël was born and lived during many years of her life. We had +wandered through the shaded walks of the magnificent château garden, and +strolled along the terrace where the eloquent Corinne had walked with the +Schlegels and other famous _habitués_ of her salon. We had visited +Calvin’s house at 11 Rue des Chanoines, Rousseau’s at No. 40 on the +Grande Rue, and Voltaire’s at Ferney. + +And so we had been living the past, Salemina and I. But + + “Early one morning, + Just as the day was dawning.” + +my slumbering conscience rose in Puritan strength and asserted its rights +to a hearing. + +“Salemina,” said I, as I walked into her room, “this life that we are +leading will not do for me any longer. I have been too much immersed in +ruins. Last night in writing to a friend in New York I uttered the most +disloyal and incendiary statements. I said that I would rather die than +live without ruins of some kind; that America was so new, and crude, and +spick and span, that it was obnoxious to any æsthetic soul; that our +tendency to erect hideous public buildings and then keep them in repair +afterwards would make us the butt of ridicule among future generations. +I even proposed the founding of an American Ruin Company, Limited,—in +which the stockholders should purchase favourably situated bits of land +and erect picturesque ruins thereon. To be sure, I said, these ruins +wouldn’t have any associations at first, but what of that? We have +plenty of poets and romancers; we could manufacture suitable associations +and fit them to the premises. At first, it is true, they might not fire +the imagination; but after a few hundred years, in being crooned by +mother to infant and handed down by father to son, they would mellow with +age, as all legends do, and they would end by being hallowed by rising +generations. I do not say they would be absolutely satisfactory from +every standpoint, but I do say that they would be better than nothing. + +“However,” I continued, “all this was last night, and I have had a change +of heart this morning. Just on the borderland between sleeping and +waking, I had a vision. I remembered that to-day would be Monday the 1st +of September; that all over our beloved land schools would be opening and +that your sister pedagogues would be doing your work for you in your +absence. Also I remembered that I am the dishonourable but Honorary +President of a Froebel Society of four hundred members, that it meets +to-morrow, and that I can’t afford to send them a cable.” + +“It is all true,” said Salemina. “It might have been said more briefly, +but it is quite true.” + +“Now, my dear, I am only a painter with an occasional excursion into +educational fields, but you ought to be gathering stories of knowledge to +lay at the feet of the masculine members of your School Board.” + +“I ought, indeed!” sighed Salemina. + +“Then let us begin!” I urged. “I want to be good to-day and you must be +good with me. I never can be good alone and neither can you, and you +know it. We will give up the lovely drive in the diligence; the luncheon +at the French restaurant and those heavenly little Swiss cakes” (here +Salemina was almost unmanned); “the concert on the great organ and all +the other frivolous things we had intended; and we will make an +educational pilgrimage to Yverdon. You may not remember, my dear,”—this +was said severely because I saw that she meditated rebellion and was +going to refuse any programme which didn’t include the Swiss cakes,—“you +may not remember that Jean Henri Pestalozzi lived and taught in Yverdon. +Your soul is so steeped in illusions; so submerged in the Lethean waters +of the past; so emasculated by thrilling legends, paltry titles, and +ruined castles, that you forget that Pestalozzi was the father of popular +education and the sometime teacher of Froebel, our patron saint. When +you return to your adored Boston, your faithful constituents in that and +other suburbs of Salem, Massachusetts, will not ask you if you have seen +the Castle of Chillon and the terrace of Corinne, but whether you went to +Yverdon.” + +Salemina gave one last fond look at the lake and picked up her Baedeker. +She searched languidly in the Y’s and presently read in a monotonous, +guide-book voice. “Um—um—um—yes, here it is, ‘Yverdon is sixty-one miles +from Geneva, three hours forty minutes, on the way to Neuchâtel and +Bâle.’ (Neuchâtel is the cheese place; I’d rather go there and we could +take a bag of those Swiss cakes.) ‘It is on the southern bank of Lake +Neuchâtel at the influx of the Orbe or Thiele. It occupies the site of +the Roman town of Ebrodunum. The castle dates from the twelfth century +and was occupied by Pestalozzi as a college.’” + +This was at eight, and at nine, leaving Francesca in bed, we were in the +station at Geneva. Finding that we had time to spare, we went across the +street and bargained for an _in-transit_ luncheon with one of those dull +native shopkeepers who has no idea of American-French. + +Your American-French, by the way, succeeds well enough so long as you +practise, in the seclusion of your apartment, certain assorted sentences +which the phrase-book tells you are likely to be needed. But so far as +my experience goes, it is always the unexpected that happens, and one is +eternally falling into difficulties never encountered by any previous +traveller. + +For instance, after purchasing a cold chicken, some French bread, and a +bit of cheese, we added two bottles of lemonade. We managed to ask for a +glass, from which to drink it, but the man named two francs as the price. +This was more than Salemina could bear. Her spirit was never dismayed at +any extravagance, but it reared its crested head in the presence of +extortion. She waxed wroth. The man stood his ground. After much +crimination and recrimination I threw myself into the breach. + +“Salemina,” said I, “I wish to remark, first: That we have three minutes +to catch the train. Second: That, occupying the position we do in +America,—you the member of a School Board and I the Honorary President of +a Froebel Society,—we cannot be seen drinking lemonade from a bottle, in +a public railway carriage; it would be too convivial. Third: You do not +understand this gentleman. You have studied the language longer than I, +but I have studied it more lately than you, and I am fresher, much +fresher than you.” (Here Salemina bridled obviously.) “The man is not +saying that two francs is the price of the glass. He says that we can +pay him two francs now, and if we will return the glass to-night when we +come home he will give us back one franc fifty centimes. That is fifty +centimes for the rent of the glass, as I understand it.” + +Salemina’s right hand, with the glass in it, dropped nervelessly at her +side. “If he uttered one single syllable of all that rigmarole, then +Ollendorf is a myth, that’s all I have to say.” + +“The gift of tongues is not vouchsafed to all,” I responded with dignity. +“I happen to possess a talent for languages, and I apprehend when I do +not comprehend.” + +Salemina was crushed by the weight of my self-respect, and we took the +tumbler, and the train. + +It was a cloudless day and a beautiful journey, along the side of the +sapphire lake for miles, and always in full view of the glorious +mountains. We arrived at Yverdon about noon, and had eaten our luncheon +on the train, so that we should have a long, unbroken afternoon. We left +our books and heavy wraps in the station with the porter, with whom we +had another slight misunderstanding as to general intentions and terms; +then we started, Salemina carrying the lemonade glass in her hand, with +her guide-book, her red parasol, and her Astrakhan cape. The tumbler was +a good deal of trouble, but her heart was set on returning it safely to +the Geneva pirate; not so much to reclaim the one franc fifty centimes as +to decide conclusively whether he had ever proposed such restitution. I +knew her mental processes, so I refused to carry any of her properties; +besides, the pirate had used a good many irregular verbs in his +conversation, and upon due reflection I was a trifle nervous about the +true nature of the bargain. + +The Yverdon station fronted on a great open common dotted with a few +trees. There were a good many mothers and children sitting on the +benches, and a number of young lads playing ball. The town itself is one +of the quaintest, quietest, and sleepiest in Switzerland. From 1803 to +1810 it was a place of pilgrimage for philanthropists from all parts of +Europe; for at that time Pestalozzi was at the zenith of his fame, having +under him one hundred and sixty-five pupils from Europe and America, and +thirty-two adult teachers, who were learning his method. + +But Yverdon has lost its former greatness now! Scarcely any English +travellers go there and still fewer Americans. We fancied that there was +nothing extraordinary in our appearance; nevertheless a small crowd of +children followed at our heels, and the shopkeepers stood at their open +doors and regarded us with intense interest. + +“No English spoken here, that is evident,” said Salemina ruefully; “but +you have such a gift for languages you can take the command to-day and +make the blunders and bear the jeers of the public. You must find out +where the new Pestalozzi Monument is,—where the Château is,—where the +schools are, and whether visitors are admitted,—whether there is a +respectable hotel where we can get dinner,—whether we can get back to +Geneva to-night, whether it’s a fast or a slow train, and what time it +gets there,—whether the methods of Pestalozzi are still +maintained,—whether they know anything about Froebel,—whether they know +what a kindergarten is, and whether they have one in the village. Some +of these questions will be quite difficult even for you.” + +Well, the monument was not difficult to find, at all events. We accosted +two or three small boys and demanded boldly of one of them, “_Où est le +monument de Pestalozzi_, _s’il vous plaît_?” + +He shrugged his shoulders like an American small boy and said vacantly, +“_Je ne sais pas_.” + +“Of course he does know,” said Salemina; “he means to be disagreeable; or +else ‘monument’ isn’t monument.” + +“Well,” I answered, “there is a monument in the distance, and there +cannot be two in this village.” + +Sure enough it was the very one we sought. It stands in a little open +place quite “in the business heart of the city,”—as we should say in +America, and is an exceedingly fine and impressive bit of sculpture. The +group of three figures is in bronze and was done by M. Gruet of Paris. + +The modelling is strong, the expression of Pestalozzi benign and sweet, +and the trusting upturned faces of the children equally genuine and +attractive. + +One side of the pedestal bears the inscription:— + + _À_ + _Pestalozzi_ + 1746–1827 + _Monument érigé_ + _par souscription populaire_ + _MDCCCXC_ + +On a second side these words are carved in the stone:— + + _Sauveur des Pauvres à Neuhof_ + _Père des Orphelins à Stanz_ + _Fondateur de l’école_ + _populaire à Burgdorf_ + _Éducateur de l’humanité_ + _à Yverdon_ + _Tout pour les autres_, _pour lui_,—_rien_! + +An older monument erected in 1846 by the Canton of Argovia bears this +same inscription, save that it adds, “Preacher to the people in ‘Leonard +and Gertrude.’ Man. Christian. Citizen. Blessed be his name!” + +On the third side of the Yverdon Monument is Pestalozzi’s noble speech, +fine enough indeed, to be cut in stone:— + + “_J’ai vécu moi-même_ + _comme un mendiant_, + _pour apprendre à des_ + _mendiants à vivre comme_ + _des hommes_.” + +We sat a long time on the great marble pedestal, gazing into the +benevolent face, and reviewing the simple, self-sacrificing life of the +great educator, and then started on a tour of inspection. After +wandering through most of the shops, buying photographs and mementoes, +Salemina discovered that she had left the expensive tumbler in one of +them. After a long discussion as to whether tumbler was masculine or +feminine, and as to whether “_Ai-je laissé un verre ici_?” or “_Est-ce +que j’ai laissé un verre ici_?” was the proper query, we retraced our +steps, Salemina asking in one shop, “_Excusez-moi_, _je vous prie_, _mais +ai-je laissé un verre ici_?”,—and I in the next, “_Je demands pardon_, +_Madame_, _est-ce que j’ai laissé un verre dans ce magasin-ci_?—_J’en ai +perdu un_, somewhere.” Finally we found it, and in response not to mine +but to Salemina’s question, so that she was superior and obnoxious for +several minutes. + +Our next point of interest was the old castle, which is still a public +school. Finding the caretaker, we visited first the museum and library—a +small collection of curiosities, books, and mementoes, various portraits +of Pestalozzi and his wife, manuscripts and so forth. The simple-hearted +woman who did the honours was quite overcome by our knowledge of and +interest in her pedagogical hero, but she did not return the compliment. +I asked her if the townspeople knew about Friedrich Froebel, but she +looked blank. + +“Froebel? Froebel?” she asked; “_qui est-ce_?” + +“_Mais_, _Madame_,” I said eloquently, “_c’était un grand homme_! _Un +héros_! _Le plus grand élève de Pestalozzi_! _Aussi grand que +Pestalozzi soi-même_!” + +(“PLUS grand! Why don’t you say _plus grand_?” murmured Salemina +loyally.) + +“_Je ne sais_!” she returned, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. +“_Je ne sais_! _Il y a des autres_, _je crois_; _mais moi_, _je connais +Pestalozzi_, _c’est assez_!” + +All the younger children had gone home, but she took us through the empty +schoolrooms, which were anything but attractive. We found an unhappy +small boy locked in one of them. I slipped behind the concierge to chat +with him, for he was so exactly like all other small boys in disgrace +that he made me homesick. + +“_Tu étais méchant_, _n’est ce-pas_?” I whispered consolingly; “_mais tu +seras sage demain_, _j’en suis sûre_!” + +I thought this very pretty, but he wriggled from under my benevolent +hand, saying “_Va_!” (which I took to be, “Go ’long, you!”) “_je n’étais +méchant aujourd’hui et je ne serai pas sage demain_!” + +I asked the concierge if the general methods of Pestalozzi were still +used in the schools of Yverdon, “_Mais certainement_!” she replied as we +went into a room where twenty to thirty girls of ten years were studying. +There were three pleasant windows looking out into the street; the +ordinary platform and ordinary teacher’s table, with the ordinary teacher +(in an extraordinary state of coma) behind it; and rather rude desks and +seats for the children, but not a single ornament, picture, map, or case +of objects and specimens around the room. The children were nice, clean, +pleasant, stolid little things with braided hair and pinafores. The sole +decoration of the apartment was a highly-coloured chart that we had +noticed on the walls of all the other schoolrooms. Feeling that this +must be a sacred relic, and that it probably illustrated some of the +Pestalozzian foundation principles, I walked up to it reverently, + +“_Qu’est-ce-que c’est cela_, _Madame_?” I inquired, rather puzzled by its +appearance. + +“_C’est la méthode de Pestalozzi_,” the teacher replied absently. + +I wished that we kindergarten people could get Froebel’s educational idea +in such a snug, portable shape, and drew nearer to gaze at it. I can +give you a very complete description of the pictures from memory, as I +copied the titles _verbatim et literatim_. The whole chart was a +powerful moral object-lesson on the dangers of incendiarism and the evils +of reckless disobedience. It was printed appropriately in the most lurid +colours, and divided into nine tableaux. + +These were named as follows:— + + + +I—LA VRAIE GAÎTÉ + + +Twelve or fifteen boys and girls are playing together so happily and +innocently that their good angels sing for joy. + + + +II—UNE PROPOSITION FATALE! + + +Suddenly “_le petit_ Charles” says to his comrades, “Come! let us build a +fire!” _Le petit_ Charles is a typical infant villain and is surrounded +at once by other incendiary spirits all in accord with his insidious +plans. + + + +III—LA PROTESTATION + + +The Good Little Marie, a Sunday-school heroine of the true type, +approaches the group and, gazing heavenward, remarks that it is wicked to +play with matches. The G. L. M. is of saintly presence,—so clean and +well groomed that you feel inclined to push her into a puddle. Her hands +are not full of vulgar toys and sweetmeats, like those of the other +children, but are extended graciously as if she were in the habit of +pronouncing benedictions. + + + +IV—INSOUCIANCE! + + +_Le petit_ Charles puts his evil little paw in his dangerous pockets and +draws out a wicked lucifer match, saying with abominable indifference, +“Bah! what do we care? We’re going to build a fire, whatever you say. +Come on, boys!” + + + +V—UN PLAISIR DANGEREUX! + + +The boys “come on.” Led by “_le petit vilain_ Charles” they light a +dangerous little fire in a dangerous little spot. Their faces shine with +unbridled glee. The G. L. M. retires to a distance with a few saintly +followers, meditating whether she shall run and tell her mother. “_Le +petit_ Paul,” an infant of three summers, draws near the fire, attracted +by the cheerful blaze. + + + +VI—MALHEUR ET INEXPÉRIENCE + + +_Le petit_ Paul somehow or other tumbles into the fire. Nothing but a +desire to influence posterity as an awful example could have induced him +to take this unnecessary step, but having walked in he stays in, like an +infant John Rogers. The bad boys are so horror-stricken it does not +occur to them to pull him out, and the G. L. M. is weeping over the sin +of the world. + + + +VII—TROP TARD!! + + +The male parent of _le petit_ Paul is seen rushing down an adjacent Alp. +He leads a flock of frightened villagers who have seen the smoke and +heard the wails of their offspring. As the last shred of _le petit_ Paul +has vanished in said smoke, the observer notes that the poor father is +indeed “too late.” + + + +VIII—DESESPOIR!! + + +The despair of all concerned would draw tears from the dryest eye. Only +one person wears a serene expression, and that is the G. L. M., who is +evidently thinking: “Perhaps they will listen to me the next time.” + + + +IX—LA FIN! + + +The charred remains of _le petit_ Paul are being carried to the cemetery. +The G. L. M. heads the procession in a white veil. In a prominent place +among the mourners is “_le pauvre petit_ Charles,” so bowed with grief +and remorse that he can scarcely be recognized. + + * * * * * + +It was a telling sermon! If I had been a child I should never have +looked at a match again; and old as I was, I could not, for days +afterwards, regard a box of them without a shudder. I thought that +probably Yverdon had been visited in the olden time by a series of +disastrous holocausts, all set by small boys, and that this was the +powerful antidote presented; so I asked the teacher whether incendiarism +was a popular failing in that vicinity and whether the chart was one of a +series inculcating various moral lessons. I don’t know whether she +understood me or not, but she said no, it was “_la méthode de +Pestalozzi_.” + +Just at this juncture she left the room, apparently to give the pupils a +brief study-period, and simultaneously the concierge was called +downstairs by a crying baby. A bright idea occurred to me and I went +hurriedly into the corridor where my friend was taking notes. + +“Salemina,” said I, “here is an opportunity of a lifetime! We ought to +address these children in their native tongue. It will be something to +talk about in educational pow-wows. They do not know that we are +distinguished visitors, but we know it. A female member of a School +Board and the Honorary President of a Froebel Society owe a duty to their +constituents. You go in and tell them who and what I am and make a +speech in French. Then I’ll tell them who and what you are and make +another speech.” + +Salemina assumed a modest violet attitude, declined the honour +absolutely, and intimated that there were persons who would prefer +talking in a language they didn’t know rather than to remain sensibly +silent. + +However the plan struck me as being so fascinating that I went back +alone, looked all ways to see if any one were coming, mounted the +platform, cleared my throat, and addressed the awe-struck youngsters in +the following words. I will spare you the French, but you will perceive +by the construction of the sentences, that I uttered only those +sentiments possible in an early stage of language-study. + +“My dear children,” I began, “I live many thousand miles across the ocean +in America. You do not know me and I do not know you, but I do know all +about your good Pestalozzi and I love him.” + +“_Il est mort_!” interpolated one offensive little girl in the front row. + +Salemina tittered audibly in the corridor, and I crossed the room and +closed the door. I think the children expected me to put the key in my +pocket and then murder them and stuff them into the stove. + +“I know perfectly well that he is dead, my child,” I replied +winningly,—“it is his life, his memory that I love.—And once upon a time, +long ago, a great man named Friedrich Froebel came here to Yverdon and +studied with your great Pestalozzi. It was he who made kindergartens for +little children, _jardins des enfants_, you know. Some of your +grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?” + +Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation which I +did not in the least comprehend, but which from large American experience +I took to be, “My grandmother doesn’t!” “My grandmother doesn’t!” + +Seeing that the others regarded me favourably, I continued, “It is +because I love Pestalozzi and Froebel, that I came here to day to see +your beautiful new monument. I have just bought a photograph taken on +that day last year when it was first uncovered. It shows the flags and +the decorations, the flowers and garlands, and ever so many children +standing in the sunshine, dressed in white and singing hymns of praise. +You are all in the picture, I am sure!” + +This was a happy stroke. The children crowded about me and showed me +where they were standing in the photograph, what they wore on the august +occasion, how the bright sun made them squint, how a certain +_malheureuse_ Henriette couldn’t go to the festival because she was ill. + +I could understand very little of their magpie chatter, but it was a +proud moment. Alone, unaided, a stranger in a strange land, I had gained +the attention of children while speaking in a foreign tongue. Oh, if I +had only left the door open that Salemina might have witnessed this +triumph! But hearing steps in the distance, I said hastily, +“_Asseyez-vous_, _mes enfants_, _tout-de-suite_!” My tone was so +authoritative that they obeyed instantly, and when the teacher entered it +was as calm as the millennium. + +We rambled through the village for another hour, dined at a quaint little +inn, gave a last look at the monument, and left for Geneva at seven +o’clock in the pleasant September twilight. Arriving a trifle after ten, +somewhat weary in body and slightly anxious in mind, I followed Salemina +into the tiny cake-shop across the street from the station. She returned +the tumbler, and the man, who seemed to consider it an unexpected +courtesy, thanked us volubly. I held out my hand and reminded him +timidly of the one franc fifty centimes. + +He inquired what I meant. I explained. He laughed scornfully. I +remonstrated. He asked me if I thought him an imbecile. I answered no, +and wished that I knew the French for several other terms nearer the +truth, but equally offensive. Then we retired, having done our part, as +good Americans, to swell the French revenues, and that was the end of our +day in Pestalozzi-town; not the end, however, of the lemonade glass +episode, which was always a favourite story in Salemina’s repertory. + + + + +II +PENELOPE IN VENICE + + + This noble citie doth in a manner chalenge this at my hands, that I + should describe her also as well as the other cities I saw in my + journey, partly because she gave me most louing and kinde + entertainment for the sweetest time (I must needes confesse) that + euer I spent in my life; and partly for that she ministered vnto me + more variety of remarkable and delicious objects than mine eyes euer + suruayed in any citie before, or euer shall . . . the fairest Lady, + yet the richest Paragon and Queene of Christendome. + + _Coryat’s Crudities_: 1611 + + + +I + + + VENICE, _May_ 12 + HOTEL PAOLO ANAFESTO. + +I HAVE always wished that I might have discovered Venice for myself. In +the midst of our mad acquisition and frenzied dissemination of knowledge, +these latter days, we miss how many fresh and exquisite sensations! Had +I a daughter, I should like to inform her mind on every other possible +point and keep her in absolute ignorance of Venice. Well do I realize +that it would be impracticable, although no more so, after all, than +Rousseau’s plan of educating Émile, which certainly obtained a wide +hearing and considerable support in its time. No, tempting as it would +be, it would be difficult to carry out such a theory in these days of +logic and common sense, and in some moment of weakness I might possibly +succumb and tell her all about it, for fear that some stranger, whom she +might meet at a ball, would have the pleasure of doing it first. + +The next best woman-person in the world with whom to see Venice, barring +the lovely non-existent daughter, is Salemina. + +It is our first visit, but, alas! we are, nevertheless, much better +informed than I could wish. Salemina’s mind is particularly well +furnished, but, luckily she cannot always remember the point wished for +at the precise moment of need; so that, taking her all in all, she is +nearly as agreeable as if she were ignorant. Her knowledge never bulks +heavily and insistently in the foreground or middle-distance, like that +of Miss Celia Van Tyck, but remains as it should, in the haze of a +melting and delicious perspective. She has plenty of enthusiasms, too, +and Miss Van Tyck has none. Imagine our plight at being accidentally +linked to that encyclopædic lady in Italy! She is an old acquaintance of +Salemina’s and joined us in Florence, where she had been staying for a +month, waiting for her niece Kitty Schuyler,—Kitty Copley now,—who is in +Spain with her husband. + +Miss Van Tyck would be endurable in Sheffield, Glasgow, Lyons, Genoa, +Kansas City, Pompeii, or Pittsburg, but she should never have blighted +Venice with her presence. She insisted, however, on accompanying us, and +I can only hope that the climate and associations will have a relaxing +effect on her habits of thought and speech. When she was in Florence, +she was so busy in “reading up” Verona and Padua that she had no time for +the Uffizi Gallery. In Verona and Padua she was absorbed in Hare’s +“Venice,” vaccinating herself, so to speak, with information, that it +might not steal upon, and infect her, unawares. If there is anything +that Miss Van abhors, it is knowing a thing without knowing that she +knows it; while for me, the most charming knowledge is the sort that +comes by unconscious absorption, like the free grace of God. + +We intended to enter Venice in orthodox fashion, by moonlight, and began +to consult about trains when we were in Milan. The porter said that +there was only one train between the eight and the twelve, and gave me a +pamphlet on the subject, but Salemina objects to an early start, and Miss +Van refuses to arrive anywhere after dusk, so it is fortunate that the +distances are not great. + +They have a curious way of reckoning time in Italy, for I found that the +train leaving Milan at eight-thirty was scheduled to arrive at ten +minutes past eighteen. + +“You could never sit up until then, Miss Van,” I said; “but, on the other +hand, if we leave later, to please Salemina, say at ten in the morning, +we do not arrive until eight minutes before twenty-one! I haven’t the +faintest idea what time that will really be, but it sounds too late for +three defenceless women—all of them unmarried—to be prowling about in a +strange city.” + +It proved on investigation, however, that twenty-one o’clock is only nine +in Christian language (that is, one’s mother tongue), so we united in +choosing that hour as being the most romantic possible, and there was a +full yellow moon as we arrived in the railway station. My heart beat +high with joy and excitement, for I succeeded in establishing Miss Van +with Salemina in one gondola, while I took all the luggage in another, +ridding myself thus cleverly of the disenchanting influence of Miss Van’s +company. + +“Do come with us, Penelope,” she said, as we issued from the portico of +the station and heard, instead of the usual cab-drivers’ pandemonium, +only the soft lapping of waves against the marble steps—“Do come with us, +Penelope, and let us enter ‘dangerous and sweet-charmed Venice’ together. +It does, indeed, look a ‘veritable sea-bird’s nest.’” + +She had informed me before, in Milan, that Cassiodorus, Theodoric’s +secretary, had thus styled Venice, but somehow her slightest remark is +out of key. I can always see it printed in small type in a footnote at +the bottom of the page, and I always wish to skip it, as I do other +footnotes, and annotations, and marginal notes and addenda. If Miss +Van’s mother had only thought of it, Addenda would have been a delightful +Christian name for her, and much more appropriate than Celia. + +If I should be asked on bended knees, if I should be reminded that every +intelligent and sympathetic creature brings a pair of fresh eyes to the +study of the beautiful, if it should be affirmed that the new note is as +likely to be struck by the ’prentice as by the master hand, if I should +be assured that my diary would never be read, I should still refuse to +write my first impressions of Venice. My best successes in life have +been achieved by knowing what not to do, and I consider it the finest +common sense to step modestly along in beaten paths, not stirring up, +even there, any more dust than is necessary. If my friends and +acquaintances ever go to Venice, let them read their Ruskin, their +Goethe, their Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth, their Rogers, Gautier, +Michelet, their Symonds and Howells, not forgetting old “Coryat’s +Crudities,” and be thankful I spared them mine. + +It was the eve of Ascension Day, and a yellow May moon was hanging in the +blue. I wished with all my heart that it were a little matter of seven +or eight hundred years earlier in the world’s history, for then the +people would have been keeping vigil and making ready for that nuptial +ceremony of Ascension-tide when the Doge married Venice to the sea. Why +can we not make pictures nowadays, as well as paint them? We are +banishing colour as fast as we can, clothing our buildings, our ships, +ourselves, in black and white and sober hues, and if it were not for +dear, gaudy Mother Nature, who never puts her palette away, but goes on +painting her reds and greens and blues and yellows with the same lavish +hand, we should have a sad and discreet universe indeed. + +But so long as we have more or less stopped making pictures, is it not +fortunate that the great ones of the olden time have been eternally fixed +on the pages of the world’s history, there to glow and charm and burn for +ever and a day? To be able to recall those scenes of marvellous beauty +so vividly that one lives through them again in fancy, and reflect, that +since we have stopped being picturesque and fascinating, we have learned, +on the whole, to behave much better, is as delightful a trend of thought +as I can imagine, and it was mine as I floated toward the Piazza of San +Marco in my gondola. + +I could see the Doge descend the Giant’s Stairs, and issue from the gate +of the Ducal Palace. I could picture the great Bucentaur as it reached +the open beyond the line of the tide. I could see the white-mitred +Patriarch walking from his convent on the now deserted isle of Sant’ +Elena to the shore where his barge lay waiting to join the glittering +procession. + +And then there floated before my entranced vision the princely figure of +the Doge taking the Pope-blessed ring, and, advancing to the little +gallery behind his throne on the Bucentaur, raising it high, and dropping +it into the sea. I could almost hear the faint splash as it sank in the +golden waves, and hear, too, the sonorous words of the old wedding +ceremony: “_Desponsamus te_, _Mare_, _in signum veri perpetuique +dominii_!” + +Then when the shouts of mirth and music had died away and the Bucentaur +and its train had drifted back into the lagoon, the blue sea, new-wedded, +slept through the night with the May moon on her breast and the silent +stars for sentinels. + + + +II + + + LA GIUDECCA, _May_ 15, + CASA ROSA. + +Not for a moment have we regretted leaving our crowded, conventional +hotel in Venice proper, for these rooms in a house on the Giudecca. The +very vision of Miss Celia Van Tyck sitting on a balcony surrounded by a +group of friends from the various Boston suburbs, the vision of Miss +Celia Van Tyck melting into delicious distance with every movement of our +gondola, even this was sufficient for Salemina’s happiness and mine, had +it been accompanied by no more tangible joys. + +This island, hardly ten minutes by gondola from the Piazza of San Marco, +was the summer resort of the Doges, you will remember, and there they +built their pleasure-houses, with charming gardens at the back—gardens +the confines of which stretched to the Laguna Viva. Our Casa Rosa is one +of the few old _palazzi_ left, for many of them have been turned into +granaries. + +We should never have found this romantic dwelling by ourselves; the +Little Genius brought us here. The Little Genius is Miss Ecks, who +draws, and paints, and carves, and models in clay, preaching and +practising the brotherhood of man and the sisterhood of woman in the +intervals; Miss Ecks, who is the custodian of all the talents and most of +the virtues, and the invincible foe of sordid common sense and financial +prosperity. Miss Ecks met us by chance in the Piazza and breathlessly +explained that she was searching for paying guests to be domiciled under +the roof of Numero Sessanta, Giudecca. She thought we should enjoy +living there, or at least she did very much, and she had tried it for two +years; but our enjoyment was not the special point in question. The real +reason and desire for our immediate removal was that the padrona might +pay off a vexatious and encumbering mortgage which gave great anxiety to +everybody concerned, besides interfering seriously with her own creative +work. + +“You must come this very day,” exclaimed Miss Ecks. “The Madonna knows +that we do not desire boarders, but you are amiable and considerate, as +well as financially sound and kind, and will do admirably. Padrona +Angela is very unhappy, and I cannot model satisfactorily until the house +is on a good paying basis and she is putting money in the bank toward the +payment of the mortgage. You can order your own meals, entertain as you +like, and live precisely as if you were in your own home.” + +The Little Genius is small, but powerful, with a style of oratory +somewhat illogical, but always convincing at the moment. There were a +good many trifling objections to our leaving Miss Van Tyck and the hotel, +but we scarcely remembered them until we and our luggage were skimming +across the space of water that divides Venice from our own island. + +We explored the cool, wide, fragrant spaces of the old _casa_, with its +outer walls of faded, broken stucco, all harmonized to a pinkish yellow +by the suns and winds of the bygone centuries. We admired its lofty +ceilings, its lovely carvings and frescoes, its decrepit but beautiful +furniture, and then we mounted to the top, where the Little Genius has a +sort of eagle’s eyrie, a floor to herself under the eaves, from the +windows of which she sees the sunlight glimmering on the blue water by +day, and the lights of her adored Venice glittering by night. The walls +are hung with fragments of marble and wax and stucco and clay; here a +beautiful foot, or hand, or dimple-cleft chin; there an exquisitely +ornate façade, a miniature campanile, or a model of some ancient +_palazzo_ or _chiesa_. + +The little bedroom off at one side is draped in coarse white cotton, and +is simple enough for a nun. Not a suggestion there of the fripperies of +a fine lady’s toilet, but, in their stead, heads of cherubs, wings of +angels, slender bell-towers, friezes of acanthus leaves,—beauty of line +and form everywhere, and not a hint of colour save in the riotous bunches +of poppies and oleanders that lie on the broad window-seats or stand +upright in great blue jars. + +Here the Little Genius lives, like the hermit crab that she calls +herself; here she dwells apart from kith and kin, her mind and heart and +miracle-working hands taken captive by the charms of the siren city of +the world. + +When we had explored Casa Rosa from turret to foundation stone we went +into the garden at the rear of the house—a garden of flowers and +grape-vines, of vegetables and fruit-trees, of birds and bee-hives, a +full acre of sweet summer sounds and odours, stretching to the lagoon, +which sparkled and shimmered under the blue Italian skies. The garden +completed our subjugation, and here we stay until we are removed by +force, or until the padrona’s mortgage is paid unto the last penny, when +I feel that the Little Genius will hang a banner on the outer ramparts, a +banner bearing the relentless inscription: “No paying guests allowed on +these premises until further notice.” + +Our domestics are unique and interesting. Rosalia, the cook, is a +graceful person with brown eyes, wavy hair, and long lashes, and when she +is coaxing her charcoal fire with a primitive fan of cock’s feathers, her +cheeks as pink as oleanders, the Little Genius leads us to the kitchen +door and bids us gaze at her beauty. We are suitably enthralled at the +moment, but we suffer an inevitable reaction when the meal is served, and +sometimes long for a plain cook. + +Peppina is the second maid, and as arrant a coquette as lives in all +Italy. Her picture has been painted on more than one fisherman’s sail, +for it is rumoured that she has been six times betrothed and she is still +under twenty. The unscrupulous little flirt rids herself of her suitors, +after they become a weariness to her, by any means, fair or foul, and her +capricious affections are seldom good for more than three months. Her +own loves have no deep roots, but she seems to have the power of arousing +in others furious jealousy and rage and a very delirium of pleasure. She +remains light, gay, joyous, unconcerned, but she shakes her lovers as the +Venetian thunderstorms shake the lagoons. Not long ago she tired of her +chosen swain, Beppo the gardener, and one morning the padrona’s ducks +were found dead. Peppina, her eyes dewy with crocodile tears, told the +padrona that although the suspicion almost rent her faithful heart in +twain, she must needs think Beppo the culprit. The local detective, or +police officer, came and searched the unfortunate Beppo’s humble room, +and found no incriminating poison, but did discover a pound or two of +contraband tobacco, whereupon he was marched off to court, fined eighty +francs, and jilted by his perfidious lady-love, who speedily transferred +her affections. If she had been born in the right class and the right +century, Peppina would have made an admirable and brilliant Borgia. + +Beppo sent a stinging reproof in verse to Peppina by the new gardener, +and the Little Genius read it to us, to show the poetic instinct of the +discarded lover, and how well he had selected his rebuke from the store +of popular verses known to gondoliers and fishermen of Venice:— + + “_No te fidar de l’ albaro che piega_, + _Ne de la dona quando la te giura_. + _La te impromete_, _e po la te denega_; + _No te fidar de l’ albaro che piega_.” + + (“Trust not the mast that bends. + Trust not a woman’s oath; + She’ll swear to you, and there it ends, + Trust not the mast that bends.”) + +Beppo, Salemina, and I were talking together one morning,—just a casual +meeting in the street,—when Peppina passed us. She had a market-basket +in each hand, and was in her gayest attire, a fresh crimson rose between +her teeth being the last and most fetching touch to her toilet. She gave +a dainty shrug of her shoulders as she glanced at Beppo’s hanging head +and hungry eye, and then with a light laugh hummed, “Trust not the mast +that bends,” the first line of the poem that Beppo had sent her. + +“It is better to let her go,” I said to him consolingly. + +“_Si_, _madama_; but”—with a profound sigh—“she is very pretty.” + +So she is, and although my idea of the fitness of things is somewhat +unsettled when Peppina serves our dinner wearing a yoke and sleeves of +coarse lace with her blue cotton gown, and a bunch of scarlet poppies in +her hair, I can do nothing in the way of discipline because Salemina +approves of her as part of the picture. Instead of trying to develop +some moral sense in the little creature, Salemina asked her to alternate +roses and oleanders with poppies in her hair, and gave her a coral comb +and ear-rings on her birthday. Thus does a warm climate undermine the +strict virtue engendered by Boston east winds. + +Francesco—Cecco for short—is general assistant in the kitchen, and a good +gondolier to boot. When our little family is increased by more than +three guests at dinner, Cecco is pressed into dining-room service, and +becomes under-butler to Peppina. Here he is not at ease. He scrubs his +tanned face until it shines like San Domingo mahogany, brushes his black +hair until the gloss resembles a varnish, and dons coarse white cotton +gloves to conceal his work-stained hands and give an air of fashion and +elegance to the banquet. His embarrassment is equalled only by his +earnestness and devotion to the dreaded task. Our American guests do not +care what we have upon our bill of fare when they can steal a glance at +the intensely dramatic and impassioned Cecco taking Pina into a corner of +the dining-room and, seizing her hand, despairingly endeavour to find out +his next duty. Then, with incredibly stiff back, he extends his right +hand to the guest, as if the proffered plate held a scorpion instead of a +tidbit. There is an extra butler to be obtained when the function is a +sufficiently grand one to warrant the expense, but as he wears carpet +slippers and Pina flirts with him from soup to fruit, we find ourselves +no better served on the whole, and prefer Cecco, since he transforms an +ordinary meal into a beguiling comedy. + +“What does it matter, after all?” asks Salemina. “It is not life we are +living, for the moment, but an act of light opera, with the scenes all +beautifully painted, the music charming and melodious, the costumes gay +and picturesque. We are occupying exceptionally good seats, and we have +no responsibility whatever: we left it in Boston, where it is probably +rolling itself larger and larger, like a snowball; but who cares?” + +“Who cares, indeed?” I echo. We are here not to form our characters or +to improve our minds, but to let them relax; and when we see anything +which opposses the Byronic ideal of Venice (the use of the concertina as +the national instrument having this tendency), we deliberately close our +eyes to it. I have a proper regard for truth in matters of fact like +statistics. I want to know the exact population of a town, the precise +total of children of school age, the number of acres in the Yellowstone +Park, and the amount of wheat exported in 1862; but when it comes to +things touching my imagination I resent the intrusion of some laboriously +excavated truth, after my point of view is all nicely settled, and my +saints, heroes, and martyrs are all comfortably and picturesquely +arranged in their respective niches or on their proper pedestals. + +When the Man of Fact demolishes some pretty fallacy like William Tell and +the apple, he should be required to substitute something equally +delightful and more authentic. But he never does. He is a useful but +uninteresting creature, the Man of Fact, and for a travelling companion +or a neighbour at dinner give me the Man of Fancy, even if he has not a +grain of exact knowledge concealed about his person. It seems to me +highly important that the foundations of Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, +or Spokane Falls should be rooted in certainty; but Verona, Padua, and +Venice—well, in my opinion, they should be rooted in Byron and Ruskin and +Shakespeare. + + + +III + + + CASA ROSA, _May_ 18. + +Such a fanfare of bells as greeted our ears on the morning of our first +awakening in Casa Rosa! + +“Rise at once and dress quickly, Salemina!” I said. “Either an heir has +been born to the throne, or a foreign Crown Prince has come to visit +Venice, or perhaps a Papal Bull is loose in the Piazza San Marco. +Whatever it is, we must not miss it, as I am keeping a diary.” + +But Peppina entered with a jug of hot water, and assured us that there +were no more bells than usual; so we lay drowsily in our comfortable +little beds, gazing at the frescoes on the ceiling. + +One difficulty about the faithful study of Italian frescoes is that they +can never be properly viewed unless one is extended at full-length on the +flat of one’s honourable back (as they might say in Japan), a position +not suitable in a public building. + +The fresco on my bedroom ceiling is made mysteriously attractive by a +wilderness of mythologic animals and a crowd of cherubic heads, wings and +legs, on a background of clouds; the mystery being that the number of +cherubic heads does not correspond with the number of extremities, one or +two cherubs being a wing or a leg short. Whatever may be their +limitations in this respect, the old painters never denied their cherubs +cheek, the amount of adipose tissue uniformly provided in that quarter +being calculated to awake envy and jealousy on the part of the +predigested-food-babies pictured in the American magazine advertisements. + +Padrona Angela furnishes no official key to the ceiling-paintings of Casa +Rosa; and yesterday, during the afternoon call of four pretty American +girls, they asked and obtained our permission to lie upon the marble +floor and compete for a prize to be given to the person who should offer +the cleverest interpretation of the symbolisms in the frescoes. It may +be stated that the entire difference of opinion proved that mythologic +art is apt to be misunderstood. After deciding in the early morning what +our bedroom ceiling is intended to represent (a decision made and unmade +every day since our arrival), Salemina and I make a leisurely toilet and +then seat ourselves at one of the open windows for breakfast. + +The window itself looks on the Doge’s Palace and the Campanile, St. +Theodore and the Lion of St. Mark’s being visible through a maze of +fishing-boats and sails, some of these artistically patched in white and +yellow blocks, or orange and white stripes, while others of grey have +smoke-coloured figures in the tops and corners. + +Sometimes the broad stone-flagging pavement bordering the canal is busy +with people: gondoliers, boys with nets for crab-catching, ’longshoremen, +and _facchini_. This is when ships are loading or unloading, but at +other times we look upon a tranquil scene. + +Peppina brings in _dell’ acqua bollente_, and I make the coffee in the +little copper coffee-pot we bought in Paris, while Salemina heats the +milk over the alcohol-lamp, which is the most precious treasure in her +possession. + +The butter and eggs are brought every morning before breakfast, and +nothing is more delicious than our freshly churned pat of solidified +cream, without salt, which is sweeter than honey in the comb. The cows +are milked at dawn on the campagna, and the milk is brought into Venice +in large cans. In the early morning, when the light is beginning to +steal through the shutters, one hears the tinkling of a mule’s bell and +the rattling of the milk-cans, and, if one runs to the window, may see +the _contadini_, looking, in their sheepskin trousers, like brethren of +John the Baptist, driving through the streets and delivering the milk at +the _vaccari_. It is then heated, the cream raised and churned, and the +pats of butter, daintily set on green leaves, delivered for a +seven-o’clock breakfast. + +Finally _la colazione_ is spread on our table by the window. A neat +white cloth covers it, and we have gold-rimmed plates and cups of +delicate china. There is a pot of honey, an egg _à la coque_ for each, a +plate of brown and white bread, on some days a dish of scarlet cherries +on a bed of green, on others a mound of luscious berries in their frills; +sometimes, too, we have a bowl of tiny wild strawberries that seem to +have grown with their faces close pressed to the flowers, so sweet and +fragrant are they. + +This _al fresco_ morning meal makes a delicious prelude to our +comfortable _déjeuner à la fourchette_ at one o’clock, when the Little +Genius, if not absorbed in some unusually exacting piece of work, joins +us and gives zest to the repast. Her own breakfast, she explains, is a +_déjeuner à la_ thumb, the sort enjoyed by the peasant who carves a bit +of bread and cheese in his hand, and she promises us a sight, some +leisure day, of a certain _déjeuner à la_ toothpick celebrated for the +moment among the artists. A mysterious painter, shabby, but of a certain +elegance and distinction even in his poverty, comes daily at noon into a +well-known restaurant. He buys for five sous a glass of chianti, a roll +for one sou, and with stately grace bestows another sou upon the waiter +who serves him. These preparations made, he breaks the roll in small +bits, and poising them delicately on the point of a wooden toothpick, he +dips them in wine before eating them. + +“This may be a frugal repast,” he has an air of saying, “but it is at +least refined, and no man would dare insult me by asking me whether or +not I leave the table satisfied.” + + + +IV + + + CASA ROSA, _May_ 20. + +One of the pleasantest sights to be noted from our windows at breakfast +time is Angelo making ready our private gondola for the day. Angelo +himself is not attractive to the eye by reason of the silliest possible +hat for a man of forty-five whose hair is slightly grey. It is a white +straw sailor, with a turned-up brim, a blue ribbon encircling the crown, +and a white elastic under the chin; such a hat as you would expect to see +crowning the flaxen curls of mother’s darling boy of four. + +I love to look at the gondola, with its solemn caracoling like that of a +possible water-horse, of which the arched neck is the graceful _ferro_. +This is a strange, weird, beautiful thing when the black gondola sways a +little from side to side in the moonlight. Angelo keeps ours polished so +that it shines like silver in the morning sun, and he has an exquisite +conscientiousness in rubbing every trace of brass about his precious +craft. He has a little box under the prow full of bottles and brushes +and rags. The cushions are laid on the bank of the canal; the pieces of +carpet are taken out, shaken, and brushed, and the narrow strips are laid +over the curved wood ends of the gondola to keep the sun from cracking +them. The _felze_, or cabin, is freed of all dust, the tiny four-legged +stools and the carved chair are wiped off, and occasionally a thin coat +of black paint is needed here and there, and a touching-up of the gold +lines which relieve the sombreness. The last thing to be done is to +polish the vases and run back into the garden for nosegays, and when +these are disposed in their niches on each side of the _felze_, Angelo +waves his infantile hat gaily to us at the window, and smiles his +readiness to be off. + +On other mornings we watch the loading and unloading of grain. There are +many small boats always in view, their orange sails patched with all +sorts of emblems and designs in a still deeper colour, and day before +yesterday a large ship appeared at our windows and attached itself to our +very doorsteps, much to the wrath of Salemina, who finds the poetry of +existence much disturbed under the new conditions. All is life and +motion now. The men are stripped naked to the waist, with bright +handkerchiefs on their heads, and, in many cases, others tied over their +mouths. Each has a thick wisp of short twine strings tucked into his +waistband. The bags are weighed by one, who takes out or puts in a +shovelful of grain, as the case may be. Then the carrier ties up his bag +with one of the twine strings, two other men lift it to his shoulder, +while a boy removes a pierced piece of copper from a long wire and gives +it to him, this copper being handed in turn to still another man, who +apparently keeps the account. This not uninteresting, indeed, but sordid +and monotonous operation began before eight yesterday morning and even +earlier to-day, obliging Salemina to decline strawberries and eat her +breakfast with her back to the window. + +This afternoon at four the injured lady departed on a tour in Miss +Palett’s gondola. Miss Palett is a water-colourist who has lived in +Venice for five years and speaks the language “like a native.” (You are +familiar with the phrase, and perhaps familiar, too, with the native like +whom they speak.) + +Returning after tea, Salemina was observed to radiate a kind of subdued +triumph, which proved on investigation to be due to the fact that she had +met the _comandante_ of the offending ship and that he had gallantly +promised to remove it without delay. I cannot help feeling that the +proper time for departure had come; but this destroys the story and robs +the _comandante_ of his reputation for chivalry. + +As Miss Palett’s gondola neared the grain-ship, Salemina, it seems, spied +the commanding officer pacing the deck. + +“See,” she said to her companion, “there is a gang-plank from the side of +the ship to that small flat-boat. We could perfectly well step from our +gondola to the flat-boat and then go up and ask politely if we may be +allowed to examine the interesting grain-ship. While you are +interviewing the first officer about the foreign countries he has seen, I +will ask the _comandante_ if he will kindly tie his boat a little farther +down on the island. No, that won’t do, for he may not speak English; we +should have an awkward scene, and I should defeat my own purposes. You +are so fluent in Italian, suppose you call upon him with my card and let +me stay in the gondola.” + +“What shall I say to the man?” objected Miss Palett. + +“Oh, there’s plenty to say,” returned Salemina. “Tell him that Penelope +and I came over from the hotel on the Grand Canal only that we might have +perfect quiet. Tell him that if I had not unpacked my largest trunk, I +should not stay an instant longer. Tell him that his great, bulky ship +ruins the view; that it hides the most beautiful church and part of the +Doge’s Palace. Tell him that I might as well have stayed at home and +built a cottage on the dock in Boston Harbour. Tell him that his +steam-whistles, his anchor-droppings, and his constant loadings or +unloadings give us headache. Tell him that seven or eight of his +sailormen brought clean garments and scrubbing brushes and took their +bath at our front entrance. Tell him that one of them, almost absolutely +nude, instead of running away to put on more clothing, offered me his arm +to assist me into the gondola.” + +Miss Palett demurred at the subject-matter of some of these remarks, and +affirmed that she could not translate others into proper Italian. She +therefore proposed that Salemina should write a few dignified protests on +her visiting-card, and her own part would be to instruct the man in the +flat-boat to deliver it at once to his superior officer. The +_comandante_ spoke no English,—of that fact the sailorman in the +flat-boat was certain,—but as the gondola moved away, the ladies could +see the great man pondering over the little piece of pasteboard, and it +was plain that he was impressed. Herein lies perhaps a seed of truth. +The really great thing triumphs over all obstacles, and reaches the +common mind and heart in some way, delivering its message we know not +how. + +Salemina’s card teemed with interesting information, at least to the +initiated. Her surname was in itself a passport into the best society. +To be an X— was enough of itself, but her Christian name was one peculiar +to the most aristocratic and influential branch of the X—s. Her mother’s +maiden name, engraved at full length in the middle, established the fact +that Mr. X— had not married beneath him, but that she was the child of +unblemished lineage on both sides. Her place of residence was the only +one possible to the possessor of three such names, and as if these +advantages were not enough, the street and number proved that Salemina’s +family undoubtedly possessed wealth; for the small numbers, and +especially the odd numbers, on that particular street, could be flaunted +only by people of fortune. + +You have now all the facts in your possession, and I can only add that +the ship weighed anchor at twilight, so Salemina again gazed upon the +Doge’s Palace and slept tranquilly. + + + +V + + + CASA ROSA, _May_ 22 + +I am like the schoolgirl who wrote home from Venice: “I am sitting on the +edge of the Grand Canal drinking it all in, and life never seemed half so +full before.” Was ever the city so beautiful as last night on the +arrival of foreign royalty? It was a memorable display and unique in its +peculiar beauty. The palaces that line the canal were bright with flags; +windows and water-steps were thronged, the broad centre of the stream was +left empty. Presently, round the bend below the Rialto, swept into view +a double line of gondolas—long, low, gleaming with every hue of brilliant +colour, most of them with ten, some with twelve, gondoliers in +resplendent liveries, red, blue, green, white, orange, all bending over +their oars with the precision of machinery and the grace of absolute +mastery of their craft. In the middle, between two lines, came one small +and beautifully modelled gondola, rowed by four men in red and black, +while on the white silk cushions in the stern sat the Prince and +Princess. There was no splash of oar or rattle of rowlock; swiftly, +silently, with an air of stately power and pride, the lovely pageant +came, passed, and disappeared under the shining evening sky and the +gathering shadows of “the dim, rich city.” I never saw, or expect to +see, anything of its kind so beautiful. + +I stay for hours in the gondola, writing my letters or watching the +thousand and one sights of the streets, for I often allow Salemina and +the Little Genius to tread their way through the highways and byways of +Venice while I stay behind and observe life from beneath the grateful +shade of the black _felze_. + +The women crossing the many little bridges look like the characters in +light opera; the young girls, with their hair bobbed in a round coil, are +sometimes bareheaded and sometimes have a lace scarf over their dark, +curly locks. A little fan is often in their hands, and one remarks the +graceful way in which the crepe shawl rests upon the women’s shoulders, +remembering that it is supposed to take generations to learn to wear a +shawl or wield a fan. + +My favourite waiting-place is near the Via del Paradiso, just where some +scarlet pomegranate blossoms hang out over the old brick walls by the +canal-side, and where one splendid acanthus reminds me that its leaves +inspired some of the most beautiful architecture in the world; where, +too, the ceaseless chatter of the small boys cleaning crabs with +scrubbing-brushes gives my ear a much-needed familiarity with the +language. + +Now a girl with a red parasol crosses the Ponte del Paradiso, making a +brilliant silhouette against the blue sky. She stops to prattle with the +man at the bell-shop just at the corner of the little _calle_. There are +beautiful bells standing in rows in the window, one having a border of +finely traced crabs and sea-horses at the base; another has a top like a +Doge’s cap, while the body of another has a delicately wrought tracery, +as if a fish-net had been thrown over it. + +Sometimes the children crowd about me as the pigeons in the Piazza San +Marco struggle for the corn flung to them by the tourists. If there are +only three or four, I sometimes compromise with my conscience and give +them something. If one gets a lira put into small coppers, one can give +them a couple of _centesimi_ apiece without feeling that one is +pauperizing them, but that one is fostering the begging habit in young +Italy is a more difficult sin to face. + +To-day when the boys took off the tattered hats from their bonny little +heads, all black waves and riotous curls, and with disarming dimples and +sparkling eyes presented them to me for alms, I looked at them with +smiling admiration, thinking how like Raphael’s cherubs they were, and +then said in my best Italian: “Oh, yes, I see them; they are indeed most +beautiful hats. I thank you for showing them to me, and I am pleased to +see you courteously take them off to a lady.” + +This American pleasantry was passed from mouth to mouth gleefully, and so +truly enjoyed that they seemed to forget they had been denied. They ran, +still laughing and chattering, to the wood-carver’s shop near-by and told +him the story, or so I judged, for he came to his window and smiled +benignly upon me as I sat in the gondola with my writing-pad on my knees. +I was pleased at the friendly glance, for he is the hero of a pretty +little romance, and I long to make his acquaintance. + +It seems that, some years ago, the Queen, with one lady-in-waiting in +attendance, came to his shop quite early in the morning. Both were +plainly dressed in cotton gowns, and neither made any pretensions. He +was carving something that could not be dropped, a cherub’s face that had +to be finished while his thought of it was fresh. Hurriedly asking +pardon, he continued his work, and at end of an hour raised his eyes, +breathless and apologetic, to look at his visitors. The taller lady had +a familiar appearance. He gazed steadily, and then, to his surprise and +embarrassment, recognized the Queen. Far from being offended, she +respected his devotion to his art, and before she left the shop she gave +him a commission for a royal staircase. I am going to ask the Little +Genius to take me to see his work, but, alas! there will be an +unsurmountable barrier between us, for I cannot utter in my new Italian +anything but the most commonplace and conventional statements. + + + +VI + + + CASA ROSA, _May_ 28. + +Oh, this misery of being dumb, incoherent, unintelligible, foolish, +inarticulate in a foreign land, for lack of words! It is unwise, I fear, +to have at the outset too high an ideal either in grammar or accent. As +our gondola passed one of the hotels this afternoon, we paused long +enough to hear an intrepid lady converse with an Italian who carried a +mandolin and had apparently come to give a music lesson to her husband. +She seemed to be from the Middle West of America, but I am not disposed +to insist upon this point, nor to make any particular State in the Union +blush for her crudities of speech. She translated immediately everything +that she said into her own tongue, as if the hearer might, between French +and English, possibly understand something. + +“_Elle nay pars easy_—he ain’t here,” she remarked, oblivious of gender. +“_Elle retoorneray ah seas oors et dammi_—he’ll be back sure by half-past +six. _Bone swar_, I should say _Bony naughty_—Good-night to you, and I +won’t let him forget to show up to-morrer.” + +This was neither so ingenious nor so felicitous as the language-expedient +of the man who wished to leave some luggage at a railway station in Rome, +and knowing nothing of any foreign tongue but a few Latin phrases, mostly +of an obituary character, pointed several times to his effects, saying, +“_Requiescat in pace_,” and then, pointing again to himself, uttered the +one pregnant word “_Resurgam_.” This at any rate had the merit of +tickling his own sense of humour, if it availed nothing with the railway +porters, and if any one remarks that he has read the tale in some ancient +“Farmers’ Almanack,” I shall only retort that it is still worth +repeating. + +My little red book on the “Study of Italian Made Easy for the Traveller” +is always in my pocket, but it is extraordinary how little use it is to +me. The critics need not assert that individuality is dying out in the +human race and that we are all more or less alike. If we were, we should +find our daily practical wants met by such little books. Mine gives me a +sentence requesting the laundress to return the clothes three days hence, +at midnight, at cock-crow, or at the full of the moon, but nowhere can +the new arrival find the phrase for the next night or the day after +to-morrow. The book implores the washerwoman to use plenty of starch, +but the new arrival wishes scarcely any, or only the frills dipped. + +Before going to the dressmaker’s yesterday, I spent five minutes learning +the Italian for the expression “This blouse bags; it sits in wrinkles +between the shoulders.” As this was the only criticism given in the +little book, I imagined that Italian dressmakers erred in this special +direction. What was my discomfiture to find that my blouse was much too +small and refused to meet. I could only use gestures for the +dressmaker’s enlightenment, but in order not to waste my recently gained +knowledge, I tried to tell a melodramatic tale of a friend of mine whose +blouse bagged and sat in wrinkles between the shoulders. It was not +successful, because I was obliged to substitute the past for the present +tense of the verb. + +Somebody says that if we learn the irregular verbs of a language first, +all will be well. I think by the use of considerable mental agility one +can generally avoid them altogether, although it materially reduces one’s +vocabulary; but at all events there is no way of learning them thoroughly +save by marrying a native. A native, particularly after marriage, uses +the irregular verbs with great freedom, and one acquires a familiarity +with them never gained in the formal instruction of a teacher. This +method of education may be considered radical, and in cases where one is +already married, illegal and bigamous, but on the whole it is not +attended with any more difficulty than the immersing of one’s self in a +study day after day and month after month learning the irregular verbs +from a grammar. + +My rule in studying a language is to seize upon some salient point, or +one generally overlooked by foreigners, or some very subtle one known +only to the scholar, and devote myself to its mastery. A little +knowledge here blinds the hearer to much ignorance elsewhere. In +Italian, for example, the polite way of addressing one’s equal is to +speak in the third person singular, using _Ella_ (she) as the pronoun. +“_Come sta Ella_?” (How are you? but literally “How is she?”) + +I pay great attention to this detail, and make opportunities to meet our +_padrona_ on the staircase and say “How is she?” to her. I can never +escape the feeling that I am inquiring for the health of an absent +person; moreover, I could not understand her symptoms if she should +recount them, and I have no language in which to describe my own +symptoms, which, so far as I have observed, is the only reason we ever +ask anybody else how he feels. + +To remember on the instant whether one is addressing equals, superiors, +or inferiors, and to marshal hastily the proper pronoun, adds a new +terror to conversation, so that I find myself constantly searching my +memory to decide whether it shall be: + +_Scusate_ or _Scusi_, _Avanti_ or _Passi_, _A rivederci_ or _Addio_, _Che +cosa dite_? or _Che coma dice_? _Quanto domandate_? or _Quanto domanda_? +_Dove andate_? or _Dove va_? _Come vi chiamate_? or _Come si chiama_? +and so forth and so forth until one’s mind seems to be arranged in +tabulated columns, with special N.B.’s to use the infinitive in talking +to the gondolier. + +Finding the hours of time rather puzzling as recorded in the “Study of +Italian Made Easy,” I devoted twenty-four hours to learning how to say +the time from one o’clock at noon to midnight, or thirteen to +twenty-three o’clock. My soul revolted at the task, for a foreign tongue +abounds in these malicious little refinements of speech, invented, I +suppose, to prevent strangers from making too free with it on short +acquaintance. I found later on that my labour had been useless, and that +evidently the Italians themselves have no longer the leisure for these +little eccentricities of language and suffer them to pass from common +use. If the Latin races would only meet in convention and agree to +bestow the comfortable neuter gender on inanimate objects and +commodities, how popular they might make themselves with the +English-speaking nations; but having begun to “enrich” their language, +and make it more “subtle” by these perplexities, centuries ago, they will +no doubt continue them until the end of time. + +If one has been a devoted patron of the opera or student of music, one +has an Italian vocabulary to begin with. This, if accompanied by the +proper gestures (for it is vain to speak without liberal movements, of +the hands, shoulders, and eyebrows), this, I maintain, will deceive all +the English-speaking persons who may be seated near your table in a +foreign café. + +The very first evening after our arrival, Jack Copley asked Salemina and +me to dine with him at the best restaurant in Venice. Jack Copley is a +well of nonsense undefiled, and he, like ourselves, had been in Italy +only a few hours. He called for us in his gondola, and in the row across +from the Giudecca we amused ourselves by calling to mind the various +Italian words or phrases with which we were familiar. They were mostly +titles of arias or songs, but Jack insisted, notwithstanding Salemina’s +protestations, that, properly interlarded with names of famous Italians, +he could maintain a brilliant conversation with me at table, to the envy +and amazement of our neighbours. The following paragraph, then, was our +stock in trade, and Jack’s volubility and ingenuity in its use kept +Salemina quite helpless with laughter:— + +_Guarda che bianca luna_—_Il tempo passato_—_Lascia ch’ io pianga_—_Dolce +far niente_—_Batti batti nel Masetto_—_Da +capo_—_Ritardando_—_Andante_—_Piano_—_Adagio_—_Spaghetti_—_Macaroni_— +_Polenta_—_Non è ver_—_Ah, non giunge_—_Si la +stanchezza_—_Bravo_—_Lento_—_Presto_—_Scherzo_—_Dormi pura_—_La ci darem +la mano_—_Celeste Aïda_—_Spirito gentil_—_Voi che sapete_—_Crispino e la +Comare_—_Pietà, +Signore_—_Tintoretto_—_Boccaccio_—_Garibaldi_—_Mazzini_—_Beatrice +Cenci_—_Gordigiani_—_Santa Lucia_—_Il mio +tesoro_—_Margherita_—_Umberto_—_Vittoria Colonna_—_Tutti +frutti_—_Botticelli_—_Una furtiva lagrima_. + +No one who has not the privilege of Jack Copley’s acquaintance could +believe with what effect he used these unrelated words and sentences. I +could only assist, and lead him to ever higher flights of fancy. + +We perceive with pleasure that our mother tongue presents equal +difficulties to Italian manufacturers and men of affairs. The so-called +mineral water we use at table is specially still and dead, and we think +it may have been compared to its disadvantage with other more sparkling +beverages, since every bottle bears a printed label announcing, “To +Distrust of the mineral waters too foaming, since that they do invariable +spread the Stomach.” + +We learn also by studying another bottle that “The Wermouth is a white +wine slightly bitter, and parfumed with who leso me aromatic herbs.” +_Who leso me_ we printed in italics in our own minds, giving the phrase a +pure Italian accent until we discovered that it was the somewhat familiar +adjective “wholesome.” + +In one of the smaller galleries we were given the usual pasteboard fans +bearing explanations of the frescoes:— + +ROOM I. _In the middle_. The sin of our fathers. + +_On every side_. The ovens of Babylony. Möise saved from the water. + +ROOM II. _In the middle_. Möise who sprung the water. + +_On every side_. The luminous column in the dessert and the ardent wood. + +ROOM III. _In the middle_. Elia transported in the heaven. + +_On every side_. Eliseus dispansing brods. + +ROOM IV. The wood carvings are by Anonymous. The tapestry shows the +multiplications of brods and fishs. + + + +VII + + + CASA ROSA, _May_ 30. + +We have had a battle royal in Casa Rosa—a battle over the breaking of a +huge blue pitcher valued at eight francs, a pitcher belonging to the +Little Genius. + +The room that leads from the dining-room to the kitchen is reached by the +descent of two or three stone steps. It is always full, and is like the +orthodox hell in one respect, that though myriads of people are seen to +go into it, none ever seem to come out. It is not more than twelve feet +square, and the persons most continuously in it, not counting those who +are in transit, are the Padrona Angela; the Padrona Angela’s daughter, +Signorina Rita; the Signorina Rita’s temporary suitor; the suitor’s +mother and cousin; the padrona’s great-aunt; a few casual acquaintances +of the two families, and somebody’s baby: not always the same baby; any +baby answers the purpose and adds to the confusion and chatter of +tongues. + +This morning, the door from the dining-room being ajar, I heard a subdued +sort of Bedlam in the distance, and finally went nearer to the scene of +action, finding the cause in a heap of broken china in the centre of the +floor. I glanced at the excited company, but there was nothing to show +me who was the criminal. There was a spry girl washing dishes; the +fritter-woman (at least we call her so, because she brings certain +goodies called, if I mistake not, _frittoli_); the gardener’s wife; +Angelo, the gondolier; Peppina, the waiting-maid; and the men that had +just brought the sausages and sweetmeats for the gondolier’s ball, which +we were giving in the evening. There was also the contralto, with a +large soup-ladle in her hand. (We now call Rosalia, the cook, “the +contralto,” because she sings so much better than she cooks that it seems +only proper to distinguish her in the line of her special talent.) + +The assembled company were all talking and gesticulating at once. There +was a most delicate point of justice involved, for, as far as I could +gather, the sweetmeat-man had come in unexpectedly and collided with the +sausage-man, thereby startling the fritter-woman, who turned suddenly and +jostled the spry girl: hence the pile of broken china. + +The spry girl was all for justice. If she had carelessly or wilfully +dropped the pitcher, she would have been willing to suffer the extreme +penalty,—the number of saints she called upon to witness this statement +was sufficient to prove her honesty,—but under the circumstances she +would be blessed if she suffered anything, even the abuse that filled the +air. The fritter-woman upbraided the sweetmeat-man, who in return +reviled the sausage-vender, who remarked that if Angelo or Peppina had +received the sausages at the door, as they should, he would never have +been in the house at all; adding a few picturesque generalizations +concerning the moral turpitude of Angelo’s parents and the vicious nature +of their offspring. + +The contralto, who was divided in her soul, being betrothed to the +sausage-vender, but aunt to the spry girl, sprang into the arena, armed +with the soup-ladle, and dispensed injustice on all sides. The feud now +reached its height. There is nothing that the chief participants did not +call one another, and no intimation or aspersion concerning the +reputation of ancestors to the remotest generation that was not cast in +the others’ teeth. The spry girl referred to the sausage-vender as a +_generalissimo_ of all the fiends, and the compliments concerning the +gentle art of cookery which flew between the fritter-woman and the +contralto will not bear repetition. I listened breathlessly, hoping to +hear one of the party refer to somebody as the figure of a pig (strangely +enough the most unforgettable of insults), for each of the combatants +held, suspended in air, the weapon of his choice—broken crockery, +soup-ladle, rolling-pin, or sausage. Each, I say, flourished the emblem +of his craft wildly in the air—and then, with a change of front like that +of the celebrated King of France in the Mother Goose rhyme, dropped it +swiftly and silently; for at this juncture the Little Genius flew down +the broad staircase from her eagle’s nest. Her sculptor’s smock +surmounted her blue cotton gown, and her blond hair was flying in the +breeze created by her rapid descent. I wish I could affirm that by her +gentle dignity and serene self-control she awed the company into silence, +or that there was a holy dignity about her that held them spellbound; but +such, unhappily, is not the case. It was her pet blue pitcher that had +been broken—the pitcher that was to serve as just the right bit of colour +at the evening’s feast. She took command of the situation in a masterly +manner—a manner that had American energy and decision as its foundation +and Italian fluency as its superstructure. She questioned the virtue of +no one’s ancestors, cast no shadow of doubt on the legitimacy of any +one’s posterity, called no one by the name of any four-footed beast or +crawling, venomous thing, yet she somehow brought order out of chaos. +Her language (for which she would have been fined thirty days in her +native land) charmed and enthralled the Venetians by its delicacy, +reserve, and restraint, and they dispersed pleasantly. The +sausage-vender wished good appetite to the cook,—she had need of it, +Heaven knows, and we had more,—while the spry girl embraced the +fritter-woman ardently, begging her to come in again soon and make a +longer visit. + + + +VIII + + + CASA ROSA, _June_ 10 + +I am saying all my good-byes—to Angelo and the gondola; to the greedy +pigeons of San Marco, so heavy in the crop that they can scarcely waddle +on their little red feet; to the bees and birds and flowers and trees of +the beautiful garden behind the _casa_; to the Little Genius and her +eagle’s nest on the house-top; to “the city that is always just putting +out to sea.” It has been a month of enchantment, and although rather +expensive, it is pleasant to think that the padrona’s mortgage is nearly +paid. + +It is a saint’s day, and to-night there will be a _fiesta_. Coming home +to our island, we shall hear the laughter and the song floating out from +the wine shops and the _caffès_; we shall see the lighted barges with +their musicians; we shall thrill with the cries of “_Viva Italia_! _viva +el Re_!” The moon will rise above the white palaces; their innumerable +lights will be reflected in the glassy surface of the Grand Canal. We +shall feel for the last time “the quick silent passing” of the only +Venetian cab. + + “How light we move, how softly! Ah, + Were life but as the gondola!” + +To-morrow we shall be rowed against the current to Padua. We shall see +Malcontenta and its ruined villa: Oriago and Mira and the campanile of +Dolo. Venice will lie behind us, but she will never be forgotten. Many +a time on such a night as this we shall say with other wandering +Venetians:— + + “O Venezia benedetta! + Non ti voglio più lasciar!” + + + + +III +PENELOPE’S PRINTS OF WALES + + + And at length it chanced that I came to the fairest Valley in the + World, wherein were trees of equal growth; and a river ran through + the Valley, and a path was by the side of the river. And I followed + the path until midday, and I continued my journey along the remainder + of the Valley until the evening: and at the extremity of a plain I + came to a lone and lustrous Castle, at the foot of which was a + torrent. + +WE are coaching in Wales, having journeyed by easy stages from Liverpool +through Llanberis, Penygwryd, Bettws-y-Coed, Beddgelert and Dolgelly on +our way to Bristol, where we shall make up our minds as to the next step; +deciding in solemn conclave, with floods of argument and temperamental +differences of opinion, what is best worth seeing where all is beautiful +and inspiring. If I had possessed a little foresight I should have +avoided Wales, for, having proved apt at itinerary doggerel, I was +solemnly created, immediately on arrival, Mistress of Rhymes and +Travelling Laureate to the party—an office, however honourable, that is +no sinecure since it obliges me to write rhymed eulogies or diatribes on +Dolgelly, Tan-y-Bulch, Gyn-y-Coed, Llanrychwyn, and other Welsh hamlets +whose names offer breakneck fences to the Muse. + +I have not wanted for training in this direction, having made a journey +(heavenly in reminiscence) along the Thames, stopping at all the villages +along its green banks. It was Kitty Schuyler and Jack Copley who +insisted that I should rhyme Henley and Streatley and Wargrave before I +should be suffered to eat luncheon, and they who made me a crown of +laurel and hung a pasteboard medal about my blushing neck when I +succeeded better than usual with Datchett!—I well remember Datchett, +where the water-rats crept out of the reeds in the shallows to watch our +repast; and better still do I recall Medmenham Abbey, which defied all my +efforts till I found that it was pronounced Meddenam with the accent on +the first syllable. The results of my enforced tussles with the Muse +stare at me now from my Commonplace Book. + + “Said a rat to a hen once, at Datchett, + ‘Throw an egg to me, dear, and I’ll catch it!’ + ‘I thank you, good sir, + But I greatly prefer + To sit on mine _here_ till I hatch it.’” + + “Few hairs had the Vicar of Medmenham, + Few hairs, and he still was a-sheddin’ ’em, + But had none remained, + He would not have complained, + Because there was _far_ too much red in ’em!” + +It was Jack Copley, too, who incited me to play with rhymes for Venice +until I produced the following _tour de force_: + + “A giddy young hostess in Venice + Gave her guests hard-boiled eggs to play tennis. + She said ‘If they _should_ break, + What odds would it make? + You can’t _think_ how prolific my hen is.’” + +Reminiscences of former difficulties bravely surmounted faded into +insignificance before our first day in Wales was over. + +Jack Copley is very autocratic, almost brutal in discipline. It is he +who leads me up to the Visitors’ Books at the wayside inns, and putting +the quill in my reluctant fingers bids me write in cheerful hexameters my +impressions of the unpronounceable spot. My martyrdom began at Penygwryd +(Penny-goo-rid’). We might have stopped at Conway or some other town of +simple name, or we might have allowed the roof of the Cambrian Arms or +the Royal Goat or the Saracen’s Read to shelter us comfortably, and +provide me a comparatively easy task; but no; Penygwryd it was, and the +outskirts at that, because of two inns that bore on their swinging signs +the names: _Ty Ucha_ and _Ty Isaf_, both of which would make any minor +poet shudder. When I saw the sign over the door of our chosen hostelry I +was moved to disappear and avert my fate. Hunger at length brought me +out of my lair, and promising to do my duty, I was allowed to join the +irresponsible ones at luncheon. + +Such a toothsome feast it was! A delicious ham where roses and lilies +melted sweetly into one another; some crisp lettuces, ale in pewter mugs, +a good old cheese, and that stodgy cannon-ball the “household loaf,” dear +for old association’s sake. We were served at table by the granddaughter +of the house, a little damsel of fifteen summers with sleek brown hair +and the eyes of a doe. The pretty creature was all blushes and dimples +and pinafores and curtsies and eloquent goodwill. With what a sweet +politeness do they invest their service, some of these soft-voiced +British maids! Their kindness almost moves one to tears when one is +fresh from the resentful civility fostered by Democracy. + +As we strolled out on the greensward by the hawthorn hedge we were +followed by the little waitress, whose name, however pronounced, was +written Nelw Evans. She asked us if we would write in the “Locked Book,” +whereupon she presented us with the key. It seems that there is an +ordinary Visitors’ Book, where the common herd is invited to scrawl its +unknown name; but when persons of evident distinction and genius +patronize the inn, this “Locked Book” is put into their hands. + +I found that many a lord and lady had written on its pages, and men +mighty in Church and State had left their mark, with much bad poetry +commendatory of the beds, the food, the scenery, and the fishing. +Nobody, however, had given a line to pretty Nelw Evans; so I pencilled +her a rhyme, for which I was well paid in dimples:— + + “At the Inn called the Penygwryd + A sweet little maiden is hid. + She’s so rosy and pretty + I write her this ditty + And leave it at Penygwryd.” + +Our next halt was at Bettws-y-Coed, where we passed the week-end. It was +a memorable spot, as I failed at first to rhyme the name, and only +succeeded under threats of a fate like unto that of the immortal babes in +the wood. I left the verse to be carved on a bronze tablet in the +village church, should any one be found fitted to bear the weight of its +eulogy:— + + “Here lies an old woman of Bettws-y-Co_ed_; + Wherever she went, it was there that she go_ed_. + She frequently said: ‘My own row have I ho_ed_, + And likewise the church water-mark have I to_ed_. + I’m therefore expecting to reap what I’ve sow_ed_, + And go straight to heaven from Bettws-y-Co_ed_.’” + +At another stage of our journey, when the coaching tour was nearly ended, +we were stopping at the Royal Goat at Beddgelert. We were seated about +the cheerful blaze (one and sixpence extra), portfolio in lap, making +ready our letters for the post. I announced my intention of writing to +Salemina, left behind in London with a sprained ankle, and determined +that the missive should be saturated with local colour. None of us were +able to spell the few Welsh words we had picked up in our journeyings, +but I evaded the difficulties by writing an exciting little episode in +which all the principal substantives were names of Welsh towns, dragged +in bodily, and so used as to deceive the casual untravelled reader. + +I read it aloud. Jack Copley declared that it made capital sense, and +sounded as if it had happened exactly as stated. Perhaps you will agree +with him:— + + DDOLGHYHGGLLWN, WALES. + +. . . We left Bettws-y-Coed yesterday morning, and coached thirty-three +miles to this point. (How do you like this point when you see it +spelled?) We lunched at a wayside inn, and as we journeyed on we began +to see pposters on the ffences announcing the ffact that there was to be +a Festiniog that day in the village of Portmadoc, through which we were +to pass. + +I always enoyw a Festiniog yn any country, and my hheart beat hhigh with +anticipation. Yt was ffive o’clock yn the cool of the dday, and +ppresently the roadw became ggay with the returning festinioggers. Here +was a fine Llanberis, its neck encircled with shining meddals wonw in +previous festiniogs; there, just behind, a wee shaggy Rhyl led along +proudly by its owner. Evydently the gayety was over for the day, for the +ppeople now came yn crowds, the women with gay plaid Rhuddlans over their +shoulders and straw Beddgelerts on their hheads. + +The guardd ttooted his hhorn continuously, for we now approached the +principalw street of the village, where hhundreds of ppeople were +conggreggated. Of course there were allw manner of Dolgelleys yn the +crowd, and allw that had taken pprizes were gayly decked with ribbons. +Just at this moment the hhorn of our gguard ffrightened a superb +Llanrwst, a spirited black creature of enormous size. It made a ddash +through the lines of tterrified mothers, who caught their innocent +Pwllhelis closer to their bbosoms. In its madd course it bruised the +side of a huge Llandudno hitched to a stout Tyn-y-Coed by the way-side. +It bbroke its Bettws and leaped ynto the air. Ddeath stared us yn the +face. David the whip grew ppale, and signalled to Absalom the gguard to +save as many lives as he could and leave the rrest to Pprovidence. +Absalom spprang from his seat, and taking a sharp Capel Curig from his +ppocket (Hheaven knows how he chanced to have it about his pperson), he +aimed straight between the Llangollens of the infuriated Llandudno. With +a moan of baffled rrage, he sank to earth with a hheavy thuddw. Absalom +withdrew the bbloody Capel Curig from the dying Llandudno, and wiping yt +on his Penygwryd, replaced yt yn his pocket for future possible use. + +The local Dolwyddelan approached, and ordered a detachment of +Tan-y-Bulchs to remove the corpse of the Llandudno. With a shudder we +saw him borne to his last rrest, for we realized that had yt not bbeen +for Absalom’s Capel Curig we had bbeen bburied yn an unpronounceable +Welsh ggrave. + + + + +IV +PENELOPE IN DEVON + + +WE are in Bristol after a week’s coaching in Wales; the Jack Copleys, +Tommy Schuyler, Mrs. Jack’s younger brother, and Miss Van Tyck, Mrs. +Jack’s “Aunt Celia,” who played a grim third in that tour of the English +Cathedrals during which Jack Copley was ostensibly studying architecture +but in reality courting Kitty Schuyler. Also there is Bertram Ferguson, +whom we call “Atlas” because he carries the world on his shoulders, +gazing more or less vaguely and absent-mindedly at all the persons and +things in the universe not in need of immediate reformation. + +We had journeyed by easy stages from Liverpool through Carnarvon, +Llanberis, Penygwyrd, Bettws-y-Coed, Beddgelert, and Tan-y-Bulch. +Arriving finally at Dolgelly, we sent the coach back to Carnarvon and +took the train to Ross,—the gate of the Wye,—from whence we were to go +down the river in boats. As to that, everybody knows Symond’s Yat, +Monmouth, Raglan Castle, Tintern Abbey, Chepstow; but at Bristol a +brilliant idea took possession of Jack Copley’s mind. Long after we were +in bed o’ nights the blessed man interviewed landlords and studied +guidebooks that he might show us something beautiful next day, and above +all, something out of the common route. Mrs. Jack didn’t like common +routes; she wanted her appetite titillated with new scenes. + +At breakfast we saw the red-covered Baedeker beside our host’s plate. +This was his way of announcing that we were to “move on,” like poor Jo in +“Bleak House.” He had already reached the marmalade stage, and while we +discussed our bacon and eggs and reviled our coffee, he read us the +following:— + +“Clovelly lies in a narrow and richly-wooded combe descending abruptly to +the sea.”— + +“Any place that descends to the sea abruptly or otherwise has my approval +in advance,” said Tommy. + +“Be quiet, my boy.”—“It consists of one main street, or rather a main +staircase, with a few houses climbing on each side of the combe so far as +the narrow space allows. The houses, each standing on a higher or lower +level than its neighbour, are all whitewashed, with gay green doors and +lattices.”— + +“Heavenly!” cried Mrs. Jack. “It sounds like an English Amalfi; let us +take the first train.” + +—“And the general effect is curiously foreign; the views from the quaint +little pier and, better still, from the sea, with the pier in the +foreground, are also very striking. The foundations of the cottages at +the lower end of the village are hewn out of the living rock.” + +“How does a living rock differ from other rocks—dead rocks?” Tommy asked +facetiously. “I have always wanted to know; however, it sounds +delightful, though I can’t remember anything about Clovelly.” + +“Did you never read Dickens’s ‘Message from the Sea,’ Thomas?” asked Miss +Van Tyck. Aunt Celia always knows the number of the unemployed in New +York and Chicago, the date when North Carolina was admitted to the Union, +why black sheep eat less than white ones, the height of the highest +mountain and the length of the longest river in the world, when the first +potato was dug from American soil, when the battle of Bull Run was +fought, who invented the first fire-escape, how woman suffrage has worked +in Colorado and California, the number of trees felled by Mr. Gladstone, +the principle of the Westinghouse brake and the Jacquard loom, the +difference between peritonitis and appendicitis, the date of the +introduction of postal-cards and oleomargarine, the price of mileage on +African railways, the influence of Christianity in the Windward Islands, +who wrote “There’s Another, not a Sister,” “At Midnight in his Guarded +Tent,” “A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever,” and has taken in through the +pores much other information likely to be of service on journeys where an +encyclopædia is not available. + +If she could deliver this information without gibes at other people’s +ignorance she would, of course, be more agreeable; but it is only justice +to say that a person is rarely instructive and agreeable at the same +moment. + +“It is settled, then, that we go to Clovelly,” said Jack. “Bring me the +A B C Guide, please” (this to the waiter who had just brought in the +post). + +“Quite settled, and we go at once,” said Mrs. Jack, whose joy at arriving +at a place is only equalled by her joy in leaving it. “Penelope, hand me +my letters, please; if you were not my guest I should say I had never +witnessed such an appetite. Tommy, what news from father? Atlas, how +can you drink three cups of British coffee? Oh-h-h, how more than lucky, +how heavenly, how providential! Egeria is coming!” + +“Egeria?” we cried with one rapturous voice. + +“Read your letter carefully, Kitty,” said Jack; “you will probably find +that she wishes she might come, but finds it impossible.” + +“Or that she certainly would come if she had anything to wear,” drawled +Tommy. + +“Or that she could come perfectly well if it were a few days later,” +quoth I. + +Mrs. Jack stared at us superciliously, and lifting an absurd watch from +her antique chatelaine, observed calmly, “Egeria will be at this hotel in +one hour and fifteen minutes; I telegraphed her the night before last, +and this letter is her reply.” + +“Who is Egeria?” asked Atlas, looking up from his own letters. “She +sounds like a character in a book.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “You begin, Penelope.” + +_Penelope_: “No, I’d rather finish; then I can put in everything that you +omit.” + +_Atlas_: “Is there so much to tell?” + +_Tommy_: “Rather. Begin with her hair, Penelope.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “No; I’ll do that! Don’t rattle your knives and forks, shut +up your Baedeker, Jackie, and listen while I quote what a certain poet +wrote of Egeria when she last visited us:— + + “‘She has a knot of russet hair: + It seems a simple thing to wear + Through years, despite of fashion’s check, + The same deep coil about the neck, + But there it twined + When first I knew her, + And learned with passion to pursue her, + And if she changed it, to my mind + She were a creature of new kind. + + “‘O first of women who has laid + Magnetic glory on a braid! + In others’ tresses we may mark + If they be silken, blonde, or dark, + But thine we praise and dare not feel them, + Not Hermes, god of theft, dare steal them; + It is enough for eye to gaze + Upon their vivifying maze.’” + +_Jack_: “She has beautiful hair, but as an architect I shouldn’t think of +mentioning it first. Details should follow, not precede, general +characteristics. Her hair is an exquisite detail; so, you might say, is +her nose, her foot, her voice; but viewed as a captivating whole, Egeria +might be described epigrammatically as an animated lodestone. When a man +approaches her he feels his iron-work gently and gradually drawn out of +him.” + +Atlas looked distinctly incredulous at this statement, which was +reinforced by the affirmative nods of the whole party. + +_Penelope_: “A man cannot talk to Egeria an hour without wishing the +assistance of the Society for First Aid to the Injured. She is a kind of +feminine fly-paper; the men are attracted by the sweetness, and in trying +to absorb a little of it, they stick fast.” + +_Tommy_: “Egeria is worth from two to two and a half times more than any +girl alive; I would as lief talk to her as listen to myself.” + +_Atlas_: “Great Jove, what a concession! I wish I could find a woman—an +unmarried woman (with a low bow to Mrs. Jack)—that would produce that +effect upon me. So you all like her?” + +_Aunt Celia_: “She is not what I consider a well-informed girl.” + +_Penelope_: “Now don’t carp, Miss Van Tyck. You love her as much as we +all do. ‘Like her,’ indeed! I detest the phrase. Werther said when +asked how he liked Charlotte, ‘What sort of creature must he be who +merely liked her; whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed +by her!’ Some one asked me lately how I ‘liked’ Ossian.” + +_Atlas_: “Don’t introduce Ossian, Werther and Charlotte into this +delightful breakfast chat, I beseech you; the most tiresome trio that +ever lived. If they were travelling with us, how they would jar! Ossian +would tear the scenery in tatters with his apostrophes, Werther would +make love to Mrs. Jack, and Charlotte couldn’t cut an English household +loaf with a hatchet. Keep to Egeria,—though if one cannot stop at liking +her, she is a dangerous subject.” + +_Jack_: “Don’t imagine from these panegyrics that, to the casual +observer, Egeria is anything more than a nice girl. The deadly qualities +that were mentioned only appeal to the sympathetic eye (which you have +not), and the susceptible heart (which is not yours), and after long +acquaintance (which you can’t have, for she stays only a week). Tommy, +you can meet the charmer at the station; your sister will pack up, and +I’ll pay the bills and make arrangements for the journey.” + +_Jack Copley_ (_when left alone with his spouse_): “Kitty, I wonder, why +you invited Egeria to travel in the same party with Atlas.” + +_Mrs. Jack_ (_fencing_): “Pooh! Atlas is safe anywhere.” + +_Jack_: “He is a man.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “No; he is a reformer.” + +_Jack_: “Even reformers fall in love.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “Not unless they can find a woman to reform. Egeria is too +nearly perfect to attract Atlas; besides, what does it matter, anyway?” + +_Jack_: “It matters a good deal if it makes him unhappy; he is too good a +fellow.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “I’ve lived twenty-five years and I have never seen a man’s +unhappiness last more than six months, and I have never seen a woman make +a wound in a man’s heart that another woman couldn’t heal. The modern +young man is as tough as—well, I can’t think of anything tough enough to +compare him to. I’ve always thought it a pity that the material of which +men’s hearts is made couldn’t be utilized for manufacturing purposes; +think of its value for hinges, or for the toes of little boys’ boots, or +the heels of their stockings!” + +_Jack_: “I should think you had just been jilted, my dear; how has Atlas +offended you?” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “He hasn’t offended me; I love him, but I think he is too +absent-minded lately.” + +_Jack_: “And is Egeria invited to join us in order that she may bring his +mind forcibly back to the present?” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “Not at all; I consider Atlas as safe as a—as a church, or a +dictionary, or a guide-post, or anything; he is too much interested in +tenement-house reform to fall in love with a woman.” + +_Jack_: “I think a sensible woman wouldn’t be out of place in Atlas’ +schemes for the regeneration of humanity.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “No; but Egeria isn’t a—yes, she is, too; I can’t deny it, +but I don’t believe she knows anything about the sweating system, and she +adores Ossian and Fiona Macleod, so she probably won’t appeal to Atlas in +his present state, which, to my mind, is unnecessarily intense. The +service of humanity renders a young man perfectly callous to feminine +charms. It’s the proverbial safety of numbers, I suppose, for it’s +always the individual that leads a man into temptation, if you notice, +never the universal;—Woman, not women. I have studied Atlas profoundly, +and he is nearly as blind as a bat. He paid no attention to my new +travelling-dress last week, and yesterday I wore four rings on my middle +finger and two on each thumb all day long, just to see if I could catch +his eye and hold his attention. I couldn’t.” + +_Jack_: “That may all be; a man may be blind to the charms of all women +but one (and precious lucky if he is), but he is particularly keen where +the one is concerned.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “Atlas isn’t keen about anything but the sweating system. +You needn’t worry about him; your favourite Stevenson says that a wet rag +goes safely by the fire, and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be +much impressed by romantic scenery. Atlas momentarily a wet rag and +temporarily blind. He told me on Wednesday that he intended to leave all +his money to one of those long-named regenerating societies—I can’t +remember which.” + +_Jack_: “And it was on Wednesday you sent for Egeria. I see.” + +_Mrs. Jack_ (_haughtily_): “Then you see a figment of your own +imagination; there is nothing else to see. There! I’ve packed +everything that belongs to me, while you’ve been smoking and gazing at +that railway guide. When do we start?” + +_Jack_: “11.59. We arrive in Bideford at 4.40, and have a twelve-mile +drive to Clovelly. I will telegraph for a conveyance to the inn and for +five bedrooms and a sitting-room.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “I hope that Egeria’s train will be on time, and I hope that +it will rain so that I can wear my five-guinea mackintosh. It poured +every day when I was economizing and doing without it.” + +_Jack_: “I never could see the value of economy that ended in extra +extravagance.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “Very likely; there are hosts of things you never can see, +Jackie. But there she is, stepping out of a hansom, the darling! What a +sweet gown! She’s infinitely more interesting than the sweating system.” + + * * * * * + +We thought we were a merry party before Egeria joined us, but she +certainly introduced a new element of interest. I could not help +thinking of it as we were flying about the Bristol station, just before +entering the first-class carriage engaged by our host. Tommy had bought +us rosebuds at a penny each; Atlas had a bundle of illustrated papers +under his arm—_The Sketch_, _Black and White_, _The Queen_, _The Lady’s +Pictorial_, and half a dozen others. The guard was pasting an “engaged” +placard on the carriage window and piling up six luncheon-baskets in the +corner on the cushions, and speedily we were off. + +It is a sincere tribute to the intrinsic charm of Egeria’s character that +Mrs. Jack and I admire her so unreservedly, for she is for ever being +hurled at us as an example in cases where men are too stupid to see that +there is no fault in us, nor any special virtue in her. For instance, +Jack tells Kitty that she could walk with less fatigue if she wore +sensible shoes like Egeria’s. Now, Egeria’s foot is very nearly as +lovely as Trilby’s in the story, and much prettier than Trilby’s in the +pictures; consequently, she wears a hideous, broad-toed, low-heeled boot, +and looks trim and neat in it. Her hair is another contested point: she +dresses it in five minutes in the morning, walks or drives in the rain +and wind for a few hours, rides in the afternoon, bathes in the surf, +lies in a hammock, and, if circumstances demand, the creature can smooth +it with her hands and walk in to dinner! Kitty and I, on the contrary, +rise a half-hour earlier to curl or wave; our spirit-lamps leak into our +dressing-bags, and our beauty is decidedly damaged by damp or hot +weather. Most women’s hair is a mere covering to the scalp, growing out +of the head, or pinned on, as the case may be. Egeria’s is a glory like +Eve’s; it is expressive, breathing a hundred delicate suggestions of +herself; not tortured into frizzles, or fringes, or artificial shapes, +but winding its lustrous lengths about her head, just high enough to show +the beautiful nape of her neck, “where this way and that the little +lighter-coloured irreclaimable curls run truant from the knot,—curls, +half curls, root curls, vine ringlets, wedding-rings, fledgling feathers, +tufts of down, blown wisps,—all these wave, or fall, or stray, loose and +downward in the form of small, silken paws, hardly any of them thicker +than a crayon shading, cunninger than long, round locks of gold to trick +the heart.” + +At one o’clock we lifted the covers of our luncheon-baskets. + +“Aren’t they the tidiest, most self-respecting, satisfying things!” +exclaimed Egeria, as she took out her plate, and knife, and fork, opened +her Japanese napkin, set in dainty order the cold fowl and ham, the pat +of butter, crusty roll, bunch of lettuce, mustard and salt, the +corkscrew, and, finally, the bottle of ale. “I cannot bear to be +unpatriotic, but compare this with the ten minutes for refreshments at an +American lunch-counter, its baked beans, and pies, and its cream cakes +and doughnuts under glass covers. I don’t believe English people are as +good as we are; they can’t be; they’re too comfortable. I wonder if the +little discomforts of living in America, the dissatisfaction and +incompetency of servants, and all the other problems, will work out for +the nation a more exceeding weight of glory, or whether they will simply +ruin the national temper.” + +“It’s wicked to be too luxurious, Egeria,” said Tommy, with a sly look at +Atlas. “It’s the hair shirt, not the pearl-studded bosom, that induces +virtue.” + +“Is it?” she asked innocently, letting her clear gaze follow Tommy’s. +“You don’t believe, Mr. Atlas, that modest people like you, and me, and +Tommy, and the Copleys, incur danger in being too comfortable; the +trouble lies in the fact that the other half is too uncomfortable, does +it not? But I am just beginning to think of these things,” she added +soberly. + +“Egeria,” said Mrs. Jack sternly, “you may think about them as much as +you like; I have no control over your mental processes, but if you +mention single tax, or tenement-house reform, or Socialism, or altruism, +or communism, or the sweating system, you will be dropped at Bideford. +Atlas is only travelling with us because he needs complete moral and +intellectual rest. I hope, oh, how I hope, that there isn’t a social +problem in Clovelly! It seems as if there couldn’t be, in a village of a +single street and that a stone staircase.” + +“There will be,” I said, “if nothing more than the problem of supply and +demand; of catching and selling herrings.” + +We had time at Bideford to go into a quaint little shop for tea before +starting on our twelve-mile drive; time also to be dragged by Tommy to +Bideford Bridge, that played so important a part in Kingsley’s “Westward +Ho!” We did not approach Clovelly finally through the beautiful Hobby +Drive, laid out in former years by one of the Hamlyn ladies of Clovelly +Court, but by the turnpike road, which, however, was not uninteresting. +It had been market-day at Bideford and there were many market carts and +“jingoes” on the road, with perhaps a heap of yellow straw inside and a +man and a rosy boy on the seat. The roadway was prettily bordered with +broom, wild honeysuckle, fox-glove, and single roses, and there was a +certain charming post-office called the Fairy Cross, in a garden of +blooming fuchsias, where Egeria almost insisted upon living and +officiating as postmistress. + +All at once our driver checked his horses on the brink of a hill, +apparently leading nowhere in particular. + +“What is it?” asked Mrs. Jack, who is always expecting accidents. + +“Clovelly, mum.” + +“Clovelly!” we repeated automatically, gazing about us on every side for +a roof, a chimney, or a sign of habitation. + +“You’ll find it, mum, as you walk down-along.” + +“How charming!” cried Egeria, who loves the picturesque. “Towns are +generally so obtrusive; isn’t it nice to know that Clovelly is here and +that all we have to do is to walk ‘down-along’ and find it? Come, Tommy. +Ho, for the stone staircase!” + +We who were left behind discovered by more questioning that one cannot +drive into Clovelly; that although an American president or an English +chancellor might, as a great favour, be escorted down on a donkey’s back, +or carried down in a sedan chair if he chanced to have one about his +person, the ordinary mortal must walk to the door of the New Inn, his +luggage being dragged “down-along” on sledges and brought “up-along” on +donkeys. In a word, Clovelly is not built like unto other towns; it +seems to have been flung up from the sea into a narrow rift between +wooded hills, and to have clung there these eight hundred years of its +existence. It has held fast, but it has not expanded, for the very good +reason that it completely fills the hollow in the cliffs, the houses +clinging like limpets to the rocks on either side, so that it would be a +costly and difficult piece of engineering indeed to build any extensions +or additions. + +We picked our way “down-along” until we caught the first glimpse of +white-washed cottages covered with creepers, their doors hospitably open, +their windows filled with blooming geraniums and fuchsias. All at once, +as we began to descend the winding, rocky pathway, we saw that it pitched +headlong into the bluest sea in the world. No wonder the painters have +loved it! Shall we ever forget that first vision! There were a couple +of donkeys coming “up-along” laden, one with coals, the other with +bread-baskets; a fisherman was mending his nets in front of his door; +others were lounging “down to quay pool” to prepare for their evening +drift-fishing. A little further on, at a certain abrupt turning called +the “lookout,” where visitors stop to breathe and villagers to gossip, +one could catch a glimpse of the beach and “Crazed Kate’s Cottage,” the +drying-ground for nets, the lifeboat house, the pier, and the breakwater. + +We were all enchanted when we arrived at the door of the inn. + +“Devonshire for me! I shall live here!” cried Mrs. Jack. “I said that a +few times in Wales, but I retract it. You had better live here, too, +Atlas; there aren’t any problems in Clovelly.” + +“I am sure of that,” he assented smilingly. “I noticed dozens of live +snails in the rocks of the street as we came down; snails cannot live in +combination with problems.” + +“Then I am a snail,” answered Mrs. Jack cheerfully; “for that is exactly +my temperament.” + +We found that we could not get room enough for all at the tiny inn, but +this only exhilarated Egeria and Tommy. They disappeared and came back +triumphant ten minutes later. + +“We got lodgings without any difficulty,” said Egeria. “Tommy’s isn’t +half bad; we saw a small boy who had been taking a box ‘down-along’ on a +sledge, and he referred us to a nice place where they took Tommy in; but +you should see my lodging—it is ideal. I noticed the prettiest +yellow-haired girl knitting in a doorway. ‘There isn’t room for me at +the inn,’ I said; ‘could you let me sleep here?’ She asked her mother, +and her mother said ‘Yes,’ and there was never anything so romantic as my +vine-embowered window. Juliet would have jumped at it.” + +“She would have jumped out of it, if Romeo had been below,” said Mrs. +Jack, “but there are no Romeos nowadays; they are all busy settling the +relations of labour and capital.” + +The New Inn proved some years ago to be too small for its would-be +visitors. An addition couldn’t be built because there wasn’t any room; +but the landlady succeeded in getting a house across the way. Here there +are bedrooms, a sort of quiet tap-room of very great respectability, and +the kitchens. As the dining-room is in house number one, the matter of +serving dinner might seem to be attended with difficulty, but it is not +apparent. The maids run across the narrow street with platters and +dishes surmounted by great Britannia covers, and in rainy weather they +give the soup or joint the additional protection of a large cotton +umbrella. The walls of every room in the inn are covered with old china, +much of it pretty, and some of it valuable, though the finest pieces are +not hung, but are placed in glass cabinets. One cannot see an inch of +wall space anywhere in bedrooms, dining- or sitting-rooms for the huge +delft platters, whole sets of the old green dragon pattern, quaint +perforated baskets, pitchers and mugs of British lustre, with queer dogs, +and cats, and peacocks, and clocks of china. The massing of colour is +picturesque and brilliant, and the whole effect decidedly unique. The +landlady’s father and grandfather had been Bideford sea-captains and had +brought here these and other treasures from foreign parts. As Clovelly +is a village of seafolk and fisher-folk, the houses are full of +curiosities, mostly from the Mediterranean. Egeria had no china in her +room, but she had huge branches of coral, shells of all sizes and hues, +and an immense coloured print of the bay of Naples. Tommy’s landlady was +volcanic in her tastes, and his walls were lined with pictures of +Vesuvius in all stages of eruption. My room, a wee, triangular box of a +thing, was on the first floor of the inn. It opened hospitably on a bit +of garden and street by a large glass door that wouldn’t shut, so that a +cat or a dog spent the night by my bed-side now and then, and many a +donkey tried to do the same, but was evicted. + +Oh, the Clovelly mornings! the sunshine, the salt air, the savour of the +boats and the nets, the limestone cliffs of Gallantry Bower rising steep +and white at the head of the village street, with the brilliant sea at +the foot; the walks down by the quay pool (not _key pool_, you +understand, but _quaäy püül_ in the vernacular), the sails in a good old +herring-boat called the _Lorna Doone_, for we are in Blackmore’s country +here. + +We began our first day early in the morning, and met at nine-o’clock +breakfast in the coffee-room. Egeria came in glowing. She reminds me of +a phrase in a certain novel, where the heroine is described as always +dressing (seemingly) to suit the season and the sky. Clad in sea-green +linen with a white collar, and belt, she was the very spirit of a +Clovelly morning. She had risen at six, and in company with Phoebe, +daughter of her house (the yellow-haired lassie mentioned previously), +had prowled up and down North Hill, a transverse place or short street +much celebrated by painters. They had met a certain bold fisher-lad +named Jem, evidently Phoebe’s favourite swain, and explored the short +passage where Fish Street is built over, nicknamed Temple Bar. + +Atlas came in shortly after and laid a nosegay at Egeria’s plate. + +“My humble burnt-offering, your ladyship,” he said. + +_Tommy_: “She has lots of offerings, but she generally prefers to burn +’em herself. When Egeria’s swains talk about her, it is always ‘_ut +vidi_,’ how I saw, succeeded by ‘_ut perii_,’ how I sudden lost my +brains.” + +_Egeria_: “_You_ don’t indulge in burnt-offerings” (laughing, with +slightly heightened colour); “but how you do burn incense! You speak as +if the skeletons of my rejected suitors were hanging on imaginary lines +all over the earth’s surface.” + +_Tommy_: “They are not hanging on ‘imaginary’ lines.” + +_Mrs. Jack_: “Turn your thoughts from Egeria’s victims, you frivolous +people, and let me tell you that I’ve been ‘up-along’ this morning and +found—what do you think?—a library: a circulating library maintained by +the Clovelly Court people. It is embowered in roses and jasmine, and +there is a bird’s nest hanging just outside one of the open windows next +to a shelf of Dickens and Scott. Never before have young families of +birds been born and brought up with similar advantages. The snails were +in the path just as we saw them yesterday evening, Atlas; not one has +moved, not one has died! Oh, I certainly must come and live here. The +librarian is a dear old lady; if she ever dies, I am coming to take her +place. You will be postmistress at the Fairy Cross then, Egeria, and +we’ll visit each other. And I’ve brought Dickens’ ‘Message from the Sea’ +for you, and Kingsley’s ‘Westward Ho!’ for Tommy, and ‘The Wages of Sin’ +for Atlas, and ‘Hypatia’ for Egeria, ‘Lorna Doone’ for Jack, and Charles +Kingsley’s sermons for myself. We will read aloud every evening.” + +“I won’t,” said Tommy succinctly. “I’ve been down by the quay pool, and +I’ve got acquainted with a lot of A1 chaps that have agreed to take me +drift-fishing every night, and they are going to put out the Clovelly +lifeboat for exercise this week, and if the weather is fine, Bill Marks +is going to take Atlas and me to Lundy Island. You don’t catch me round +the evening lamp very much in Clovelly.” + +“Don’t be too slangy, Tommy, and who on earth is Bill Marks?” asked Jack. + +“He’s our particular friend, Tommy’s and mine,” answered Atlas, seeing +that Tommy was momentarily occupied with bacon and eggs. “He told us +more yarns than we ever before heard spun in the same length of time. He +is seventy-seven, and says he was a teetotaler until he was sixty-nine, +but has been trying to make up time ever since. From his condition last +evening, I should say he was likely to do it. He was so mellow, I asked +him how he could manage to walk down the staircase. ‘Oh, I can walk down +neat enough,’ he said, ‘when I’m in good sailing trim, as I am now, +feeling just good enough, but not too good, your honour; but when I’m +half seas over or three sheets in the wind, I roll down, your honour!’ +He spends three shillings a week for his food and the same for his +‘rummidge.’ He was thrilling when he got on the subject of the awful +wreck just outside this harbour, ‘the fourth of October, seventy-one +years ago, two-and-thirty men drowned, your honour, and half of ’em from +Clovelly parish. And I was one of the three men saved in another storm +twenty-four years agone, when two-and-twenty men were drowned; that’s +what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown, your +honour.’ When he found we’d been in Scotland, he was very anxious to +know if we could talk ‘Garlic,’ said he’d always wanted to know what it +sounded like.” + +Somehow, in the days that followed, Tommy was always with his particular +friends, the fishermen, on the beach, at the Red Lion, or in the shop of +a certain boat-builder, learning the use of the calking-iron. Mr. and +Mrs. Jack, Aunt Celia, and I unexpectedly found ourselves a quartette for +hours together, while Egeria and Atlas walked in the churchyard, in the +beautiful grounds of Clovelly Court, or in the deer park, where one finds +as perfect a union of marine and woodland scenery as any in England. + +Atlas may have taken her there because he could discuss single tax more +eloquently when he was walking over the entailed estates of the English +landed gentry, but I suspect that single tax had taken off its hat, and +bowing profoundly to Egeria, had said, “After you, Madam!” and retired to +its proper place in the universe; for not even the most blatant economist +would affirm that any other problem can be so important as that which +confronts a man when he enters that land of Beulah, which is upon the +borders of Heaven and within sight of the City of Love. + +Atlas was young, warm of heart, high of mind, and generous of soul. All +the necessary chords, therefore, were in him, ready to be set in +vibration. No one could do this more cunningly than Egeria; the only +question was whether love would “run out to meet love,” as it should, +“with open arms.” + +We simply waited to see. Mrs. Jack, with that fine lack of logic that +distinguished her, disclaimed all responsibility. “He is awake, at +least,” she said, “and that is a great comfort; and now and then he +observes a few very plain facts, mostly relating to Egeria, it is true. +If it does come to anything, I hope he won’t ask her to live in a college +settlement the year round, though I haven’t the slightest doubt that she +would like it. If there were ever two beings created expressly for each +other, it is these two, and for that reason I have my doubts about the +matter. Almost all marriages are made between two people who haven’t the +least thing in common, so far as outsiders can judge. Egeria and Atlas +are almost too well suited for marriage.” + +The progress of the affair had thus far certainly been astonishingly +rapid, but it might mean nothing. Egeria’s mind and heart were so easy +of access up to a certain point that the traveller sometimes +overestimated the distance covered and the distance still to cover. +Atlas quoted something about her at the end of the very first day, that +described her charmingly: “Ordinarily, the sweetest ladies will make us +pass through cold mist and cross a stile or two, or a broken bridge, +before the formalities are cleared away, to grant us rights of +citizenship. She is like those frank lands where we have not to hand out +a passport at the frontier and wait for dubious inspection.” But the +description is incomplete. Egeria, indeed, made no one wait at the +frontier for a dubious inspection of his passport; but once in the new +domain, while he would be cordially welcomed to parks, gardens, lakes, +and pleasure grounds, he would find unexpected difficulty in entering the +queen’s private apartments, a fact that occasioned surprise to some of +the travellers. + +We all took the greatest interest, too, in the romance of Phoebe and Jem, +for the course of true love did not run at all smooth for this young +couple. Jack wrote a ballad about her, and Egeria made a tune to it, and +sang it to the tinkling, old-fashioned piano of an evening:— + + “Have you e’er seen the street of Clovelly? + The quaint, rambling street of Clovelly, + With its staircase of stone leading down to the sea, + To the harbour so sleepy, so old, and so wee, + The queer, crooked street of Clovelly. + + “Have you e’er seen the lass of Clovelly? + The sweet little lass of Clovelly, + With kirtle of grey reaching just to her knee, + And ankles as neat as ankles may be, + The yellow-haired lass of Clovelly. + + “There’s a good honest lad in Clovelly, + A bold, fisher lad of Clovelly, + With purpose as straight and swagger as free + As the course of his boat when breasting a sea, + The brave sailor lad of Clovelly. + + “Have you e’er seen the church at Clovelly? + Have you heard the sweet bells of Clovelly? + The lad and the lassie will hear them, maybe, + And join hand in hand to sail over life’s sea + From the little stone church at Clovelly.” + +When the nights were cool or damp we crowded into Mrs. Jack’s tiny +china-laden sitting-room, and had a blaze in the grate with a bit of +driftwood burning blue and green and violet on top of the coals. Tommy +sometimes smelled of herring to such a degree that we were obliged to +keep the door open; but his society was so precious that we endured the +odours. + +But there were other evenings out of doors, when we sat in a sheltered +corner down on the pier, watching the line of limestone cliffs running +westward to the revolving light at Hartland Point that sent us alternate +flashes of ruby and white across the water. Clovelly lamps made +glittering disks in the quay pool, shining there side by side with the +reflected star-beams. We could hear the regular swish-swash of the waves +on the rocks, and to the eastward the dripping of a stream that came +tumbling over the cliff. + +Such was our last evening in Clovelly; a very quiet one, for the charm of +the place lay upon us and we were loath to leave it. It was warm and +balmy, and the moonlight lay upon the beach. Egeria leaned against the +parapet, the serge of her dress showing white against the background of +rock. The hood of her dark blue yachting-cape was slipping off her head, +and her eyes were as deep and clear as crystal pools. + +Presently she began to sing,—first, “The Sands o’ Dee,” then,— + + “Three fishers went sailing out into the west, + Out into the west as the sun went down; + Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, + And the children stood watching them out of the town.” + +Egeria is one of the few women who can sing well without an +accompaniment. She has a thrilling voice, and what with the scene, the +hour, and the pathos of Kingsley’s verses, tears rushed into my eyes, and +Bill Marks’ words came back to me—“Two-and-twenty men drowned; that’s +what it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown.” + +Atlas gazed at her with eyes that no longer cared to keep their secret. +Mrs. Jack was still uncertain; for me, I was sure. Love had rushed past +him like a galloping horseman, and shooting an arrow almost without aim, +had struck him full in the heart, that citadel that had withstood a dozen +deliberate sieges. + +It was midnight, and our few belongings were packed. Egeria had come to +the Inn to sleep, and stole into my room to warm her toes before the +blaze in my grate, for I was chilly and had ordered a sixpenny fire. +When I say that she came in to warm her toes, I am asking you to accept +her statement, not mine; it is my opinion that she came in for no other +purpose than to tell me something that was in her mind and heart pleading +for utterance. + +I didn’t help her by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fib +so flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a multitude of +things,—Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit to +Cardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at the +church, and finally her walk with Atlas in the churchyard. + +“We went inside,” said Egeria, “and I copied the inscription on the +bronze tablet that Atlas liked so much on Sunday: ‘Her grateful and +affectionate husband’s last and proudest wish will be that whenever +Divine Providence shall call him hence, his name may be engraved on the +same tablet that is sacred in perpetuating as much virtue and goodness as +could adorn human nature.’” Then she went on, with apparent lack of +sequence: “Penelope, don’t you think it is always perfectly safe to obey +a Scriptural command, because I have done it?” + +“Did you find it in the Old or the New Testament?” + +“The Old.” + +“I should say that if you found some remarks about breaking the bones of +your enemy, and have twisted it out of its connection, it would be +particularly bad advice to follow.” + +“It is nothing of that sort.” + +“What is it, then?” + +She took out a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head an +absent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself and +fell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to induce +covetousness, but one couldn’t be envious of Egeria. She charmed one by +her lack of consciousness. + + “The happy lot + Be his to follow + Those threads through lovely curve and hollow, + And muse a lifetime how they got + Into that wild, mysterious knot,”— + +quoted I, as I gave her head an insinuating pat. “Come, Egeria, stand +and deliver! What is the Scriptural command, that having first obeyed, +you ask my advice about afterwards?” + +“Have you a Bible?” + +“You might not think it, but I have, and it is here on my table.” + +“Then I am going into my room, to lock the door, and call the verse +through the keyhole. But you must promise not to say a word to me till +to-morrow morning.” + +I was not in a position to dictate terms, so I promised. The door +closed, the bolt shot into the socket, and Egeria’s voice came so faintly +through the keyhole that I had to stoop to catch the words:— + +“Deuteronomy, 10:19.” + +I flew to my Bible. +Genesis—Exodus—Leviticus—Numbers—Deuteronomy—Deut-er-on-omy—Ten—Nineteen— + +“_Love ye therefore the stranger_—” + + + + +V +PENELOPE AT HOME + + + “’Tis good when you have crossed the sea and back + To find the sit-fast acres where you left them.” + + EMERSON. + + BERESFORD BROADACRES, + _April_ 15, 19–. + +PENELOPE, in the old sense, is no more! No mound of grass and daisies +covers her; no shaft of granite or marble marks the place where she +rests;—as a matter of fact she never does rest; she walks and runs and +sits and stands, but her travelling days are over. For the present, in a +word, the reason that she is no longer “Penelope,” with dozens of +portraits and three volumes of “Experiences” to her credit, is, that she +is Mrs. William Hunt Beresford. + +As for Himself, he is just as much William Hunt Beresford as ever he was, +for marriage has not staled, nor fatherhood withered, his infinite +variety. There may be, indeed, a difference, ever so slight; a new +dignity, and an air of responsibility that harmonizes well with the inch +of added girth at his waist-line and the grey thread or two that +becomingly sprinkle his dark hair. + +And where is Herself, the vanished Penelope, you ask; the companion of +Salemina and Francesca; the traveller in England, Scotland, Ireland, and +Wales; the wanderer in Switzerland and Italy? Well, if she is a thought +less irresponsible, merry, and loquacious, she is happier and wiser. If +her easel and her palette are not in daily evidence, neither are they +altogether banished from the scene; and whatever measure of cunning +Penelope’s hand possessed in other days, Mrs. Beresford has contrived to +preserve. + +If she wields the duster occasionally, in alternation with the +paint-brush and the pen, she has now a new choice of weapons; and as for +models,—her friends, her neighbours, even her enemies and rivals, might +admire her ingenuity, her thrift, and her positive genius in selecting +types to paint! She never did paint anything beautifully but children, +though her backgrounds have been praised, also the various young things +that were a vital part of every composition. She could never draw a +horse or a cow or an ox to her satisfaction, but a long-legged colt, or a +newborn Bossy-calf were well within her powers. Her puppies and kittens +and chickens and goslings were always admired by the public, and the fact +that the mothers and fathers in the respective groups were never quite as +convincing as their offspring,—this somehow escaped the notice of the +critics. + +Very well, then, what was Penelope inspired to do when she became Mrs. +Beresford and left the Atlantic rolling between the beloved Salemina, +Francesca, and herself? Why, having “crossed the sea and back” +repeatedly, she found “the sit-fast acres” of the house of Beresford +where she “left them” and where they had been sitting fast for more than +a hundred years. + +“Here is the proper place for us to live,” she said to Himself, when they +first viewed the dear delightful New England landscape over together. +“Here is where your long roots are, and as my roots have been in half a +hundred places they can be easily transplanted. You have a decent income +to begin on; why not eke it out with apples and hay and corn and Jersey +cows and Plymouth Rock cocks and hens, while I use the scenery for my +pictures? There are backgrounds here for a thousand canvases, all within +a mile of your ancestral doorstep.” + +“I don’t know what you will do for models in this remote place,” said +Himself, putting his hands in his pockets and gazing dubiously at the +abandoned farm-houses on the hillsides; the still green dooryards on the +village street where no children were playing, and the quiet little brick +school-house at the turn of the road, from which a dozen half-grown boys +and girls issued decorously, looking at us like scared rabbits. + +“I have an idea about models,” said Mrs. Beresford. + +And it turned out that she had, for all that was ten years ago, and +Penelope the Painter, merged in Mrs. Beresford the mother, has the three +loveliest models in all the countryside! + +Children, of course, are common enough everywhere; not, perhaps, as +common as they should be, but there are a good many clean, well-behaved, +truthful, decently-featured little boys and girls who will, in course of +time, become the bulwarks of the Republic, who are of no use as models. +The public is not interested in, and will neither purchase nor hang on +its walls anything but a winsome child, a beautiful child, a pathetic +child, or a picturesquely ragged and dirty child. (The latter type is +preferably a foreigner, as dirty American children are for some reason or +other quite unsalable.) + +All this is in explanation of the foregoing remarks about Mrs. +Beresford’s ingenuity, thrift, and genius in selecting types to paint. +The ingenuity lay in the idea itself; the thrift, in securing models that +should belong to the Beresford “sit-fast acres” and not have to be +searched for and “hired in” by the day; and the genius, in producing +nothing but enchanting, engrossing, adorable, eminently “paintable” +children. They are just as obedient, interesting, grammatical, and +virtuous as other people’s offspring, yet they are so beautiful that it +would be the height of selfishness not to let the world see them and turn +green with envy. + +When viewed by the casual public in a gallery, nobody of course believes +that they are real until some kind friend says: “No, oh, no! not ideal +heads at all; perfect likenesses; the children of Mr. and Mrs. Beresford; +Penelope Hamilton, whose signature you see in the corner, _is_ Mrs. +Beresford.” + +When they are exhibited in the guise of, and under such titles as: “Young +April,” “In May Time,” “Girl with Chickens,” “Three of a Kind” (Billy +with a kitten and a puppy tumbling over him), “Little Mothers” (Frances +and Sally with their dolls), “When all the World is Young” (Billy, +Frances, and Sally under the trees surrounded by a riot of young +feathered things, with a lamb and a Jersey calf peeping over a fence in +the background), then Himself stealthily visits the gallery. He stands +somewhere near the pictures pulling his moustache nervously and listening +to the comments of the bystanders. Not a word of his identity or +paternity does he vouchsafe, but occasionally some acquaintance happens +to draw near, perhaps to compliment or congratulate him. Then he has +been heard to say vaingloriously: “Oh, no! they are not flattered; rather +the reverse. My wife has an extraordinary faculty of catching +likenesses, and of course she has a wonderful talent, but she agrees with +me that she never quite succeeds in doing the children justice!” + +Here we are, then, Himself and I, growing old with the country that gave +us birth (God bless it!) and our children growing up with it, as they +always should; for it must have occurred to the reader that I am +Penelope, Hamilton that was, and also, and above all, that I am Mrs. +William Hunt Beresford. + + _April_ 20, 19–. + +Himself and I have gone through the inevitable changes that life and +love, marriage and parenthood, bring to all human creatures; but no one +of the dear old group of friends has so developed as Francesca. Her last +letter, posted in Scotland and delivered here seven days later, is like a +breath of the purple heather and brings her vividly to mind. + +In the old days when we first met she was gay, irresponsible, vivacious, +and a decided flirt,—with symptoms of becoming a coquette. She was +capricious and exacting; she had far too large an income for a young girl +accountable to nobody; she was lovely to look upon, a product of cities +and a trifle spoiled. + +She danced through Europe with Salemina and me, taking in no more +information than she could help, but charming everybody that she met. +She was only fairly well educated, and such knowledge as she possessed +was vague, uncertain, and never ready for instant use. In literature she +knew Shakespeare, Balzac, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, but if +you had asked her to place Homer, Schiller, Dante, Victor Hugo, James +Fenimore Cooper, or Thoreau she couldn’t have done it within a hundred +years. + +In history she had a bowing acquaintance with Napoleon, Washington, +Wellington, Prince Charlie, Henry of Navarre, Paul Revere, and Stonewall +Jackson, but as these gallant gentlemen stand on the printed page, so +they stood shoulder to shoulder, elbowing one another in her pretty head, +made prettier by a wealth of hair, Marcel-waved twice a week. + +These facts were brought out once in examination, by one of Francesca’s +earliest lovers, who, at Salemina’s request and my own, acted as her +tutor during the spring before our first trip abroad, the general idea +being to prepare her mind for foreign travel. + +I suppose we were older and should have known better than to allow any +man under sixty to tutor Francesca in the spring. Anyhow, the season +worked its maddest pranks on the pedagogue. He fell in love with his +pupil within a few days,—they were warm, delicious, budding days, for it +was a very early, verdant, intoxicating spring that produced an unusual +crop of romances in our vicinity. Unfortunately the tutor was a scholar +at heart, as well as a potential lover, and he interested himself in +making psychological investigations of Francesca’s mind. She was +perfectly willing, for she always regarded her ignorance as a huge joke, +instead of viewing it with shame and embarrassment. What was more +natural, when she drove, rode, walked, sailed, danced, and “sat out” to +her heart’s content, while more learned young ladies stayed within doors +and went to bed at nine o’clock with no vanity-provoking memories to lull +them to sleep? The fact that she might not be positive as to whether +Dante or Milton wrote “Paradise Lost,” or Palestrina antedated Berlioz, +or the Mississippi River ran north and south or east and west,—these +trifling uncertainties had never cost her an offer of marriage or the +love of a girl friend; so she was perfectly frank and offered no +opposition to the investigations of the unhappy but conscientious tutor, +meeting his questions with the frankness of a child. Her attitude of +mind was the more candid because she suspected the passion of the teacher +and knew of no surer way to cure him than to let him know her mind for +what it was. + +When the staggering record of her ignorance on seven subjects was set +down in a green-covered blank book, she awaited the result not only with +resignation, but with positive hope; a hope that proved to be +ill-founded, for curiously enough the tutor was still in love with her. +Salemina was surprised, but I was not. Of course I had to know anatomy +in order to paint, but there is more in it than that. In painting the +outsides of people I assure you that I learned to guess more of what was +inside them than their bony structures! I sketched the tutor while he +was examining Francesca and I knew that there were no abysmal depths of +ignorance that could appall him where she was concerned. He couldn’t +explain the situation at all, himself. If there was anything that he +admired and respected in woman, it was a well-stored, logical mind, and +three months’ tutoring of Francesca had shown him that her mental +machinery was of an obsolete pattern and that it was not even in good +working order. He could not believe himself influenced (so he confessed +to me) by such trivial things as curling lashes, pink ears, waving hair +(he had never heard of Marcel), or mere beauties of colour and line and +form. He said he was not so sure about Francesca’s eyes. Eyes like +hers, he remarked in confidence, were not beneath the notice of any man, +be he President of Harvard University or Master of Balliol College, for +they seemed to promise something never once revealed in the green +examination book. + +“You are quite right,” I answered him; “the green book is not all there +is of Miss Monroe, but whatever there is is plainly not for you”; and he +humbly agreed with my dictum. + +Is it not strange that a man will talk to one woman about the charms of +another for days upon days without ever realizing that she may possibly +be born for some other purpose than listening to him? For an hour or +two, of course, any sympathetic or generous-minded person can be +interested in the confidences of a lover; but at the end of weeks or +months, during which time he has never once regarded his listener as a +human being of the feminine gender, with eyes, nose, and hair in no way +inferior to those of his beloved,—at the end of that time he should be +shaken, smitten, waked from his dreams, and told in ringing tones that in +a tolerably large universe there are probably two women worth looking at, +the one about whom he is talking, and the one to whom he is talking! + + _May_ 12, 19–. + +To go on about Francesca, she always had a quick intelligence, a sense of +humour, a heart, and a conscience; four things not to be despised in the +equipment of a woman. The wit she used lavishly for the delight of the +world at large; the heart had not (in the tutor’s time) found anything or +anybody on which to spend itself; the conscience certainly was not +working overtime at the same period, but I always knew that it was there +and would be an excellent reliable organ when once aroused. + +Of course there is no reason why the Reverend Ronald MacDonald, of the +Established Church of Scotland, should have been the instrument chosen to +set all the wheels of Francesca’s being in motion, but so it was; and a +great clatter and confusion they made in our Edinburgh household when the +machinery started! If Ronald was handsome he was also a splendid fellow; +if he was a preacher he was also a man; and no member of the laity could +have been more ardently and satisfactorily in love than he. It was the +ardour that worked the miracle; and when Francesca was once warmed +through to the core, she began to grow. Her modest fortune helped things +a little at the beginning of their married life, for it not only made +existence easier, but enabled them to be of more service in the +straggling, struggling country parishes where they found themselves at +first. + +Francesca’s beautiful American clothes shocked Ronald’s congregations now +and then, and it was felt that, though possible, it was not very +probable, that the grace of God could live with such hats and shoes, such +gloves and jewels as hers. But by the time Ronald was called from his +Argyllshire church to St. Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh there was a +better understanding of young Mrs. MacDonald’s raiment and its relation +to natural and revealed religion. It appeared now that a clergyman’s +wife, by strict attention to parochial duties; by being the mother of +three children all perfectly well behaved in church; by subscribing +generously to all worthy charities; by never conducting herself as +light-mindedly as her eyes and conversation seemed to portend,—it +appeared that a woman _could_ live down her clothes! It was a Bishop, I +think, who argued in Francesca’s behalf that godliness did not +necessarily dwell in frieze and stout leather and that it might flourish +in lace and chiffon. Salemina and I used to call Ronald and Francesca +the antinomic pair. Antinomics, one finds by consulting the authorities, +are apparently contradictory poles, which, however, do not really +contradict, but are only correlatives, the existence of one making the +existence of the other necessary, explaining each other and giving each +other a real standing and equilibrium. + + _May_ 7, 19–. + +What immeasurable leagues of distance lie between Salemina, Francesca, +and me! Not only leagues of space divide us, but the difference in +environment, circumstances, and responsibilities that give reality to +space; yet we have bridged the gulf successfully by a particular sort of +three-sided correspondence, almost impersonal enough to be published, yet +revealing all the little details of daily life one to the other. + +When we three found that we should be inevitably separated for some +years, we adopted the habit of a “loose-leaf diary.” The pages are +perforated with large circular holes and put together in such a way that +one can remove any leaf without injuring the book. We write down, as the +spirit moves us, the more interesting happenings of the day, and once in +a fortnight, perhaps, we slip a half-dozen selected pages into an +envelope and the packet starts on its round between America, Scotland, +and Ireland. In this way we have kept up with each other without any +apparent severing of intimate friendship, and a farmhouse in New England, +a manse in Scotland, and the Irish home of a Trinity College professor +and his lady are brought into frequent contact. + +Inspired by Francesca’s last budget, full of all sorts of revealing +details of her daily life, I said to Himself at breakfast: “I am not +going to paint this morning, nor am I going to ‘keep house’; I propose to +write in my loose-leaf diary, and what is more I propose to write about +marriage!” + +When I mentioned to Himself the subject I intended to treat, he looked up +in alarm. + +“Don’t, I beg of you, Penelope,” he said. “If you do it the other two +will follow suit. Women cannot discuss marriage without dragging in +husbands, and MacDonald, La Touche, and I won’t have a leg to stand upon. +The trouble with these ‘loose leaves’ that you three keep for ever in +circulation is, that the cleverer they are the more publicity they get. +Francesca probably reads your screeds at her Christian Endeavour meetings +just as you cull extracts from Salemina’s for your Current Events Club. +In a word, the loosened leaf leads to the loosened tongue, and that’s +rather epigrammatic for a farmer at breakfast time.” + +“I am not going to write about husbands,” I said, “least of all my own, +but about marriage as an institution; the part it plays in the evolution +of human beings.” + +“Nevertheless, everything you say about it will reflect upon me,” argued +Himself. “The only husband a woman knows is her own husband, and +everything she thinks about marriage is gathered from her own +experience.” + +“Your attitude is not only timid, it is positively cowardly!” I +exclaimed. “You are an excellent husband as husbands go, and I don’t +consider that I have retrograded mentally or spiritually during our ten +years of life together. It is true nothing has been said in private or +public about any improvement in me due to your influence, but perhaps +that is because the idea has got about that your head is easily turned by +flattery.—Anyway, I shall be entirely impersonal in what I write. I +shall say I believe in marriage because I cannot think of any better +arrangement; also that I believe in marrying men because there is nothing +else _to_ marry. I shall also quote that feminist lecturer who said that +the bitter business of every woman in the world is to convert a trap into +a home. Of course I laughed inwardly, but my shoulders didn’t shake for +two minutes as yours did. They were far more eloquent than any loose +leaf from a diary; for they showed every other man in the audience that +you didn’t consider that _you_ had to set any ‘traps’ for _me_!” + +Himself leaned back in his chair and gave way to unbridled mirth. When +he could control his speech, he wiped the tears from his eyes and said +offensively:— + +“Well, I didn’t; did I?” + +“No,” I replied, flinging the tea-cosy at his head, missing it, and +breaking the oleander on the plant-shelf ten feet distant. + +“You wouldn’t be unmarried for the world!” said Himself. “You couldn’t +paint every day, you know you couldn’t; and where could you find anything +so beautiful to paint as your own children unless you painted me; and it +just occurs to me that you never paid me the compliment of asking me to +sit for you.” + +“I can’t paint men,” I objected. “They are too massive and rugged and +ugly. Their noses are big and hard and their bones show through +everywhere excepting when they are fat and then they are disgusting. +Their eyes don’t shine, their hair is never beautiful, they have no +dimples in their hands and elbows; you can’t see their mouths because of +their moustaches, and generally it’s no loss; and their clothes are stiff +and conventional with no colour, nor any flowing lines to paint.” + +“I know where you keep your ‘properties,’ and I’ll make myself a mass of +colour and flowing lines if you’ll try me,” Himself said meekly. + +“No, dear,” I responded amiably. “You are very nice, but you are not a +costume man, and I shudder to think what you would make of yourself if I +allowed you to visit my property-room. If I ever have to paint you (not +for pleasure, but as a punishment), you shall wear your everyday +corduroys and I’ll surround you with the children; then you know +perfectly well that the public will never notice you at all.” Whereupon +I went to my studio built on the top of the long rambling New England +shed and loved what I painted yesterday so much that I went on with it, +finding that I had said to Himself almost all that I had in mind to say, +about marriage as an institution. + + _June_ 15, 19–. + +We were finishing luncheon on the veranda with all out of doors to give +us appetite. It was Buttercup Sunday, a yellow June one that had been +preceded by Pussy Willow Sunday, Dandelion Sunday, Apple Blossom, Wild +Iris, and Lilac Sunday, to be followed by Daisy and Black-Eyed Susan and +White Clematis and Goldenrod and Wild Aster and Autumn Leaf Sundays. + +Francie was walking over the green-sward with a bowl and spoon, just as +our Scottish men friends used to do with oat-meal at breakfast time. The +Sally-baby was blowing bubbles in her milk, and Himself and I were +discussing a book lately received from London. + +Suddenly I saw Billy, who had wandered from the table, sitting on the +steps bending over a tiny bird’s egg in his open hand. I knew that he +must have taken it from some low-hung nest, but taken it in innocence, +for he looked at it with solicitude as an object of tender and fragile +beauty. He had never given a thought to the mother’s days of patient +brooding, nor that he was robbing the summer world of one bird’s flight +and one bird’s song. + +“Did you hear the whippoorwills singing last night, Daddy?” I asked. + +“I did, indeed, and long before sunrise this morning. There must be a +new family in our orchard, I think; but then we have coaxed hundreds of +birds our way this spring by our little houses, our crumbs, and our +drinking dishes.” + +“Yes, we have never had so many since we came here to live. Look at that +little brown bird flying about in the tall apple-tree, Francie; she seems +to be in trouble.” + +“P’r’haps it’s Mrs. Smiff’s wenomous cat,” exclaimed Francie, running to +look for a particularly voracious animal that lived across the fields, +but had been known to enter our bird-Eden. + +“Hear this, Daddy; isn’t it pretty?” I said, taking up the “Life of +Dorothy Grey.” + +Billy pricked up his ears, for he can never see a book opened without +running to join the circle, so eager he is not to lose a precious word. + +“The wren sang early this morning” (I read slowly). “We talked about it +at breakfast and how many people there were who would not be aware of it; +and E. said, ‘Fancy, if God came in and said: “Did you notice my wren?” +and they were obliged to say they had not known it was there!’” + +Billy rose quietly and stole away behind the trees, returning in a few +moments, empty-handed, to stand by my side. + +“Does God know how many eggs there are in a bird’s nest, mother?” he +asked. + +“People have so many different ideas about what God sees and takes note +of, that it’s hard to say, sonny. Of course you remember that the Bible +says not one sparrow falls to the ground but He knows it.” + +“The mother bird can’t count her eggs, can she, mother?” + +“Oh! Billy, you do ask the hardest questions; ones that I can never +answer by Yes and No! She broods her eggs all day and all night and +never lets them get cold, so she must know, at any rate, that they are +going to _be_ birds, don’t you think? And of course she wouldn’t want to +lose one; that’s the reason she’s so faithful!” + +“Well!” said Billy, after a long pause, “I don’t care quite so much about +the mother, because sometimes there are five eggs in a weeny, weeny nest +that never could hold five little ones without their scrunching each +other and being uncomfortable. But if God should come in and say: ‘Did +you take my egg, that was going to be a bird?’ I just couldn’t bear it!” + + _June_ 15, 19–. + +Another foreign mail is in and the village postmistress has sent an +impassioned request that I steam off the stamps for her boy’s album, +enriched during my residence here by specimens from eleven different +countries. (“Mis’ Beresford beats the Wanderin’ Jew all holler if so be +she’s be’n to all them places, an’ come back alive!”—so she says to +Himself.) Among the letters there is a budget of loose leaves from +Salemina’s diary, Salemina, who is now Mrs. Gerald La Touche, wife of +Professor La Touche, of Trinity College, Dublin, and stepmother to +Jackeen and Broona La Touche. + +It is midsummer, College is not in session, and they are at Rosnaree +House, their place in County Meath. + +Salemina is the one of our trio who continues to move in grand society. +She it is who dines at the Viceregal Lodge and Dublin Castle. She it is +who goes with her distinguished husband for week-ends with the Master of +the Horse, the Lord Chancellor, and the Dean of the Chapel Royal. +Francesca, it is true, makes her annual bow to the Lord High Commissioner +at Holyrood Palace and dines there frequently during Assembly Week; and +as Ronald numbers one Duke, two Earls, and several Countesses and Dowager +Countesses in his parish, there are awe-inspiring visiting cards to be +found in the silver salver on her hall table,—but Salemina in Ireland +literally lives with the great, of all classes and conditions! She is in +the heart of the Irish Theatre and the Modern Poetry movements,—and when +she is not hobnobbing with playwrights and poets she is consorting with +the Irish nobility and gentry. + +I cannot help thinking that she would still be Miss Peabody, of Salem, +Massachusetts, had it not been for my generous and helpful offices, and +those of Francesca! Never were two lovers, parted in youth in America +and miraculously reunited in middle age in Ireland, more recalcitrant in +declaring their mutual affection than Dr. La Touche and Salemina! +Nothing in the world divided them but imaginary barriers. He was not +rich, but he had a comfortable salary and a dignified and honourable +position among men. He had two children, but they were charming, and +therefore so much to the good. Salemina was absolutely “foot loose” and +tied down to no duties in America, so no one could blame her for marrying +an Irishman. She had never loved any one else, and Dr. La Touche might +have had that information for the asking; but he was such a bat for +blindness, adder for deafness, and lamb for meekness that because she +refused him once, when she was the only comfort of an aged mother and +father, he concluded that she would refuse him again, though she was now +alone in the world. His late wife, a poor, flighty, frivolous invalid, +the kind of woman who always entangles a sad, vague, absent-minded +scholar, had died six years before, and never were there two children so +in need of a mother as Jackeen and Broona, a couple of affectionate, +hot-headed, bewitching, ragged, tousled Irish darlings. I would +cheerfully have married Dr. Gerald myself, just for the sake of his +neglected babies, but I dislike changes and I had already espoused +Himself. + +However, a summer in Ireland, undertaken with no such great stakes in +mind as Salemina’s marriage, made possible a chance meeting of the two +old friends. This was followed by several others, devised by us with +incendiary motives, and without Salemina’s knowledge. There was also the +unconscious plea of the children working a daily spell; there was the +past, with its memories, tugging at both their hearts; and above all +there was a steady, dogged, copious stream of mental suggestion emanating +from Francesca and me, so that, in course of time, our middle-aged couple +did succeed in confessing to each other that a separate future was +impossible for them. + +They never would have encountered each other had it not been for us; +never, never would have become engaged; and as for the wedding, we +forcibly led them to the altar, saying that we must leave Ireland and the +ceremony could not be delayed. + +Not that we are the recipients of any gratitude for all this! Rather the +reverse! They constantly allude to their marriage as made in Heaven, +although there probably never was another union where creatures of earth +so toiled and slaved to assist the celestial powers. + +I wonder why middle-aged and elderly lovers make such an appeal to me! +Is it because I have lived much in New England, where “ladies-in-waiting” +are all too common,—where the wistful bride-groom has an invalid mother +to support, or a barren farm out of which he cannot wring a living, or a +malignant father who cherishes a bitter grudge against his son’s chosen +bride and all her kindred,—where the woman herself is compassed about +with obstacles, dragging out a pinched and colourless existence year +after year? + +And when at length the two waiting ones succeed in triumphing over +circumstances, they often come together wearily, soberly, with half the +joy pressed out of life. Young lovers have no fears! That the future +holds any terrors, difficulties, bugbears of any sort they never seem to +imagine, and so they are delightful and amusing to watch in their gay and +sometimes irresponsible and selfish courtships; but they never tug at my +heart-strings as their elders do, when the great, the long-delayed moment +comes. + +Francesca and I, in common with Salemina’s other friends, thought that +she would never marry. She had been asked often enough in her youth, but +she was not the sort of woman who falls in love at forty. What we did +not know was that she had fallen in love with Gerald La Touche at +five-and-twenty and had never fallen out,—keeping her feelings to herself +during the years that he was espoused to another, very unsuitable lady. +Our own sentimental experiences, however, had sharpened our eyes, and we +divined at once that Dr. La Touche, a scholar of fifty, shy, reserved, +self-distrustful, and oh! so in need of anchor and harbour,—that he was +the only husband in the world for Salemina; and that he, after giving all +that he had and was to an unappreciative woman, would be unspeakably +blessed in the wife of our choosing. + +I remember so well something that he said to me once as we sat at +twilight on the bank of the lake near Devorgilla. The others were rowing +toward us bringing the baskets for a tea picnic, and we, who had come in +the first boat, were talking quietly together about intimate things. He +told me that a frail old scholar, a brother professor, used to go back +from the college to his house every night bowed down with weariness and +pain and care, and that he used to say to his wife as he sank into his +seat by the fire: “Oh! praise me, my wife, praise me!” + +My eyes filled and I turned away to hide the tears when Dr. Gerald +continued absently: “As for me, Mistress Beresford, when I go home at +night I take my only companion from the mantelshelf and leaning back in +my old armchair say, ‘Praise me, my pipe, praise me!’” + +And Salemina Peabody was in the boat coming toward us, looking as +serenely lovely in a grey tweed and broad white hat as any good sweet +woman of forty could look, while he gazed at her “through a glass darkly” +as if she were practically non-existent, or had nothing whatever to do +with the case. + +I concealed rebellious opinions of blind bats, deaf adders, meek lambs, +and obstinate pigs, but said very gently and impersonally: “I hope you +won’t always allow your pipe to be your only companion;—you, with your +children, your name and position, your home and yourself to give—to +somebody!” + +But he only answered: “You exaggerate, my dear madam; there is not enough +left in me or of me to offer to any woman!” + +And I could do nothing but make his tea graciously and hand it to him, +wondering that he was able to see the cup or the bread-and-butter +sandwich that I put into his modest, ungrateful hand. + +However, it is all a thing of the past, that dim, sweet, grey romance +that had its rightful background in a country of subdued colourings, of +pensive sweetness, of gentle greenery, where there is an eternal +wistfulness in the face of the natural world, speaking of the springs of +hidden tears. + +Their union is a perfect success, and I echo the Boots of the inn at +Devorgilla when he said: “An’ sure it’s the doctor that’s the satisfied +man an’ the luck is on him as well as on e’er a man alive! As for her +ladyship, she’s one o’ the blessings o’ the wurruld an’ ’t would be an +o’jus pity to spile two houses wid ’em.” + + _July_ 12, 19–. + +We were all out in the orchard sunning ourselves on the little haycocks +that the “hired man” had piled up here and there under the trees. + +“It is not really so beautiful as Italy,” I said to Himself, gazing up at +the newly set fruit on the apple boughs and then across the close-cut hay +field to the level pasture, with its rocks and cow paths, its blueberry +bushes and sweet fern, its clumps of young sumachs, till my eyes fell +upon the deep green of the distant pines. “I can’t bear to say it, +because it seems disloyal, but I almost believe I think so.” + +“It is not as picturesque,” Himself agreed grudgingly, his eye following +mine from point to point; “and why do we love it so?” + +“There is nothing delicious and luxuriant about it,” I went on +critically, “yet it has a delicate, ethereal, austere, straight-forward +Puritanical loveliness of its own; but, no, it is not as beautiful as +Italy or Ireland, and it isn’t as tidy as England. If you keep away from +the big manufacturing towns and their outskirts you may go by motor or +railway through shire after shire in England and never see anything +unkempt, down-at-the-heel, out-at-elbows, or ill-cared-for; no +broken-down fences or stone walls; no heaps of rubbish or felled trees by +the wayside; no unpainted or tottering buildings—” + +“You see plenty of ruins,” interrupted Himself in a tone that promised +argument. + +“Yes, but ruins are different; they are finished; they are not tottering, +they _have_ tottered! Our country is too big, I suppose, to be ‘tidy,’ +but how I should like to take just one of the United States and clear it +up, back yards and all, from border line to border line!” + +“You are talking like a housewife now, not like an artist,” said Himself +reprovingly. + +“Well, I am both, I hope, and I don’t intend that any one shall know +where the one begins or the other leaves off, either! And if any +foreigner should remark that America is unfinished or untidy I shall deny +it!” + +“Fie! Penelope! You who used to be a citizen of the world!” + +“So I am still, so far as a roving foot and a knowledge of three +languages can make me; but you remember that the soul ‘retains the +characteristic of its race and the heart is true to its own country, even +to its own parish.’” + +“When shall we be going to the other countries, mother?” asked Billy. +“When shall we see our aunt in Scotland and our aunt in Ireland?” (Poor +lambs! Since the death of their Grandmother Beresford they do not +possess a real relation in the world!) + +“It will not be very long, Billy,” I said. “We don’t want to go until we +can leave the perambulator behind. The Sally-baby toddles now, but she +must be able to walk on the English downs and the Highland heather.” + +“And the Irish bogs,” interpolated Billy, who has a fancy for detail. + +“Well, the Irish bogs are not always easy travelling,” I answered, “but +the Sally-baby will soon be old enough to feel the spring of the Irish +turf under her feet.” + +“What will the chickens and ducklings and pigeons do while we are gone?” +asked Francie. + +“An’ the lammies?” piped the Sally-baby, who has all the qualities of +Mary in the immortal lyric. + +“Oh! we won’t leave home until the spring has come and all the young +things are born. The grass will be green, the dandelions will have their +puff-balls on, the apple blossoms will be over, and Daddy will get a kind +man to take care of everything for us. It will be May time and we will +sail in a big ship over to the aunts and uncles in Scotland and Ireland +and I shall show them my children—” + +“And we shall play ‘hide-and-go-coop’ with their children,” interrupted +Francie joyously. + +“They will never have heard of that game, but you will all play +together!” And here I leaned back on the warm haycock and blinked my +eyes a bit in moist anticipation of happiness to come. “There will be +eight-year-old Ronald MacDonald to climb and ride and sail with our +Billy; and there will be little Penelope who is named for me, and will be +Francie’s playmate; and the new little boy baby—” + +“Proba’ly Aunt Francie’s new boy baby will grow up and marry our girl +one,” suggested Billy. + +“He has my consent to the alliance in advance,” said Himself, “but I dare +say your mother has arranged it all in her own mind and my advice will +not be needed.” + +“I have not arranged anything,” I retorted; “or if I have it was nothing +more than a thought of young Ronald or Jack La Touche in—another +quarter,”—this with discreetly veiled emphasis. + +“What is another quarter, mother?” inquired Francie, whose mental agility +is somewhat embarrassing. + +“Oh, why,—well,—it is any other place than the one you are talking about. +Do you see?” + +“Not so very well, but p’r’aps I will in a minute.” + +“Hope springs eternal!” quoted Francie’s father. + +“And then, as I was saying before being interrupted by the entire family, +we will go and visit the Irish cousins, Jackeen and Broona, who belong to +Aunt Salemina and Uncle Gerald, and the Sally-baby will be the centre of +attraction because she is her Aunt Salemina’s godchild—” + +“But we are all God’s children,” insisted Billy. + +“Of course we are.” + +“What’s the difference between a god-child and a God’s child?” + +“The bottle of chloroform is in the medicine closet, my poor dear; shall +I run and get it?” murmured Himself _sotto voce_. + +“Every child is a child of God,” I began helplessly, “and when she is +somebody’s godchild she—oh! lend me your handkerchief, Billy!” + +“Is it the nose-bleed, mother?” he asked, bending over me solicitously. + +“No, oh, no! it’s nothing at all, dear. Perhaps the hay was going to +make me sneeze. What was I saying?” + +“About the god—” + +“Oh, yes! I remember! (_Ka-choo_!) We will take the Irish cousins and +the Scotch cousins and go all together to see the Tower of London and +Westminster Abbey. We’ll go to Bushey Park and see the chestnuts in +bloom, and will dine at Number 10, Dovermarle Street—” + +“I shall not go there, Billy,” said Himself. “It was at Number 10, +Dovermarle Street that your mother told me she wouldn’t marry me; or at +least that she’d have to do a lot of thinking before she’d say Yes; so +she left London and went to North Malvern.” + +“Couldn’t she think in London?” (This was Billy.) + +“Didn’t she always want to be married to you?” (This was Francie.) + +“Not always.” + +“Didn’t she like _us_?” (Still Francie.) + +“You were never mentioned,—not one of you!” + +“That seems rather queer!” remarked Billy, giving me a reproachful look. + +“So we’ll leave the Irish and Scotch uncles and aunts behind and go to +North Malvern just by ourselves. It was there that your mother concluded +that she _would_ marry me, and I rather like the place.” + +“Mother loves it, too; she talks to me about it when she puts me to bed.” +(Francie again.) + +“No doubt; but you’ll find your mother’s heart scattered all over the +Continent of Europe. One bit will be clinging to a pink thorn in +England; another will be in the Highlands somewhere,—wherever the +heather’s in bloom; another will be hanging on the Irish gorse bushes +where they are yellowest; and another will be hidden under the seat of a +Venetian gondola.” + +“Don’t listen to Daddy’s nonsense, children! He thinks mother throws her +heart about recklessly while he loves only one thing at a time.” + +“Four things!” expostulated Himself, gallantly viewing our little group +at large. + +“Strictly speaking, we are not four things, we are only four parts of one +thing;—counting you in, and I really suppose you ought to be counted in, +we are five parts of one thing.” + +“Shall we come home again from the other countries?” asked Billy. + +“Of course, sonny! The little Beresfords must come back and grow up with +their own country.” + +“Am I a little Beresford, mother?” asked Francie, looking wistfully at +her brother as belonging to the superior sex and the eldest besides. + +“Certainly.” + +“And is the Sally-baby one too?” + +Himself laughed unrestrainedly at this. + +“She is,” he said, “but you are more than half mother, with your +unexpectednesses.” + +“I love to be more than half mother!” cried Francie, casting herself +violently about my neck and imbedding me in the haycock. + +“Thank you, dear, but pull me up now. It’s supper-time.” + +Billy picked up the books and the rug and made preparations for the brief +journey to the house. I put my hair in order and smoothed my skirts. + +“Will there be supper like ours in the other countries, mother?” he +asked. “And if we go in May time, when do we come back again?” + +Himself rose from the ground with a luxurious stretch of his arms, +looking with joy and pride at our home fields bathed in the afternoon +midsummer sun. He took the Sally-baby’s outstretched hands and lifted +her, crowing, to his shoulder. + +“Help sister over the stubble, my son.—We’ll come away from the other +countries whenever mother says: ‘Come, children, it’s time for supper.’” + +“We’ll be back for Thanksgiving,” I assured Billy, holding him by one +hand and Francie by the other, as we walked toward the farmhouse. “We +won’t live in the other countries, because Daddy’s ‘sit-fast acres’ are +here in New England.” + +“But whenever and wherever we five are together, especially wherever +mother is, it will always be home,” said Himself thankfully, under his +breath. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENELOPE'S POSTSCRIPTS*** + + +******* This file should be named 1868-0.txt or 1868-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/1868 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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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