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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de
+Quincey, Vol. 2, by Thomas de Quincey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2
+       With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg
+
+Author: Thomas de Quincey
+
+Editor: James Hogg
+
+Release Date: December 11, 2006 [EBook #20090]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS DE QUINCEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Connal, Paul Good and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at
+http://gallica.bnf.fr)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Notes: Text that was in italics in the original book is
+shown between _underscore characters_ and text that was in small caps
+is shown as ALL CAPS. Footnotes from the article titles are at the end
+of the first paragraph of the article; all others follow the paragraph
+in which they are referenced. The variation in the spelling of some
+words is maintained from the original.]
+
+
+
+
+                           THE UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS
+                                      OF
+                              THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
+
+                                     WITH
+                           A PREFACE AND ANNOTATIONS
+                                      BY
+                                  JAMES HOGG.
+
+                            IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.
+
+                                [Illustration]
+
+                                    LONDON:
+                           SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.,
+                              PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
+
+                                     1890.
+
+
+
+
+
+                         RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+
+                               LONDON & BUNGAY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                                  PAGE
+THE ENGLISH IN CHINA.                                7
+
+SHAKSPERE'S TEXT.--SUETONIUS UNRAVELLED.            37
+
+HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH.                               55
+
+THE CASUISTRY OF DUELLING.                          65
+
+THE LOVE-CHARM.                                    113
+
+LUDWIG TIECK.                                      153
+
+LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF WEEPING.    160
+
+THE HOUSEHOLD WRECK.                               173
+
+MR. SCHNACKENBERGER; OR, TWO MASTERS FOR ONE DOG.  279
+
+ANGLO-GERMAN DICTIONARIES.                         348
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ENGLISH IN CHINA.
+
+
+This Paper, originally written for me in 1857, and published in _Titan_
+for July of that year, has not appeared in any collective edition of the
+author's works, British or American. It was his closing contribution to
+a series of three articles concerning Chinese affairs; prepared when our
+troubles with that Empire seemed to render war imminent. The first two
+were given in _Titan_ for February and April, 1857, and then issued with
+additions in the form of a pamphlet which is now very scarce. It
+consisted of 152 pages thus arranged:--(1) Preliminary Note, i-iv; (2)
+Preface, pp. 3-68; (3) China (the two _Titan_ papers), pp. 69-149; (4)
+Postscript, pp. 149-152.
+
+In the posthumous supplementary volume (XVI.) of the collected works the
+_third section_ was reprinted, but all the other matter was
+discarded--with a rather imperfect appreciation of the labour which the
+author had bestowed upon it, and his own estimate of the value of what
+he had condensed in this Series--as frequently expressed to me during
+its progress.
+
+In the twelfth volume of the 'Riverside' Edition of De Quincey's works,
+published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, U.S.A., the whole of the 152
+pp. of the expanded _China_ reprint are given, but not the final section
+here reproduced from _Titan_.
+
+The Chinese questions stirred DE QUINCEY profoundly, and roused all the
+'John Bullism' of his nature. Two passages from the 'Preliminary Note'
+will show his object in throwing so much energy into this subject:--
+
+
+NATIONAL MORALITY.
+
+'Its purpose[1] is to diffuse amongst those of the middle classes, whose
+daily occupations leave them small leisure for direct personal
+inquiries, some sufficient materials for appreciating the _justice_ of
+our British pretensions and attitude in our coming war with China. It is
+a question frequently raised amongst public journalists, whether we
+British are entitled to that exalted distinction which sometimes we
+claim for ourselves, and which sometimes is claimed on our behalf, by
+neutral observers on the national practice of morality. There is no call
+in this place for so large a discussion; but, most undoubtedly, in one
+feature of so grand a distinction, in one reasonable presumption for
+inferring a profounder national conscientiousness, as diffused among the
+British people, stands upon record, in the pages of history, this
+memorable fact, that always at the opening (and at intervals throughout
+the progress) of any war, there has been much and angry discussion
+amongst us British as to the equity of its origin, and the moral
+reasonableness of its objects. Whereas, on the Continent, no man ever
+heard of a question being raised, or a faction being embattled, upon any
+demur (great or small) as to the moral grounds of a war. To be able to
+face the trials of a war--_that_ was its justification; and to win
+victories--_that_ was its ratification for the conscience.'
+
+[1] That is--the publication of the pamphlet.--H.
+
+
+CHINESE POLICY.
+
+'The dispute at Shanghai, in 1848, equally as regards the origin of that
+dispute, and as regards the Chinese mode of conducting it, will give the
+reader a key to the Chinese character and the Chinese policy. To begin
+by making the most arrogant resistance to the simplest demands of
+justice, to end by cringing in the lowliest fashion before the guns of a
+little war-brig, there we have, in a representative abstract, the
+Chinese system of law and gospel. The equities of the present war are
+briefly summed up in this one question: What is it that our brutal enemy
+wants from us? Is it some concession in a point of international law, or
+of commercial rights, or of local privilege, or of traditional usage,
+that the Chinese would exact? Nothing of the kind. It is simply a
+license, guaranteed by ourselves, to call us in all proclamations by
+scurrilous names; and secondly, with our own consent, to inflict upon
+us, in the face of universal China, one signal humiliation.... Us--the
+freemen of the earth by emphatic precedency--us, the leaders of
+civilisation, would this putrescent[2] tribe of hole-and-corner
+assassins take upon themselves, not to force into entering by an ignoble
+gate [the reference here is to a previous passage concerning the low
+door by which Spanish fanaticism ordained that the _Cagots_ (lepers) of
+the Pyrenees should enter the churches in a stooping attitude], but to
+exclude from it altogether, and for ever. Briefly, then, for this
+licensed scurrility, in the first place; and, in the second, for this
+foul indignity of a spiteful exclusion from a right four times secured
+by treaty, it is that the Chinese are facing the unhappy issues of war.'
+
+[2] _Putrescent._ See the recorded opinions of Lord Amherst's suite upon
+the personal cleanliness of the Chinese.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The position and outcome of matters in those critical years may be
+recalled by a few lines from the annual summaries of _The Times_ on the
+New Years' days of 1858 and 1859. These indicate that DE QUINCEY was
+here a pretty fair exponent of the growing wrath of the English people.
+
+
+[_January 1, 1858._]
+
+'The presence of the China force on the Indian Seas was especially
+fortunate. The demand for reinforcements at Calcutta (caused by the
+Indian Mutiny) was obviously more urgent than the necessity for
+punishing the insolence at Canton. At a more convenient season the
+necessary operations in China will be resumed, and in the meantime the
+blockading squadron has kept the offending population from despising the
+resentment of England. The interval which has elapsed has served to
+remove all reasonable doubt of the necessity of enforcing redress.
+Public opinion has not during the last twelvemonth become more tolerant
+of barbarian outrages. There is no reason to believe that the punishment
+of the provincial authorities will involve the cessation of intercourse
+with the remainder of the Chinese Empire.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[_January 1, 1859._]
+
+'The working of our treaties with China and Japan will be watched with
+curiosity both in and out of doors, and we can only hope that nothing will
+be done to blunt the edge of that masterly decision by which these two
+giants of Eastern tale have been felled to the earth, and reduced to the
+level and bearing of common humanity.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The titles which follow are those which were given by DE QUINCEY himself to
+the three Sections.--H.
+
+
+HINTS TOWARDS AN APPRECIATION OF THE COMING WAR IN CHINA.
+
+Said before the opening of July, that same warning remark may happen to
+have a prophetic rank, and practically, a prophetic value, which two
+months later would tell for mere history, and history paid for by a
+painful experience.
+
+The war which is now approaching wears in some respects the strangest
+features that have yet been heard of in old romance, or in prosaic
+history, for we are at war with the southernmost province of
+China--namely, Quantung, and pre-eminently with its chief city of
+Canton, but not with the other four commercial ports of China, nor; in
+fact, at present with China in general; and, again, we are at war with
+Yeh, the poisoning Governor of Canton, but (which is strangest of all)
+not with Yeh's master--the Tartar Emperor--locked up in a far-distant
+Peking.
+
+Another strange feature in this war is--the footing upon which our
+alliances stand. For allies, it seems, we are to have; nominal, as
+regards the costs of war, but real and virtual as regards its profits.
+The French, the Americans,[3] and I believe the Belgians, have pushed
+forward (absolutely in post-haste advance of ourselves) their several
+diplomatic representatives, who are instructed duly to lodge their
+claims for equal shares of the benefits reaped by our British fighting,
+but with no power to contribute a single file towards the bloodshed of
+this war, nor a single guinea towards its money costs. Napoleon I., in a
+craze of childish spite towards this country, pleased himself with
+denying the modern heraldic bearings of Great Britain, and resuscitating
+the obsolete shield of our Plantagenets; he insisted that our true
+armorial ensigns were the leopards. But really the Third Napoleon is
+putting life and significance into his uncle's hint, and using us, as in
+Hindostan they use the cheeta or hunting-leopard, for rousing and
+running down his oriental game. It is true, that in certain desperate
+circumstances, when no opening remains for pacific negotiation, these
+French and American agents are empowered to send home for military
+succours. A worshipful prospect, when we throw back our eyes upon our
+own share in these warlike preparations, with all the advantages of an
+unparalleled marine. Six months have slipped away since Lord Clarendon,
+our Foreign Secretary, received, in Downing Street, Sir J. Bowring's
+and Admiral Seymour's reports of Yeh's atrocities. Six calendar months,
+not less, but more, by some days, have run past us since then; and
+though some considerable part of our large reinforcements must have
+reached their ground in April, and even the commander-in-chief (Sir John
+Ashburnham) by the middle of May, yet, I believe, that many of the
+gun-boats, on which mainly will rest the pursuit of Yeh's junks, if any
+remain unabsconded northwards, have actually not yet left our own
+shores. The war should naturally have run its course in one campaign.
+Assuredly it will, if confined within the limits of Yeh's command, even
+supposing that command to comprehend the two Quangs. Practically, then,
+it is a fantastic impossibility that any reversionary service to our
+British expedition, which is held out in prophetic vision as
+consecrating our French and American friends from all taint of mercenary
+selfishness, ever can be realised. I am not going to pursue this
+subject. But a brief application of it to a question at this moment
+(June 16) urgently appealing to public favour is natural and fair.
+Canvassers are now everywhere moving on behalf of a ship canal across
+the Isthmus of Suez. This canal proposes to call upon the subscribers
+for L9,000,000 sterling; the general belief is, that first and last it
+will call for L12,000,000 to L15,000,000. But at that price, or at any
+price, it is cheap; and ultimate failure is impossible. Why do I mention
+it? Everywhere there is a rumour that 'a narrow jealousy' in London is
+the bar which obstructs this canal speculation. There is, indeed, and
+already before the canal proposal there _was_, a plan in motion for a
+_railway_ across the isthmus, which seems far enough from meeting the
+vast and growing necessities of the case. But be _that_ as it may, with
+what right does any man in Europe, or America, impute narrowness of
+spirit, local jealousy, or selfishness, to England, when he calls to
+mind what sacrifices she is at this moment making for those very
+oriental interests which give to the ship canal its sole value--the men,
+the ships, the money spent, or to _be_ spent, upon the Canton war, and
+then in fairness connects that expense (or the similar expense made by
+her in 1840-42) with the operative use to which, in those years, she
+applied all the diplomatic concessions extorted by her arms. The first
+word--a memorable word--which she uttered on proposing her terms in
+1842, was, What I demand for myself, _that_ let all Christendom enjoy.
+And since that era (_i. e._, for upwards of fourteen years) all
+Christendom, that did not fail in the requisite energy for improving the
+opportunities then first laid open, _has_ enjoyed the very same
+advantages in Chinese ports as Great Britain; secondly, without having
+contributed anything whatever to the winning or the securing of these
+advantages; thirdly, on the pure volunteer intercession made by Britain
+on their behalf. The world has seen enough of violence and cruelties,
+the most bloody in the service of commercial jealousies, and nowhere
+more than in these oriental regions: witness the abominable acts of the
+Dutch at Amboyna, in Japan, and in Java, &c.; witness the bigoted
+oppressions, where and when soever they had power, of the colonising
+Portuguese and Spaniards. Tyranny and merciless severities for the ruin
+of commercial rivals have been no rarities for the last three and a half
+centuries in any region of the East. But first of all, from Great
+Britain in 1842 was heard the free, spontaneous proclamation--this was a
+rarity--unlimited access, with advantages the very same as her own, to a
+commerce which it was always imagined that she laboured to hedge round
+with repulsions, making it sacred to her own privileged use. A royal
+gift was this; but a gift which has not been received by Christendom in
+a corresponding spirit of liberal appreciation. One proof of _that_ may
+be read in the invidious statement, supported by no facts or names,
+which I have just cited. Were this even true, a London merchant is not
+therefore a Londoner, or even a Briton. Germans, Swiss, Frenchmen, &c.,
+are settled there as merchants, in crowds. No nation, however, is
+compromised by any act of her citizens acting as separate and
+uncountenanced individuals. So that, even if better established as a
+fact, this idle story would still be a calumny; and as a calumny it
+would merit little notice. Nevertheless, I have felt it prudent to give
+it a prominent station, as fitted peculiarly, by the dark shadows of its
+malice, pointed at our whole nation collectively, to call into more
+vivid relief the unexampled lustre of that royal munificence in England,
+which, by one article of a treaty, dictated at the point of her
+bayonets, threw open in an hour, to all nations, that Chinese commerce,
+never previously unsealed through countless generations of man.
+
+[3] '_America_:'--For America in particular there is an American
+defence offered in a Washington paper (the _Weekly Union_, for May 28,
+1857), which, for cool ignoring of facts, exceeds anything that I
+remember. It begins thus:--'Since our treaty with China in 1844' (and
+_that_, be it remembered, was possible only in consequence of our war
+and its close in 1842), 'the most amicable relations have existed
+between the United States and China--China is our friend, and we are
+hers.' Indeed! as a brief commentary upon that statement, I recommend to
+the reader's attention our Blue-books on China of last winter. The
+American commander certainly wound up his quarrel with Yeh in a
+mysterious way, that drew some sneers from the various nationalities
+then moving in that neighbourhood, but no less certainly he had, during
+the October of 1856, a smart exchange of cannon-shots with Yeh, which
+lasted for some days (three, at least, according to my remembrance), and
+ended in the capture of numerous Chinese forts. The American apologist
+says in effect, that the United States will not fight, because they have
+no quarrel. But that is not the sole question. Does the United States
+mean to take none of the benefits that may be won by our arms? He speaks
+of the French as more belligerently inclined than the United States.
+Would that this were really so. No good will come of schisms between the
+nations of Christendom. There is a posthumous work of Commissioner Lin,
+in twelve quartos, printed at Peking, urgently pressing the necessity
+for China of building upon such schisms the one sole policy that can
+save her from ruin.
+
+Next, then, having endeavoured to place these preliminary points in
+their true light, I will anticipate the course by which the campaign
+would naturally be likely to travel, supposing no alien and mischievous
+disturbance at work for deranging it. Simply to want fighting allies
+would be no very menacing evil. We managed to do without them in our
+pretty extensive plan of warfare fifteen years ago; and there is no
+reason why we should find our difficulties now more intractable than
+then. I should imagine that the American Congress and the French
+Executive would look on uneasily, and with a sense of shame, at the
+prospect of sharing largely in commercial benefits which they had not
+earned, whilst the burdens of the day were falling exclusively upon the
+troops of our nation; but _that_ is a consideration for their own
+feelings, and may happen to corrode their hearts and their sense of
+honour most profoundly at some future time, when it may have ceased to
+be remediable. If that were all, for us there would be no arrears of
+mortified sensibilities to apprehend. But what is ominous even in
+relation to ourselves from these professedly inert associates, these
+sleeping partners in our Chinese dealings, is, that their presence with
+no active functions argues a faith lurking somewhere in the possibility
+of _talking_ the Chinese into reason. Such a chimera, still surviving
+the multiform experience we have had, augurs ruin to the total
+enterprise. It is not absolutely impossible that even Yeh, or any
+imbecile governor armed with the same obstinacy and brutal arrogance,
+might, under the terrors of an armament such as he will have to face,
+simulate a submission that was far from his thoughts. We ourselves found
+in the year 1846, when in fidelity to our engagements we gave back the
+important island of Chusan, which we had retained for four years, in
+fact until all the instalments of the ransom money had been paid, that a
+more negligent ear was turned to our complaints and remonstrances. The
+vile mob of Canton, long kept and indulged as so many trained bull-dogs,
+for the purpose of venting that insolence to Europeans which the
+mandarins could no longer utter personally without coming into collision
+with the treaty, became gradually unmanageable even by their masters. In
+1847 Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, was reduced to the
+necessity of fulminating this passage against the executive government
+of the murdering city--'You' (Lord Palmerston was addressing Sir John
+Davis, at that time H. M. Plenipotentiary in China) 'will inform the
+Chinese authorities, in plain and distinct terms, that the British
+Government will not tolerate that a Chinese mob shall with impunity
+maltreat British subjects in China, whenever they get them into their
+power; and that if the Chinese authorities will not punish and prevent
+such outrages, the British Government will be obliged to take the matter
+into their own hands; and it will not be _their_ fault if, in such case,
+the innocent are involved in the punishment sought to be inflicted on
+the guilty.'
+
+This commanding tone was worthy of Lord Palmerston, and in harmony with
+his public acts in all cases where he has understood the ground which
+he occupied. Unhappily he did _not_ understand the case of Canton. The
+British were admitted by each successive treaty, their right of entry
+was solemnly acknowledged by the emperor. Satisfied with this, Lord
+Palmerston said, 'Enough: the principle is secured; the mere details,
+locally intelligible no doubt, I do not pretend to understand. But all
+this will come in time. In time you will be admitted into Canton. And
+for the present rest satisfied with having your right admitted, if not
+as yet your persons.' Ay, but unfortunately nothing short of plenary
+admission to British flesh and blood ever will satisfy the organised
+ruffians of Canton, that they have not achieved a triumph over the
+British; which triumph, as a point still open to doubt amongst
+mischief-makers, they seek to strengthen by savage renewal as often as
+they find a British subject unprotected by armed guardians within their
+streets. In those streets murder walks undisguised. And the only measure
+for grappling with it is summarily to introduce the British resident, to
+prostrate all resistance, and to punish it by the gallows[4] where it
+proceeds to acts of murder. It is sad consideration for those, either in
+England or China, who were nearly or indirectly connected with Canton
+(amongst whom must be counted the British Government), that beyond a
+doubt the murders of our countrymen, which occurred in that city, would
+have been intercepted by such a mastery over the local ruffians as could
+not be effected so long as the Treaty of Nanking was not carried into
+effect with respect to free entrance and residence of British subjects.
+As things stood, all that Sir J. Davis could do, in obedience to the
+directions from the Home Government, was to order a combined naval and
+military attack upon all the Chinese forts which belt the approaches to
+Canton. These were all captured; and the immense number of eight hundred
+and twenty-seven heavy guns were in a few hours made unserviceable,
+either by knocking off their trunnions, or by spiking them, or in both
+ways. The Imperial Commissioner, Keying, previously known so favourably
+to the English by his good sense and discretion, had on this occasion
+thought it his best policy to ignore Lord Palmerston's letter: a copy
+had been communicated to him; but he took not the least notice of it. If
+this were intended for insolence, it was signally punished within a few
+hours. It happened that on our English list of grievances there remained
+a shocking outrage offered to Colonel Chesney, a distinguished officer
+of the engineers,[5] and which to a certainty would have terminated in
+his murder, but for the coming up at the critical moment of a Chinese in
+high authority. The villains concerned in this outrage were known, were
+arrested, and (according to an agreement with our plenipotentiary) were
+to be punished in our presence. But in contempt of all his engagements,
+and out of pure sycophantic concession to the Canton mob, Keying
+notified that we the injured party were to be excluded. _In that case no
+punishment at all would have been inflicted._ Luckily, our troops and
+our shipping had not yet dispersed. Sir J. Davis, therefore, wrote to
+Keying, openly taxing him with his breach of honour. 'I _was_ going'
+[these were Sir John's words] 'to Hong-Kong to-morrow; but since you
+behave with evasion and bad faith, in not punishing the offenders in
+the presence of deputed officers, I shall keep the troops at Canton, and
+proceed to-morrow in the steamer to Foshan, where, if I meet with
+insult, I will burn the town.' Foshan is a town in the neighbourhood of
+Canton, and happened to be the scene of Colonel Chesney's ill usage.
+Now, upon this vigorous step, what followed? Hear Sir John:--'Towards
+midnight a satisfactory reply was received, and at five o'clock next
+morning three offenders were brought to the guard-house--a mandarin of
+high rank being present on the part of the Chinese, and deputed officers
+on the part of the British. The men were bambooed in succession by the
+Chinese officers of justice;' and at the close of the scene, the
+mandarin (upon a requisition from our side) explained to the mob who
+crowded about the barriers _why_ the men were punished, and warned them
+that similar chastisement for similar offences awaited themselves. In
+one point only the example made was unsatisfactory: the men punished
+were not identified as the same who had assaulted Colonel Chesney. They
+might be criminals awaiting punishment for some other offence. With so
+shuffling a government as the Chinese, always moving through darkness,
+and on the principles of a crooked policy, no perfect satisfaction must
+ever be looked for. But still, what a bright contrast between this
+energy of men acquainted with the Chinese character, and the foolish
+imbecility of our own government in Downing Street, who are always
+attempting the plan of soothing and propitiating by concession those
+ignoble Orientals, in whose eyes all concession, great or small,
+through the whole scale of graduation, is interpreted as a distinct
+confession of weakness. Thus did all our governments: thus, above all
+others, did the East India Company for generations deal with the
+Chinese; and the first act of ours that ever won respect from China was
+Anson's broadsides, and the second was our refusal of the _ko-tou_. Thus
+did our Indian Government, in the early stages of their intercourse,
+deal with the Burmese. Thus did our government deal with the
+Japanese--an exaggerated copy of the Chinese. What they wanted with
+Japan was simply to do her a very kind and courteous service--namely, to
+return safe and sound to their native land seven Japanese who had been
+driven by hurricanes in continued succession into the Pacific, and had
+ultimately been saved from death by British sailors. Our wise government
+at home were well aware of the atrocious inhospitality practised
+systematically by these cruel islanders; and what course did they take
+to propitiate them? Good sense would have prescribed the course of
+arming the British vessel in so conspicuous a fashion as to inspire the
+wholesome respect of fear. Instead of which, our government actually
+drew the teeth of the particular vessel selected, by carefully
+withdrawing each individual gun. The Japanese cautiously sailed round
+her, ascertained her powerless condition, and instantly proceeded to
+force her away by every mode of insult; nor were the unfortunate
+Japanese _ever_ restored to their country. Now, contrast with this
+endless tissue of imbecilities, practised through many generations by
+our blind and obstinate government (for such it really is in its modes
+of dealing with Asiatics), the instantaneous success of 'sharp
+practice' and resolute appeals to _fear_ on the part of Sir John Davis.
+By midnight of the same day on which the British remonstrance had been
+lodged an answer is received; and this answer, in a perfect rapture of
+panic, concedes everything demanded; and by sunrise the next morning the
+whole affair has been finished. Two centuries, on our old East Indian
+system of negotiating with China, would not have arrived at the same
+point. Later in the very same year occurred another and more atrocious
+explosion of Canton ruffianism; and the instantaneous retribution which
+followed to the leading criminals, showed at once how great an advance
+had been made in winning respect for ourselves, and in extorting our
+rights, by this energetic mode of action. On Sunday, the 5th of
+December, six British subjects had gone out into the country on a
+pleasure excursion, some of whom unhappily carried pocket-pistols. They
+were attacked by a mob of the usual Canton character; one Chinese was
+killed and one wounded by pistol-shots; but of the six British,
+encompassed by a countless crowd, not one escaped: all six were
+murdered, and then thrown into the river. Immediately, and before the
+British had time to take any steps, the Chinese authorities were all in
+motion. The resolute conduct of Sir John Davis had put an end to the
+Chinese policy of shuffling, by making it no longer hopeful. It lost
+much more than it gained. And accordingly it was agreed, after a few
+days' debate, that the emperor's pleasure should not be taken, except
+upon the more doubtful cases. Four, about whose guilt no doubts
+existed, were immediately beheaded; and the others, after communicating
+with Peking, were punished in varying degrees--one or two capitally.
+
+[4] '_By the gallows:_'--Or much rather by decapitation. Accordingly, we
+read of a Ming (_i. e._, native Chinese) emperor, who (upon finding
+himself in a dreadfully small minority) retired into his garden with his
+daughter, and there hanged both himself and the lady. On no account
+would he have decapitated either; since in that case the corpses, being
+headless, would in Chinese estimation have been imperfect.
+
+[5] '_Colonel Chesney:_'--The same, I believe, whose name was at one
+time so honourably known in connection with the Euphrates and its steam
+navigation.
+
+
+CONDUCT OF THE WAR.
+
+Such is the condition of that guilty town, nearest of all Chinese towns
+to Hong-Kong, and indissolubly connected with ourselves. From this town
+it is that the insults to our flag, and the attempts at poisoning,
+wholesale and retail, have collectively emanated; and all under the
+original impulse of Yeh. Surely, in speculating on the conduct of the
+war, either as probable or as reasonable, the old oracular sentence of
+Cato the Elder and of the Roman senate (_Delenda est Carthago_) begins
+to murmur in our ears--not in this stern form, but in some modification,
+better suited to a merciful religion and to our western civilization. It
+is a great neglect on the part of somebody, that we have no account of
+the baker's trial at Hong-Kong. He was acquitted, it seems; but upon
+what ground? Some journals told us that he represented Yeh as coercing
+him into this vile attempt, through his natural affection for his
+family, alleged to be in Yeh's power at Canton. Such a fact, if true,
+would furnish some doubtful palliation of the baker's crime, and might
+have weight allowed in the sentence; but surely it would place a most
+dangerous power in the hands of Chinese grandees, if, through the
+leverage of families within their grasp, and by official connivance on
+our part, they could reach and govern a set of agents in Hong-Kong. No
+sympathy with our horror of secret murders by poison, under the shelter
+of household opportunities, must be counted on from the emperor, for he
+has himself largely encouraged, rewarded, and decorated these claims on
+his public bounty. The more necessary that such nests of crime as
+Canton, and such suggestors of crime as Yeh, should be thoroughly
+disarmed. This could be done, as regards the city, by three
+changes:--First, by utterly destroying the walls and gates; secondly, by
+admitting the British to the freest access, and placing their residence
+in a special quarter, upon the securest footing; thirdly, and as one
+chief means in that direction, by establishing a police on an English
+plan, and to some extent English in its composition. As to the cost, it
+is evident enough that the colonial head-quarters at Hong-Kong must in
+future keep up a _permanent_ military establishment; and since any
+danger threatening this colony must be kindled and fed chiefly in
+Canton, why not make this large city, sole focus as it is of all
+mischief to us, and not a hundred miles distant from the little island,
+the main barrack of the armed force?
+
+Upon this world's tariff of international connections, what is China in
+relation to Great Britain? Free is she, or not--free to dissolve her
+connection with us? Secondly, what is Great Britain, when commercially
+appraised, in relation to China? Is she of great value or slight value
+to China? First, then, concerning China, viewed in its connection with
+ourselves, this vast (but perhaps not proportionably populous) country
+offers by accident the same unique advantage for meeting a social
+_hiatus_ in our British system that is offered by certain southern
+regions in the American United States for meeting another _hiatus_
+within the same British system. Without tea, without cotton, Great
+Britain, no longer great, would collapse into a very anomalous sort of
+second-rate power. Without cotton, the main bulwark of our export
+commerce would depart. And without tea, our daily life would, generally
+speaking, be as effectually-ruined as bees without a Flora. In both of
+these cases it happens that the benefit which we receive is _unique_;
+that is, not merely ranking foremost upon a scale of similar benefits
+reaped from other lands--a largest contribution where others might still
+be large--but standing alone, and in a solitude that we have always
+reason to regard as alarming. So that, if Georgia, &c., withdrew from
+Liverpool and Manchester her myriads of cotton bales, palsied would be
+our commercial supremacy; and, if childish China should refuse her tea
+(for as to her silk, that is of secondary importance), we must all go
+supperless to bed: seriously speaking, the social life of England would
+receive a deadly wound. It is certainly a phenomenon without a parallel
+in the history of social man--that a great nation, numbering twenty-five
+millions, after making an allowance on account of those amongst the very
+poorest of the Irish who do not use tea, should within one hundred years
+have found themselves able so absolutely to revolutionise their diet, as
+to substitute for the gross stimulation of ale and wine the most
+refined, elegant, and intellectual mode of stimulation that human
+research has succeeded in discovering.[6] But the material basis of this
+stimulation unhappily we draw from the soil of one sole nation--and that
+nation (are we ever allowed to forget?) capricious and silly beyond all
+that human experience could else have suggested as possible. In these
+circumstances, it was not to be supposed that we should neglect any
+opening that offered for making ourselves independent of a nation which
+at all times we had so much reason to distrust as the Chinese. Might not
+the tea-plant be made to prosper in some district of our Indian Empire?
+Forty years ago we began to put forth organised botanical efforts for
+settling that question. Forty years ago, and even earlier, according to
+my remembrance, Dr Roxburgh--in those days the paramount authority upon
+oriental botany--threw some energy into this experiment for creating our
+own nurseries of the tea-plant. But not until our Burmese victories,
+some thirty years since, and our consequent treaties had put the
+province of Assam into our power, was, I believe, any serious progress
+made in this important effort. Mr Fortune has since applied the benefits
+of his scientific knowledge, and the results of his own great personal
+exertions in the tea districts of China, to the service of this most
+important speculation; with what success, I am not able to report.
+Meantime, it is natural to fear that the very possibility of doubts
+hanging over the results in an experiment so vitally national, carries
+with it desponding auguries as to the ultimate issue. Were the prospects
+in any degree cheerful, it would be felt as a patriotic duty to report
+at short intervals all solid symptoms of progress made in this
+enterprise; for it is an enterprise aiming at a triumph far more than
+scientific--a triumph over a secret purpose of the Chinese, full of
+anti-social malice and insolence against Great Britain. Of late years,
+as often as we have accomplished a victory over any insult to our
+national honour offered or meditated by the Chinese, they have recurred
+to some old historical tradition (perhaps fabulous, perhaps not), of an
+emperor, Tartar or Chinese, who, rather than submit to terms of
+equitable reciprocity in commercial dealings with a foreign nation, or
+to terms implying an original equality of the two peoples, caused the
+whole establishments and machinery connected with the particular traffic
+to be destroyed, and all its living agents to be banished or beheaded.
+It is certain that, in the contemplation of special contingencies likely
+to occur between themselves and the British, the high mandarins dallied
+at intervals with this ancient precedent, and forbore to act upon it,
+partly under the salutary military panic which has for years been
+gathering gloomily over their heads, but more imperatively, perhaps,
+from absolute inability to dispense with the weekly proceeds from the
+customs, so eminently dependent upon the British shipping. Money, mere
+weight of dollars, the lovely lunar radiance of silver, this was the
+spell that moonstruck their mercenary hearts, and kept them for ever
+see-sawing--
+
+    'Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.'
+
+Now, upon this--a state of things suspected at times, or perhaps known,
+but not so established as that it could have been afterwards pleaded in
+evidence--a very grave question arose, but a question easily settled:
+had the Chinese a right, under the law of nations, to act upon their
+malicious caprice? No man, under any way of viewing the case, hesitated
+in replying, '_No_.' China, it was argued, had possessed from the first
+a clear, undoubted right to dismiss us with our business unaccomplished,
+_re infecta_, if that business were the establishment of a reciprocal
+traffic. In the initial stage of the relations between the two powers,
+the field was open to any possible movement in either party; but,
+according to the course which might be severally pursued on either side,
+it was possible that one or both should so act as, in the second stage
+of their dealings, wilfully to forfeit this original liberty of action.
+Suppose, for instance, that China peremptorily declined all commercial
+intercourse with Britain, undeniably, it was said, she had the right to
+do so. But, if she once renounced this right, no matter whether
+_ex_plicitly in words, or silently and _im_plicitly in acts (as if, for
+example, she looked on tranquilly whilst Great Britain erected elaborate
+buildings for the safe housing of goods)--in any such case, China
+wilfully divested herself of all that original right to withdraw from
+commercial intercourse. She might say _Go_, or she might say, _Come_;
+but she could not first say, _Come_; and then, revoking this invitation,
+capriciously say, _Go_.
+
+[6] Down to George I. there _could_ have been no breakfast in England for a
+gentleman or lady--there is none even yet in most parts of the
+Continent--without wine of some class or other.
+
+To this doctrine, thus limited, no man could reasonably demur. But to some
+people it has seemed that the limitations themselves are the only unsound
+part of the argument. It is denied that this original right of refusing a
+commercial intercourse has any true foundation in the relations of things or
+persons. Vainly, if any such natural right existed, would that broad basis
+have been laid providentially for insuring intercourse among nations, which,
+in fact, we find everywhere dispersed. Such a narrow and selfish
+distribution of natural gifts, all to one man, or all to one place, has in a
+first stage of human inter-relations been established, only that men might
+be hurried forward into a second stage where this false sequestration might
+be unlocked and dispersed. Concentrated masses, impropriations gathered into
+a few hands, useless alike to the possessor and to the world, why is it
+that, by primary arrangements of nature, they have been frozen into vast,
+inert insulation? Only that the agencies of commerce may thus the more
+loudly be invoked for thawing and setting them free to the world's use.
+Whereas, by a diffusive scattering, all motives to large social intercourse
+would have been neutralised.
+
+It seems clear that the practical liberation and distribution throughout the
+world of all good gifts meant for the whole household of man, has been
+confided to the secret sense of a _right_ existing in man for claiming such
+a distribution as part of his natural inheritance. Many articles of almost
+inestimable value to man, in relation to his physical well-being (at any
+rate bearing such a value when substitutional remedies were as yet unknown)
+such as mercury, Jesuit's bark, through a long period the sole remedy for
+intermitting fevers, opium, mineral waters, &c., were at one time _locally_
+concentred. In such cases, it might often happen, that the medicinal relief
+to an hospital, to an encampment, to a nation, might depend entirely upon
+the right to _force_ a commercial intercourse.
+
+Now, on the other hand, having thus noticed the question, what
+commercial value has China irrevocably for England, next in the reverse
+question--namely, what commercial value does England bear to China?--I
+would wish to place this in a new light, by bringing it for the first
+time into relation to the doctrine of rent. Multitudes in past days,
+when political economy was a more favoured study, have spoken and
+written upon the modern doctrine of rent, without apparently perceiving
+how immediately it bears upon China, and how summarily it shatters an
+objection constantly made to the value of our annual dealing with that
+country. First, let me sketch, in the very briefest way, an outline of
+this modern doctrine. Two men, without communication, and almost
+simultaneously, in the year 1815, discovered the law of rent. Suddenly
+it struck them that all manufactured products of human industry must
+necessarily obey one law; whilst the products of land obey another and
+opposite law. Let us for a moment consider arable land as a natural
+machine for manufacturing bread. Now, in all manufactures depending upon
+machinery of human invention, the natural progress is from the worse
+machines to the better. No man lays aside a glove-making machine for a
+worse, but only for one that possesses the old powers at a less cost, or
+possesses greater powers, let us suppose, at an equal cost. But, in the
+natural progress of the bread-making machines, nature herself compels
+him to pursue the opposite course: he travels from the best machines to
+the worse. The best land is brought into cultivation first. As
+population expands, it becomes necessary to take up a second quality of
+land; then a third quality; and so on for ever. Left to the action of
+this one law, bread would be constantly growing dearer through a long
+succession of centuries. Its tendency lies in this direction even now;
+but this tendency is constantly met, thwarted, and retarded, by a
+counter-tendency in the general practice of agriculture, which is always
+slowly improving its own powers--that is, obtaining the same result at a
+cost slowly decreasing. It follows as a consequence, when closely
+pursued, that, whilst the products of pure human skill and human
+machines are constantly, by tendency, growing cheaper, on the other
+hand, by a counter-tendency, the products of natural machines (as the
+land, mines, rivers, &c.) are constantly on the ascent. Another
+consequence is, that the worst of these natural machines gives the
+price for the whole; whereas, in a conflict between human machines, all
+the products of the worse would be beaten out of the field by those of
+the better. It is in dependency upon this law that all those innumerable
+proposals for cultivating waste-lands, as in the Scottish Highlands, in
+the Irish bogs, &c., are radically vicious; and, instead of creating
+plenty, would by their very success impoverish us. For suppose these
+lands, which inevitably must have been the lowest in the scale (or else
+why so long neglected?) to be brought into tillage--what follows?
+Inevitably this: that their products enter the market as the very lowest
+on the graduated tariff--_i. e._, as lower than any already cultured.
+And these it is--namely, the very lowest by the supposition--that must
+give the price for the whole; so that _every_ number on the scale will
+rise at once to the level fixed by these lowest soils, so ruinously
+(though benevolently) taken up into active and efficient life. If you
+add 20,000 quarters of wheat to the amount already in the market, you
+_seem_ to have done a service; but, if these 20,000 have been gained at
+an extra cost of half-a-crown on each quarter, and if these it is that,
+being from the poorest machines, rule the price, then you have added
+half-a-crown to every quarter previously in the market.
+
+Meantime, returning to China, it is important to draw attention upon this
+point. A new demand for any product of land may happen to be not very large,
+and thus may seem not much to affect the markets, or the interests of those
+who produce it. But, since the rent doctrine has been developed, it has
+become clear that a new demand may affect the producers in two separate
+modes: first, in the ordinary known mode; secondly, by happening to call
+into activity a lower quality of soil. A very moderate demand, nay, a very
+small one, added to that previously existing, if it happens not to fall
+within the powers of those numbers already in culture (as, suppose, 1, 2, 3,
+4), must necessarily call out No. 5; and so on.
+
+Now, our case, as regards Chinese land in the tea districts, is far beyond
+this. Not only has it been large enough to benefit the landholder
+enormously, by calling out lower qualities of land, which process again has
+stimulated the counteracting agencies in the more careful and scientific
+culture of the plant; but also it has been in a positive sense enormous. It
+might have been large relatively to the power of calling out lower qualities
+of soil, and yet in itself have been small; but _our_ demand, running up at
+present to 100,000,000 pounds weight annually, is in all senses enormous.
+The poorer class of Chinese tea-drinkers use the leaves three times
+over--_i. e._, as the basis of three separate tea-makings. Consequently,
+even upon that single deduction, 60,000,000 of Chinese tea-drinkers count
+only as 20,000,000 of ours. But I conclude, by repeating that the greatest
+of the impressions made by ourselves in the China tea districts, has been
+derived from this--that, whilst the native demand has probably been
+stationary, ours, moving by continual starts forward, must have stimulated
+the tea interest by continual descents upon inferior soils.
+
+There is no doubt that the Emperor and all his arrogant courtiers have
+decupled their incomes from the British stimulation applied to inferior
+soils, that but for us never would have been called into culture. Not a
+man amongst them is aware of the advantages which he owes to England.
+But he soon _would_ be aware of them, if for five years this exotic
+demand were withdrawn, and the tea-districts resigned to native
+patronage. Upon reviewing what I have said, not the ignorant and
+unteachable Chinese only, but some even amongst our own well-informed
+and reflecting people, will see that they have prodigiously underrated
+the commercial value of England to China; since, when an Englishman
+calls for a hundred tons of tea, he does not (as is usually supposed)
+benefit the Chinese merchant only by giving him the ordinary profit on a
+ton, repeated for a hundred times, but also infallibly either calls into
+profitable activity lands lying altogether fallow, or else, under the
+action of the rent laws, gives a new and secondary value to land already
+under culture.
+
+Other and greater topics connected with this coming Chinese campaign
+clamorously call for notice: especially these three:--
+
+First, the pretended literature and meagre civilisation of China--what
+they are, and with what real effects such masquerading phantoms operate
+upon the generation with which accidents of commerce have brought us
+connected.
+
+Secondly, what is the true mode of facing that warfare of kidnapping,
+garotting, and poisoning, avowed as legitimate subjects of patronage in
+the practice and in the edicts of the Tartar Government? Two things may
+be said with painful certainty upon this subject: first, the British
+Government has signally neglected its duties in this field through a
+period of about ninety years, and apparently is not aware of any
+responsibility attaching in such a case to those who wield the functions
+of supreme power. Hyder Ali, the tiger, and his more ferocious son
+Tippoo, practised, in the face of all India, the atrocities of Virgil's
+Mezentius upon their British captives. These men filled the stage of
+martial history, through nearly forty years of the eighteenth century,
+with the tortures of the most gallant soldiers on earth, and were never
+questioned or threatened upon the subject. In this nineteenth century,
+again, we have seen a Spanish queen and her uncle sharing between them
+the infamy of putting to death (unjudged and unaccused) British soldiers
+on the idlest of pretences. Was it then in the power of the British
+Government to have made a vigorous and effectual intercession? It was;
+and in various ways they have the same power over the Chinese sovereign
+(still more over his agents) at present. The other thing which occurs to
+say is this: that, if we do _not_ interfere, some morning we shall
+probably all be convulsed with unavailing wrath at a repetition of Mr
+Stead's tragic end, on a larger scale, and exemplified in persons of
+more distinguished position.
+
+Finally, it would have remained to notice the vast approaching
+revolution for the total East that will be quickened by this war, and
+will be ratified by the broad access to the Orient, soon to be laid open
+on one plan or other. Then will Christendom first begin to _act_
+commensurately on the East: Asia will begin to rise from her ancient
+prostration, and, without exaggeration, the beginnings of a new earth
+and new heavens will dawn.
+
+
+
+
+
+SHAKSPERE'S TEXT.--SUETONIUS UNRAVELLED.
+
+
+_To the Editor of 'Titan'._
+
+Dear Sir,--A year or two ago,[7] I received as a present from a
+distinguished and literary family in Boston (United States), a small
+pamphlet (twin sister of that published by Mr Payne Collier) on the text
+of Shakspere. Somewhere in the United States, as here in England, some
+unknown critic, at some unknown time, had, from some unknown source,
+collected and recorded on the margin of one amongst the Folio reprints
+of Shakspere by Heminge & Condell, such new readings as either his own
+sagacity had summarily prompted, or calm reflection had recommended, or
+possibly local tradition in some instances, and histrionic tradition in
+others, might have preserved amongst the _habitues_ of a particular
+theatre. In Mr P. Collier's case, if I recollect rightly, it was the
+_First_ Folio (_i. e._, by much the best); in this American case, I
+think it is the _Third_ Folio (about the worst) which had received the
+corrections. But, however this may be, there are two literary
+_collaborateurs_ concerned in each of these parallel cases--namely,
+first, the original collector (possibly author) of the various readings,
+who lived and died probably within the seventeenth century; and,
+secondly, the modern editor, who stations himself as a repeating
+frigate that he may report and pass onwards these marginal variations to
+us of the nineteenth century.
+
+[7] Written in 1856. H.
+
+COR. for _Corrector_, is the shorthand designation by which I have
+distinguished the _first_; REP. for _Reporter_ designates the other. My
+wish and purpose is to extract all such variations of the text as seem
+to have any claim to preservation, or even, to a momentary
+consideration. But in justice to myself, and in apology for the hurried
+way in which the several parts of this little memorandum are brought
+into any mimicry of order and succession, I think it right to say that
+my documents are all dispersed into alien and distant quarters; so that
+I am reduced into dependence upon my own unassisted memory.
+
+[THE TEMPEST. _Act I. Scene 1._
+
+                              'Not a soul
+    But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
+    Some tricks of desperation.'
+
+COR. here substitutes, 'But felt a fever of the _mind_:' which substitution
+strikes me as entirely for the worse; 'a fever of the mad' is such a fever
+as customarily attacks the delirious, and all who have lost the control of
+their reasoning faculties.
+
+[_Ibid._
+
+                        'O dear father,
+    Make not too rash a trial of him; for
+    He's gentle, and not fearful.'
+
+Upon this the _Reporter's_ remark is, that 'If we take _fearful_ in its
+common acceptation of _timorous_, the proposed change renders the passage
+clearer;' but that, if we take the word _fearful_ in its rarer
+signification of _that which excites terror_, 'no alteration is needed.'
+Certainly: none _is_ needed; for the mistake (as _I_ regard it) of REP. lies
+simply in supposing the passive sense of _fearful_--namely, that which
+_suffers_ fear--to be the ordinary sense; which now, in the nineteenth
+century, it is; but was _not_ in the age of Shakspere.
+
+[MACBETH. _Scene 7._
+
+                            'Thus even-handed justice
+    _Commends_ the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
+    To our own lips.'
+
+COR. proposes, _Returns_ the ingredients of, &c.; and, after the word
+_returns_ is placed a comma; which, however, I suppose to be a press
+oversight, and no element in the correction. Meantime, I see no call for any
+change whatever. The ordinary use of the word _commend_, in any advantageous
+introduction of a stranger by letters, seems here to maintain
+itself--namely, placing him in such a train towards winning favour as may
+give a favourable bias to his opportunities. The opportunities are not left
+to their own casual or neutral action, but are armed and pointed towards a
+special result by the influence of the recommender. So, also, it is here
+supposed that amongst several chalices, which might else all have an equal
+power to conciliate notice, one specially--namely, that which contains the
+poison--is armed by Providence with a power to bias the choice, and commend
+itself to the poisoner's favour.
+
+[_Ibid._
+
+                  'His two chamberlains
+    Will I with wine and wassail so _convince_.'
+
+COR. is not happy at this point in his suggestion: tinkers are accused
+(often calumniously, for tinkers have enemies as well as other people) of
+insidiously enlarging holes, making simple into compound fractures, and
+sometimes of planting two holes where they find one. But I have it on the
+best authority--namely, the authority of three tinkers who were
+unanimous--that, if sometimes there is a little treachery of this kind
+amongst the profession, it is no more than would be pronounced 'in reason'
+by all candid men. And certainly, said one of the three, you wouldn't look
+for perfection in a tinker? Undoubtedly a seraphic tinker would be an
+unreasonable postulate; though, perhaps, the man in all England that came
+nearest to the seraphic character in one century _was_ a tinker--namely,
+John Bunyan. But, as my triad of tinkers urged, men of all professions _do_
+cheat at uncertain times, _are_ traitors in a small proportion, _must be_
+perfidious, unless they make an odious hypocritical pretension to the
+character of angels. That tinkers are not alone in their practice of
+multiplying the blemishes on which their healing art is invoked, seems
+broadly illustrated by the practice of verbal critics. Those who have
+applied themselves to the ancient classics, are notorious for their corrupt
+dealings in this way. And Coleridge founded an argument against the whole
+body upon the confessedly dreadful failure of Bentley, prince of all the
+order, when applied to a case where most of us could appreciate the
+result--namely, to the _Paradise Lost_. If, said Coleridge, this Bentley
+could err so extravagantly in a case of mother-English, what must we presume
+him often to have done in Greek? Here we may see to this day that practice
+carried to a ruinous extent, which, when charged upon tinkers, I have seen
+cause to restrict. In the present case from _Macbeth_, I fear that COR. is
+slightly indulging in this tinkering practice. As I view the case, there
+really is no hole to mend. The old meaning of the word _convince_ is well
+brought out in the celebrated couplet--
+
+    'He, that's convinc'd against his will,
+     Is of the same opinion still.
+
+How can _that_ be? I have often heard objectors say. Being convinced by his
+opponent--_i. e._, convinced that his opponent's view is the right one--how
+can he retain his own original opinion, which by the supposition is in polar
+opposition. But this argument rests on a false notion of the sense attached
+originally to the word _convinced_. That word was used in the sense of
+_refuted; redargued_, the alternative word, was felt to be pedantic. The
+case supposed was that of a man who is reduced to an absurdity; he cannot
+deny that, from his own view, an absurdity _seems_ to follow; and, until he
+has shown that this absurdity is only apparent, he is bound to hold himself
+_provisionally_ answered. Yet that does not reconcile him to his adversary's
+opinion; he retains his own, and is satisfied that somewhere an answer to it
+exists, if only he could discover it.
+
+Here the meaning is, 'I will convince his chamberlains with wine'--_i. e._,
+will refute by means of the confusion belonging to the tragedy itself, when
+aided by intoxication, all the arguments (otherwise plausible) which they
+might urge in self-defence.
+
+    ['_Thrice_ and once the hedge-pig whined:'--
+
+This our friend COR. alters to _twice_; but for the very reason which
+should have checked him--namely, on Theobald's suggestion that '_odd_
+numbers are used in enchantments and magical operations;' and here he
+fancies himself to obtain an odd number by the arithmetical
+summation--_twice_ added to _once_ makes thrice. Meantime the odd number is
+already secured by viewing the _whines_ separately, and not as a sum. The
+hedge-pig whined thrice--that was an odd number. Again he whined, and this
+time only once--this also was an odd number. Otherwise COR. is perfectly
+right in his general doctrine, that
+
+    'Numero Deus _impare_ gaudet.'
+
+Nobody ever heard of _even_ numbers in any case of divination. A dog, for
+instance, howling under a sick person's window, is traditionally ominous of
+evil--but not if he howls twice, or four times.
+
+    ['I _pull_ in resolution.'--_Act V. Scene 5._
+
+COR. had very probably not seen Dr Johnson's edition of _Shakspere_, but in
+common with the Doctor, under the simple coercion of good sense, he proposes
+'I _pall_;' a restitution which is so self-attested, that it ought
+fearlessly to be introduced into the text of all editions whatever, let them
+be as superstitiously scrupulous as in all reason they ought to be.
+
+[HAMLET. _Act II. Scene in the Speech of Polonius._
+
+    'Good sir, or so, or friend, or gentleman,'
+
+is altered by COR., and in this case with an effect of solemn humour which
+justifies itself, into
+
+    'Good sir, or sir, or friend, or gentleman;'
+
+meaning good sir, or sir simply without the epithet _good_, which implies
+something of familiarity. Polonius, in his superstitious respect for ranks
+and degrees, provides four forms of address applying to four separate cases:
+such is the ponderous casuistry which the solemn courtier brings to bear
+upon the most trivial of cases.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At this point, all at once, we find our sheaf of arrows exhausted: trivial
+as are the new resources offered for deciphering the hidden meanings of
+Shakspere, their quality is even less a ground of complaint than their
+limitation in quantity. In an able paper published by this journal, during
+the autumn of 1855, upon the new readings offered by Mr Collier's work, I
+find the writer expressing generally a satisfaction with the condition of
+Shakspere's text. I feel sorry that I cannot agree with him. To me the text,
+though improved, and gradually moving round to a higher and more hopeful
+state of promise, is yet far indeed from the settled state which is
+desirable. I wish, therefore, as bearing upon all such hopes and prospects,
+to mention a singular and interesting case of sudden conquest over a
+difficulty that once had seemed insuperable. For a period of three centuries
+there had existed an enigma, dark and insoluble as that of the Sphinx, in
+the text of Suetonius. Isaac Casaubon had vainly besieged it; then, in a
+mood of revolting arrogance, Joseph Scaliger; Ernesti; Gronovius; many
+others; and all without a gleam of success.
+
+The passage in Suetonius which so excruciatingly (but so unprofitably) has
+tormented the wits of such scholars as have sat in judgment upon it through
+a period of three hundred and fifty years, arises in the tenth section of
+his Domitian. That prince, it seems, had displayed in his outset
+considerable promise of moral excellence: in particular, neither rapacity
+nor cruelty was apparently any feature in his character. Both qualities,
+however, found a pretty early development in his advancing career, but
+cruelty the earliest. By way of illustration, Suetonius rehearses a list of
+distinguished men, clothed with senatorian or even consular rank, whom he
+had put to death upon allegations the most frivolous: amongst them Aelius
+Lamia, a nobleman whose wife he had torn from him by open and insulting
+violence. It may be as well to cite the exact words of Suetonius: 'Aelium
+Lamiam (interemit) ob suspiciosos quidem, verum et veteres et innoxios
+jocos; quod post abductam uxorem laudanti vocem suam--dixerat, _Heu taceo_;
+quodque Tito hortanti se ad alterum matrimonium, responderat [Greek: me kai
+su gamesai theleis];'--that is, Aelius Lamia he put to death on account of
+certain jests; jests liable to some jealousy, but, on the other hand, of old
+standing, and that had in fact proved harmless as regarded practical
+consequences--namely, that to one who praised his voice as a singer he had
+replied, _Heu taceo_; and that on another occasion, in reply to the Emperor
+Titus, when urging him to a second marriage, he had said, 'What now, I
+suppose _you_ are looking out for a wife?'
+
+The latter jest is intelligible enough, stinging, and witty. As if the young
+men of the Flavian family could fancy no wives but such as they had won by
+violence from other men, he affects in a bitter sarcasm to take for granted
+that Titus, as the first step towards marrying, counselled his friends to
+marry as the natural means for creating a fund of eligible wives. The
+primal qualification of any lady as a consort being, in _their_ eyes, that
+she had been torn away violently from a friend, it became evident that the
+preliminary step towards a Flavian wedding was, to persuade some incautious
+friend into marrying, and thus putting himself into a capacity of being
+robbed. How many ladies that it was infamous for this family to appropriate
+as wives, so many ladies that in their estimate were eligible in that
+character. Such, at least in the stinging jest of Lamia, was the Flavian
+rule of conduct. And his friend Titus, therefore, simply as the brother of
+Domitian, simply as a Flavian, he affected to regard as indirectly providing
+a wife, when he urged his friend by marrying to enrol himself as a
+_pillagee_ elect.
+
+The latter jest, therefore, when once apprehended, speaks broadly and
+bitingly for itself. But the other--what can it possibly mean? For centuries
+has that question been reiterated; and hitherto without advancing by one
+step nearer to solution. Isaac Casaubon, who about 230 years since was the
+leading oracle in this field of literature, writing an elaborate and
+continuous commentary upon Suetonius, found himself unable to suggest any
+real aids for dispersing the thick darkness overhanging the passage. What he
+says is this:--'Parum satisfaciunt mihi interpretes in explicatione hujus
+Lamiae dicti. Nam quod putant _Heu taceo_ suspirium esse ejus--indicem
+doloris ob abductam uxorem magni sed latentis, nobis non ita videtur; sed
+notatam potius fuisse tyrannidem principis, qui omnia in suo genere pulchra
+et excellentia possessoribus eriperet, unde necessitas incumbebat sua bona
+dissimulandi celandique.' Not at all satisfactory to me are the
+commentators in the explanation of the _dictum_ (which is here equivalent to
+_dicterium_) of Lamia. For, whereas they imagine _Heu taceo_ to be a sigh of
+his--the record and indication of a sorrow, great though concealed, on
+behalf of the wife that had been violently torn away from him--me, I
+confess, that the case does not strike in that light; but rather that a
+satiric blow was aimed at the despotism of the sovereign prince, who tore
+away from their possessors all objects whatsoever marked by beauty or
+distinguished merit in their own peculiar class: whence arose a pressure of
+necessity for dissembling and hiding their own advantages. '_Sic esse
+exponendum_,' that such is the true interpretation (continues Casaubon),
+'_docent illa verba_ [LAUDANTI VOCEM SUAM],' (we are instructed by those
+words), [to one who praised his singing voice, &c.].
+
+This commentary was obscure enough, and did no honour to the native good
+sense of Isaac Casaubon, usually so conspicuous. For, whilst proclaiming a
+settlement, in reality it settled nothing. Naturally, it made but a feeble
+impression upon the scholars of the day; and not long after the publication
+of the book, Casaubon received from Joseph Scaliger a friendly but
+gasconading letter, in which that great scholar brought forward a new
+reading--namely, [Greek: entakto], to which he assigned a profound technical
+value as a musical term. No person even affected to understand Scaliger.
+Casaubon himself, while treating so celebrated a man with kind and
+considerate deference, yet frankly owned that, in all his vast reading, he
+had never met with this strange Greek word. But, without entering into any
+dispute upon that verbal question, and conceding to Scaliger the word and
+his own interpretation of the word, no man could understand in what way this
+new resource was meant to affect the ultimate question at issue--namely, the
+extrication of the passage from that thick darkness which overshadowed it.
+
+'_As you were_' (to speak in the phraseology of military drill), was in
+effect the word of command. All things reverted to their original condition.
+And two centuries of darkness again enveloped this famous perplexity of
+Roman literature. The darkness had for a few moments seemed to be unsettling
+itself in preparation for flight: but immediately it rolled back again; and
+through seven generations of men this darkness was heavier, because less
+hopeful than before.
+
+Now then, I believe, all things are ready for the explosion of the
+catastrophe; 'which catastrophe,' I hear some malicious reader whispering,
+'is doubtless destined to glorify himself' (meaning the unworthy writer of
+this little paper). I cannot deny it. A truth _is_ a truth. And, since no
+medal, nor riband, nor cross, of any known order, is disposable for the most
+brilliant successes in dealing with desperate (or what may be called
+_condemned_) passages in Pagan literature, mere sloughs of despond that yawn
+across the pages of many a heathen dog, poet and orator, that I could
+mention, the more reasonable it is that a large allowance should be served
+out of boasting and self-glorification to all those whose merits upon this
+field national governments have neglected to proclaim. The Scaligers, both
+father and son, I believe, acted upon this doctrine; and drew largely by
+anticipation upon that reversionary bank which they conceived to be
+answerable for such drafts. Joseph Scaliger, it strikes me, was drunk when
+he wrote his letter on the present occasion, and in that way failed to see
+(what Casaubon saw clearly enough) that he had commenced shouting before he
+was out of the wood. For my own part, if I go so far as to say that the
+result promises, in the Frenchman's phrase, to 'cover me with glory,' I beg
+the reader to remember that the idea of 'covering' is of most variable
+extent: the glory may envelope one in a voluminous robe--a princely mantle
+that may require a long suite of train-bearers, or may pinch and vice one's
+arms into that succinct garment (now superannuated) which some eighty years
+ago drew its name from the distinguished Whig family in England of Spencer.
+Anticipating, therefore, that I _shall_--nay, insisting, and mutinously, if
+needful, that I _will_--be covered with glory by the approaching result, I
+do not contemplate anything beyond that truncated tunic, once known as a
+'spencer,' and which is understood to cover only the shoulders and the
+chest.
+
+Now, then, all being ready, and the arena being cleared of competitors
+(for I suppose it is fully understood that everybody but myself has
+retired from the contest), thrice, in fact, has the trumpet sounded, 'Do
+you give it up?' Some preparations there are to be made in all cases of
+contest. Meantime, let it be clearly understood what it is that the
+contest turns upon. Supposing that one had been called, like OEdipus
+of old, to a turn-up with that venerable girl the Sphinx, most
+essential it would have been that the clerk of the course (or however
+you designate the judge, the umpire, &c.) should have read the riddle
+propounded to Greece: how else judge of the solution? At present the
+elements of the case to be decided stand thus:--
+
+A Roman noble, a man, in fact, of senatorial rank, has been robbed,
+robbed with violence, and with cruel scorn, of a lovely young wife, to
+whom he was most tenderly attached. But by whom? the indignant reader
+demands. By a younger son[8] of the Roman emperor Vespasian.
+
+[8] But holding what rank, and what precise station, at the time of the
+outrage? At this point I acknowledge a difficulty. The criminal was in
+this case Domitian, the younger son of Vespasian, the tenth Caesar,
+younger Brother of Titus, the eleventh Caesar, and himself, under the
+name of Domitian, the twelfth of the Caesars, consequently the closing
+prince in that series of the initial twelve Caesars whom Suetonius had
+undertaken to record. Now the difficulty lies here, which yet I have
+never seen noticed in any book: was this violence perpetrated before or
+after Domitian's assumption of the purple? If _after_, how, then, could
+the injured husband have received that advice from Titus (as to
+repairing his loss by a second marriage), which forms part of an
+anecdote and a _bon-mot_ between Titus and Lamia? Yet again, if not
+after but before, how was it Lamia had not invoked the protection of
+Vespasian, or of Titus--the latter of whom enjoyed a theatrically fine
+reputation for equity and moderation?
+
+For some years the wrong has been borne in silence: the sufferer knew
+himself to be powerless as against such an oppressor; and that to show
+symptoms of impotent hatred was but to call down thunderbolts upon his
+own head. Generally, therefore, prudence had guided him. _Patience_ had
+been the word; _silence_, and below all the deep, deep word--_wait_; and
+if by accident he were a Christian, not only that same word _wait_ would
+have been heard, but this beside, look under the altars for others that
+also wait. But poor suffering patience, sense of indignity that is
+hopeless, must (in order to endure) have saintly resources. Infinite
+might be the endurance, if sustained only by a finite hope. But the
+black despairing darkness that revealed a tossing sea self-tormented and
+fighting with chaos, showing neither torch that glimmered in the
+foreground, nor star that kept alive a promise in the distance,
+violently refused to be comforted. It is beside an awful aggravation of
+such afflictions, that the lady herself might have co-operated in the
+later stages of the tragedy with the purposes of the imperial ruffian.
+Lamia had been suffered to live, because as a living man he yielded up
+into the hands of his tormentor his whole capacity of suffering; no part
+of it escaped the hellish range of his enemy's eye. But this advantage
+for the torturer had also its weak and doubtful side. Use and monotony
+might secretly be wearing away the edge of the organs on and through
+which the corrosion of the inner heart proceeded. On the whole,
+therefore, putting together the facts of the case, it seems to have been
+resolved that he should die. But previously that he should drink off a
+final cup of anguish, the bitterest that had yet been offered. The lady
+herself, again--that wife so known historically, so notorious, yet so
+total a stranger to man and his generations--had she also suffered in
+sympathy with her martyred husband? That must have been known to a
+certainty in the outset of the case, by him that knew too profoundly on
+what terms of love they had lived. But at length, seeking for crowning
+torments, it may have been that the dreadful Caesar might have found the
+'raw' in his poor victim, that offered its fellowship in exalting the
+furnace of misery. The lady herself--may we not suppose her at the last
+to have given way before the strengthening storm. Possibly to resist
+indefinitely might have menaced herself with ruin, whilst offering no
+benefit to her husband. And, again, though killing to the natural
+interests which accompany such a case, might not the lady herself be
+worn out, if no otherwise, by the killing nature of the contest? There
+is besides this dreadful fact, placed ten thousand times on record, that
+the very goodness of the human heart in such a case ministers fuel to
+the moral degradation of a female combatant. Any woman, and exactly in
+proportion to the moral sensibility of her nature, finds it painful to
+live in the same house with a man not odiously repulsive in manners or
+in person on terms of eternal hostility. In a community so nobly
+released as was Rome from all base Oriental bondage of women, this
+followed--that compliances of a nature oftentimes to belie the native
+nobility of woman become painfully liable to misinterpretation. Possibly
+under the blinding delusion of secret promises, unknown, nay,
+inaccessible, to those outside (all contemporaries being as ridiculously
+impotent to penetrate within the curtain as all posterity), the wife of
+Lamia, once so pure, may have been over-persuaded to make such _public_
+manifestations of affection for Domitian as had hitherto, upon one
+motive or another, been loftily withheld. Things, that to a lover carry
+along with them irreversible ruin, carry with them final desolation of
+heart, are to the vast current of ordinary men, who regard society
+exclusively from a political centre, less than nothing. Do they deny the
+existence of other and nobler agencies in human affairs? Not at all.
+Readily they confess these agencies: but, as movements obeying laws not
+known, or imperfectly known to _them_, these they ignore. What it was
+circumstantially that passed, long since has been overtaken and
+swallowed up by the vast oblivions of time. This only survives--namely,
+that what he said gave signal offence in the highest quarter, and that
+his death followed. But what was it that he _did_ say? That is precisely
+the question, and the whole question which we have to answer. At present
+we know, and we do _not_ know, what it was that he said. We have
+bequeathed to us by history two words--involving eight letters--which in
+their present form, with submission to certain grandees of classic
+literature, mean exactly nothing. These two words must be regarded as
+the raw material upon which we have to work: and out of these we are
+required to turn out a rational saying for Aelius Lamia, under the
+following five conditions:--First, it must allude to his wife, as one
+that is lost to him irrecoverably; secondly, it must glance at a gloomy
+tyrant who bars him from rejoining her; thirdly, it must reply to the
+compliment which had been paid to the sweetness of his own voice;
+fourthly, it should in strictness contain some allusion calculated not
+only to irritate, but even to alarm or threaten his jealous and vigilant
+enemy; fifthly, doing all these things, it ought also to absorb, as its
+own main elements, the eight letters contained in the present senseless
+words--'_Heu taceo._'
+
+Here is a monstrous quantity of work to throw upon any two words in any
+possible language. Even Shakspere's clown,[9] when challenged to furnish
+a catholic answer applicable to all conceivable occasions, cannot do it
+in less than nine letters--namely, _Oh lord, sir_. I, for my part,
+satisfied that the existing form of _Heu taceo_ was mere indictable and
+punishable nonsense, but yet that this nonsense must enter as chief
+element into the stinging sense of Lamia, gazed for I cannot tell how
+many weeks at these impregnable letters, viewing them sometimes as a
+fortress that I was called upon to escalade, sometimes as an anagram
+that I was called upon to re-organise into the life which it had lost
+through some dislocation of arrangement. Finally the result in which I
+landed, and which fulfilled all the conditions laid down was this:--Let
+me premise, however, what _at any rate_ the existing darkness attests,
+that some disturbance of the text must in some way have arisen; whether
+from the gnawing of a rat, or the spilling of some obliterating fluid at
+this point of some critical or unique MS. It is sufficient for us that
+the vital word has survived. I suppose, therefore, that Lamia had
+replied to the friend who praised the sweetness of his voice, 'Sweet is
+it? Ah, would to Heaven it might prove Orpheutic.' Ominous in this case
+would be the word Orpheutic to the ears of Domitian: for every
+school-boy knows that this means a _wife-revoking voice_. But first let
+me remark that there is such a legitimate word as _Orpheutaceam_: and in
+that case the Latin repartee of Lamia would stand thus--_Suavem dixisti?
+Quam vellem et Orpheutaceam_. But, perhaps, reader, you fail to
+recognise in this form our old friend _Heu taceo_. But here he is to a
+certainty, in spite of the rat: and in a different form of letters the
+compositor will show him, up to you as--_vellem et Orp_. [HEU TACEAM].
+Possibly, being in good humour, you will be disposed to wink at the
+seemingly surreptitious AM, though believing the real word to be
+_taceo_. Let me say, therefore, that one reading, I believe, gives
+_taceam_. Here, then, shines out at once--(1) Eurydice the lovely wife;
+(2) detained by the gloomy tyrant Pluto; (3) who, however, is forced
+into surrendering her to her husband, whose voice (the sweetest ever
+known) drew stocks and stones to follow him, and finally his wife; (4)
+the word Orpheutic involves an alarming threat, showing that the hope of
+recovering the lady still survived; (5) we have involved in the
+restoration all the eight, or perhaps nine, letters of the erroneous
+form.
+
+[9] In _All's Well that Ends Well_.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH.[10]
+
+
+Among world-wide objects of speculation, objects rising to the dignity
+of a mundane or cosmopolitish value, which challenge at this time more
+than ever a growing intellectual interest, is the English language. Why
+particularly at this time? Simply, because the interest in that language
+rests upon two separate foundations: there are two separate principles
+concerned in its pretensions; and by accident in part, but in part also
+through the silent and inevitable march of human progress, there has
+been steadily gathering for many years an interest of something like
+sceptical and hostile curiosity about each of these principles,
+considered as problems open to variable solutions, as problems already
+viewed from different national centres, and as problems also that press
+forward to some solution or other with more and more of a clamorous
+emphasis, in proportion as they tend to consequences no longer merely
+speculative and scholastic, but which more and more reveal features
+largely practical and political. The two principles upon which the
+English language rests the burden of its paramount interest, are
+these:--first, its powers, the range of its endowments; secondly, its
+apparent destiny. Some subtle judges in this field of criticism are of
+opinion, and ever had that opinion, that amongst the modern languages
+which originally had compass enough of strength and opulence in their
+structure, or had received culture sufficient to qualify them plausibly
+for entering the arena of such a competition, the English had certain
+peculiar and inappreciable aptitudes for the highest offices of
+interpretation. Twenty-five centuries ago, this beautiful little planet
+on which we live might be said to have assembled and opened her first
+parliament for representing the grandeur of the human intellect. That
+particular assembly, I mean, for celebrating the Olympic Games about
+four centuries and a half before the era of Christ, when Herodotus
+opened the gates of morning for the undying career of history, by
+reading to the congregated children of Hellas, to the whole
+representative family of civilisation, that loveliest of earthly
+narratives, which, in nine musical cantos, unfolded the whole luxury of
+human romance as at the bar of some austere historic Areopagus, and,
+inversely again, which crowded the total abstract of human records,
+sealed[11] as with the seal of Delphi in the luxurious pavilions of
+human romance.
+
+[10] This fragment appeared in _The Instructor_ for July, 1853. The
+subject was not continued in any form.--H.
+
+[11] '_Sealed_,' &c.:--I do not believe that, in the sense of holy
+conscientious loyalty to his own innermost convictions, any writer of
+history in any period of time can have surpassed Herodotus. And the
+reader must remember (or, if unlearned, he must be informed) that this
+judgment has _now_ become the unanimous judgment of all the most
+competent authorities--that is, of all those who, having first of all
+the requisite erudition as to Greek, as to classical archaeology, &c.,
+then subsequently applied this appropriate learning to the searching
+investigation of the several narratives authorised by Herodotus. In the
+middle of the last century, nothing could rank lower than the historic
+credibility of this writer. And to parody his title to be regarded as
+the 'Father of History,' by calling him the 'Father of Lies,' was an
+unworthy insult offered to his admirable simplicity and candour by more
+critics than one. But two points startle the honourable reader, who is
+loathe to believe of any laborious provider for a great intellectual
+interest that he _can_ deliberately have meant to deceive: the first
+point, and, separately by itself, an all-sufficient demur, is
+this--that, not in proportion to the learning and profundity brought to
+bear upon Herodotus, did the doubts and scruples upon his fidelity
+strengthen or multiply. Precisely in the opposite current was the
+movement of human opinion, as it applied itself to this patriarch of
+history. Exactly as critics and investigators arose like Larcher--just,
+reasonable, thoughtful, patient, and combining--or geographers as
+comprehensive and as accurate as Major Rennel, regularly in that ratio
+did the reports and the judgments of Herodotus command more and more
+respect. The other point is this; and, when it is closely considered, it
+furnishes a most reasonable ground of demur to the ordinary criticisms
+upon Herodotus. These criticisms build the principle of their objection
+generally upon the marvellous or romantic element which intermingles
+with the current of the narrative. But when a writer treats (as to
+Herodotus it happened that repeatedly he treated) tracts of history far
+removed in space and in time from the domestic interests of his native
+land, naturally he misses as any available guide the ordinary
+utilitarian relations which would else connect persons and events with
+great outstanding interests of his own contemporary system. The very
+abstraction which has silently been performed by the mere effect of vast
+distances, wildernesses that swallow up armies, and mighty rivers that
+are unbridged, together with the indefinite chronological remoteness, do
+already of themselves translate such sequestered and insulated chambers
+of history into the character of moral apologues, where the sole
+surviving interest lies in the quality of the particular moral
+illustrated, or in the sudden and tragic change of fortune recorded.
+Such changes, it is urged, are of rare occurrence; and, recurring too
+often, they impress a character of suspicious accuracy upon the
+narrative. Doubtless they do so, and reasonably, where the writer is
+pursuing the torpid current of circumstantial domestic annals. But, in
+the rapid abstract of Herodotus, where a century yields but a page or
+two, and considering that two slender octavos, on the particular scale
+adopted by Herodotus, embody the total records of the human race down to
+his own epoch, really it would furnish no legitimate ground of scruple
+or jealousy, though every paragraph should present us with a character
+that seems exaggerated, or with an incident approaching to the
+marvellous, or a catastrophe that is revolting. A writer is bound--he
+has created it into a duty, having once assumed the office of a national
+historiographer--to select from the rolls of a nation such events as are
+the most striking. And a selection conducted on this principle through
+several centuries, or pursuing the fortunes of a dynasty reigning over
+vast populations, _must_ end in accumulating a harvest of results such
+as would startle the sobriety of ordinary historic faith. If a medical
+writer should elect for himself, of his own free choice, to record such
+cases only in his hospital experience as terminated fatally, it would be
+absurd to object the gloomy tenor of his reports as an argument for
+suspecting their accuracy, since he himself, by introducing this as a
+condition into the very terms of his original undertaking with the
+public, has created against himself the painful necessity of continually
+distressing the sensibilities of his reader. To complain of Herodotus,
+or any public historian, as drawing too continually upon his reader's
+profounder sensibilities, is, in reality, to forget that this belongs as
+an original element to the very task which he has undertaken. To
+undertake the exhibition of human life under those aspects which
+confessedly bring it into unusual conflict with chance and change, is,
+by a mere self-created necessity, to prepare beforehand the summons to a
+continued series of agitations: it is to seek the tragic and the
+wondrous wilfully, and then to complain of it as violating the laws of
+probability founded on life within the ordinary conditions of
+experience.
+
+That most memorable of Panhellenic festivals it was, which first made
+known to each other the two houses of Grecian blood that typified its
+ultimate and polar capacities, the most and the least of exorbitations,
+the utmost that were possible from its equatorial centre; viz., on the
+one side, the Asiatic Ionian, who spoke the sweet musical dialect of
+Homer, and, on the other side, the austere Dorian, whom ten centuries
+could not teach that human life brought with it any pleasure, or any
+business, or any holiness of duty, other or loftier than that of war. If
+it were possible that, under the amenities of a Grecian sky, too fierce
+a memento could whisper itself of torrid zones, under the stern
+discipline of the Doric Spartan it was that you looked for it; or, on
+the other hand, if the lute might, at intervals, be heard or fancied
+warbling too effeminately for the martial European key of the Grecian
+muses, amidst the sweet blandishments it was of Ionian groves that you
+arrested the initial elements of such a relaxing modulation. Twenty-five
+centuries ago, when Europe and Asia met for brotherly participation in
+the noblest, perhaps,[12] of all recorded solemnities, viz., the
+inauguration of History in its very earliest and prelusive page, the
+coronation (as with propriety we may call it) of the earliest (perhaps
+even yet the greatest?) historic artist, what was the language employed
+as the instrument of so great a federal act? It was that divine Grecian
+language to which, on the model of the old differential compromise in
+favour of Themistocles, all rival languages would cordially have
+conceded the second honour. If now, which is not impossible, any
+occasion should arise for a modern congress of the leading nations that
+represent civilisation, not probably in the Isthmus of Corinth, but on
+that of Darien, it would be a matter of mere necessity, and so far
+hardly implying any expression of homage, that the English language
+should take the station formerly accorded to the Grecian. But I come
+back to the thesis which I announced, viz., to the twofold _onus_ which
+the English language is called upon to sustain:--first, to the
+responsibility attached to its _powers_; secondly, to the responsibility
+and weight of expectation attached to its destiny. To the questions
+growing out of the first, I will presently return. But for the moment, I
+will address myself to the nature of that DESTINY, which is often
+assigned to the English language: what is it? and how far is it in a
+fair way of fulfilling this destiny?
+
+[12] Perhaps, seriously, the most of a _cosmopolitical_ act that has
+ever been attempted. Next to it, in point of dignity, I should feel
+disposed to class the inauguration of the Crusades.
+
+As early as the middle of the last century, and by people with as little
+enthusiasm as David Hume, it had become the subject of plain prudential
+speculations, in forecasting the choice of a subject, or of the language
+in which it should reasonably be treated, that the area of expectation
+for an English writer was prodigiously expanding under the development
+of our national grandeur, by whatever names of 'colonial' or 'national'
+it might be varied or disguised. The issue of the American War, and the
+sudden expansion of the American Union into a mighty nation on a scale
+corresponding to that of the four great European potentates--Russia,
+Austria, England, and France--was not in those days suspected. But the
+tendencies could not be mistaken. And the same issue was fully
+anticipated, though undoubtedly through the steps of a very much slower
+process. Whilst disputing about the items on the tess apettiele, the
+disputed facts were overtaking us, and flying past us, on the most
+gigantic scale. All things were changing: and the very terms of the
+problem were themselves changing, and putting on new aspects, in the
+process and at the moment of enunciation. For instance, it had been
+sufficiently seen that another Christendom, far more colossal than the
+old Christendom of Europe, _might_, and undoubtedly _would_, form itself
+rapidly in America. Against the tens of millions in Europe would rise
+up, like the earth-born children of Deucalion and Pyrrha (or of the
+Theban Cadmus and Hermione) American millions counted by hundreds. But
+from what _radix_? Originally, it would have been regarded as madness to
+take Ireland, in her Celtic element, as counting for anything. But of
+late--whether rationally, however, I will inquire for a brief moment or
+so--the counters have all changed in these estimates. The late Mr
+O'Connell was the parent of these hyperbolical anticipations. To count
+his ridiculous 'monster-meetings' by hundreds of thousands, and then at
+last by millions, cost nobody so much as a blush; and considering the
+open laughter and merriment with which all O'Connell estimates were
+accepted and looked at, I must think that the _London Standard_ was more
+deeply to blame than any other political party, in giving currency and
+acceptation to the nursery exaggerations of Mr O'Connell. Meantime
+those follies came to an end. Mr O'Connell died; all was finished: and a
+new form of mendacity was transferred to America. There has always
+existed in the United States one remarkable phenomenon of Irish politics
+applied to the deception of both English, Americans, and Irish. All
+people who have given any attention to partisanship and American
+politics, are aware of a rancorous malice burning sullenly amongst a
+small knot of Irishmen, and applying itself chiefly to the feeding of an
+interminable feud against England and all things English. This, as it
+chiefly expresses itself in American journals, naturally passes for the
+product of American violence; which in reality it is not. And hence it
+happens, and for many years it _has_ happened, that both Englishmen and
+Americans are perplexed at intervals by a malice and an _acharnement_ of
+hatred to England, which reads very much like that atrocious and
+viperous malignity imputed to the father of Hannibal against the Romans.
+It is noticeable, both as keeping open a peculiar exasperation of Irish
+patriotism absurdly directed against England; as doing a very serious
+injustice to Americans, who are thus misrepresented as the organs of
+this violence, so exclusively Irish; and, finally, as the origin of the
+monstrous delusion which I now go on to mention. The pretence of late
+put forward is, that the preponderant element in the American population
+is indeed derived from the British Islands, but by a vast overbalance
+from Ireland, and from the Celtic part of the Irish population. This
+monstrous delusion has recently received an extravagant sanction from
+the London _Quarterly Review_. Half a dozen other concurrent papers, in
+journals political and literary, hold the same language. And the upshot
+of the whole is--that, whilst the whole English element (including the
+earliest colonisation of the New England states at the beginning of the
+seventeenth century, and including the whole stream of British
+emigration since the French Revolution) is accredited for no more than
+three and a half millions out of pretty nearly twenty millions of
+_white_ American citizens, on the other hand, against this English
+element, is set up an Irish (meaning a purely Hiberno-_Celtic_) element,
+amounting--oh, genius of blushing, whither hast thou fled?--to a total
+of eight millions. Anglo-Saxon blood, it seems, is in a miserable
+minority in the United States; whilst the German blood composes, we are
+told, a respectable nation of five millions; and the Irish-Celtic young
+noblemen, though somewhat at a loss for shoes, already count as high as
+eight millions!
+
+Now, if there were any semblance of truth in all this, we should have
+very good reason indeed to tremble for the future prospects of the
+English language throughout the Union. Eight millions struggling with
+three and a half should already have produced some effect on the very
+composition of Congress. Meantime, against these audacious falsehoods I
+observe a reasonable paper in the _Times_ (August 23, 1852), rating the
+Celtic contribution from Ireland--that is, exclusively of all the
+_Ulster_ contribution--at about two millions; which, however, I view as
+already an exaggeration, considering the number that have always by
+preference resorted to the Canadas. Two millions, whom poverty, levity,
+and utter want of all social or political consideration, have reduced to
+ciphers the most absolute--two millions, in the very lowest and most
+abject point of political depression, cannot do much to disturb the
+weight of the English language: which, accordingly, on another
+occasion, I will proceed to consider, with and without the aid of the
+learned Dr Gordon Latham, and sometimes (if he will excuse me) in
+defiance of that gentleman, though far enough from defiance in any
+hostile or unfriendly sense.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASUISTRY OF DUELLING.[13]
+
+
+This mention of Allan Cunningham recalls to my recollection an affair
+which retains one part of its interest to this day, arising out of the
+very important casuistical question which it involves. We Protestant
+nations are in the habit of treating casuistry as a field of
+speculation, false and baseless _per se_; nay, we regard it not so much
+in the light of a visionary and idle speculation, as one positively
+erroneous in its principles, and mischievous for its practical results.
+This is due in part to the disproportionate importance which the Church
+of Rome has always attached to casuistry; making, in fact, this
+supplementary section of ethics take precedency of its elementary
+doctrines in their catholic simplicity: as though the plain and broad
+highway of morality were scarcely ever the safe road, but that every
+case of human conduct were to be treated as an exception, and never as
+lying within the universal rule: and thus forcing the simple,
+honest-minded Christian to travel upon a tortuous by-road, in which he
+could not advance a step in security without a spiritual guide at his
+elbow: and, in fact, whenever the hair-splitting casuistry is brought,
+with all its elaborate machinery, to bear upon the simplicities of
+household life, and upon the daily intercourse of the world, there it
+has the effect (and is expressly cherished by the Romish Church with a
+view to the effect) of raising the spiritual pastor into a sort of
+importance which corresponds to that of an attorney. The consulting
+casuist is, in fact, to all intents and purposes, a moral attorney. For,
+as the plainest man, with the most direct purposes, is yet reasonably
+afraid to trust himself to his own guidance in any affair connected with
+questions of law; so also, when taught to believe that an upright
+intention and good sense are equally insufficient in morals, as they are
+in law, to keep him from stumbling or from missing his road, he comes to
+regard a conscience-keeper as being no less indispensable for his daily
+life and conversation, than his legal agent, or his professional 'man of
+business,' for the safe management of his property, and for his guidance
+amongst the innumerable niceties which beset the real and inevitable
+intricacies of rights and duties, as they grow out of human enactments
+and a complex condition of society. Fortunately for the happiness of
+human nature and its dignity, those holier rights and duties which grow
+out of laws heavenly and divine, written by the finger of God upon the
+heart of every rational creature, are beset by no such intricacies, and
+require, therefore, no such vicarious agency for their practical
+assertion. The primal duties of life, like the primal charities, are
+placed high above us--legible to every eye, and shining like the stars,
+with a splendour that is read in every clime, and translates itself into
+every language at once. Such is the imagery of Wordsworth. But this is
+otherwise estimated in the policy of papal Rome: and casuistry usurps a
+place in her spiritual economy, to which our Protestant feelings demur.
+So far, however, the question between us and Rome is a question of
+degrees. They push casuistry into a general and unlimited application;
+we, if at all, into a very narrow one. But another difference there is
+between us even more important; for it regards no mere excess in the
+_quantity_ of range allowed to casuistry, but in the _quality_ of its
+speculations: and which it is (more than any other cause) that has
+degraded the office of casuistical learning amongst us. Questions are
+raised, problems are entertained, by the Romish casuistry, which too
+often offend against all purity and manliness of thinking. And that
+objection occurs forcibly here, which Southey (either in _The Quarterly
+Review_ or in his _Life of Wesley_) has urged and expanded with regard
+to the Romish and also the Methodist practice of _auricular
+confession_--viz., that, as it _is_ practically managed, not leaving the
+person engaged in this act to confess according to the light of his own
+conscience, but at every moment interfering, on the part of the
+confessor, to suggest _leading questions_ (as lawyers call them), and to
+throw the light of confession upon parts of the experience which native
+modesty would leave in darkness,--so managed, the practice of confession
+is undoubtedly the most demoralising practice known to any Christian
+society. Innocent young persons, whose thoughts would never have
+wandered out upon any impure images or suggestions, have their ingenuity
+and their curiosity sent roving upon unlawful quests: they are
+instructed to watch what else would pass undetained in the mind, and
+would pass unblameably, on the Miltonic principle: ('Evil into the mind
+of God or man may come unblamed,' &c.) Nay, which is worst of all,
+unconscious or semi-conscious thoughts and feelings or natural impulses,
+rising, like a breath of wind under some motion of nature, and again
+dying away, because not made the subject of artificial review and
+interpretation, are now brought powerfully under the focal light of the
+consciousness: and whatsoever is once made the subject of consciousness,
+can never again have the privilege of gay, careless thoughtlessness--the
+privilege by which the mind, like the lamps of a mail-coach, moving
+rapidly through the midnight woods, illuminate, for one instant, the
+foliage or sleeping umbrage of the thickets; and, in the next instant,
+have quitted them, to carry their radiance forward upon endless
+successions of objects. This happy privilege is forfeited for ever, when
+the pointed significancy of the confessor's questions, and the direct
+knowledge which he plants in the mind, have awakened a guilty
+familiarity with every form of impurity and unhallowed sensuality.
+
+[13] This appeared in _Tait's Magazine_ for February, 1841. Although
+practically an independent paper, it was included in the series entitled
+'Sketches of Life and Manners; from the Autobiography of an English
+Opium-Eater.' The reference to Allan Cunningham occurs in the previous
+chapter of these 'Sketches.'--H.
+
+Here, then, are objections sound and deep, to casuistry, as managed in
+the Romish church. Every possible objection ever made to auricular
+confession applies with equal strength to casuistry; and some
+objections, besides these, are peculiar to itself. And yet, after all,
+these are but objections to casuistry as treated by a particular church.
+Casuistry in itself--casuistry as a possible, as a most useful, and a
+most interesting speculation--remains unaffected by any one of these
+objections; for none applies to the essence of the case, but only to its
+accidents, or separable adjuncts. Neither is this any curious or subtle
+observation of little practical value. The fact is as far otherwise as
+can be imagined--the defect to which I am here pointing, is one of the
+most clamorous importance. Of what value, let me ask, is Paley's Moral
+Philosophy? What is its imagined use? Is it that in substance it reveals
+any new duties, or banishes as false any old ones? No; but because the
+known and admitted duties--duties recognised in _every_ system of
+ethics--are here placed (successfully or not) upon new foundations, or
+brought into relation with new principles not previously perceived to be
+in any relation whatever. This, in fact, is the very meaning of a
+theory[14] or contemplation, [[Greek: Theoria],] when A, B, C, old and
+undisputed facts have their relations to each other developed. It is
+not, therefore, for any practical benefit in action, so much as for the
+satisfaction of the understanding, when reflecting on a man's own
+actions, the wish to see what his conscience or his heart prompts
+reconciled to general laws of thinking--this is the particular service
+performed by Paley's Moral Philosophy. It does not so much profess to
+tell _what_ you are to do, as the _why_ and the _wherefore_; and, in
+particular, to show how one rule of action may be reconciled to some
+other rule of equal authority, but which, apparently, is in hostility to
+the first. Such, then, is the utmost and highest aim of the Paleyian or
+the Ciceronian ethics, as they exist. Meantime, the grievous defect to
+which I have adverted above--a defect equally found in all systems of
+morality, from the Nichomachean ethics of Aristotle downwards--is the
+want of a casuistry, by way of supplement to the main system, and
+governed by the spirit of the very same laws, which the writer has
+previously employed in the main body of his work. And the immense
+superiority of this supplementary section, to the main body of the
+systems, would appear in this, that the latter I have just been saying,
+aspires only to guide the reflecting judgment in harmonising the
+different parts of his own conduct, so as to bring them under the same
+law; whereas the casuistical section, in the supplement, would seriously
+undertake to guide the conduct, in many doubtful cases, of action--cases
+which are so regarded by all thinking persons. Take, for example, the
+case which so often arises between master and servant, and in so many
+varieties of form--a case which requires you to decide between some
+violation of your conscience, on the one hand, as to veracity, by saying
+something that is not strictly true, as well as by evading (and that is
+often done) all answer to inquiries which you are unable to meet
+satisfactorily--a violation of your conscience to this extent, and in
+this way; or, on the other hand, a still more painful violation of your
+conscience in consigning deliberately some young woman--faulty, no
+doubt, and erring, but yet likely to derive a lesson from her own
+errors, and the risk to which they have exposed her--consigning her, I
+say, to ruin, by refusing her a character, and thus shutting the door
+upon all the paths by which she might retrace her steps. This I state as
+one amongst the many cases of conscience daily occurring in the common
+business of the world. It would surprise any reader to find how many
+they are; in fact, a very large volume might be easily collected of such
+cases as are of ordinary occurrence. _Casuistry_, the very word
+_casuistry_ expresses the science which deals with such _cases_: for as
+a case, in the declension of a noun, means a falling away, or a
+deflection from the upright nominative (_rectus_), so a case in ethics
+implies some falling off, or deflection from the high road of catholic
+morality. Now, of all such cases, one, perhaps the most difficult to
+manage, the most intractable, whether for consistency of thinking as to
+the theory of morals, or for consistency of action as to the practice of
+morals, is the case of DUELLING.
+
+[14] No terms of art are used so arbitrarily, and with such perfect
+levity, as the terms _hypothesis_, _theory_, _system_. Most writers use
+one or other with the same indifference that they use in constructing
+the title of a novel, or, suppose, of a pamphlet, where the phrase
+_thoughts_, or _strictures_, or _considerations_, upon so and so, are
+used _ad libitum_. Meantime, the distinctions are essential. That is
+properly an _hypothesis_ where the question is about a cause: certain
+phenomena are known and given: the object is to place below these
+phenomena a basis [[Greek: a hypothosis]] capable of supporting them,
+and accounting for them. Thus, if you were to assign a cause sufficient
+to account for the _aurora borealis_, that would be an hypothesis. But a
+theory, on the other hand, takes a multitude of facts all disjointed,
+or, at most, suspected, of some inter-dependency: these it takes and
+places under strict laws of relation to each other. But here there is no
+question of a cause. Finally, a system is the synthesis of a theory and
+an hypothesis: it states the relations as amongst an undigested mass,
+_rudis indigestaque moles_, of known phenomena; and it assigns a basis
+for the whole, as in an hypothesis. These distinctions would become
+vivid and convincing by the help of proper illustrations.
+
+As an introduction, I will state my story--the case for the casuist; and
+then say one word on the reason of the case.
+
+First, let me report the case of a friend--a distinguished lawyer at the
+English bar. I had the circumstances from himself, which lie in a very
+small compass; and, as my friend is known, to a proverb almost, for his
+literal accuracy in all statements of fact, there need be no fear of any
+mistake as to the main points of the case. He was one day engaged in
+pleading before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy; a court then, newly
+appointed, and differently constituted, I believe, in some respects,
+from its present form. That particular commissioner, as it happened, who
+presided at the moment when the case occurred, had been recently
+appointed, and did not know the faces of those who chiefly practised in
+the court. All things, indeed, concurred to favour his mistake: for the
+case itself came on in a shape or in a stage which was liable to
+misinterpretation, from the partial view which it allowed of the facts,
+under the hurry of the procedure; and my friend, also, unluckily, had
+neglected to assume his barrister's costume, so that he passed, in the
+commissioner's appreciation, as an attorney. 'What if he _had_ been an
+attorney?' it may be said: 'was he, therefore, less entitled to courtesy
+or justice?' Certainly not; nor is it my business to apologise for the
+commissioner. But it may easily be imagined, and (making allowances for
+the confusion of hurry and imperfect knowledge of the case) it _does_
+offer something in palliation of the judge's rashness, that, amongst a
+large heap of 'Old Bailey' attorneys, who notoriously attended this
+court for the express purpose of whitewashing their clients, and who
+were in bad odour as tricksters, he could hardly have been expected to
+make a special exception in favour of one particular man, who had not
+protected himself by the insignia of his order. His main error, however,
+lay in misapprehending the case: misapprehension lent strength to the
+assumption that my friend was an 'Old Bailey' (_i. e._, a sharking)
+attorney; whilst, on the other hand, that assumption lent strength to
+his misapprehension of the case. Angry interruptions began: these, being
+retorted or resented with just indignation, produced an irritation and
+ill temper, which, of themselves, were quite sufficient to raise a cloud
+of perplexity over any law process, and to obscure it for any
+understanding. The commissioner grew warmer and warmer; and, at length,
+he had the presumption to say:--'Sir, you are a disgrace to your
+profession.' When such sugar-plums, as Captain M'Turk the peacemaker
+observes, were flying between them, there could be no room for further
+parley. That same night the commissioner was waited on by a friend of
+the barrister's, who cleared up his own misconceptions to the
+disconcerted judge; placed him, even to his own judgment, thoroughly in
+the wrong; and then most courteously troubled him for a reference to
+some gentleman, who would arrange the terms of a meeting for the next
+day. The commissioner was too just and grave a man to be satisfied with
+himself, on a cool review of his own conduct. Here was a quarrel ripened
+into a mortal feud, likely enough to terminate in wounds, or, possibly,
+in death to one of the parties, which, on his side, carried with it no
+palliations from any provocation received, or from wrong and insult, in
+any form, sustained: these, in an aggravated shape, could be pleaded by
+my friend, but with no opening for retaliatory pleas on the part of the
+magistrate. That name, again, of magistrate, increased his offence and
+pointed its moral: he, a conservator of the laws--he, a dispenser of
+equity, sitting even at the very moment on the judgment seat--_he_ to
+have commenced a brawl, nay to have fastened a quarrel upon a man even
+then of some consideration and of high promise; a quarrel which finally
+tended to this result--shoot or be shot. That commissioner's situation
+and state of mind, for the succeeding night, were certainly not
+enviable: like Southey's erring painter, who had yielded to the
+temptation of the subtle fiend,
+
+    With repentance his only companion he lay;
+    And a dismal companion is she.
+
+Meantime, my friend--what was _his_ condition; and how did _he_ pass the
+interval? I have heard him feelingly describe the misery, the blank
+anguish of this memorable night. Sometimes it happens that a man's
+conscience is wounded; but this very wound is the means, perhaps, by
+which his feelings are spared for the present: sometimes his feelings
+are lacerated; but this very laceration makes the ransom for his
+conscience. Here, on the contrary, his feelings and his happiness were
+dimmed by the very same cause which offered pain and outrage to his
+conscience. He was, upon principle, a hater of duelling. Under any
+circumstances, he would have condemned the man who could, for a light
+cause, or almost for the weightiest, have so much as _accepted_ a
+challenge. Yet, here he was positively _offering_ a challenge; and to
+whom? To a man whom he scarcely knew by sight; whom he had never spoken
+to until this unfortunate afternoon; and towards whom (now that the
+momentary excitement of anger had passed away) he felt no atom of
+passion or resentment whatsoever. As a free 'unhoused' young man,
+therefore, had he been such, without ties or obligations in life, he
+would have felt the profoundest compunction at the anticipation of any
+serious injury inflicted upon another man's hopes or happiness, or upon
+his own. But what was his real situation? He was a married man, married
+to the woman of his choice within a very few years: he was also a
+father, having one most promising son, somewhere about three years old.
+His young wife and his son composed his family; and both were dependent,
+in the most absolute sense, for all they possessed or they expected--for
+all they had or ever could have--upon his own exertions. Abandoned by
+him, losing him, they forfeited, in one hour, every chance of comfort,
+respectability, or security from scorn and humiliation. The mother, a
+woman of strong understanding and most excellent judgment--good and
+upright herself--liable, therefore, to no habit of suspicion, and
+constitutionally cheerful, went to bed with her young son, thinking no
+evil. Midnight came, one, two o'clock; mother and child had long been
+asleep; nor did either of them dream of that danger which even now was
+yawning under their feet. The barrister had spent the hours from ten to
+two in drawing up his will, and in writing such letters as might have
+the best chance, in case of fatal issue to himself, for obtaining some
+aid to the desolate condition of those two beings whom he would leave
+behind, unprotected and without provision. Oftentimes he stole into the
+bedroom, and gazed with anguish upon the innocent objects of his love;
+and, as his conscience now told him, of his bitterest perfidy. 'Will you
+then leave us? Are you really going to betray us? Will you deliberately
+consign us to life-long poverty, and scorn, and grief?' These affecting
+apostrophes he seemed, in the silence of the night, to hear almost with
+bodily ears. Silent reproaches seemed written upon their sleeping
+features; and once, when his wife suddenly awakened under the glare of
+the lamp which he carried, he felt the strongest impulse to fly from the
+room; but he faltered, and stood rooted to the spot. She looked at him
+smilingly, and asked why he was so long in coming to bed. He pleaded an
+excuse, which she easily admitted, of some law case to study against the
+morning, or some law paper to draw. She was satisfied; and fell asleep
+again. He, however, fearing, above all things, that he might miss the
+time for his appointment, resolutely abided by his plan of not going to
+bed; for the meeting was to take place at Chalk Farm, and by half-past
+five in the morning: that is, about one hour after sunrise. One hour and
+a half before this time, in the gray dawn, just when the silence of
+Nature and of mighty London was most absolute, he crept stealthily, and
+like a guilty thing, to the bedside of his sleeping wife and child;
+took, what he believed might be his final look of them: kissed them
+softly; and, according to his own quotation from Coleridge's _Remorse_,
+
+In agony that could not be remembered;
+
+and a conflict with himself that defied all rehearsal, he quitted his
+peaceful cottage at Chelsea in order to seek for the friend who had
+undertaken to act as his second. He had good reason, from what he had
+heard on the night before, to believe his antagonist an excellent shot;
+and, having no sort of expectation that any interruption could offer to
+the regular progress of the duel, he, as the challenger, would have to
+stand the first fire; at any rate, conceiving this to be the fair
+privilege of the party challenged, he did not mean to avail himself of
+any proposal for drawing lots upon the occasion, even if such a proposal
+should happen to be made. Thus far the affair had travelled through the
+regular stages of expectation and suspense; but the interest of the case
+as a story was marred and brought to an abrupt conclusion by the conduct
+of the commissioner. He was a man of known courage, but he also, was a
+man of conscientious scruples; and, amongst other instances of courage,
+had the courage to own himself in the wrong. He felt that his conduct
+hitherto had not been wise or temperate, and that he would be sadly
+aggravating his original error by persisting in aiming at a man's life,
+upon which life hung also the happiness of others, merely because he had
+offered to that man a most unwarranted insult. Feeling this, he thought
+fit, at first coming upon the ground, to declare that, having learned,
+since the scene in court, the real character of his antagonist, and the
+extent of his own mistake, he was resolved to brave all appearances and
+ill-natured judgments, by making an ample apology; which, accordingly,
+he did; and so the affair terminated. I have thought it right, however,
+to report the circumstances, both because they were really true in every
+particular, but, much more, because they place in strong relief one
+feature, which is often found in these cases, and which is allowed far
+too little weight in distributing the blame between the parties: to this
+I wish to solicit the reader's attention. During the hours of this
+never-to-be-forgotten night of wretchedness and anxiety, my friend's
+reflection was naturally forced upon the causes which had produced it.
+In the world's judgment, he was aware that he himself, as the one
+charged with the most weighty responsibility, (those who depended upon
+him being the most entirely helpless,) would have to sustain by much the
+heaviest censure: and yet what was the real proportion of blame between
+the parties? He, when provoked and publicly insulted, had retorted
+angrily: that was almost irresistible under the constitution of human
+feelings; the meekest of men could scarcely do less. But surely the true
+_onus_ of wrong and moral responsibility for all which might follow,
+rested upon that party who, giving way to mixed impulses of rash
+judgment and of morose temper, had allowed himself to make a most
+unprovoked assault upon the character of one whom he did not know; well
+aware that such words, uttered publicly by a person in authority, must,
+by some course or other, be washed out and cancelled; or, if not, that
+the party submitting to such defamatory insults, would at once exile
+himself from the society and countenance of his professional brethren.
+Now, then, in all justice, it should be so ordered that the weight of
+public indignation might descend upon him, whoever he might be, (and, of
+course, the more heavily, according to the authority of his station and
+his power of inflicting wrong,) who should thus wantonly abuse his means
+of influence, to the dishonour or injury of an unoffending party. We
+clothe a public officer with power, we arm him with influential
+authority over public opinion; not that he may apply these authentic
+sanctions to the backing of his own malice, and giving weight to his
+private caprices: and, wherever such abuse takes place, then it should
+be so contrived that some reaction in behalf of the injured person
+might receive a sanction equally public. And, upon this point, I shall
+say a word or two more, after first stating my own case; a case where
+the outrage was far more insufferable, more deliberate, and more
+malicious; but, on the other hand, in this respect less effectual for
+injury, that it carried with it no sanction from any official station or
+repute in the unknown parties who offered the wrong. The circumstances
+were these:--In 1824, I had come up to London upon an errand in itself
+sufficiently vexatious--of fighting against pecuniary embarrassments, by
+literary labours; but, as had always happened hitherto, with very
+imperfect success, from the miserable thwartings I incurred through the
+deranged state of the liver. My zeal was great, and my application was
+unintermitting; but spirits radically vitiated, chiefly through the
+direct mechanical depression caused by one important organ deranged;
+and, secondly, by a reflex effect of depression through my own thoughts,
+in estimating my prospects; together with the aggravation of my case, by
+the inevitable exile from my own mountain home,--all this reduced the
+value of my exertions in a deplorable way. It was rare indeed that I
+could satisfy my own judgment, even tolerably, with the quality of any
+literary article I produced; and my power to make sustained exertions,
+drooped, in a way I could not control, every other hour of the day:
+insomuch, that what with parts to be cancelled, and what with whole days
+of torpor and pure defect of power to produce anything at all, very
+often it turned out that all my labours were barely sufficient (some
+times not sufficient) to meet the current expenses of my residence in
+London. Three months' literary toil terminated, at times, in a result =
+0; the whole _plus_ being just equal to the _minus_, created by two
+separate establishments, and one of them in the most expensive city of
+the world. Gloomy, indeed, was my state of mind at that period: for,
+though I made prodigious efforts to recover my health, (sensible that
+all other efforts depended for their result upon this elementary effort,
+which was the _conditio sine qua non_ for the rest), yet all availed me
+not; and a curse seemed to settle upon whatever I then undertook. Such
+was my frame of mind on reaching London: in fact it never varied. One
+canopy of murky clouds (a copy of that dun atmosphere which settles so
+often upon London) brooded for ever upon my spirits, which were in one
+uniformly low key of cheerless despondency; and, on this particular
+morning, my depression had been deeper than usual, from the effects of a
+long, continuous journey of 300 miles, and of exhaustion from want of
+sleep. I had reached London, about six o'clock in the morning, by one of
+the northern mails; and, resigning myself as usual in such cases, to the
+chance destination of the coach, after delivering our bags in Lombard
+Street, I was driven down to a great city hotel. Here there were hot
+baths; and, somewhat restored by this luxurious refreshment, about eight
+o'clock I was seated at a breakfast table; upon which, in a few minutes,
+as an appendage not less essential than the tea-service, one of the
+waiters laid that morning's _Times_, just reeking from the press. The
+_Times_, by the way, is notoriously the leading journal of Europe
+anywhere; but, in London, and more peculiarly in the city quarter of
+London, it enjoys a pre-eminence scarcely understood elsewhere. Here it
+is not _a_ morning paper, but _the_ morning paper: no other is known, no
+other is cited as authority in matters of fact. Strolling with my eye
+indolently over the vast Babylonian confusion of the enormous columns,
+naturally as one of the _corps litteraire_, I found my attention drawn
+to those regions of the paper which announced forthcoming publications.
+Amongst them was a notice of a satirical journal, very low priced, and
+already advanced to its third or fourth number. My heart palpitated a
+little on seeing myself announced as the principal theme for the malice
+of the current number. The reader must not suppose that I was left in
+any doubt as to the quality of the notice with which I had been
+honoured; and that, by possibility, I was solacing my vanity with some
+anticipation of honeyed compliments. That, I can assure him, was made
+altogether impossible, by the kind of language which flourished in the
+very foreground of the _programme_, and even of the running title. The
+exposure and _depluming_ (to borrow a good word from the fine old
+rhetorician, Fuller,) of the leading 'humbugs' of the age--_that_ was
+announced as the regular business of the journal: and the only question
+which remained to be settled was, the more or less of the degree; and
+also one other question, even more interesting still, viz.--whether
+personal abuse were intermingled with literary. Happiness, as I have
+experienced in other periods of my life, deep domestic happiness, makes
+a man comparatively careless of ridicule, of sarcasm, or of abuse. But
+calamity--the degradation, in the world's eye, of every man who is
+fighting with pecuniary difficulties--exasperates beyond all that can be
+imagined, a man's sensibility to insult. He is even apprehensive of
+insult--tremulously fantastically apprehensive, where none is intended;
+and like Wordsworth's shepherd, with his very understanding consciously
+abused and depraved by his misfortunes is ready to say, at all hours--
+
+    And every man I met or faced,
+    Methought he knew some ill of me.
+
+Some notice, perhaps, the newspaper had taken of this new satirical
+journal, or some extracts might have been made from it; at all events, I
+had ascertained its character so well that, in this respect, I had
+nothing to learn. It now remained to get the number which professed to
+be seasoned with my particular case; and it may be supposed that I did
+not loiter over my breakfast after this discovery. Something which I saw
+or suspected amongst the significant hints of a paragraph or
+advertisement, made me fear that there might possibly be insinuations or
+downright assertion in the libel requiring instant public notice; and,
+therefore, on a motive of prudence, had I even otherwise felt that
+indifference for slander which now I _do_ feel, but which, in those
+years, morbid irritability of temperament forbade me to affect, I should
+still have thought it right to look after the work; which now I did:
+and, by nine o'clock in the morning--an hour at which few people had
+seen me for years--I was on my road to Smithfield. Smithfield? Yes; even
+so. All known and respectable publishers having declined any connexion
+with the work, the writers had facetiously resorted to this _aceldama_,
+or slaughtering quarter of London--to these vast shambles, as typical, I
+suppose, of their own slaughtering spirit. On my road to Smithfield, I
+could not but pause for one moment to reflect on the pure defecated
+malice which must have prompted an attack upon myself. Retaliation or
+retort it could not pretend to be. To most literary men, scattering
+their written reviews, or their opinions, by word of mouth, to the right
+and the left with all possible carelessness, it never can be matter of
+surprise, or altogether of complaint, (unless as a question of degrees,)
+that angry notices, or malicious notices, should be taken of themselves.
+Few, indeed, of literary men can pretend to any absolute innocence from
+offence, and from such even as may have seemed deliberate. But I, for my
+part, could. Knowing the rapidity with which all remarks _of_ literary
+men _upon_ literary men are apt to circulate, I had studiously and
+resolutely forborne to say anything, whether of a writer or a book,
+unless where it happened that I could say something that would be felt
+as complimentary. And as to written reviews, so much did I dislike the
+assumption of judicial functions and authority over the works of my own
+brother authors and contemporaries, that I have, in my whole life,
+written only two; at that time only one; and that one, though a review
+of an English novel, was substantially a review of a German book, taking
+little notice, or none, of the English translator; for, although he, a
+good German scholar now, was a very imperfect one at that time, and was,
+therefore, every way open to criticism, I had evaded this invidious
+office applied to a novice in literature, and (after pointing out one or
+two slight blemishes of trivial importance) all that I said of a general
+nature was a compliment to him upon the felicity of his verses. Upon the
+German author I was, indeed, severe, but hardly as much as he deserved.
+The other review was a tissue of merriment and fun; and though, it is
+true, I _did_ hear that the fair authoress was offended at one jest, I
+may safely leave it for any reader to judge between us. She, or her
+brother, amongst other Latin epigrams had one addressed to a young lady
+_upon the loss of her keys_. This, the substance of the lines showed to
+have been the intention; but (by a very venial error in one who was
+writing Latin from early remembrance of it, and not in the character of
+a professing scholar) the title was written _De clavis_ instead of _De
+clavibus amissis_; upon which I observed that the writer had selected a
+singular topic for condolence with a young lady,--viz., '_on the loss of
+her cudgels_;' (_clavis_, as an ablative, coming clearly from _clava_).
+This (but I can hardly believe it) was said to have offended Miss H.;
+and, at all events, this was the extent of my personalities. Many kind
+things I had said; much honour; much admiration, I had professed at that
+period of my life in occasional papers or private letters, towards many
+of my contemporaries, but never anything censorious or harsh; and simply
+on a principle of courteous forbearance which I have felt to be due
+towards those who are brothers of the same liberal profession with one's
+self. I could not feel, when reviewing my whole life, that in any one
+instance, by act, by word, or by intention, I had offered any
+unkindness, far less any wrong or insult, towards a brother author. I
+was at a loss, therefore, to decipher the impulse under which the
+malignant libeller could have written, in making (as I suspected
+already) my private history the subject of his calumnies. Jealousy, I
+have since understood, jealousy, was the foundation of the whole. A
+little book of mine had made its way into drawing-rooms where some book
+of his had not been heard of. On reaching Smithfield, I found the
+publisher to be a medical bookseller, and, to my surprise, having every
+appearance of being a grave, respectable man; notwithstanding this
+undeniable fact, that the libellous journal, to which he thought proper
+to affix his sanction, trespassed on decency, not only by its slander,
+but, in some instances, by downright obscenity; and, worse than that,
+by prurient solicitations to the libidinous imagination, through blanks,
+seasonably interspersed. I said nothing to him in the way of inquiry;
+for I easily guessed that the knot of writers who were here clubbing
+their _virus_, had not so ill combined their plans as to leave them open
+to detection by a question from any chance stranger. Having, therefore,
+purchased a set of the journal, then amounting to three or four numbers,
+I went out; and in the elegant promenades of Smithfield, I read the
+lucubrations of my libeller. Fit academy for such amenities of
+literature! Fourteen years have gone by since then; and, possibly, the
+unknown hound who yelled, on that occasion, among this kennel of curs,
+may, long since, have buried himself and his malice in the grave.
+Suffice it here to say, that, calm as I am now, and careless on
+recalling the remembrance of this brutal libel, at that time I was
+convulsed with wrath. As respected myself, there was a depth of
+malignity in the article which struck me as perfectly mysterious. How
+could any man have made an enemy so profound, and not even have
+suspected it? _That_ puzzled me. For, with respect to the other objects
+of attack, such as Sir Humphrey Davy, &c., it was clear that the malice
+was assumed; that, at most, it was the gay impertinence of some man upon
+town, armed with triple Irish brass from original defect of feeling, and
+willing to raise an income by running amuck at any person just then
+occupying enough of public interest to make the abuse saleable. But, in
+my case, the man flew like a bull-dog at the throat, with a pertinacity
+and _acharnement_ of malice that would have caused me to laugh
+immoderately, had it not been for one intolerable wound to my feelings.
+These mercenary libellers, whose stiletto is in the market, and at any
+man's service for a fixed price, callous and insensible as they are,
+yet retain enough of the principles common to human nature, under every
+modification, to know where to plant their wounds. Like savage hackney
+coachmen, they know where there is a _raw_. And the instincts of human
+nature teach them that every man is vulnerable through his female
+connexions. There lies his honour; there his strength; there his
+weakness. In their keeping is the heaven of his happiness; in them and
+through them the earthy of its fragility. Many there are who do not feel
+the _maternal_ relation to be one in which any excessive freight of
+honour or sensibility is embarked. Neither is the name of _sister_,
+though tender in early years, and impressive to the fireside
+sensibilities, universally and through life the same magical sound. A
+sister is a creature whose very property and tendency (_qua_ sister) is
+to alienate herself, not to gather round your centre. But the names of
+_wife_ and _daughter_ these are the supreme and starry charities of
+life: and he who, under a mask, fighting in darkness, attacks you there,
+that coward has you at disadvantage. I stood in those hideous shambles
+of Smithfield: upwards I looked to the clouds, downwards to the earth,
+for vengeance. I trembled with excessive wrath--such was my infirmity of
+feeling at that time, and in that condition of health; and had I
+possessed forty thousand lives, all, and every one individually, I would
+have sacrificed in vindication of her that was thus cruelly libelled.
+Shall I give currency to his malice, shall I aid and promote it by
+repeating it? No. And yet why not? Why should I scruple, as if afraid to
+challenge his falsehoods?--why should I scruple to cite them? He, this
+libeller, asserted--But faugh!
+
+This slander seemed to have been built upon some special knowledge of
+me; for I had often spoken with horror of those who could marry persons
+in a condition which obliged them to obedience--a case which had
+happened repeatedly within my own knowledge; and I had spoken on this
+ground, that the authority of a master might be _supposed_ to have been
+interposed, whether it really were so or not in favour of his designs;
+and thus a presumption, however false it might be, always remained that
+his wooing had been, perhaps, not the wooing of perfect freedom, so
+essential to the dignity of woman, and, therefore, essential to his own
+dignity; but that perhaps, it had been favoured by circumstances, and by
+opportunities created, if it had not even been favoured, by express
+exertions of authority. The libeller, therefore, _did_ seem to have some
+knowledge of my peculiar opinions: yet, in other points, either from
+sincere ignorance or from affectation, and by way of turning aside
+suspicion, he certainly manifested a non-acquaintance with facts
+relating to me that must have been familiar enough to all within my
+circle.
+
+Let me pursue the case to its last stage. The reader will say, perhaps,
+why complain of a paltry journal that assuredly never made any noise;
+for I, the reader, never heard of it till now. No, that is very
+possible; for the truth is, and odd enough it seems, this malicious
+journal prospered so little, that, positively, at the seventh No. it
+stopped. Laugh I did, and laugh I could not help but do, at this picture
+of baffled malice: writers willing and ready to fire with poisoned
+bullets, and yet perfectly unable to get an effective aim, from sheer
+want of co-operation on the part of the public.
+
+However, the case as it respected me, went farther than it did with
+respect to the public. Would it be believed that human malice, with
+respect to a man not even known by sight to his assailants, as was clear
+from one part of their personalities, finally--that is to say, months
+afterwards--adopted the following course:--The journal had sunk under
+public scorn and neglect; neglect at first, but, perhaps, scorn at the
+last; for, when the writers found that mere malice availed not to draw
+public attention, they adopted the plan of baiting their hooks with
+obscenity; and they published a paper, professing to be written by Lord
+Byron, called, '_My Wedding Night_;' and very possible, from internal
+evidence, to have been really written by him; and yet the combined
+forces of Byron and obscenity failed to save them,--which is rather
+remarkable. Having sunk, one might suppose the journal was at an end,
+for good and evil; and, especially, that all, who had been molested by
+it, or held up to ridicule, might now calculate on rest. By no means:
+First of all they made inquiries about the localities of my residence,
+and the town nearest to my own family. Nothing was effected unless they
+carried the insult, addressed to my family, into the knowledge of that
+family and its circle. My cottage in Grasmere was just 280 miles from
+London, and eighteen miles from any town whatsoever. The nearest was
+Kendal; a place of perhaps 16,000 inhabitants; and the nearest
+therefore, at which there were any newspapers printed. There were two:
+one denominated _The Gazette_; the other _The Chronicle_. The first was
+Tory and Conservative; had been so from its foundation; and was,
+besides, generous in its treatment of private character. My own
+contributions to it I will mention hereafter. _The Chronicle_, on the
+other hand, was a violent reforming journal, and conducted in a
+partisan spirit. To this newspaper the article was addressed; by this
+newspaper it was published; and by this it was carried into my own
+'_next-door_' neighbourhood. Next-door neighbourhood? But that surely
+must be the very best direction these libellers could give to their
+malice; for there, at least, the falsehood of their malice must be
+notorious. Why, yes: and in that which _was_ my neighbourhood, according
+to the most literal interpretation of the term, a greater favour could
+not have been done me, nor a more laughable humiliation for my
+unprovoked enemies. Commentary or refutation there needed none; the
+utter falsehood of the main allegations were so obvious to every man,
+woman, and child, that, of necessity, it discredited even those parts
+which might, for any thing known to my neighbours, have been true. Nay,
+it was the means of procuring for me a generous expression of sympathy,
+that would else have been wanting; for some gentlemen of the
+neighbourhood, who were but slightly known to me, put the malignant
+journal into the fire at a public reading-room. So far was well; but, on
+the other hand, in Kendal, a town nearly twenty miles distant, of
+necessity I was but imperfectly known; and though there was a pretty
+general expression of disgust at the character of the publication, and
+the wanton malignity which it bore upon its front, since, true or not
+true, no shadow of a reason was pleaded for thus bringing forward
+statements expressly to injure me, or to make me unhappy; yet there must
+have been many, in so large a place, who had too little interest in the
+question, or too limited means of inquiry, for ever ascertaining the
+truth. Consequently, in _their_ minds, to this hour, my name, as one
+previously known to them, and repeatedly before the town in connexion
+with political or literary articles in their Conservative journal, must
+have suffered.
+
+But the main purpose, for which I have reported the circumstances of
+these two cases, relates to the casuistry of duelling. Casuistry, as I
+have already said, is the moral philosophy of _cases_--that is, of
+anomalous combinations of circumstances--that, for any reason
+whatsoever, do not fall, or do not seem to fall, under the general rules
+of morality. As a general rule, it must, doubtless, be unlawful to
+attempt another man's life, or to hazard your own. Very special
+circumstances must concur to make out any case of exception; and even
+then it is evident, that one of the parties must always be deeply in the
+wrong. But it _does_ strike me, that the present casuistry of society
+upon the question of duelling, is profoundly wrong, and wrong by
+manifest injustice. Very little distinction is ever made, in practice,
+by those who apply their judgments to such cases, between the man who,
+upon principle, practises the most cautious self-restraint and
+moderation in his daily demeanour, never under any circumstance offering
+an insult, or any just occasion of quarrel, and resorting to duel only
+under the most insufferable provocation, between this man, on the one
+side, and the most wanton ruffian, on the other, who makes a common
+practice of playing upon other men's feelings, whether in reliance upon
+superior bodily strength, or upon the pacific disposition of
+conscientious men, and fathers of families. Yet, surely, the difference
+between them goes the whole extent of the interval between wrong and
+right. Even the question, 'Who gave the challenge?' which _is_ sometimes
+put, often merges virtually in the transcendant question, 'Who gave the
+provocation?' For it is important to observe, in both the cases which I
+have reported, that the _onus_ of offering the challenge was thrown upon
+the unoffending party; and thus, in a legal sense, that party is made to
+give the provocation who, in a moral sense, received it. But surely, if
+even the law makes allowances for human infirmity, when provoked beyond
+what it can endure,--we, in our brotherly judgments upon each other,
+ought, _a fortiori_, to take into the equity of our considerations the
+amount and quality of the offence. It will be objected that the law, so
+far from allowing for, expressly refuses to allow for, sudden sallies of
+anger or explosions of vindictive fury, unless in so far as they are
+extempore, and before the reflecting judgment has had time to recover
+itself. Any indication that the party had leisure for calm review, or
+for a cool selection of means and contrivances in executing his
+vindictive purposes, will be fatal to a claim of that nature. This is
+true; but the nature of a printed libel is, continually to renew itself
+as an insult. The subject of it reads this libel, perhaps, in solitude;
+and, by a great exertion of self-command, resolves to bear it with
+fortitude and in silence. Some days after, in a public room, he sees
+strangers reading it also: he hears them scoffing and laughing loudly:
+in the midst of all this, he sees himself pointed out to their notice by
+some one of the party who happens to be acquainted with his person; and,
+possibly, if the libel take that particular shape which excessive malice
+is most likely to select, he will hear the name of some female relative,
+dearer, it may be to him, and more sacred in his ears, than all this
+world beside, bandied about with scorn and mockery by those who have not
+the poor excuse of the original libellers, but are, in fact, adopting
+the second-hand malignity of others. Such cases, with respect to libels
+that are quickened into popularity by interesting circumstances, or by a
+personal interest attached to any of the parties, or by wit, or by
+extraordinary malice, or by scenical circumstances, or by circumstances
+unusually ludicrous, are but too likely to occur; and, with every fresh
+repetition, the keenness of the original provocation is renewed, and in
+an accelerated ratio. Again, with reference to my own case, or to any
+case resembling that, let it be granted that I was immoderately and
+unreasonably transported by anger at the moment;--I thought so myself,
+after a time, when the journal which published the libel sank under the
+public neglect; but this was an after consideration; and, at the moment,
+how heavy an aggravation was given to the stings of the malice, by the
+deep dejection, from embarrassed circumstances and from disordered
+health, which then possessed me; aggravations, perhaps, known to the
+libellers as encouragements for proceeding at the time, and often enough
+likely to exist in other men's cases. Now, in the case as it actually
+occurred, it so happened that the malicious writers had, by the libel,
+dishonoured themselves too deeply in the public opinion, to venture upon
+coming forward, in their own persons, to avow their own work; but
+suppose them to have done so (as, in fact, even in this case, they might
+have done, had they not published their intention of driving a regular
+trade in libel and in slander); suppose them insolently to beard you in
+public haunts; to cross your path continually when in company with the
+very female relative upon whom they had done their best to point the
+finger of public scorn; and suppose them further, by the whole artillery
+of contemptuous looks, words, gestures, and unrepressed laughter, to
+republish, as it were, ratify, and publicly to apply, personally, their
+own original libel, as often as chance or as opportunity (eagerly
+improved) should throw you together in places of general resort; and
+suppose, finally, that the central figure--nay, in their account, the
+very butt throughout this entire drama of malice--should chance to be an
+innocent, gentle-hearted, dejected, suffering woman, utterly unknown to
+her persecutors, and selected as their martyr merely for her
+relationship to yourself--suppose her, in short, to be your wife--a
+lovely young woman sustained by womanly dignity, or else ready to sink
+into the earth with shame, under the cruel and unmanly insults heaped
+upon her, and having no protector upon earth but yourself: lay all this
+together, and then say whether, in such a case, the most philosophic or
+the most Christian patience might not excusably give way; whether flesh
+and blood could do otherwise than give way, and seek redress for the
+past, but, at all events, security for the future, in what, perhaps,
+might be the sole course open to you--an appeal to arms. Let it not be
+said that the case here proposed, by way of hypothesis, is an extreme
+one: for the very argument has contemplated extreme cases: since, whilst
+conceding that duelling is an unlawful and useless remedy for cases of
+ordinary wrong, where there is no malice to resist a more conciliatory
+mode of settlement, and where it is difficult to imagine any deliberate
+insult except such as is palliated by intoxication--conceding this, I
+have yet supposed it possible that cases may arise, with circumstances
+of contumely and outrage, growing out of deep inexorable malice, which
+cannot be redressed, _as things now are_, without an appeal to the _voye
+de fait_. 'But this is so barbarous an expedient in days of high
+civilisation.' Why, yes, it labours with the semi-barbarism of
+chivalry: yet, on the other hand, this mention of chivalry reminds me
+to say, that if this practice of duelling share the blame of chivalry,
+one memorable praise there is, which also it may claim as common to them
+both. It is a praise which I have often insisted on; and the very
+sublime of prejudice I would challenge to deny it. Burke, in his
+well-known apology for chivalry, thus expresses his sense of the
+immeasurable benefits which it conferred upon society, as a
+supplementary code of law, reaching those cases which the weakness of
+municipal law was then unavailing to meet, and at a price so trivial in
+bloodshed or violence--he calls it 'the cheap defence of nations.' Yes,
+undoubtedly; and surely the same praise belongs incontestably to the law
+of duelling. For one duel _in esse_, there are ten thousand, every day
+of our lives, amid populous cities, _in posse_: one challenge is given,
+a myriad are feared: one life (and usually the most worthless, by any
+actual good rendered to society) is sacrificed, suppose triennially,
+from a nation; _every_ life is endangered by certain modes of behaviour.
+Hence, then, and at a cost inconceivably trifling, the peace of society
+is maintained in cases which no law, no severity of police, ever could
+effectually reach. Brutal strength would reign paramount in the walks of
+public life; brutal intoxication would follow out its lawless impulses,
+were it not for the fear which now is always in the rear--the fear of
+being summoned to a strict summary account, liable to the most perilous
+consequences. This is not open to denial: the actual basis upon which
+reposes the security of us all, the peace of our wives and our
+daughters, and our own immunity from the vilest degradations under their
+eyes, is the necessity, known to every gentleman, of answering for his
+outrages in a way which strips him of all unfair advantages, except one
+(which is not often possessed), which places the weak upon a level with
+the strong, and the quiet citizen upon a level with the military
+adventurer, or the ruffian of the gambling-house. The fact, I say,
+cannot be denied; neither can the low price be denied at which this vast
+result is obtained. And it is evident that, on the principle of
+expediency, adopted as the basis of morality by Paley, the justification
+of duelling is complete: for the greatest sum of immediate happiness is
+produced at the least possible sacrifice.[15] But there are many men of
+high moral principle, and yet not professing to rest upon Christianity,
+who reject this prudential basis of ethics as the death of all morality.
+And these men hold, that the social recognition of any one out of the
+three following dangerous and immoral principles, viz.--_1st_, That a
+man may lawfully sport with his own life; _2dly_, That he may lawfully
+sport with the life of another; _3dly_, That he may lawfully seek his
+redress for a social wrong, by any other channel than the law tribunals
+of the land: that the recognition of these, or any of them, by the
+jurisprudence of a nation, is a mortal wound to the very key-stone upon
+which the whole vast arch of morality reposes. Well, in candour, I must
+admit that, by justifying, in courts of judicature, through the verdicts
+of juries, that mode of personal redress and self-vindication, to heal
+and prevent which was one of the original motives for gathering into
+social communities, and setting up an empire of public law as paramount
+to all private exercise of power, a fatal wound is given to the sanctity
+of moral right, of the public conscience, and of law in its elementary
+field. So much I admit; but I say also, that the case arises out of a
+great dilemma, with difficulties on both sides; and that, in all
+_practical_ applications of philosophy, amongst materials so imperfect
+as men, just as in all attempts to realize the rigour of mathematical
+laws amongst earthly mechanics, inevitably there will arise such
+dilemmas and cases of opprobrium to the reflecting intellect. However,
+in conclusion, I shall say four things, which I request my opponent,
+whoever he may be, to consider; for they are things which certainly
+ought to have weight; and some important errors have arisen by
+neglecting them.
+
+[15] Neither would it be open to Paley to plead that the final or
+remotest consequences must be taken into the calculation; and that one
+of these would be the weakening of all moral sanctions, and thus,
+indirectly, an injury to morality, which might more than compensate the
+immediate benefit to social peace and security; for this mode of arguing
+the case would bring us back to the very principle which his own
+implicitly, or by involution, rejects: since it would tell us to obey
+the principle itself without reference to the apparent consequences. By
+the bye, Paley has an express section of his work against the law of
+honour as a valid rule of action; but, as Cicero says of Epicurus, it
+matters little what he says; the question for us is _quam sibi
+convenienter_, how far consistently with himself. Now, as Sir James
+Mackintosh justly remarks, all that Paley says in refutation of the
+principle of worldly honour is hollow and unmeaning. In fact, it is
+merely one of the commonplaces adopted by satire, and no philosophy at
+all. Honour, for instance, allows you, upon paying gambling debts, to
+neglect or evade all others: honour, again, allows you to seduce a
+married woman: and he would secretly insinuate that honour _enjoins_ all
+this; but it is evident that honour simply forbears to forbid all this:
+in other words, it is a very limited rule of action, not applying to one
+case of conduct in fifty. It might as well be said, that Ecclesiastical
+Courts sanction murder, because that crime lies out of their
+jurisdiction.
+
+_First_, then, let him remember that it is the principle at stake--viz.,
+the recognition by a legal tribunal, as lawful or innocent of any
+attempt to violate the laws, or to take the law into our own hands: this
+it is and the mortal taint which is thus introduced into the public
+morality of a Christian land, thus authentically introduced; thus sealed
+and countersigned by judicial authority; the majesty of law actually
+interfering to justify, with the solemnities of trial, a flagrant
+violation of law; this it is, this only, and not the amount of injury
+sustained by society, which gives value to the question. For, as to the
+injury, I have already remarked, that a very trivial annual loss--one
+life, perhaps, upon ten millions, and that life often as little
+practically valuable as any amongst us--that pays our fine or ransom in
+that account. And, in reality, there is one popular error made upon this
+subject, when the question is raised about the institution of some
+_Court of Honour_, or _Court of Appeal in cases of injury to the
+feelings_, under the sanction of parliament, which satisfactorily
+demonstrates the trivial amount of injury sustained: it is said on such
+occasions that _de minimis non curat lex_--that the mischief, in fact,
+is too narrow and limited for the regard of the legislature. And we may
+be assured that, if the evil were ever to become an extensive one, the
+notice of Parliament soon _would_ be attracted to the subject; and hence
+we may derive a hint for an amended view of the policy adopted in past
+ages. Princes not distinguished for their religious scruples, made it,
+in different ages and places, a capital offence to engage in a duel:
+whence it is inferred, falsely, that, in former times, a more public
+homage was paid to Christian principle. But the fact is, that not the
+anti-Christian character of the offence so much as its greater
+frequency, and the consequent extension of a civil mischief was the
+ruling consideration with the lawgiver. Among other causes for this
+greater prevalence of duels, was the composition of armies, more often
+brought together upon mercenary principles from a large variety of
+different nations, whose peculiar usages, points of traditional honour,
+and even the oddness of their several languages to the ear, formed a
+perpetual occasion of insult and quarrel. Fluellen's affair with Pistol,
+we may be sure, was no rare but a representative case.
+
+_Secondly_, In confirmation of what I have said about duelling, as the
+great conductor for carrying off the excess of angry irritation in
+society, I will repeat what was said to me by a man of great ability and
+distinguished powers, as well as opportunities for observation, in
+reference to a provincial English town, and the cabals which prevailed
+there. These cabals--some political, arising out of past electioneering
+contests; some municipal, arising out of the corporation disputes; some
+personal, arising out of family rivalships, or old traditionary
+disputes--had led to various feuds that vexed the peace of the town in a
+degree very considerably beyond the common experience of towns reaching
+the same magnitude. How was this accounted for? The word _tradesman_ is,
+more than even the term _middle class_, liable to great ambiguity of
+meaning; for it includes a range so large as to take in some who tread
+on the heels even of the highest aristocracy, and some at the other end,
+who rank not at all higher than day-labourers or handicraftsmen. Now,
+those who ranked with gentlemen, took the ordinary course of gentlemen
+in righting themselves under personal insults; and the result was, that,
+amongst _them_ or _their_ families, no feuds were subsisting of ancient
+standing. No ill blood was nursed; no calumnies or conspicuous want of
+charity prevailed. Not that they often fought duels: on the contrary, a
+duel was a very rare event amongst the indigenous gentry of the place;
+but it was sufficient to secure all the effects of duelling, that it was
+known, with respect to this class, that, in the last resort, they were
+ready to fight. Now, on the other hand, the lowest order of tradesmen
+had _their_ method of terminating quarrels--the old English method of
+their fathers--viz., by pugilistic contests. And _they_ also cherished
+no malice against each other or amongst their families. 'But,' said my
+informant, 'some of those who occupied the intermediate stations in this
+hierarchy of trade, found themselves most awkwardly situated. So far
+they shared in the refinements of modern society, that they disdained
+the coarse mode of settling quarrels by their fists. On the other hand,
+there was a special and peculiar reason pressing upon this class, which
+restrained them from aspiring to the more aristocratic modes of
+fighting. They were sensible of a ridicule, which everywhere attaches to
+many of the less elevated or liberal modes of exercising trade in going
+out to fight with sword and pistol. This ridicule was sharpened and made
+more effectual, in _their_ case, from the circumstance of the Royal
+Family and the court making this particular town a frequent place of
+residence. Besides that apart from the ridicule, many of them depended
+for a livelihood upon the patronage of royalty or of the nobility,
+attached to their suite; and most of these patrons would have resented
+their intrusion upon the privileged ground of the aristocracy in
+conducting disputes of honour. What was the consequence? These persons,
+having no natural outlet for their wounded sensibilities, being
+absolutely debarred from _any_ mode of settling their disputes,
+cherished inextinguishable feuds: their quarrels in fact had no natural
+terminations; and the result was, a spirit of malice and most
+unchristian want of charity, which could not hope for any final repose,
+except in death.' Such was the report of my observing friend: the
+particular town may be easily guessed at; and I have little doubt that
+its condition continues as of old.
+
+_Thirdly_, It is a very common allegation against duelling, that the
+ancient Romans and Grecians never practised this mode of settling
+disputes; and the inference is, of course, unfavourable, not to
+Christianity, but to us as inconsistent disciples of our own religion;
+and a second inference is, that the principle of personal honour, well
+understood, cannot require this satisfaction for its wounds. For the
+present I shall say nothing on the former head, but not for want of
+something to say. With respect to the latter, it is a profound mistake,
+founded on inacquaintance with the manners and the spirit of manners
+prevalent amongst these imperfectly civilised nations. Honour was a
+sense not developed in many of its modifications amongst either Greeks
+or Romans. Cudgelling was at one time used as the remedy in cases of
+outrageous libel and pasquinade. But it is a point very little to the
+praise of either people, that no vindictive notice was taken of any
+possible personalities, simply because the most hideous license had been
+established for centuries in tongue license and unmanly Billingsgate.
+This had been promoted by the example hourly ringing in their ears of
+vernile scurrility. _Verna_--that is, the slave born in the family--had
+each from the other one universal and proverbial character of
+foul-mouthed eloquence, which heard from infancy, could not but furnish
+a model almost unconsciously to those who had occasion publicly to
+practise vituperative rhetoric. What they remembered of this vernile
+licentiousness, constituted the staple of their talk in such situations.
+And the horrible illustrations left even by the most accomplished and
+literary of the Roman orators, of their shameless and womanly fluency in
+this dialect of unlicensed abuse, are evidences, not to be resisted, of
+such obtuseness, such coarseness of feeling, so utter a defect of all
+the gentlemanly sensibilities, that no man, alive to the real state of
+things amongst them, would ever think of pleading their example in any
+other view than as an object of unmitigated disgust. At all events, the
+long-established custom of deluging each other in the Forum, or even in
+the Senate, with the foulest abuse, the precedent traditionally
+delivered through centuries before the time of Caesar and Cicero, had so
+robbed it of its sting, that, as a subject for patient endurance, or an
+occasion for self conquest in mastering the feelings, it had no merit at
+all. Anger, prompting an appeal to the cudgel, there might be, but sense
+of wounded honour, requiring a reparation by appeal to arms, or a
+washing away by blood, no such feeling could have been subdued or
+overcome by a Roman, for none such existed. The feelings of wounded
+honour on such occasions, it will be allowed, are mere reflections
+(through sympathetic agencies) of feelings and opinions already
+existing, and generally dispersed through society. Now, in Roman
+society, the case was a mere subject for laughter; for there were no
+feelings or opinions pointing to honour, personal honour as a principle
+of action, nor, consequently, to wounded honour as a subject of
+complaint. The Romans were not above duelling, but simply not up to that
+level of civilisation.
+
+_Finally_, with respect to the suggestion of a _Court of Honour_, much
+might be said that my limits will not allow; but two suggestions I will
+make. _First_, Recurring to a thing I have already said, I must repeat
+that no justice would be shown unless (in a spirit very different from
+that which usually prevails in society) the weight of public indignation
+and the displeasure of the court were made to settle conspicuously upon
+the AGGRESSOR; not upon the challenger, who is often the party suffering
+under insufferable provocation (provocation which even the sternness of
+penal law and the holiness of Christian faith allow for), but upon the
+author of the original offence. _Secondly_, A much more searching
+investigation must be made into the conduct of the SECONDS than is usual
+in the unprofessional and careless inquisitions of the public into such
+affairs. Often enough, the seconds hold the fate of their principals
+entirely in their hands; and instances are not a few, within even my
+limited knowledge, of cases where murder has been really committed, not
+by the party who fired the fatal bullet, but by him who (having it in
+his power to interfere without loss of honour to any party) has cruelly
+thought fit--[and, in some instances, apparently for no purpose but
+that of decorating himself with the name of an energetic man, and of
+producing a public '_sensation_,' as it is called--a sanguinary
+affair]--to goad on the tremulous sensibility of a mind distracted
+between the sense of honour on the one hand, and the agonising claims of
+a family on the other, into fatal extremities that might, by a slight
+concession, have been avoided. I could mention several instances; but,
+in some of these, I know the circumstances only by report. In one,
+however, I had my information from parties who were personally connected
+with the unhappy subject of the affair. The case was this:--A man of
+distinguished merit, whom I shall not describe more particularly,
+because it is no part of my purpose to recall old buried feuds, or to
+insinuate any _personal_ blame whatsoever (my business being not with
+this or that man, but with a system and its principles); this man, by a
+step well-meant but injudicious, and liable to a very obvious
+misinterpretation, as though taken in a view of self-interest, had
+entangled himself in a quarrel. That quarrel would have been settled
+amicably, or, if not amicably, at least without bloodshed, had it not
+been for an unlucky accident combined with a very unwise advice. One
+morning, after the main dispute had been pretty well adjusted, he was
+standing at the fireside after breakfast, talking over the affair so far
+as it had already travelled, when it suddenly and most unhappily came
+into his head to put this general question--'Pray, does it strike you
+that people will be apt, on a review of this whole dispute, to think
+that there has been too much talking and too little doing?' His evil
+genius so ordered it, that the man to whom he put this question, was one
+who, having no military character to rest on, could not (or thought he
+could not) recommend those pacific counsels which a truly brave man is
+ever ready to suggest--I put the most friendly construction upon his
+conduct--and his answer was this--'Why, if you insist upon my giving a
+faithful reply, if you _will_ require me to be sincere (though I really
+wish you would not), in that case my duty is to tell you, that the world
+_has_ been too free in its remarks--that it has, with its usual
+injustice, been sneering at literary men and _paper pellets_, as the
+ammunition in which they trade; in short, my dear friend, the world has
+presumed to say that not you only, but that both parties, have shown a
+little of'----'Yes; I know what you are going to say,' interrupted the
+other, 'of the _white feather_. Is it not so?'--'Exactly; you have hit
+the mark--that is what they say. But how unjust it is; for, says I, but
+yesterday, to Mr. L. M., who was going on making himself merry with the
+affair in a way that was perfectly scandalous--"Sir," says I,'----but
+this _says I_ never reached the ears of the unhappy man: he had heard
+enough; and, as a secondary dispute was still going on that had grown
+out of the first, he seized the very first opening which offered itself
+for provoking the issue of a quarrel. The other party was not backward
+or slack in answering the appeal; and thus, in one morning, the prospect
+was overcast--peace was no longer possible; and a hostile meeting was
+arranged. Even at this meeting much still remained in the power of the
+seconds: there was an absolute certainty that all fatal consequences
+might have been evaded, with perfect consideration for the honour of
+both parties. The principals must unquestionably have felt _that_; but
+if the seconds would not move in that direction, of course _their_ lips
+were sealed. A more cruel situation could not be imagined: two persons,
+who never, perhaps, felt more than that fiction of enmity which
+belonged to the situation, that is to say, assumed the enmity which
+society presumes rationally incident to a certain position--assumed it
+as a point of honour, but did not heartily feel it; and even for the
+slight shade of animosity which, for half an hour, they might have
+really felt, had thoroughly quelled it before the meeting, these two
+persons--under no impulses whatever, good or bad, from within, but
+purely in a hateful necessity of servile obedience to a command from
+without--prepared to perpetrate what must, in that frame of
+dispassionate temper have appeared to each, a purpose of murder, as
+regarded his antagonist--a purpose of suicide, as regarded himself.
+Simply a word, barely a syllable, was needed from the 'Friends' (such
+Friends!) of the parties, to have delivered them, with honour, from this
+dreadful necessity: that word was not spoken; and because a breath, a
+motion of the lips, was wanting--because, in fact, the seconds were
+thoughtless and without feeling, one of the parties has long slept in a
+premature grave--his early blossoms scattered to the wind--his golden
+promise of fruit blasted; and the other has since lived that kind of
+life, that, in my mind, _he_ was happier who died. Something of the same
+kind happened in the duel between Lord Camelford and his friend, Mr.
+Best; something of the same kind in that between Colonel Montgomery and
+Captain Macnamara. In the former case, the quarrel was, at least, for a
+noble subject; it concerned a woman. But in the latter, a dog, and a
+thoughtless lash applied to his troublesome gambols, was the sole
+subject of dispute. The colonel, as is well known, a very elegant and
+generous young man, fell; and Captain Macnamara had thenceforwards a
+worm at his heart whose gnawings never died. He was a post-captain; and
+my brother afterwards sailed with him in quality of midshipman. From
+him I have often heard affecting instances of the degree in which the
+pangs of remorse had availed, to make one of the bravest men in the
+service a mere panic-haunted, and, in a moral sense, almost a paralytic
+wreck. He that, whilst his hand was unstained with blood, would have
+faced an army of fiends in discharge of his duty, now fancied danger in
+every common rocking of a boat: he made himself at times, the subject of
+laughter at the messes of the junior and more thoughtless officers: and
+his hand, whenever he had occasion to handle a spy-glass, shook, (to use
+the common image,) or, rather, shivered, like an aspen tree. Now, if a
+regular tribunal, authenticated, by Parliament, as the fountain of law,
+and, by the Sovereign, as the fountain of honour, were, under the very
+narrowest constitution, to apply itself merely to a review of the whole
+conduct pursued by the seconds, even under this restriction such a
+tribunal would operate with great advantage. It is needless to direct
+any severity to the conduct of the principals, unless when that conduct
+has been outrageous or wanton in provocation: supposing anything
+tolerably reasonable and natural in the growth of the quarrel, after the
+quarrel is once 'constituted,' (to borrow a term of Scotch law,) the
+principals, as they are called with relation to the subject of dispute,
+are neither principals nor even secondaries for the subsequent
+management of the dispute: they are delivered up, bound hand and foot,
+into the hands of their technical 'friends'; passive to the law of
+social usage as regards the general necessity of pursuing the dispute;
+passive to the directions of their seconds as regards the particular
+mode of pursuing it. It is, therefore, the seconds who are the proper
+objects of notice for courts of honour; and the error has been, in
+framing the project of such a court, to imagine the inquiry too much
+directed upon the behaviour of those who cease to be free agents from
+the very moment that they become liable to any legal investigation
+whatever: simply as quarrellers, the parties are no objects of question;
+they are not within the field of any police review; and the very first
+act which brings them within that field, translates the responsibility
+(because the free agency) from themselves to their seconds. The whole
+_questio vexata_, therefore, reduces itself to these logical moments,
+(to speak the language of mathematics:) the two parties mainly concerned
+in the case of duelling, are Society and the Seconds. The first, by
+authorising such a mode of redress; the latter, by conducting it. Now, I
+presume, it will be thought hopeless to arraign Society at the bar of
+any earthly court, or apply any censure or any investigation to its mode
+of thinking.[16] To the _principals_, for the reasons given, it would be
+unjust to apply them; and the inference is, that the _seconds_ are the
+parties to whom their main agency should be directed--as the parties in
+whose hands lies the practical control of the whole affair, and the
+whole machinery of opportunities, (so easily improved by a wise
+humanity)--for sparing bloodshed, for promoting reconciliation, for
+making those overtures of accommodation and generous apology which the
+brave are so ready to agree to, in atonement for hasty words, or rash
+movements of passion, but which it is impossible for _them_ to
+originate. In short, for impressing the utmost possible spirit of
+humanising charity and forbearance upon a practice which, after all,
+must for ever remain somewhat of an opprobrium to a Christian people;
+but which, tried by the law of worldly wisdom, is the finest bequest of
+chivalry; the most economic safety-valve for man's malice that man's wit
+could devise; the most absolute safe-guard of the weak against the
+brutal; and, finally, (once more to borrow the words of Burke,) in a
+sense the fullest and most practical, 'the cheap defence of nations;'
+not indeed against the hostility which besieges from _without_, but
+against the far more operative nuisance of bad passions that vex and
+molest the social intercourse of men by ineradicable impulses from
+within.
+
+[16] If it be asked by what title I represent Society as authorising
+(nay, as necessitating) duels, I answer, that I do not allude to any
+floating opinions of influential circles in society; for these are in
+continual conflict, and it may be difficult even to guess in which
+direction the preponderance would lie. I build upon two undeniable
+results, to be anticipated in any regular case of duel, and supported by
+one uniform course of precedent:--_First_, That, in a civil adjudication
+of any such case, assuming only that it has been fairly conducted, and
+agreeably to the old received usages of England, no other verdict is
+ever given by a jury than one of acquittal. _Secondly_, That, before
+military tribunals, the result is still stronger; for the party liable
+to a challenge is not merely acquitted, as a matter of course, if he
+accepts it with any issue whatsoever, but is positively dishonoured and
+degraded (nay, even dismissed the service, virtually under colour of a
+request that he will sell out) if he does not. These precedents form the
+current law for English society, as existing amongst gentlemen. Duels,
+pushed _a l'outrance_, and on the savage principles adopted by a few
+gambling ruffians on the Continent, (of which a good description is
+given in the novel of _The most unfortunate Man in the World_,) or by
+old buccaneering soldiers of Napoleon, at war with all the world, and in
+the desperation of cowardice, demanding to fight in a saw-pit or across
+a table,--this sort of duels is as little recognised by the indulgence
+of English law, as, in the other extreme, the mock duels of German
+Burschen are recognised by the gallantry of English society. Duels of
+the latter sort would be deemed beneath the dignity of judicial inquiry:
+duels of the other sort, beyond its indulgence. But all other duels,
+fairly managed in the circumstances, are undeniably privileged amongst
+non-military persons, and commanded to those who are military.
+
+I may illustrate the value of one amongst the suggestions I have made,
+by looking back and applying it to part of my last anecdote: the case of
+that promising person who was cut off so prematurely for himself, and so
+ruinously for the happiness of the surviving antagonist. I may mention,
+(as a fact known to me on the very best authority,) that the Duke of
+Wellington was consulted by a person of distinction, who had been
+interested in the original dispute, with a view to his opinion upon the
+total merits of the affair, on its validity, as a 'fighting' quarrel,
+and on the behaviour of the parties to it. Upon the last question, the
+opinion of his Grace was satisfactory. His bias, undoubtedly, if he has
+any, is likely to lie towards the wisdom of the peacemaker; and
+possibly, like many an old soldier, he may be apt to regard the right of
+pursuing quarrels by arms as a privilege not hastily to be extended
+beyond the military body. But, on the other question, as to the nature
+of the quarrel, the duke denied that it required a duel; or that a duel
+was its natural solution. And had the duke been the mediator, it is
+highly probable that the unfortunate gentleman would now have been
+living. Certainly, the second quarrel involved far less of irritating
+materials than the first. It grew out of a hasty word, and nothing more;
+such as drops from parliamentary debaters every night of any interesting
+discussion--drops hastily, is as hastily recalled, or excused, perhaps,
+as a venial sally of passion, either by the good sense or the
+magnanimity of the party interested in the wrong. Indeed, by the
+unanimous consent of all who took notice of the affair, the seconds, or
+one of them at least, in this case, must be regarded as deeply
+responsible for the tragical issue; nor did I hear of one person who
+held them blameless, except that one who, of all others, might the most
+excusably have held them wrong in any result. But now, from such a case
+brought under the review of a court, such as I have supposed, and
+improved in the way I have suggested, a lesson so memorable might have
+been given to the seconds, by a two-years' imprisonment--punishment
+light enough for the wreck of happiness which they caused--that soon,
+from this single case, raised into a memorable precedent, there would
+have radiated an effect upon future duels for half a century to come.
+And no man can easily persuade me that he is in earnest about the
+extinction of duelling, who does not lend his countenance to a
+suggestion which would, at least, mitigate the worst evils of the
+practice, and would, by placing the main agents in responsibility to the
+court, bring the duel itself immediately under the direct control of
+that court; would make a legal tribunal not reviewers subsequently, but,
+in a manner, spectators of the scene; and would carry judicial
+moderation and skill into the very centre of angry passions; not, as now
+they act, inefficiently to review, and, by implication, sometimes to
+approve their most angry ebullitions, but practically to control and
+repress them.
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVE-CHARM.
+
+A TALE FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK.[17]
+
+
+Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend
+Roderick. The light was burning before him; the winter evening was cold;
+and to-day he wished for the presence of his fellow-traveller, though at
+other times wont rather to avoid his society: for on this evening he was
+about to disclose a secret to him, and beg for his advice. The timid,
+shy Emilius found in every business and accident of life so many
+difficulties, such insurmountable hindrances, that it might seem to have
+been an ironical whim of his destiny which brought him and Roderick
+together, Roderick being in everything the reverse of his friend.
+Inconstant, flighty, always determined by the first impression, and
+kindling in an instant, he engaged in everything, had a plan for every
+occasion; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacle could
+deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he slackened and wearied just
+as suddenly as at first he had caught fire and sprung forward. Whatever
+then opposed him, was for him not a spur to urge him onward, but only
+led him to abandon what he had so hotly rushed into; so that Roderick
+was every day thoughtlessly beginning something new, and with no better
+cause relinquishing and idly forgetting what he had begun the day
+before. Hence, never a day passed but the friends got into a quarrel,
+which seemed to threaten the death of their friendship; and yet what to
+all appearance thus severed them, was perhaps the very thing that most
+closely bound them together; each loved the other heartily; but each
+found passing satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly
+deserved reproaches upon his friend.
+
+[17] See the remarks in Prefatory Note, vol. i.
+
+Emilius, a rich young man, of a susceptible and melancholy temperament,
+on the death of his parents had become master of his fortune. He had set
+out on a journey in order thereby to complete his education, but had now
+already spent several months in a large town, for the sake of enjoying
+the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the
+least trouble, and of making certain arrangements of importance about
+his fortune with some relations, to whom as yet he had scarcely paid a
+visit. On the road he had fallen in with the restless, ever-shifting and
+veering Roderick, who was living at variance with his guardians, and
+who, to free himself wholly from them and their burdensome admonitions,
+eagerly grasped at the opportunity held out to him by his new friend of
+becoming his companion on his travels. During their journey they had
+often been on the point of separating; but each after every dispute had
+only felt the more clearly that he could not live without the other.
+Scarce had they left their carriage in any town, when Roderick had
+already seen everything remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the
+morrow; while Emilius took a week to acquire a thorough knowledge of the
+place from his books, lest he should omit seeing anything that was to be
+seen; and after all, from indolence and indifference thought there was
+hardly anything worth his while to go and look at. Roderick had
+immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and visited every public
+place of entertainment; often too he brought his new-made friends to the
+lonely chamber of Emilius, and would then leave him alone with them, as
+soon as they began to tire him. At other times he would confound the
+modest Emilius by extravagantly praising his merits and his acquirements
+before intelligent and learned men, and by giving them to understand how
+much they might learn from his friend about languages, or antiquities,
+or the fine arts, although he himself could never find time for
+listening to him on such subjects, when the conversation happened to
+turn on them. But if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood,
+he might almost make sure of his truant friend having caught cold the
+night before at a ball or a sledge-party, and being forced to keep his
+bed; so that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative
+of men for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
+
+To-day he confidently expected him; for Roderick had been forced to give
+him a solemn promise of spending the evening with him, in order to learn
+what it was that for weeks had been depressing and agitating his
+thoughtful friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
+
+    'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,
+      And every nightingale is steeping
+      The trees in his melodious weeping,
+    Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
+
+    Fair is the net which moonlight weaves;
+      Fair are the breezes' gambolings,
+      As with lime-odours on their wings
+    They chase each other through the leaves.
+
+    Bright is the glory of the rose,
+      When Love's rich magic decks the earth,
+      From countless roses Love looks forth,
+    Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.
+
+    But sweeter, fairer, brighter far
+      To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,
+      When through the narrow casement streaming,
+    It bids me hail my evening star;
+
+    As from their braids her locks she flings,
+      Then twines them in a flowery band,
+      While at each motion of her hand
+    The white robe to her fair form clings;
+
+    Or when she breaks her lute's deep slumbers,
+      And as at morning's touch up-darting,
+      The notes, beneath her fingers starting,
+    Dance o'er the strings in playful numbers.
+
+    To stop their flight her voice she pours
+      Full after them; they laugh and fly,
+      And to my heart for refuge hie;
+    Her voice pursues them through its doors.
+
+    Leave me, ye fierce ones! hence remove!
+      They bar themselves within, and say,
+      'Till this be broken, here we stay,
+    That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.'
+
+Emilius arose fretfully. It grew darker, and Roderick came not, and he was
+wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who dwelt in the
+opposite house, and who kept him all day long at home, and waking through
+many a night. At length footsteps sounded up the stairs; the door opened
+without anybody knocking at it, and in walked two gay masks with ugly
+visages, one a Turk, dressed in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard in
+pale yellow and pink with many waving feathers on his hat. As Emilius was
+becoming impatient, Roderick took off his mask, showed his well-known
+laughing countenance, and said: 'Heyday, my good friend, what a drowned
+puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in carnival time? I and our dear
+young officer are come to fetch you away. There is a grand ball to-night at
+the masquerade rooms; and as I know you have forsworn ever going out in any
+other suit than that which you always wear, of the devil's own colour, come
+with us as black as you are, for it is already somewhat late.'
+
+Emilius felt angry, and said: 'You have, it seems, according to custom,
+altogether forgotten our agreement. I am extremely sorry,' he continued,
+turning to the stranger, 'that I cannot possibly accompany you; my friend
+has been over-hasty in promising for me; indeed I cannot go out at all,
+having something of importance to talk to him about.'
+
+The stranger, who was well-bred, and saw what Emilius meant, withdrew; but
+Roderick, with the utmost indifference, put on his mask again, placed
+himself before the glass, and said: 'Verily I am a hideous figure, am I not?
+To say the truth, it is a tasteless, worthless, disgusting device.'
+
+'That there can be no question about,' answered Emilius, in high
+indignation. 'Making a caricature of yourself, and making a fool of
+yourself, are among the pleasures you are always driving after at full
+gallop.'
+
+'Because you do not like dancing yourself,' said the other, 'and look upon
+dancing as a mischievous invention, not a soul in the world must wear a
+merry face. How tiresome it is, when a person is made up of nothing but
+whims!'
+
+'Doubtless!' replied his angry friend, 'and you give me ample opportunity
+for finding that it is so. I thought after our agreement you would have
+given me this evening; but----'
+
+'But it is the carnival, you know,' pursued the other, 'and all my
+acquaintances and certain fair ladies are expecting me at the grand ball
+to-night. Assure yourself, my good friend, it is mere disease in you that
+makes you so unreasonable against all such matters.'
+
+'Which of us has the fairest claim to disease,' said Emilius, 'I will not
+examine. At least your inconceivable frivolousness, your hunger and thirst
+after stop-gaps for every hour you are awake, your wild-goose chase after
+pleasures that leave the heart empty, seem not to me altogether the
+healthiest state of the soul. In certain things, at all events, you might
+make a little allowance for my weakness, if it must once for all pass for
+such: and there is nothing in the world that so jars through and through me
+as a ball with its frightful music. Somebody once said, that to a deaf
+person who cannot hear the music, a set of dancers must look like so many
+patients for a mad-house; but, in my opinion, this dreadful music itself,
+this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each
+treading on its own heels, in those accursed tunes which ram themselves
+into our memories, yea, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood,
+so that one cannot get rid of their taint for many a miserable day
+after--this to me is the very trance of madness; and if I could ever bring
+myself to think dancing endurable, it must be dancing to the tune of
+silence.'
+
+'Well done, signor Paradox-monger!' exclaimed the mask. 'Why, you are so far
+gone, that you think the most natural, most innocent, and merriest thing in
+the world unnatural, ay, and shocking.'
+
+'I cannot change my feelings,' said his grave friend. 'From my very
+childhood these tunes have made me wretched, and have often well-nigh driven
+me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and furies in
+the world of sound, and come thus and buzz round my head, and grin at me
+with horrid laughter.'
+
+'All nervous irritability!' returned the other; 'just like your extravagant
+abhorrence of spiders and many other harmless insects.'
+
+'Harmless you call them,' cried Emilius, now quite untuned, 'because you
+have no repugnance toward them. To one, however, who feels the same disgust
+and loathing, the same nameless horror, that I feel, rise up in his soul and
+shoot through his whole being at the sight of them, these miscreate
+deformities, such as toads, spiders, or that most loathsome of nature's
+excrements, the bat, are not indifferent or insignificant: their very
+existence is directly at enmity and wages war with his. In truth, one might
+smile at the unbelievers whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and
+fearful spectres, and those births of night which we see in sickness, to
+take root therein, or who stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions, when the
+commonest every-day life brings before our eyes such frightful distorted
+master-pieces among the works of horror. Yet, can we really and faithfully
+love the beautiful, without being stricken with pain at the sight of such
+monstrosities?'
+
+'Wherefore stricken with pain?' asked Roderick. 'Why should the great realm
+of the waters and the seas present us with nothing but those terrors which
+you have accustomed yourself to find there? Why not rather look on such
+creatures as strange, entertaining, and ludicrous mummers, and on the whole
+region in the light of a great masked ball-room? But your whims go still
+further; for as you love roses with a kind of idolatry, there are many
+flowers for which you have a no less vehement hatred: yet what harm has the
+dear good tulip ever done you, or all the other dutiful children of summer
+that you persecute? So again you have an aversion to many colours, to many
+scents, and to many thoughts; and you take no pains to harden yourself
+against these weaknesses, but yield to them and sink down into them as into
+a luxurious feather-bed; and I often fear I shall lose you altogether some
+day, and find nothing but a patchwork of whims and prejudices sitting at
+that table instead of my Emilius.'
+
+Emilius was wrath to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
+He had long given up all design of making his intended confession; nor
+did the thoughtless Roderick show the least wish to hear the secret
+which his melancholy friend had announced to him with such an air of
+solemnity. He sat carelessly in the arm-chair, playing with his mask,
+when he suddenly cried: 'Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend me your large
+cloak.'
+
+'What for?' asked the other.
+
+'I hear music in the church on the opposite side of the street,'
+answered Roderick, 'and this hour has hitherto escaped me every evening
+since we have been here. To-day it comes just as if called for. I can
+hide my dress under your cloak, which will also cover my mask and
+turban, and when it is over I can go straight to the ball.'
+
+Emilius muttered between his teeth as he looked in the wardrobe for his
+cloak, then constraining himself to an ironical smile, gave it to
+Roderick, who was already on his legs. 'There is my Turkish dagger which
+I bought yesterday,' said the mask, as he wrapped himself up; 'put it by
+for me; it is a bad habit carrying about toys of cold steel: one can
+never tell what ill use may be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or
+any other knot which it is easier to cut than to untie. We meet again
+to-morrow; farewell; a pleasant evening to you.' He waited for no reply,
+but hastened down-stairs.
+
+When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to fix his
+attention on the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. After a while
+his eyes rested upon the shining, finely-wrought dagger, and he said:
+'What must be the feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron
+into the breast of an enemy! but oh, what must be those of one who could
+hurt a beloved object with it! He locked it up, then gently folded back
+the shutters of his window, and looked across the narrow street. But no
+light was there; all was dark in the opposite house; the dear form that
+dwelt in it, and that used about this time to show herself at her
+household occupations, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she is at the
+ball,' thought Emilius, little as it suited her retired way of life.
+
+Suddenly, however, a light entered; the little girl whom his beloved
+unknown had about her, and with whom, during the day and evening, she
+busied herself in various ways, carried a candle through the room, and
+closed the window-shutters. An opening remained light, large enough for
+over-looking a part of the little chamber from the spot where Emilius
+stood; and there the happy youth would often bide till after midnight,
+fixed as though he had been charmed there. He was full of gladness when
+he saw her teaching the child to read, or instructing her in sewing and
+knitting. Upon inquiry he had learnt that the little girl was a poor
+orphan whom his fair maiden had charitably taken into the house to
+educate her. Emilius's friends could not conceive why he lived in this
+narrow street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be
+seen in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in
+solitude he was happy: only he felt angry with himself and his own
+timidity and shyness, which kept him from venturing to seek a nearer
+acquaintance with this fair being, notwithstanding the friendliness with
+which on many occasions she had greeted and thanked him. He knew not
+that she would often bend over him eyes no less love-sick than his own;
+nor boded what wishes were forming in her heart, of what an effort, of
+what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but attain to
+the possession of his love.
+
+After walking a few times up and down the room, when the light had
+departed with the child, he suddenly resolved upon going to the ball,
+though it was so against his inclination and his nature; for it struck
+him that his Unknown might have made an exception to her quiet mode of
+life, in order for once to enjoy the world, and its gaieties. The
+streets were brilliantly lighted up, the snow crackled under his feet,
+carriages rolled by, and masks in every variety of dress whistled and
+chirped as they passed him. From many a house there sounded the
+dancing-music he so abhorred, and he could not bring himself to go the
+nearest way towards the ball-room, whither people from every direction
+were streaming and thronging. He walked round the old church, gazed at
+its lofty tower rising solemnly into the dark sky, and felt gladdened by
+the stillness and loneliness of the remote square. Within the recess of
+a large door-way, the varied sculptures of which he had always
+contemplated with pleasure, recollecting, while so engaged, the olden
+times and the arts which adorned them, he now again paused, to give
+himself up for a few moments to his thoughts. He had not stood long,
+before a figure drew his attention, which kept restlessly walking to and
+fro, and seemed to be waiting for somebody. By the light of a lamp that
+was burning before an image of the Virgin, he clearly distinguished its
+features as well as its strange garb. It was an old woman of the
+uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from being brought
+out by its extravagant contrast with a scarlet bodice embroidered with
+gold; the gown she wore was dark, and the cap on her head shone likewise
+with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some tasteless mask that
+had strayed there by mistake; but he was soon convinced by the clear
+light that the old, brown, wrinkled face was one of Nature's ploughing,
+and no mimic exaggeration. Many minutes had not passed when there
+appeared two men, wrapped up in cloaks, who seemed to approach the spot
+with cautions footsteps, often looking about them, as if to observe
+whether anybody was following. The old woman walked up to them. 'Have
+you got the candles?' asked she hastily, and with a gruff voice. 'Here
+they are,' said one of the men; 'you know the price; let the matter be
+settled forthwith.' The old woman seemed to be giving him money, which
+he counted over beneath his cloak. 'I rely upon you,' she again began,
+'that they are made exactly according to the prescription, at the right
+time and place, so that the work cannot fail.' 'Feel safe as to that,'
+returned the man, and walked rapidly away. The other, who remained
+behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by the hand, and said: 'Can
+it then be, Alexia, that such rites and forms of words, as those old
+stories, in which I never could put faith, tell us, can fetter the free
+will of man, and make love and hatred grow in the heart?' 'So it is,'
+answered the scarlet woman; 'but one and one must make two, and many a
+one must be added thereto, before such things come to pass. It is not
+these candles alone, moulded beneath the midnight darkness of the new
+moon, and drenched with human blood, it is not the muttering magical
+words and invocations alone, that can give you the mastery over the soul
+of another; much more than this belongs to such works; but it is all
+known to the initiated.' 'I rely on you then,' said the stranger.
+'To-morrow after midnight I am at your service,' returned the old woman.
+'You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with the
+tidings I brought him. To-night, as you have heard, I have some one else
+in hand, one whose senses and understanding our art shall twist about
+whichever way we choose, as easily as I twist this hair out of my head.'
+These last words she uttered with a half grin: they now separated, and
+withdrew in different directions.
+
+Emilius came from the dark niche shuddering, and raised his looks upon
+the image of the Virgin with the Child. 'Before thine eyes, thou mild
+and blessed one,' said he, half aloud, 'are these miscreants daring to
+hold their market, and trafficking in their hellish drugs. But as thou
+embracest thy Child with thy love, even so doth the unseen Love hold us
+all in its protecting arms, and we feel their touch, and our poor hearts
+beat in joy and in trembling toward a greater heart that will never
+forsake us.'
+
+Clouds were wandering along over the pinnacles of the tower and the
+steep roof of the church; the everlasting stars looked down from amongst
+them, sparkling with mild serenity; and Emilius turned his thoughts
+resolutely away from these nightly horrors, and thought upon the beauty
+of his Unknown. He again entered the living streets, and bent his steps
+toward the brightly illuminated ball-room, whence voices, and the
+rattling of carriages, and now and then, between the pauses, the
+clamorous music came sounding to his ears.
+
+In the hall he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng; dancers
+sprang round him, masks shot by him to and fro, kettle-drums and
+trumpets deafened his ears, and it was unto him as though human life
+were nothing but a dream. He walked along the lines; his eye alone was
+watchful, seeking for those beloved eyes and that fair head with its
+brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned to-day even more
+intensely than at other times; and yet he inwardly reproached the adored
+being for enduring to plunge into and lose itself in such a stormy sea
+of confusion and folly. 'No,' said he to himself, 'no heart that loves
+can lay itself open to this waste hubbub of noise, in which every
+longing and every tear of love is scoffed and mocked at by the pealing
+laughter of wild trumpets. The whispering of trees, the murmuring of
+fountains, harp-tones, and gentle song gushing forth from an overflowing
+bosom, are the sounds in which love abides. But this is the very
+thundering and shouting of hell in the trance of its despair.'
+
+He found not what he was seeking; for the belief that her beloved face
+might perchance be lying hid behind some odious mask was what he could
+not possibly bring himself to. Thrice already had he ranged up and down
+the hall, and had vainly passed in array every sitting and unmasked
+female, when the Spaniard joined him and said: 'I am glad that after all
+you are come. You seem to be looking for your friend.'
+
+Emilius had quite forgotten him: he said, however, in some confusion:
+'Indeed I wonder at not having met him here; his mask is easily known.'
+
+'Can you guess what the strange fellow is about?' answered the young
+officer. 'He did not dance, or even remain half an hour in the
+ball-room; for he soon met with his friend Anderson, who is just come
+from the country. Their conversation fell upon literature. As Anderson
+had not yet seen the new poem, Roderick would not rest till they had
+opened one of the back rooms for him; and there he now is, sitting with
+his companion beside a solitary taper, and declaiming the whole poem to
+him, beginning with the invocation to the Muse.'
+
+'It is just like him,' said Emilius; 'he is always the child of the
+moment. I have done all in my power, not even shunning some amicable
+quarrels, to break him of this habit of always living extempore, and
+playing away his whole being in impromptus, card after card, as it
+happens to turn up, without once looking through his hand. But these
+follies have taken such deep root in his heart, he would sooner part
+with his best friend than with them. That very same poem, of which he is
+so fond that he always carries a copy of it in his pocket, he was
+desirous of reading to me, and I had even urgently entreated him to do
+so; but we were scarcely over the first description of the moon, when,
+just as I was resigning myself to an enjoyment of its beauties, he
+suddenly jumped up, ran off, came back with the cook's apron round his
+waist, tore down the bell-rope in ringing to have the fire lighted, and
+insisted on dressing me some beef-steaks, for which I had not the least
+appetite, and of which he fancies himself the best cook in Europe,
+though, if he is lucky, he spoils them only nine times out of ten.'
+
+The Spaniard laughed, and asked: 'Has he never been in love?'
+
+'In his way,' replied Emilius very gravely; 'as if he were making game
+both of love and of himself, with a dozen women at a time, and, if you
+would believe his words, raving after every one of them; but ere a week
+passes over his head they are all sponged out of it together, and not
+even a blot of them remains.'
+
+They parted in the crowd, and Emilius walked toward the remote
+apartment, whence already from afar he heard his friend's loud
+recitative. 'Ah, so you are here too,' cried Roderick, as he entered;
+'that is just what it should be. I have got to the very passage at which
+we broke down the other day; seat yourself, and you may listen to the
+rest.'
+
+'I am not in a humour for it now,' said Emilius; 'besides, the room and
+the hour do not seem to me altogether fitted for such an employment.'
+
+'And why not?' answered Roderick. 'Time and place are made for us, and
+not we for time and place. Is not good poetry as good at one place as at
+another? Or would you prefer dancing? there is scarcity of men; and with
+the help of nothing more than a few hours' jumping and a pair of tired
+legs, you may lay strong siege to the hearts of as many grateful
+beauties as you please.'
+
+'Good-bye!' cried the other, already in the door-way; 'I am going home.'
+
+Roderick called after him: 'Only one word! I set off with this gentleman
+at daybreak to-morrow, to spend a few days in the country, but will
+look in upon you to take leave before we start. Should you be asleep, as
+is most likely, do not take the trouble of waking; for in a couple of
+days I shall be with you again.--The strangest being on earth!' he
+continued, turning to his new friend, 'so moping and fretful and gloomy,
+that he turns all his pleasures sour; or rather there is no such thing
+as pleasure for him. Instead of walking about with his fellow-creatures
+in broad daylight and enjoying himself, he gets down to the bottom of
+the well of his thoughts, for the sake of now and then having a glimpse
+of a star. Everything must be in the superlative for him; everything
+must be pure and noble and celestial; his heart must be always heaving
+and throbbing, even when he is standing before a puppet-show. He never
+laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and there is mighty little
+difference between his weeping and his smiling. When anything, be it
+what you will, falls short of his anticipations and preconceptions,
+which are always flying up out of reach and sight, he puts on a tragical
+face, and complains that it is a base and soulless world. At this
+moment, I doubt not, he is exacting, that under the masks of a Pantaloon
+and a Pulcinello there should be a heart glowing with unearthly desires
+and ideal aspirations, and that Harlequin should out moralise Hamlet
+upon the nothingness of sublunary things; and should it not be so, the
+dew will rise into his eyes, and he will turn his back on the whole
+scene with desponding contempt.'
+
+'He must be melancholic then?' asked his hearer.
+
+'Not that exactly,' answered Roderick. 'He has only been spoilt by his
+over-fond parents, and by himself. He has accustomed himself to let his
+heart ebb and flow as regularly as the sea, and if this motion ever
+chances to intermit, he cries out _miracle!_ and would offer a prize to
+the genius that can satisfactorily explain so marvellous a phenomenon.
+He is the best fellow under the sun; but all my painstaking to break him
+of this perverseness is utterly vain and thrown away; and if I would not
+earn sorry thanks for my good intentions, I must even let him follow his
+own course.'
+
+'He seems to need a physician,' remarked Anderson.
+
+'It is one of his whims,' said Roderick, 'to entertain a supreme
+contempt for the whole medical art. He will have it that every disease
+is something different and distinct in every patient, that it can be
+brought under no class, and that it is absurd to think of healing it,
+either by attention to ancient practice or by what is called theory.
+Indeed he would much rather apply to an old woman, and make use of
+sympathetic cures. On the same principle, he despises all foresight, on
+whatever occasion, as well as everything like regularity, moderation,
+and common sense. The last above all he holds in especial abhorrence, as
+the antipodes and arch-enemy of all enthusiasm. From his very childhood
+he framed for himself an ideal of a noble character; and his highest aim
+is to render himself what he considers such, that is, a being who shows
+his superiority to all things earthy by his contempt for gold. Merely in
+order that he may not be suspected of being parsimonious, or giving
+unwillingly, or ever talking about money, he tosses it about him right
+and left by handfuls; with all his large income is for ever poor and
+distressed, and becomes the fool of everybody not endowed with precisely
+the same kind of magnanimity, which for himself he is determined that he
+will have. To be his friend is the undertaking of all undertakings; for
+he is so irritable, one need only cough or eat with one's knife, or even
+pick one's teeth, to offend him mortally.'
+
+'Was he never in love?' asked his country friend.
+
+'Whom should he love? whom could he love?' answered Roderick. 'He scorns
+all the daughters of earth; and were he ever to suspect that his beloved
+had not an angelical contempt for dress, or liked dancing as well as
+star-gazing, it would break his heart; still more appalling would it be,
+if she were ever so unfortunate as to sneeze.'
+
+Meanwhile Emilius was again standing amid the throng; but suddenly there
+came over him that uneasiness, that shivering, which had already so
+often seized his heart when among a crowd in a state of similar
+excitement; it chased him out of the ball-room and house, down along the
+deserted streets; nor, till he reached his lonely chamber, did he
+recover himself and the quiet possession of his senses. The night-light
+was already kindled; he sent his servant to bed; everything in the
+opposite house was silent and dark; and he sat down to pour forth in
+verse the feelings which had been aroused by the ball.
+
+      Within the heart 'tis still;
+    Sleep each wild thought encages;
+      Now stirs a wicked will,
+    Would see how madness rages.
+      And cries, Wild Spirit, awake!
+    Loud cymbals catch the cry
+      And back its echoes shake;
+    And shouting peals of laughter,
+    The trumpet rushes after,
+      And cries, Wild Spirit, awake!
+    Amidst them flute tones fly,
+    Like arrows keen and numberless;
+      And with bloodhound yell
+      Pipes the onset swell;
+    And violins and violoncellos,
+      Creeking, clattering,
+      Shrieking and shattering;
+    And horns whence thunder bellows;
+    To leave the victim slumberless,
+    And drag forth prisoned madness,
+    And cruelly murder all quiet and innocent gladness.
+    What will be the end of this commotion?
+    Where the shore to this turmoiling ocean?
+    What seeks the tossing throng,
+    As it wheels and whirls along?
+      On! on! the lustres
+    Like hell-stars bicker:
+      Let us twine in closer clusters.
+    On! on! ever thicker and quicker!
+    How the silly things throb, throb amain!
+      Hence, all quiet!
+      Hither, riot!
+      Peal more proudly,
+      Squeal more loudly,
+    Ye cymbals, ye trumpets! Be-dull all pain,
+    Till it laugh again.
+
+    Thou becomest to me, beauty's daughter;
+        Smiles ripple over thy lips,
+    And o'er thine eyes blue water;
+      O let me breathe on thee,
+      Ere parted hence we flee.
+        Ere aught that light eclipse.
+    I know that beauty's flowers soon wither;
+      Those lips within whose rosy cells
+      Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells,
+    Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together.
+      I know, that face so fair and full
+      Is but a masquerading skull;
+    But hail to thee, skull so fair and so fresh!
+      Why should I weep and whine and wail,
+      That what blooms now must soon grow pale,
+    That worms must feed on that sweet flesh?
+      Let me laugh but to-day and to-morrow,
+      And I care not for sorrow,
+    While thus on the waves of the dance by each other we sail!
+
+      Now thou art mine
+      And I am thine:
+    And what though pain and sorrow wait
+      To seize thee at the gate,
+    And sob and tear and groan and sigh
+      Stand ranged in state
+    On thee to fly;
+      Blithely let us look and cheerily
+      On death, that grins so drearily.
+    What would grief with us, or anguish?
+    They are foes that we know how to vanquish.
+      I press thine answering fingers,
+      Thy look upon me lingers,
+    Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me a kiss:
+      Thou rollest on in light;
+      I fall back into night;
+    Even despair is bliss.
+
+      From this delight,
+    From this wild laughter's surge,
+    Perchance there may emerge
+      Foul jealousy and scorn and spite.
+    But this our glory! and pride!
+          When thee I despise,
+        I turn but mine eyes,
+      And the fair one beside thee will welcome my gaze;
+    And she is my bride;
+      Oh, happy, happy days!
+    Or shall it be her neighbour,
+    Whose eyes like a sabre
+    Flash and pierce,
+    Their glance is so fierce?
+
+    Thus capering and prancing,
+    All together go dancing
+      Adown life's giddy cave;
+    Nor living nor loving,
+    But dizzily roving
+      Through dreams to a grave.
+    There below 'tis yet worse;
+      Its flowers and its clay
+      Roof a gloomier day,
+    Hide a still deeper curse.
+    Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!
+    Ye horns, shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!
+    And jump, caper, leap, prance, dance yourselves out of breath!
+      For your life is all art;
+      Love has given you no heart:
+    Therefore shout till ye plunge into bottomless death.
+
+He had ended and was standing at the window. Then came she into the
+opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her; her brown hair
+floated freely and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of necks;
+she was but lightly clad, and it seemed as though she was about to
+finish some household task at this late hour of the night before going
+to bed; for she placed two lights in two corners of the room, set to
+rights the green baize on the table, and again retired. Emilius was
+still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image which his
+beloved had left on his mind, when to his horror the fearful, the
+scarlet old woman walked through the chamber; the gold on her head and
+breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light. She had vanished
+again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some blinding deception of
+the night, some spectre that his own feverish imagination had conjured
+up before him? But no! she returned still more hideous than before, with
+a long gray-and-black mane flying wildly and ruggedly about her breast
+and back. The fair maiden followed her, pale, frozen up; her lovely
+bosom was without a covering; but the whole form was like a marble
+statue. Betwixt them they led the little sweet child, weeping and
+clinging entreatingly to the fair maiden, who looked not down upon it.
+The child clasped and lifted up its little beseeching hands, and stroked
+the pale neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. But she held it fast by
+the hair, and in the other hand a silver basin. Then the old woman gave
+a growl, and pulled out a long knife, and drew it across the white neck
+of the child. Here something wound forth from behind them, which they
+seemed not to perceive; or it must have produced in them the same deep
+horror as in Emilius. The ghastly neck of a serpent curled forth, scale
+after scale, lengthening and ever lengthening out of the darkness, and
+stooped down between them over the child, whose lifeless limbs hung from
+the old woman's arms; its black tongue licked up the spirting red blood,
+and a green sparkling eye shot over into Emilius's eye, and brain, and
+heart, so that he fell at the same instant to the ground.
+
+He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A party of friends was sitting, on the brightest summer morning, in a
+green arbour, assembled round an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests
+passed round, and many a time did the glasses kiss with a merry health
+to the youthful couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of
+the happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; the fair one being
+still busied about her dress, while the young husband was sauntering
+alone in a distant avenue, musing upon his happiness.
+
+'What a pity,' said Anderson, 'that we are to have no music. All our
+ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole lives
+longed for a dance so much as to-day, when to have one is quite out of
+the question. It is far too painful to his feelings.'
+
+'I can tell you a secret though,' said a young officer; 'which is, that
+we are to have a dance after all, and a rare madcap and riotous one it
+will he. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come
+secretly, and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed it all; for
+he says, one ought not to let him have his own way, or to humour his
+strange prejudices over-much, especially on such a day as this. Besides,
+he is already grown far more like a human being, and is much more
+sociable than he used to be; so that I think even he will not dislike
+this alteration. Indeed, the whole wedding has been brought about all of
+a sudden, in a way that nobody could have expected.'
+
+'His whole life,' said Anderson, 'is no less singular than his
+character. You must all remember how, being engaged on his travels, he
+arrived last autumn in our city, fixed himself there for the winter,
+lived like a melancholy man, scarcely ever leaving his room, and never
+gave himself the least trouble about our theatre or any other amusement.
+He almost quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying
+to divert him, and not pampering him in all his moping humours. In fact,
+this exaggerated irritability and moodiness must have been a disease
+that was gathering in his body; for, as you know, he was seized four
+months since with a most violent nervous fever, so that we were all
+forced to give him up for lost. After his fancies had raved themselves
+out, on returning to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his
+memory; his childhood, indeed, and his early youth were still present to
+his mind, but he could not recollect anything that had occurred during
+his travels, or immediately before his illness. He was forced to begin
+anew his acquaintance with all his friends, even with Roderick; and only
+by little and little has it grown lighter with him; but slowly has the
+past with all that had befallen him come again, though still in dim
+colours, over his memory. He had been removed into his uncle's house,
+that the better care might be taken of him, and he was like a child,
+letting them do with him whatever they chose. The first time he went out
+to enjoy the warmth of spring in the park, he saw a girl sitting
+thoughtfully by the road-side. She looked up; her eye met his; and, as
+it were seized with an unaccountable yearning, he bade the carriage
+stop, got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and poured
+himself forth in a full stream of tears. His friends were again alarmed
+for his understanding; but he grew tranquil, lively and conversable, got
+introduced to the girl's parents, and at the very first besought her
+hand; which, as her parents did not refuse their consent, she granted
+him. Thenceforward he was happy, and a new life sprang up within him;
+every day he became healthier and more cheerful. A week ago he visited
+me at this country-seat of mine, and was above measure delighted with
+it; indeed so much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it
+to him. I might easily have turned his passionate wish to my own good
+account, and to his injury; for, whenever he sets his heart on a thing,
+he will have it, and that forthwith. He immediately made his
+arrangements, and had furniture brought hither that he may spend the
+summer months here; and in this way it has come to pass that we are all
+now assembled together to celebrate our friend's marriage at this
+villa, which a few days since belonged to me.'
+
+The house was large, and situated in a very lovely country. One side
+looked down upon a river, and beyond it upon pleasant hills, clad and
+girt round with shrubs and trees of various kinds; immediately before it
+lay a beautiful flower-garden. Here the orange and lemon trees were
+ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors led to the
+store-rooms and cellars, and pantries. On the other side spread the
+green plain of a meadow, which was immediately bordered by a large park;
+here the two long wings of the house formed a spacious court; and three
+broad, open galleries, supported by rows of pillars standing above each
+other, connected all the apartments in the building, which gave it on
+this side an interesting and singular character; for figures were
+continually moving along these arcades in the discharge of their various
+household tasks; new forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and
+out of every room, which reappeared soon after above or below, to be
+lost behind some other doors; the company too would often assemble there
+for tea or for play; and thus, when seen from below, the whole had the
+look of a theatre, before which everybody would gladly pause awhile,
+expecting, as his fancies wandered, that something strange or pleasing
+would soon be taking place above.
+
+The party of young people were just rising, when the full-dressed bride
+came through the garden and walked up to them. She was clad in
+violet-coloured velvet; a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her white
+neck; the costly lace just allowed her swelling bosom to glimmer
+through; her brown hair was tinged yet more beautifully by its wreath of
+myrtles and white roses. She addressed each in turn with a kind
+greeting, and the young men were astonished at her surpassing beauty.
+She had been gathering flowers in the garden, and was now returning into
+the house, to see after the preparations for the dinner. The tables had
+been placed in the lower open gallery, and shone dazzlingly with their
+white coverings and their load of sparkling crystal; rich clusters of
+many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful necks of alabaster vases;
+green garlands, starred with white blossoms, twined round the columns;
+and it was a lovely sight to behold the bride gliding along with gentle
+motion between the tables and the pillars, amid the light of the
+flowers, overlooking the whole with a searching glance, then vanishing,
+and re-appearing a moment afterwards higher up to pass into her chamber.
+
+'She is the loveliest and most enchanting creature I ever saw,' cried
+Anderson; 'our friend is indeed the happiest of men.'
+
+'Even her paleness,' said the officer, taking up the word, 'heightens
+her beauty. Her brown eyes sparkle only more intensely above those white
+cheeks, and beneath those dark locks; and the singular, almost burning,
+redness of her lips gives a truly magical appearance to her face.'
+
+'The air of silent melancholy that surrounds her,' said Anderson, 'sheds
+a lofty majesty over her whole form.'
+
+The bridegroom joined them, and inquired after Roderick. They had all
+missed him some time since, and could not conceive where he could be
+tarrying; and they all set out in search of him. 'He is below in the
+hall,' said at length a young man whom they happened to ask, 'in the
+midst of the coachmen, footmen, and grooms, showing off tricks at cards,
+which they cannot grow tired of staring at.' They went in, and
+interrupted the noisy admiration of the servants, without, however,
+disturbing Roderick, who quietly pursued his conjuring exhibition. When
+he had finished, he walked with the others into the garden, and said, 'I
+do it only to strengthen the fellows in their faith: for these puzzles
+give a hard blow to their groomships' free-thinking inclinations, and
+help to make them true believers.'
+
+'I see,' said the bridegroom, 'my all-sufficing friend, among his other
+talents, does not think that of a mountebank beneath his cultivation.'
+
+'We live in a strange time,' replied the other. 'Who knows whether
+mountebanks may not come to rule the roost in their turn. One ought to
+despise nothing nowadays: the veriest straw of talent may be that which
+is to break the camel's back.'
+
+When the two friends found themselves alone, Emilius again turned down
+the dark avenue, and said, 'Why am I in such a gloomy mood on this the
+happiest day of my life? But I assure you, Roderick, little as you will
+believe it, I am not made for this moving about among such a mob of
+human beings; for this keeping my attention on the _qui vive_ for every
+letter of the alphabet, so that neither A nor Z may go without all
+fitting respect; for this making a bow to her tenth, and shaking hands
+with my twentieth; for this rendering of formal homage to her parents;
+for this handing a flower from my nosegay of compliments to every lady
+that crosses my eye; for this waiting to receive the tide of newcomers
+as wave after wave rushes over me, and then turning to give orders that
+their servants and horses may have each a full trough and pail set
+before them.'
+
+'That is a watch that goes of its own accord,' answered Roderick. 'Only
+look at your house, it was just built for such an occasion; and your
+head-butler, with his right hand taking up at the same time that his
+left is setting down, and one leg running north while the other seems to
+be making for south, was begotten and born for no other end than to put
+confusion in order. He would even set my brains to rights if he could
+get at them; were the whole city here he would find room for all; and he
+will make your hospitality the proverb of fifty miles round. Leave all
+such things to him and to your lovely bride; and where will you find so
+sweet a lightener of this world's cares?'
+
+'This morning before sunrise,' said Emilius, 'I was walking through the
+wood; my thoughts were solemnly tuned, and I felt to the bottom of my
+soul that my life was now receiving its determinate character, that it
+was become a serious thing, and that this passion had created for me a
+home and a calling. I passed along by that arbour there, and heard
+sounds: it was my beloved in close conversation. "Has it not turned out
+now as I told you?" said a strange voice; "just as I knew it must turn
+out. You have got your wish, so cheer up and be merry." I would not go
+near them; afterwards I walked toward the arbour, but they had both
+already left it. Since then I keep thinking and thinking, what can these
+words mean?'
+
+Roderick answered: 'Perhaps she may have been in love with you for some
+time without your knowing it; you are only so much the happier.'
+
+A late nightingale here upraised her song, and seemed to be wishing the
+lover health and bliss. Emilius became more thoughtful. 'Come down with
+me, to cheer up your spirits,' said Roderick, 'down to the village,
+where you will find another couple; for you must not fancy that yours is
+the only wedding on which to-day's sun is to shine. A young clown,
+finding his time wear heavily in the house with an ugly old maid, for
+want of something better to do, did what makes the booby now think
+himself bound in honour to transform her into his wife. By this time
+they must both be already dressed, so let us not miss the sight; for
+doubtless, it will be a most interesting wedding.'
+
+The melancholy man let himself be dragged along by his lively chattering
+friend, and they soon came to the cottage. The procession was just
+sallying forth, to go to the church. The young countryman was in his
+usual linen frock; all his finery consisted in a pair of leather
+breeches, which he had polished till they shone like a field of
+dandelions; he was of simple mien, and appeared somewhat confused. The
+bride was sun-burnt, with but a few farewell leaves of youth still
+hanging about her; she was coarsely and poorly, but cleanly dressed;
+some red and blue silk ribbons, already a good deal faded; but what
+chiefly disfigured her was, that her hair, stiffened with lard, flour,
+and pins, had been swept back from her forehead, and piled up at the top
+of her head in a mound, on the summit of which lay the bridal chaplet.
+She smiled and seemed glad at heart, but was shamefaced and downcast.
+Next came the aged parents; the father too was only a servant about the
+farm, and the hovel, the furniture, and the clothing, all bore witness
+that their poverty was extreme. A dirty, squinting musician followed the
+train, who kept grinning and screaming, and scratching his fiddle, which
+was patched together of wood and pasteboard, and instead of strings had
+three bits of pack-thread. The procession halted when his honour, their
+new master, came up to them. Some mischief-loving servants, young lads
+and girls, tittered and laughed, and jeered the bridal couple,
+especially the ladies' maids, who thought themselves far handsomer, and
+saw themselves infinitely better clad, and wondered how people could be
+so vulgar. A shuddering came over Emilius; he looked round for Roderick,
+but the latter had already run away from him again. An impertinent
+coxcomb, with a head pilloried in his high starched neck-cloth, a
+servant to one of the visitors, eager to show his wit, pressed up to
+Emilius, giggling, and cried: 'Now, your honour, what says your honour
+to this grand couple? They can neither of them guess where they are to
+find bread for to-morrow, and yet they mean to give a ball this
+afternoon, and that famous performer there is already engaged.' 'No
+bread!' said Emilius; 'can such things be?' 'Their wretchedness,'
+continued the chatterbox, 'is known to the whole neighbourhood; but the
+fellow says he bears the creature the same good-will, although she is
+such a sorry bit of clay. Ay, verily, as the song says, love can make
+black white! The couple of baggages have not even a bed, and must pass
+their wedding night on the straw. They have just been round to every
+house begging a pint of small beer, with which they mean to get drunk; a
+royal treat for a wedding day, your honour!' Everybody round about
+laughed loudly, and the unhappy, despised pair cast down their eyes.
+Emilius indignantly pushed the chatterer away. 'Here, take this!' he
+cried, and threw a hundred ducats, which he had received that morning,
+into the hands of the amazed bridegroom. The betrothed couple and their
+parents wept aloud, threw themselves clumsily on their knees, and kissed
+his hands and the skirts of his coat. He tried to make his escape. 'Let
+that keep hunger out of your doors as long as it lasts!' he exclaimed,
+quite stunned by his feelings. 'Oh!' they all screamed, 'oh, your
+honour! we shall be rich and happy till the day of our deaths, and
+longer too, if we live longer.'
+
+He knew not how he got away from them; but he found himself alone, and
+hastened with unsteady steps into the wood. Here he sought out the
+thickest, loneliest spot, and threw himself down on a grassy knoll, no
+longer keeping back the bursting stream of his tears. 'I am sick of
+life,' he sobbed; 'I cannot be glad and happy, I will not. Make haste
+and receive me, thou dear kind earth, and hide me in thy cool,
+refreshing arms from the wild beasts that tread over thee and call
+themselves men. Oh, God in heaven! how have I deserved that I should
+rest upon down and wear silk, that the grape should pour forth her most
+precious blood for me, and that all should throng around me and offer
+me their homage and love? This poor wretch is better and worthier than
+I, and misery is his nurse, and mockery and venomous scorn are the only
+sounds that hail his wedding. Every delicacy that is placed before me,
+every draught out of my costly goblets, my lying on soft beds, my
+wearing gold and rich garments, will be unto me like so many sins, now
+that I have beheld how the world hunts down many thousand thousand
+wretches, who are hungering after the dry bread that I throw away, and
+who never know what a good meal is. Oh, now I can fully understand your
+feelings, ye holy pious, whom the world despises and scorns and scoffs
+at, who scatter abroad your all, even unto the raiment of your poverty,
+and did gird sack-cloth about your loins, and did resolve as beggars to
+endure the gibes and the kicks wherewith brutal insolence and swilling
+voluptuousness drive away misery from their tables, that by so doing ye
+might thoroughly purge yourselves from the foul sin of wealth.'
+
+The world, with all its forms of being, hung in a mist before his eyes;
+he determined to look upon the destitute as his brethren, and to depart
+far away from the communion of the happy. They had already been waiting
+for him a long time in the hall, to perform the ceremony; the bride had
+become uneasy; her parents had gone in search of him through the garden
+and park; at length he returned, lighter for having wept away his cares,
+and the solemn knot was tied.
+
+The company then walked from the lower hall toward the open gallery, to
+seat themselves at table. The bride and bridegroom led the way, and the
+rest followed in their train. Roderick offered his arm to a young girl
+who was gay and talkative. 'Why does a bride always cry, and look so sad
+and serious during the ceremony,' said she, as they mounted the steps.
+
+'Because it is the first moment in which she feels intensely all the
+weight and meaning and mystery of life,' answered Roderick.
+
+'But our bride,' continued the girl, 'far surpasses in gravity all I
+have ever yet seen. Indeed, she almost always looks melancholy, and one
+can never catch her in a downright hearty laugh.'
+
+'This does more honour to her heart,' answered Roderick, himself,
+contrary to custom, feeling somewhat seriously disposed. 'You know not,
+perhaps, that the bride a few years ago took a lovely little orphan girl
+into the house, to educate her. All her time was devoted to the child,
+and the love of this gentle being was her sweetest reward. The girl was
+become seven years old, when she was lost during a walk through the
+town, and in spite of all the means that have been employed, nobody
+could ever find out what became of her. Our noble-minded hostess has
+taken this misfortune so much to heart that she has been preyed upon
+ever since by a silent melancholy, nor can anything win her away from
+her longing after her little play-fellow.'
+
+'A most interesting adventure, indeed,' said the lady. 'One might see a
+whole romance in three volumes grow out of this seed. It will be a
+strange sight, and it will not be for nothing, when this lost star
+reappears. What a pretty poem it would make! Don't you think so, sir?'
+
+The party arranged themselves at table. The bride and bridegroom sat in
+the centre, and looked out upon the gay landscape. They talked and drank
+healths, and the most cheerful humour reigned; the bride's parents were
+quite happy; the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, eat but
+little, and took no part in the conversation. He started when some
+musical sounds rolled down from above, but grew calm again on finding it
+was nothing but the soft notes of a bugle, which wandered along with a
+pleasant murmur over the shrubs and through the park, till they died
+away on the distant hills. Roderick had stationed the musicians in the
+gallery overhead, and Emilius was satisfied with this arrangement.
+Toward the end of the dinner he called his butler, and turning to his
+bride, said, 'My love, let poverty also have a share of our
+superfluities.' He then ordered him to send several bottles of wine,
+some pastry, and other dishes in abundant portions, to the poor couple,
+so that with them also this day might be a day of rejoicing, unto which
+in after-times they might look back with delight. 'See, my friend,'
+cried Roderick, 'how beautifully all things in this world hang together.
+My idle trick of busying myself about other people's concerns, and my
+chattering, though you are for ever finding fault with them, have after
+all been the occasion of this good deed.' Several persons began making
+pretty speeches to their host on his compassion and kind heart, and the
+young lady next to Roderick lisped about romantic feelings and
+sentimental magnanimity. 'O, hold your tongues,' cried Emilius
+indignantly. 'This is no good action; it is no action at all; it is
+nothing. When swallows and linnets feed themselves with the crumbs that
+are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and carry them to their
+young ones in their nests, shall not I remember a poor brother who needs
+my help? If I durst follow my heart, ye would laugh and jeer at me, just
+as ye have laughed and jeered at many others who have gone forth into
+the wilderness, that they might hear no more of this world and its
+generosity.'
+
+Everybody was silent, and Roderick, perceiving the most vehement
+displeasure in his friend's glowing eyes, feared he might forget himself
+still more in his present ungracious mood, and tried to give the
+conversation a sudden turn upon other subjects. But Emilius was becoming
+restless and absent; his eyes were continually wandering toward the
+upper gallery, where the servants who lived in the top story had many
+things to do.
+
+'Who is that ugly old woman,' he at length asked, 'that is so busy
+there, going backwards and forwards, in her gray cloak?' 'She is one of
+my attendants,' said his bride; 'she is to overlook and manage my
+waiting-maids and the other girls.' 'How can you bear to have anything
+so hideous always at your elbow?' replied Emilius. 'Let her alone,'
+answered the young lady; 'God meant the ugly to live as well as the
+handsome: and she is such a good, honest creature, she may be of great
+use to us.'
+
+On rising from table, everybody pressed round the new husband, again
+wished him joy, and urgently begged that he would consent to their
+having a ball. The bride too said, breathing a gentle kiss on his
+forehead: 'You will not deny your wife's first request, my beloved; we
+have all been looking forward with delight to this moment. It is so
+long since I danced last, and you have never yet seen me dance. Have you
+no curiosity how I shall acquit myself in this new character? My mother
+tells me I look better than at any other time.'
+
+'I never saw you thus cheerful,' said Emilius; 'I will be no disturber
+of your joys: do just what you please; only let me bargain for nobody
+asking me to make myself ridiculous by any clumsy capers.'
+
+'Oh, if you are a bad dancer,' she answered, laughing, 'you may feel
+quite safe; everybody will readily consent to your sitting still.' The
+bride then retired to put on her ball-dress.
+
+'She does not know,' said Emilius to Roderick, with whom he withdrew,
+'that I can pass from the next room into hers through a secret door; I
+will surprise her while she is dressing.'
+
+When Emilius had left them, and many of the ladies were also gone to
+make such changes in their attire as were necessary for the ball,
+Roderick took the young men aside, and led the way to his own room. 'It
+is wearing toward evening,' said he, 'and will soon be dark; so make
+haste, every one of you, and mask yourselves, that we may render this
+night glorious in the annals of merriment and madness. Give your fancies
+free range in choosing your characters: the wilder and uglier the
+better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and
+mouth like a gaping volcano; build mountains upon your shoulders, or
+fatten yourselves into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions, I
+hereby promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the
+likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such a strange event in
+one's life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, as it were
+by magic, head over heels into a new, unaccustomed element, that it is
+impossible to infuse too much of madness and folly into this feast, in
+order to keep pace with the whirlpool that is bearing a brace of human
+beings from the state in which they were two, into the state in which
+they become one, and to let all things round about them be fit
+accompaniments for the dizzy dream on the wings of which they are
+floating toward a new life. So let us rave away the night, making all
+sail before the breeze; and a fig for such as look twice on the grave
+sour faces that would have you behave rationally.'
+
+'Don't be afraid,' said the young officer; 'we have brought from town
+with us a large chest full of masks and mad carnival dresses, such as
+would make even you stare.'
+
+'But see here,' returned Roderick, 'what a gem I have got from my
+tailor, who was just going to cut up this peerless robe into strips. He
+bought it of an old crone, who must doubtless have worn it on gala days
+when she went to Lucifer's drawing-room on the Blocksberg. Look at this
+scarlet bodice, with its gold tassels and fringe, at this cap besmeared
+with the last fee the hag got from Beelzebub or his imps: it will give
+me a right worshipful air. To match such jewels, there is this green
+velvet petticoat with its saffron-coloured trimming, and this mask
+would melt even Medusa to a grin. Thus accoutred I mean to lead the
+chorus of Graces, myself their mother-queen, toward the bed-chamber.
+Make all the haste you can; and we will then go in procession to fetch
+the bride.'
+
+The bugles were still playing; the company were walking about the
+garden, or sitting before the house. The sun had gone down behind thick,
+murky clouds, and the country was lying in the gray dusk, when a parting
+gleam suddenly burst forth athwart the cloudy veil, and flooded every
+spot around, but especially the building, and its galleries, and
+pillars, and wreaths of flowers, as it were with red blood. At this
+moment the parents of the bride and the other spectators beheld a train
+of the wildest appearances move toward the upper corridor. Roderick led
+the way as the scarlet old woman, and was followed by hump-backs,
+mountain-paunches, massy wigs, clowns, punches, skeleton-like
+pantaloons, female figures embanked by enormous hoops and over-canopied
+with three feet of horsehair, powder and pomatum, and by every
+disgusting shape that can be conceived, as though a nightmare were
+unrolling her stores. They jumped, and twirled, and tottered, and
+stumbled, and straddled, and strutted, and swaggered along the gallery,
+and then vanished behind one of the doors. But few of the beholders had
+been able to laugh: so utterly were they amazed by the strange sight.
+Suddenly a piercing shriek burst from one of the rooms, and there rushed
+forth into the blood-red glow of the sunset the pale bride, in a short
+white frock, round which wreaths of flowers were waving, with her lovely
+bosom all uncovered, and her rich locks streaming through the air. As
+though mad, with rolling eyes and distorted face, she darted along the
+gallery, and, blinded by terror, could find neither door nor staircase;
+and immediately after rushed Emilius in chase of her, with the sparkling
+Turkish dagger in his high, upraised hand. Now she was at the end of the
+passage; she could go no further; he reached her. His masked friends and
+the gray old woman were running after him. But he had already furiously
+pierced her bosom, and cut through her white neck; her blood spouted
+forth into the radiance of the setting sun. The old woman had clasped
+round him to tear him back; he struggled with her, and hurled himself
+together with her over the railing, and they both fell, almost lifeless,
+down at the feet of the relations who had been staring in dumb horror at
+the bloody scene. Above and below, or hastening down the stairs and
+along the galleries, were seen the hideous masks, standing or running
+about in various clusters, like fiends of hell.
+
+Roderick took his dying friend in his arms. He had found him in his
+wife's room playing with the dagger. She was almost dressed when he
+entered. At the sight of the hated red bodice his memory had rekindled;
+the horrible vision of the night had risen upon his mind; and gnashing
+his teeth he had sprung after his trembling flying bride, to avenge that
+murder and all those devilish doings. The old woman, ere she expired,
+confessed the crime that had been wrought; and the gladness and mirth of
+the whole house were suddenly changed into sorrow and lamentation and
+dismay.
+
+
+
+
+LUDWIG TIECK.
+
+
+The author of the foregoing tale, Ludwig Tieck, has lately been
+introduced to the English reader by an admirable translation of his two
+exquisite little novels, _The Pictures_ and _The Betrothing_. He is one
+among the great German writers who made their appearance during the last
+ten years of the eighteenth century; a period--whether from any
+extraordinary productiveness in the power that regulates the seed-time
+and the harvests of the human race, or from the mighty excitements and
+stimulants wherewith the world was then teeming--among the richest in
+the blossoming of genius. For not to mention the great military talents
+first developed in those days, among the holders of which were he who
+conquered all the continent of Europe, and he before whom that conqueror
+fell; turning away from the many rank but luxuriant weeds that sprang up
+in France, after all its plains had been manured with blood; and fixing
+the eye solely upon literary excellence, we find in our own country,
+that the chief part of those men by whom we may hope that the memory of
+our days will be transmitted to posterity as a thing precious and to be
+held in honour, that Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and Southey, and Lamb,
+and Landor, and Scott, put forth during those ten years the first-fruits
+of their minds; while in Germany, the same period was rendered
+illustrious by Fichte and John Paul Richter at its commencement, and
+subsequently by Schelling, and Hegel, and Steffens, Schleiermacher, and
+the Schlegels, and Novalis, and Tieck. Of this noble brotherhood, who
+all, I believe, studied at the same university, that of Jena, and who
+were all bound together by friendship, by affinity of genius, and by
+unity of aim, the two latter, Novalis and Tieck, were the poets: for
+though there are several things of great poetical beauty in the works of
+the Schlegels, their fame, upon the whole, rests on a different basis.
+The lovely dreamy mind of Novalis was cut off in the full promise of its
+spring; it only just awoke from the blissful visions of its childhood,
+to breathe forth a few lyrical murmurs about the mysteries it had been
+brooding over, and then fell asleep again. Upon Tieck, therefore, the
+character of German poetry in the age following those of Goethe and
+Schiller will mainly depend: and never did Norwegian or Icelandic spring
+burst forth more suddenly than the youth of Ludwig Tieck. I know not in
+the whole history of literature, any poet who can count up so many and
+so great exploits achieved on his first descent into the arena: in
+number and variety even Goethe must yield the precedence, though his
+youthful triumphs were _Goetz of Berlichingen_ and _Werther_. There was
+in Tieck's early works the promise, and far more than the promise, of
+the greatest dramatic poet whom Europe had seen since the days of
+Calderon; there was a rich, elastic, buoyant, comic spirit, not like the
+analytical reflection, keen biting wit of Moliere and Congreve, and
+other comic writers of the satirical school, but like the living
+merriment, the uncontrollable, exuberant joyousness, the humour arising
+from _good_ humour, not, as it often does, from _ill_ humour, the
+incarnation, so to say, of the principle of mirth, in Shakespeare, and
+Cervantes, and Aristophanes; and as a wreath of flowers to crown the
+whole, there was the heavenly purity and starlike loveliness of his
+_Genoveva_. Had the rest of Tieck's life kept pace with the fertility of
+the six years from 1798 to 1804, he must have been beyond all rivalry
+the second of German poets; and as Eschylus in the _Frogs_ shares his
+supremacy with Sophocles, so would Goethe have invited Tieck to sit
+beside him on his throne. Unfortunately for those who would have feasted
+upon his fruits, the poet, during the last twenty years, has been so
+weighed down by almost unintermitting ill health, that he has published
+but little. There was a short interval indeed that seemed to bid fairer,
+about the year 1812, when he began to collect his tales and lesser
+dramas, on a plan something like that of the _Decameron_, in the
+_Phantasm_, but it has not yet been carried beyond the second reign, out
+of seven through which it was designed to extend. Of that collection the
+chief part had been known to the world ten or twelve years before: some
+things, however, appeared then for the first time, and among them, I
+believe, was the tale of _The Love-Charm_. Latterly, Tieck's genius has
+taken a new spring, in a somewhat different direction from that of his
+youth. He has written half a dozen novels, in the manner of the couple
+recently translated; nor are the others of less excellence than those
+two; a beautiful tale of magic has also been just published; and the
+speedy appearance of several other things that have employed him during
+the long period of seeming inactivity, is promised; wherein he has been
+engaged more or less for above a quarter of a century, and to gather
+materials for which he some years since visited England. Of this work
+the highest expectations may justly be formed: not many people, even, in
+this country, possess a more extensive and accurate acquaintance with
+our ancient drama than Tieck; no one has entered more fully into the
+spirit of its great poets, than Tieck has shown himself to have done in
+the prefaces to his _Old English Theatre_ and his _Shakespeare's
+Vorschule_; few have ever bestowed such attention on the history of the
+stage in all countries, or have so studied the principles of dramatic
+composition and the nature of dramatic effect; hardly any one, I may say
+no one, ever learnt so much from Shakespeare: no one, therefore, can
+have more to teach us about him; and to judge from the remarks on some
+of the plays which have already been printed in the _Abendzeitung_, no
+one was ever so able to trace out the most secret workings of the great
+master's mind, or to retain his full, calm self-possession when
+following him on his highest flights; no one ever united in such
+perfection the great critic with the great poet. One may look forward,
+therefore, with confidence to the greatest work in aesthetical criticism
+that even Germany will ever have produced.
+
+Of the foregoing tale itself little need be said. If the translator has
+failed so grievously that an English reader cannot see its merits, he
+would hardly help himself out of the scrape by talking about the effect
+he ought to have produced. And grievously he must have failed, if any
+reader with a feeling for poetry does not perceive and enjoy the beauty
+of the descriptions, especially of the two eventful scenes, the power
+and passion of the wild dithyramb, the admirable delineation of the
+characters in proportion to their relative importance, and the poetical
+harmony and perfect _keeping_ of the whole. Nothing can be more delicate
+than the way of softening the horror that might be felt for the bride:
+she has not even a name, that there may be no distinct object for our
+disgust to fasten on; she is only spoken of under titles of a
+pleasurable meaning; her beauty, like Helen's on the walls of Troy, is
+manifested by its effect: the young men are astonished at it; her air of
+deep melancholy impresses even the gayest and most thoughtless, and is
+thus more powerful than if pages had been employed in giving utterance
+to her remorse; besides which, had the latter course been adopted, the
+main object would have been the wicked heart, not the wicked deed, the
+sin, not the crime; and sin is always loathsome, whereas a crime may
+often be looked upon with pity. The poet has therefore wisely kept all
+his power of characteristic delineation for the two chief persons in the
+tale; and rarely have any characters been brought out so distinctly
+within a work of such dimensions; the contrast between them runs through
+every feature, yet each is the necessary complement to the other; the
+abuse which they vent in the ball-room each against his dearest friend,
+and in the ears of almost a stranger, is in the true style of our frail
+affections, veering before the slightest puff of self-will; nor is there
+a circumstance mentioned about either, which tends not to complete the
+picture, and is not all but indispensable. On some occasions a whole
+life and character are revealed by a single touch; as for instance when
+Emilius exclaims, _No bread! Can such things be?_ No other man could
+have been so ignorant of what goes on in the world, as to marvel at such
+a common occurrence; yet Emilius, it is quite certain, would be
+surprised, when awaked from his dreams, to behold the face of real life;
+so that this exclamation is, as it were, a great toe from which to
+construct one who is anything rather than a Hercules. Indeed the whole
+scene of the peasant's marriage, which at first sight may appear like a
+somewhat idle digression, brought in for no better reason than
+amusement, is absolutely necessary to the tale as a work of art: it not
+only shows the character of Emilius in a fresh and important point of
+view, not only supplies him with fuel, so that he is ready to burn at
+the approach of the first spark, as for the former scene he had been
+prepared by the arousal of his feelings in the ball-room; which,
+besides, cast a mysterious haze over the scene, and leave it half
+doubtful how much of the crime was actually perpetrated: the peasant's
+wedding is necessary as a contrast, as a complement, and as a relief to
+the other marriage; nor can that calm and masterly irony, which is among
+the first elements in the mind of a great poet, be more clearly
+manifested, than it is here, where the pomp and rejoicing of the great
+and wealthy are suddenly turned 'into sorrow and lamentation and
+dismay;' while the poor and the abashed and the despised are enabled to
+pass their days in what to them is comfort, and to obtain the enjoyment
+of a day 'unto which in after-times they may look back with delight.'
+
+Everything about the one marriage seems happy; everything about the
+other seems wretched; but neither is what it seems: they who seem happy
+are a prey to extravagant and sinful desires; those who seem wretched
+have moderate wishes, and, though they have offended, have not done it
+wantonly or in malice; they are making what seems to them the only
+atonement in their power, and 'the fellow bears the creature the same
+good-will, though she is such a sorry bit of clay'; therefore the end of
+each marriage is according, not unto the outward show and promise, but
+unto that which lies within the heart. It is thus that poetical justice
+endeavours, so far as it may, to anticipate the sentence of Omniscient
+justice.
+
+
+
+
+LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF WEEPING.
+
+_From Jean Paul Frederick Richter._
+
+
+Since the day when the town of Haslau first became the seat of a Court,
+no man could remember that any one event in its annals (always excepting
+the birth of the hereditary prince) had been looked for with so anxious
+a curiosity as the opening of the last will and testament left by Van
+der Kabel. This Van der Kabel may be styled the Haslau Croesus; and
+his whole life might be termed, according to the pleasure of the wits,
+one long festival of god-sends, or a daily washing of golden sands
+nightly impregnated by golden showers of Danae. Seven distant surviving
+relatives of seven distant relatives deceased of the said Van der Kabel,
+entertained some little hopes of a place amongst his legatees, grounded
+upon an assurance which he had made, 'that upon his oath he would not
+fail to _remember them_ in his will.' These hopes, however, were but
+faint and weakly; for they could not repose any extraordinary confidence
+in his good faith--not only because in all cases he conducted his
+affairs in a disinterested spirit, and with a perverse obstinacy of
+moral principle, whereas his seven relatives were mere novices, and
+young beginners in the trade of morality,--but also because, in all
+these moral extravagances of his (so distressing to the feelings of the
+sincere rascal), he thought proper to be very satirical, and had his
+heart so full of odd caprices, tricks, and snares for unsuspicious
+scoundrels, that (as they all said) no man who was but raw in the art of
+virtue could deal with him, or place any reliance upon his intentions.
+Indeed the covert laughter which played about his temples, and the
+falsetto tones of his sneering voice, somewhat weakened the advantageous
+impression which was made by the noble composition of his face, and by a
+pair of large hands, from which were daily dropping favours little and
+great--benefit nights, Christmas-boxes and New-Year's gifts; for this
+reason it was that, by the whole flock of birds who sought shelter in
+his boughs, and who fed and built their nests on him, as on any wild
+service-tree, he was, notwithstanding, reputed a secret magazine of
+springes; and they were scarce able to find eyes for the visible berries
+which fed them, in their scrutiny after the supposed gossamer snares.
+
+In the interval between two apoplectic fits he had drawn up his will,
+and had deposited it with the magistrate. When he was just at the point
+of death he transferred to the seven presumptive heirs the certificate
+of this deposit; and even then said, in his old tone--how far it was
+from his expectation, that by any such anticipation of his approaching
+decease, he could at all depress the spirits of men so steady and
+sedate, whom, for his own part, he would much rather regard in the light
+of laughing than of weeping heirs; to which remark one only of the whole
+number, namely, Mr. Harprecht, inspector of police, replied as a cool
+ironist to a bitter one--'that the total amount of concern and of
+_interest_, which might severally belong to them in such a loss, was
+not (they were sincerely sorry it was not) in their power to determine.'
+
+At length the time is come when the seven heirs have made their
+appearance at the town-hall, with their certificate--of deposit;
+_videlicet_, the ecclesiastical councillor Glantz; Harprecht, the
+inspector of police; Neupeter, the court-agent; the court-fiscal, Knoll;
+Pasvogel, the bookseller; the reader of the morning lecture, Flacks; and
+Monsieur Flitte, from Alsace. Solemnly, and in due form, they demanded
+of the magistrate the schedule of effects consigned to him by the late
+Kabel, and the opening of his will. The principal executor of this will
+was Mr Mayor himself; the sub-executors were the rest of the
+town-council. Thereupon, without delay, the schedule and the will were
+fetched from the register office of the council to the council chamber:
+both were exhibited in rotation to the members of the council and the
+heirs, in order that they might see the privy seal of the town impressed
+upon them: the registry of consignment, indorsed upon the schedule, was
+read aloud to the seven heirs by the town-clerk: and by that registry it
+was notified to them, that the deceased had actually consigned the
+schedule to the magistrate, and entrusted it to the corporation-chest;
+and that on the day of consignment he was still of sound mind: finally,
+the seven seals, which he had himself affixed to the instrument, were
+found unbroken. These preliminaries gone through, it was now (but not
+until a brief registry of all these forms had been drawn up by the
+town-clerk) lawful, in God's name, that the will should be opened and
+read aloud by Mr Mayor, word for word as follows:--
+
+'I, Van der Kabel, on this 7th day of May, 179-, being in my house at
+Haslau, situate in Dog-street, deliver and make known this for my last
+will; and without many millions of words, notwithstanding I have been
+both a German notary and a Dutch schoolmaster. Howsoever I may disgrace
+my old professions by this parsimony of words, I believe myself to be so
+far at home in the art and calling of a notary, that I am competent to
+act for myself as a testator in due form, and as a regular devisor of
+property.
+
+'It is a custom of testators to premise the moving causes of their
+wills. These, in my case, as in most others, are regard for my happy
+departure, and for the disposal of the succession to my property--which,
+by the way, is the object of a tender passion in various quarters. To
+say anything about my funeral, and all that, would be absurd and stupid.
+This, and what shape my remains shall take, let the eternal sun settle
+above, not in any gloomy winter, but in some of his most verdant
+springs.
+
+'As to those charitable foundations and memorial institutions of
+benevolence, about which notaries are so much occupied, in my case I
+appoint as follows: to three thousand of my poor townsmen of every
+class, I assign just the same number of florins, which sum I will that,
+on the anniversary of my death, they shall spend in feasting upon the
+town common, where they are previously to pitch their camp, unless the
+military camp of his Serene Highness shall be already pitched there, in
+preparation for the reviews; and when the gala is ended, I would have
+them cut up the tents into clothes. Item, to all the school-masters in
+our locality I bequeath one golden augustus. Item, to the Jews of this
+place I bequeath my pew in the high church.--As I would wish that my
+will should be divided into clauses, this is considered to be the first.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CLAUSE II.
+
+'Amongst the important offices of a will, it is universally agreed to be
+one, that from amongst the presumptive and presumptuous expectants, it
+should name those who are, and those who are not, to succeed to the
+inheritance; that it should create heirs and destroy them. In conformity to
+this notion, I give and bequeath to Mr Glantz, the councillor for
+ecclesiastical affairs, as also to Mr Knoll, the exchequer officer; likewise
+to Mr Peter Neupeter, the court-agent; item to Mr Harprecht, director of
+police; furthermore to Mr Flacks, the morning lecturer; in like manner to
+the court-bookseller, Mr Pasvogel; and finally to Monsieur Flitte,--nothing;
+not so much because they have no just claims upon me--standing, as they do,
+in the remotest possible degree of consanguinity; nor again, because they
+are for the most part themselves rich enough to leave handsome inheritances;
+as because I am assured, indeed I have it from their own lips, that they
+entertain a far stronger regard for my insignificant person than for my
+splendid property; my body, therefore, or as large a portion of it as they
+can get, I bequeath to them.'
+
+At this point seven faces, like those of the Seven Sleepers, gradually
+elongated into preternatural extent. The ecclesiastical councillor, a young
+man, but already famous throughout Germany for his sermons printed or
+preached, was especially aggrieved by such offensive personality; Monsieur
+Flitte rapped out a curse that rattled even in the ears of magistracy; the
+chin of Flacks the morning lecturer gravitated downwards into the dimensions
+of a patriarchal beard; and the town-council could distinguish an assortment
+of audible reproaches to the memory of Mr Kabel, such as prig, rascal,
+profane wretch, &c. But the Mayor motioned with his hand, and immediately
+the fiscal and the bookseller recomposed their features and set their faces
+like so many traps with springs, and triggers, at full cock, that they might
+catch every syllable; and then with a gravity that cost him some efforts:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CLAUSE III.
+
+'Excepting always, and be it excepted, my present house in Dog-street: which
+house by virtue of this third clause is to descend and to pass in full
+property just as it now stands, to that one of my seven relatives
+above-mentioned, who shall, within the space of one half-hour (to be
+computed from the reciting of this clause), shed, to the memory of me his
+departed kinsman, sooner than the other six competitors, one, or, if
+possible, a couple of tears, in the presence of a respectable magistrate,
+who is to make a protocol thereof. Should, however, _all remain dry_, in
+that case, the house must lapse to the heir-general--whom I shall proceed to
+name.'
+
+Here Mr Mayor closed the will: doubtless, he observed, the condition annexed
+to the bequest was an unusual one, but yet, in no respect contrary to law:
+to him that wept the first the court was bound to adjudge the house: and
+then placing his watch on the session table, the pointers of which indicated
+that it was now just half-past eleven, he calmly sat down--that he might
+duly witness in his official character of executor, assisted by the whole
+court of aldermen, who should be the first to produce the requisite tear or
+tears on behalf of the testator.
+
+That since the terraqueous globe has moved or existed, there can ever
+have met a more lugubrious congress, or one more out of temper and
+enraged than this of Seven United Provinces, as it were, all dry and all
+confederated for the purpose of weeping,--I suppose no impartial judge
+will believe. At first some invaluable minutes were lost in pure
+confusion of mind, in astonishment, in peals of laughter: the congress
+found itself too suddenly translated into the condition of the dog to
+which, in the very moment of his keenest assault upon some object of his
+appetite, the fiend cried out--Halt! Whereupon, standing up as he was,
+on his hind legs, his teeth grinning, and snarling with the fury of
+desire, he halted and remained petrified:--from the graspings of hope,
+however distant, to the necessity of weeping for a wager, the congress
+found the transition too abrupt and harsh.
+
+One thing was evident to all--that for a shower that was to come down at
+such a full gallop, for a baptism of the eyes to be performed at such a
+hunting pace, it was vain to think of any pure water of grief: no
+hydraulics could effect this: yet in twenty-six minutes (four
+unfortunately were already gone), in one way or other, perhaps, some
+business might be done.
+
+'Was there ever such a cursed act,' said the merchant Neupeter, 'such a
+price of buffoonery enjoined by any man of sense and discretion? For my
+part, I can't understand what the d----l it means.' However, he
+understood this much, that a house was by possibility floating in his
+purse upon a tear: and _that_ was enough to cause a violent irritation
+in his lachrymal glands.
+
+Knoll, the fiscal, was screwing up, twisting, and distorting his
+features pretty much in the style of a poor artisan on Saturday night,
+whom some fellow-workman is bar_ber_ously razoring and scraping by the
+light of a cobbler's candle: furious was his wrath at this abuse and
+profanation of the title _Last Will and Testament_: and at one time,
+poor soul! he was near enough to tears--of vexation.
+
+The wily bookseller, Pasvogel, without loss of time, sate down quietly
+to business: he ran through a cursory retrospect of all the works any
+ways moving or affecting that he had himself either published or sold on
+commission;--took a flying survey of the pathetic in general: and in
+this way of going to work, he had fair expectations that in the end he
+should brew something or other: as yet, however, he looked very much
+like a dog who is slowly licking off an emetic which the Parisian
+surgeon Demet has administered by smearing it on his nose:
+time--gentlemen, time was required for the operation.
+
+Monsieur Flitte, from Alsace, fairly danced up and down the sessions
+chamber; with bursts of laughter he surveyed the rueful faces around
+him: he confessed that he was not the richest among them, but for the
+whole city of Strasburg, and Alsace to boot, he was not the man that
+could or would weep on such a merry occasion. He went on with his
+unseasonable laughter and indecent mirth, until Harprecht, the police
+inspector, looked at him very significantly, and said--that perhaps
+Monsieur flattered himself that he might by means of laughter squeeze or
+express the tears required from the well-known meibomian glands, the
+caruncula, &c., and might thus piratically provide himself with
+surreptitious rain;[18] but in that case, he must remind him that he
+would no more win the day with any such secretions than he could carry
+to account a course of sneezes or wilfully blowing his nose; a channel
+into which it was well known that very many tears, far more than were
+now wanted, flowed out of the eyes through the nasal duct; more indeed
+by a good deal than were ever known to flow downwards to the bottom of
+most pews at a funeral sermon. Monsieur Flitte of Alsace, however,
+protested that he was laughing out of pure fun, for his own amusement;
+and, upon his honour, with no _ulterior views_.
+
+[18] In the original, the word is Fenster schweiss, window-sweat, _i.
+e._ (as the translator understands the passage) Monsieur Flitte was
+suspected of a design to swindle the company by exhibiting his two
+windows streaming with spurious moisture, such as hoar frost produces on
+the windows when melted by the heat of the room, rather than with the
+genuine and unadulterated rain which Mr Kabel demanded.
+
+The inspector on his side, being pretty well acquainted with the
+hopeless condition of his own dephlegmatised heart, endeavoured to force
+into his eyes something that might meet the occasion by staring with
+them wide open and in a state of rigid expansion.
+
+The morning-lecturer, Flacks, looked like a Jew beggar mounted on a
+stallion which is running away with him: meantime, what by domestic
+tribulations, what by those he witnessed at his own lecture, his heart
+was furnished with such a promising bank of heavy-laden clouds, that he
+could easily have delivered upon the spot the main quantity of water
+required had it not been for the house which floated on the top of the
+storm; and which, just as all was ready, came driving in with the tide,
+too gay and gladsome a spectacle not to banish his gloom, and thus
+fairly dammed up the waters.
+
+The ecclesiastical councillor--who had become acquainted with his own
+nature by long experience in preaching funeral sermons, and sermons on
+the New Year, and knew full well that he was himself always the first
+person and frequently the last, to be affected by the pathos of his own
+eloquence--now rose with dignified solemnity, on seeing himself and the
+others hanging so long by the dry rope, and addressed the chamber:--No
+man, he said, who had read his printed works, could fail to know that he
+carried a heart about him as well as other people; and a heart, he would
+add, that had occasion to repress such holy testimonies of its
+tenderness as tears, lest he should thereby draw too heavily on the
+sympathies and the purses of his fellow-men, rather than elaborately to
+provoke them by stimulants for any secondary views, or to serve an
+indirect purpose of his own: 'This heart,' said he, 'has already shed
+tears (but they were already shed secretly), for Kabel was my friend;'
+and, so saying, he paused for a moment and looked about him.
+
+With pleasure he observed that all were sitting as dry as corks: indeed,
+at this particular moment, when he himself, by interrupting their
+several water-works, had made them furiously angry, it might as well
+have been expected that crocodiles, fallow-deer, elephants, witches, or
+ravens should weep for Van der Kabel, as his presumptive heirs. Among
+them all, Flacks was the only one who continued to make way: he kept
+steadily before his mind the following little extempore assortment of
+objects:--Van der Kabel's good and beneficent acts; the old petticoats
+so worn and tattered, and the gray hair of his female congregation at
+morning service; Lazarus with his dogs; his own long coffin; innumerable
+decapitations; the Sorrows of Werther; a miniature field of battle; and
+finally, himself and his own melancholy condition at this moment, itself
+enough to melt any heart, condemned as he was in the bloom of youth by
+the second clause of Van der Kabel's will to tribulation, and tears, and
+struggles:--Well done, Flacks! Three strokes more with the pump-handle,
+and the water is pumped up and the house along with it.
+
+Meantime Glantz, the ecclesiastical councillor, proceeded in his
+pathetic harangue--'Oh, Kabel, my Kabel!' he ejaculated, and almost wept
+with joy at the near approach of his tears, 'the time shall come that by
+the side of thy loving breast, covered with earth, mine also shall lie
+mouldering and in cor----' _ruption_ he would have said; but Flacks,
+starting up in trouble, and with eyes overflowing, threw a hasty glance
+around him, and said, 'With submission, gentlemen, to the best of my
+belief I am weeping.' Then sitting down, with great satisfaction he
+allowed the tears to stream down his face; that done, he soon recovered
+his cheerfulness and his _aridity_. Glantz the councillor thus saw the
+prize fished away before his eyes--those very eyes which he had already
+brought into an _Accessit_,[19] or inchoate state of humidity; this
+vexed him: and his mortification was the greater on thinking of his own
+pathetic exertions, and the abortive appetite for the prize which he had
+thus uttered in words as ineffectual as his own sermons; and at this
+moment he was ready to weep for spite--and 'to weep the more because he
+wept in vain.' As to Flacks, a protocol was immediately drawn up of his
+watery compliance with the will of Van der Kabel: and the messuage in
+Dog-street was knocked down to him for ever. The Mayor adjudged it to
+the poor devil with all his heart: indeed, this was the first occasion
+ever known in Haslau, on which the tears of a schoolmaster and a curate
+had converted themselves--not into mere amber that incloses only a
+worthless insect, like the tears of Heliodes, but like those of the
+goddess Freia, into heavy gold. Glantz congratulated Flacks very
+warmly; and observed with a smiling air, that possibly he had himself
+lent him a helping hand by his pathetic address. As to the others, the
+separation between them and Flacks was too palpable, in the mortifying
+distinction of _wet_ and _dry_, to allow of any cordiality between them;
+and they stood aloof therefore: but they stayed to hear the rest of the
+will, which they now awaited in a state of anxious agitation.
+
+[19] To the English reader it may be necessary to explain, that in the
+continental universities, etc., when a succession of prizes is offered,
+graduated according to the degrees of merit, the illiptical formula of
+'_Accessit_' denotes the second prize; and hence, where only a single
+prize is offered, the second degree of merit may properly be expressed
+by the term here used.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSEHOLD WRECK.
+
+
+'_To be weak_,' we need not the great archangel's voice to tell us, '_is
+to be miserable_.' All weakness is suffering and humiliation, no matter
+for its mode or its subject. Beyond all other weakness, therefore, and
+by a sad prerogative, as more miserable than what is most miserable in
+all, that capital weakness of man which regards the _tenure_ of his
+enjoyments and his power to protect, even for a moment, the crown of
+flowers--flowers, at the best, how frail and few!--which sometimes
+settles upon his haughty brow. There is no end, there never will be an
+end, of the lamentations which ascend from earth and the rebellious
+heart of her children, upon this huge opprobrium of human pride--the
+everlasting mutabilities of all which man can grasp by his power or by
+his aspirations, the fragility of all which he inherits, and the
+hollowness visible amid the very raptures of enjoyment to every eye
+which looks for a moment underneath the draperies of the shadowy
+_present_--the hollowness--the blank treachery of hollowness, upon which
+all the pomps and vanities of life ultimately repose. This trite but
+unwearying theme, this impassioned commonplace of humanity, is the
+subject in every age of variation without end, from the Poet, the
+Rhetorician, the Fabulist, the Moralist, the Divine, and the
+Philosopher. All, amidst the sad vanity of their sighs and groans,
+labour to put on record and to establish this monotonous complaint,
+which needs not other record or evidence than those very sighs and
+groans. What is life? Darkness and formless vacancy for a beginning, or
+something beyond all beginning--then next a dim lotos of human
+consciousness, finding itself afloat upon the bosom of waters without a
+shore--then a few sunny smiles and many tears--a little love and
+infinite strife--whisperings from paradise and fierce mockeries from the
+anarchy of chaos--dust and ashes--and once more darkness circling round,
+as if from the beginning, and in this way rounding or making an island
+of our fantastic existence,--_that_ is human life; _that_ the inevitable
+amount of man's laughter and his tears--of what he suffers and he
+does--of his motions this way and that way--to the right or to the
+left--backwards or forwards--of all his seeming realities and all his
+absolute negations--his shadowy pomps and his pompous shadows--of
+whatsoever he thinks, finds, makes or mars, creates or animates, loves,
+hates, or in dread hope anticipates;--so it is, so it has been, so it
+will be, for ever and ever.
+
+Yet in the lowest deep there still yawns a lower deep; and in the vast
+halls of man's frailty there are separate and more gloomy chambers of a
+frailty more exquisite and consummate. We account it frailty that
+threescore years and ten make the upshot of man's pleasurable existence,
+and that, far before that time is reached, his beauty and his power have
+fallen among weeds and forgetfulness. But there is a frailty, by
+comparison with which this ordinary flux of the human race seems to have
+a vast duration. Cases there are, and those not rare, in which a single
+week--a day--an hour sweeps away all vestiges and landmarks of a
+memorable felicity; in which the ruin travels faster than the flying
+showers upon the mountain-side, faster 'than a musician scatters
+sounds;' in which 'it was' and 'it is not' are words of the self-same
+tongue, in the self-same minute; in which the sun that at noon beheld
+all sound and prosperous, long before its setting hour looks out upon a
+total wreck, and sometimes upon the total abolition of any fugitive
+memorial that there ever had been a vessel to be wrecked, or a wreck to
+be obliterated.
+
+These cases, though here spoken of rhetorically, are of daily
+occurrence; and, though they may seem few by comparison with the
+infinite millions of the species, they are many indeed, if they be
+reckoned absolutely for themselves; and throughout the limits of a whole
+nation, not a day passes over us but many families are robbed of their
+heads, or even swallowed up in ruin themselves, or their course turned
+out of the sunny beams into a dark wilderness. Shipwrecks and nightly
+conflagrations are sometimes, and especially among some nations,
+wholesale calamities; battles yet more so; earthquakes, the famine, the
+pestilence, though rarer, are visitations yet wider in their desolation.
+Sickness and commercial ill-luck, if narrower, are more frequent
+scourges. And most of all, or with most darkness in its train, comes the
+sickness of the brain--lunacy--which, visiting nearly one thousand in
+every million, must, in every populous nation, make many ruins in each
+particular day. 'Babylon in ruins,' says a great author, 'is not so sad
+a sight as a human soul overthrown by lunacy.' But there is a sadder
+even than _that_,--the sight of a family-ruin wrought by crime is even
+more appalling. Forgery, breaches of trust, embezzlement, of private or
+public funds--(a crime sadly on the increase since the example of
+Fauntleroy, and the suggestion of its great feasibility first made by
+him)--these enormities, followed too often, and countersigned for their
+final result to the future happiness of families, by the appalling
+catastrophe of suicide, must naturally, in every wealthy nation, or
+wherever property and the modes of property are much developed,
+constitute the vast majority of all that come under the review of public
+justice. Any of these is sufficient to make shipwreck of all peace and
+comfort for a family; and often, indeed, it happens that the desolation
+is accomplished within the course of one revolving sun; often the whole
+dire catastrophe, together with its total consequences, is both
+accomplished and made known to those whom it chiefly concerns within one
+and the same hour. The mighty Juggernaut of social life, moving onwards
+with its everlasting thunders, pauses not for a moment to spare--to
+pity--to look aside, but rushes forward for ever, impassive as the
+marble in the quarry--caring not for whom it destroys, for the how many,
+or for the results, direct and indirect, whether many or few. The
+increasing grandeur and magnitude of the social system, the more it
+multiplies and extends its victims, the more it conceals them; and for
+the very same reason: just as in the Roman amphitheatres, when they grew
+to the magnitude of mighty cities (in some instances accommodating
+400,000 spectators, in many a fifth part of that amount), births and
+deaths became ordinary events, which, in a small modern theatre, are
+rare and memorable; and exactly as these prodigious accidents
+multiplied, _pari passu_, they were disregarded and easily concealed:
+for curiosity was no longer excited; the sensation attached to them was
+little or none.
+
+From these terrific tragedies, which, like monsoons or tornadoes,
+accomplish the work of years in an hour, not merely an impressive lesson
+is derived, sometimes, perhaps, a warning, but also (and this is of
+universal application) some consolation. Whatever may have been the
+misfortunes or the sorrows of a man's life, he is still privileged to
+regard himself and his friends as amongst the fortunate by comparison,
+in so far as he has escaped these wholesale storms, either as an actor
+in producing them, or a contributor to their violence--or even more
+innocently (though oftentimes not less miserably)--as a participator in
+the instant ruin, or in the long arrears of suffering which they
+entail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following story falls within the class of hasty tragedies, and sudden
+desolations here described. The reader is assured that every incident is
+strictly true: nothing, in that respect, has been altered; nor, indeed,
+anywhere except in the conversations, of which, though the results and
+general outline are known, the separate details have necessarily been lost
+under the agitating circumstances which produced them. It has been judged
+right and delicate to conceal the name of the great city, and therefore of
+the nation in which these events occurred, chiefly out of consideration for
+the descendants of one person concerned in the narrative: otherwise, it
+might not have been requisite: for it is proper to mention, that every
+person directly a party to the case has been long laid in the grave: all of
+them, with one solitary exception, upwards of fifty years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was early spring in the year 17--; the day was the 6th of April; and the
+weather, which had been of a wintry fierceness for the preceding six or
+seven weeks--cold indeed beyond anything known for many years, gloomy for
+ever, and broken by continual storms--was now by a Swedish transformation
+all at once bright--genial--heavenly. So sudden and so early a prelusion of
+summer, it was generally feared, could not last. But that only made
+everybody the more eager to lose no hour of an enjoyment that might prove so
+fleeting. It seemed as if the whole population of the place, a population
+among the most numerous in Christendom, had been composed of hybernating
+animals suddenly awakened by the balmy sunshine from their long winter's
+torpor. Through every hour of the golden morning the streets were resonant
+with female parties of young and old, the timid and the bold, nay even of
+the most delicate valetudinarians, now first tempted to lay aside their
+wintry clothing together with their fireside habits, whilst the whole rural
+environs of our vast city, the woodlands, and the interminable meadows began
+daily to re-echo the glad voices of the young and jovial awaking once again,
+like the birds and the flowers, and universal nature, to the luxurious
+happiness of this most delightful season.
+
+Happiness do I say? Yes, happiness; happiness to me above all others. For I
+also in those days was among the young and the gay; I was healthy; I was
+strong; I was prosperous in a worldly sense! I owed no man a shilling;
+feared no man's face; shunned no man's presence. I held a respectable
+station in society; I was myself, let me venture to say it, respected
+generally for my personal qualities, apart from any advantages I might draw
+from fortune or inheritance; I had reason to think myself popular amongst
+the very slender circle of my acquaintance; and finally, which perhaps was
+the crowning grace to all these elements of happiness, I suffered not from
+the presence of _ennui_; nor ever feared to suffer: for my temperament was
+constitutionally ardent; I had a powerful animal sensibility; and I knew the
+one great secret for maintaining its equipoise, viz. by powerful daily
+exercise; and thus I lived in the light and presence, or (if I should not be
+suspected of seeking rhetorical expressions, I would say)--in one eternal
+solstice, of unclouded hope.
+
+These, you will say, were blessings; these were golden elements of felicity.
+They were so; and yet, with the single exception of my healthy frame and
+firm animal organisation, I feel that I have mentioned hitherto nothing but
+what by comparison might be thought of a vulgar quality. All the other
+advantages that I have enumerated, had they been yet wanting, might have
+been acquired; had they been forfeited, might have been reconquered; had
+they been even irretrievably lost, might, by a philosophic effort, have
+been dispensed with; compensations might have been found for any of them,
+many equivalents, or if not, consolations at least, for their absence. But
+now it remains to speak of other blessings too mighty to be valued, not
+merely as transcending in rank and dignity all other constituents of
+happiness, but for a reason far sadder than that--because, once lost, they
+were incapable of restoration, and because not to be dispensed with;
+blessings in which 'either we must live or have no life:' lights to the
+darkness of our paths and to the infirmity of our steps--which, once
+extinguished, never more on this side the gates of Paradise can any man hope
+to see re-illumined for himself. Amongst these I may mention an intellect,
+whether powerful or not in itself, at any rate most elaborately cultivated;
+and, to say the truth, I had little other business before me in this life
+than to pursue this lofty and delightful task. I may add, as a blessing, not
+in the same _positive_ sense as that which I have just mentioned, because
+not of a nature to contribute so hourly to the employment of the thoughts,
+but yet in this sense equal, that the absence of either would have been an
+equal affliction,--namely, a conscience void of all offence. It was little
+indeed that I, drawn by no necessities of situation into temptations of that
+nature, had done no injury to any man. That was fortunate; but I could not
+much value myself upon what was so much an accident of my situation.
+Something, however, I might pretend to beyond this _negative_ merit; for I
+had originally a benign nature; and, as I advanced in years and
+thoughtfulness, the gratitude which possessed me for my own exceeding
+happiness led me to do that by principle and system which I had already
+done upon blind impulse; and thus upon a double argument I was incapable of
+turning away from the prayer of the afflicted, whatever had been the
+sacrifice to myself. Hardly, perhaps, could it have been said in a
+sufficient sense at that time that I was a religious man: yet undoubtedly I
+had all the foundations within me upon which religion might hereafter have
+grown. My heart overflowed with thankfulness to Providence: I had a natural
+tone of unaffected piety; and thus far at least I might have been called a
+religious man, that in the simplicity of truth I could have exclaimed,
+
+    'O, Abner, I fear God, and I fear none beside.'
+
+But wherefore seek to delay ascending by a natural climax to that final
+consummation and perfect crown of my felicity--that almighty blessing which
+ratified their value to all the rest? Wherefore, oh! wherefore do I shrink
+in miserable weakness from----what? Is it from reviving, from calling up
+again into fierce and insufferable light the images and features of a
+long-buried happiness? That would be a natural shrinking and a reasonable
+weakness. But how escape from reviving, whether I give it utterance or not,
+that which is for ever vividly before me? What need to call into artificial
+light that which, whether sleeping or waking--by night or by day--for
+eight-and-thirty years has seemed by its miserable splendour to scorch my
+brain? Wherefore shrink from giving language, simple vocal utterance, to
+that burden of anguish which by so long an endurance has lost no atom of its
+weight, nor can gain any most surely by the loudest publication? Need there
+can be none, after this, to say that the priceless blessing, which I have
+left to the final place in this ascending review, was the companion of my
+life--my darling and youthful wife. Oh! dovelike woman! fated in an hour the
+most defenceless to meet with the ravening vulture,--lamb fallen amongst
+wolves,--trembling--fluttering fawn, whose path was inevitably to be crossed
+by the bloody tiger;--angel, whose most innocent heart fitted thee for too
+early a flight from this impure planet; if indeed it were a necessity that
+thou shouldst find no rest for thy footing except amidst thy native heavens,
+if indeed to leave what was not worthy of thee were a destiny not to be
+evaded--a summons not to be put by,--yet why, why, again and again I
+demand--why was it also necessary that this thy departure, so full of wo to
+me, should also to thyself be heralded by the pangs of martyrdom? Sainted
+love, if, like the ancient children of the Hebrews, like Meshech and
+Abednego, thou wert called by divine command, whilst yet almost a child, to
+walk, and to walk alone, through the fiery furnace,--wherefore then couldst
+not thou, like that Meshech and that Abednego, walk unsinged by the dreadful
+torment, and come forth unharmed? Why, if the sacrifice were to be total,
+was it necessary to reach it by so dire a struggle? and if the cup, the
+bitter cup, of final separation from those that were the light of thy eyes
+and the pulse of thy heart might not be put aside,--yet wherefore was it
+that thou mightst not drink it up in the natural peace which belongs to a
+sinless heart?
+
+But these are murmurings, you will say, rebellious murmurings against
+the proclamations of God. Not so: I have long since submitted myself,
+resigned myself, nay even reconciled myself, perhaps, to the great wreck
+of my life, in so far as it was the will of God, and according to the
+weakness of my imperfect nature. But my wrath still rises, like a
+towering flame, against all the earthly instruments of this ruin; I am
+still at times as unresigned as ever to this tragedy, in so far as it
+was the work of human malice. Vengeance, as a mission for _me_, as a
+task for _my_ hands in particular, is no longer possible; the
+thunder-bolts of retribution have been long since launched by other
+hands; and yet still it happens that at times I do--I must--I shall
+perhaps to the hour of death, rise in maniac fury, and seek, in the very
+impotence of vindictive madness, groping as it were in blindness of
+heart, for that tiger from hell-gates that tore away my darling from my
+heart. Let me pause, and interrupt this painful strain, to say a word or
+two upon what she was--and how far worthy of a love more honourable to
+her (that was possible) and deeper (but that was not possible) than
+mine. When first I saw her, she--my Agnes--was merely a child, not much
+(if anything) above sixteen. But, as in perfect womanhood she retained a
+most childlike expression of countenance, so even then in absolute
+childhood she put forward the blossoms and the dignity of a woman.
+Never yet did my eye light upon creature that was born of woman, nor
+could it enter my heart to conceive one, possessing a figure more
+matchless in its proportions, more statuesque, and more deliberately and
+advisedly to be characterised by no adequate word but the word
+_magnificent_ (a word too often and lightly abused). In reality,
+speaking of women, I have seen many beautiful figures, but hardly one
+except Agnes that could without hyperbole be styled truly and memorably
+magnificent. Though in the first order of tall women, yet, being full in
+person, and with a symmetry that was absolutely faultless, she seemed to
+the random sight as little above the ordinary height. Possibly from the
+dignity of her person, assisted by the dignity of her movements, a
+stranger would have been disposed to call her at a distance a woman of
+_commanding_ presence; but never after he had approached near enough to
+behold her face. Every thought of artifice--of practised effect--or of
+haughty pretension, fled before the childlike innocence--the sweet
+feminine timidity--and the more than cherub loveliness of that
+countenance, which yet in its lineaments was noble, whilst its
+expression was purely gentle and confiding. A shade of pensiveness there
+was about her; but _that_ was in her manners, scarcely ever in her
+features; and the exquisite fairness of her complexion, enriched by the
+very sweetest and most delicate bloom that ever I have beheld, should
+rather have allied it to a tone of cheerfulness. Looking at this noble
+creature, as I first looked at her, when yet upon the early threshold of
+womanhood--
+
+    'With household motions light and free,
+     And steps of virgin liberty'--
+
+you might have supposed her some Hebe or young Aurora of the dawn. When
+you saw only her superb figure, and its promise of womanly development,
+with the measured dignity of her step, you might for a moment have
+fancied her some imperial Medea of the Athenian stage--some Volumnia
+from Rome,
+
+    'Or ruling bandit's wife amidst the Grecian isles.'
+
+But catch one glance from her angelic countenance--and then combining
+the face and the person, you would have dismissed all such fancies, and
+have pronounced her a Pandora or an Eve, expressly accomplished and held
+forth by nature as an exemplary model or ideal pattern for the future
+female sex:
+
+    'A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
+     To warn, to comfort, to command:
+     And yet a spirit too, and bright
+     With something of an angel light.'
+
+To this superb young woman, such as I have here sketched her, I
+surrendered my heart for ever, almost from my first opportunity of
+seeing her: for so natural and without disguise was her character, and
+so winning the simplicity of her manners, due in part to her own native
+dignity of mind, and in part to the deep solitude in which she had been
+reared, that little penetration was required to put me in possession of
+all her thoughts; and to win her love, not very much more than to let
+her see, as see she could not avoid, in connection with that chivalrous
+homage which at any rate was due to her sex and her sexual perfections,
+a love for herself on my part, which was in its nature as exalted a
+passion and as profoundly rooted as any merely human affection can ever
+yet have been.
+
+On the seventeenth birthday of Agnes we were married. Oh! calendar of
+everlasting months--months that, like the mighty rivers, shall flow on
+for ever, immortal as thou, Nile, or Danube, Euphrates, or St. Lawrence!
+and ye, summer and winter, day and night, wherefore do you bring round
+continually your signs, and seasons, and revolving hours, that still
+point and barb the anguish of local recollections, telling me of this
+and that celestial morning that never shall return, and of too blessed
+expectations, travelling like yourselves through a heavenly zodiac of
+changes, till at once and for ever they sank into the grave! Often do I
+think of seeking for some quiet cell either in the Tropics or in Arctic
+latitudes, where the changes of the year, and the external signs
+corresponding to them, express themselves by no features like those in
+which the same seasons are invested under our temperate climes: so that,
+if knowing, we cannot at least feel the identity of their revolutions.
+We were married, I have said, on the birthday--the seventeenth
+birthday--of Agnes; and pretty nearly on her eighteenth it was that she
+placed me at the summit of my happiness, whilst for herself she thus
+completed the circle of her relations to this life's duties, by
+presenting me with a son. Of this child, knowing how wearisome to
+strangers is the fond exultation of parents, I shall simply say, that he
+inherited his mother's beauty; the same touching loveliness and
+innocence of expression, the same chiselled nose--mouth--and chin, the
+same exquisite auburn hair. In many other features, not of person
+merely, but also of mind and manners, as they gradually began to open
+before me, this child deepened my love to him by recalling the image of
+his mother; and what other image was there that I so much wished to keep
+before me, whether waking or asleep? At the time to which I am now
+coming but too rapidly, this child, still our only one, and unusually
+premature, was within four months of completing his third year;
+consequently Agnes was at that time in her twenty-first year; and I may
+here add, with respect to myself, that I was in my twenty-sixth.
+
+But before I come to that period of wo, let me say one word on the
+temper of mind which so fluent and serene a current of prosperity may be
+thought to have generated. Too common a course I know it is, when the
+stream of life flows with absolute tranquillity, and ruffled by no
+menace of a breeze--the azure overhead never dimmed by a passing cloud,
+that in such circumstances the blood stagnates: life, from excess and
+plethora of sweets, becomes insipid: the spirit of action droops: and it
+is oftentimes found at such seasons that slight annoyances and
+molestations, or even misfortunes in a lower key, are not wholly
+undesirable, as means of stimulating the lazy energies, and disturbing a
+slumber which is, or soon will be, morbid in its character. I have known
+myself cases not a few, where, by the very nicest gradations, and by
+steps too silent and insensible for daily notice, the utmost harmony and
+reciprocal love had shaded down into fretfulness and petulance, purely
+from too easy a life, and because all nobler agitations that might have
+ruffled the sensations occasionally, and all distresses even on the
+narrowest scale that might have reawakened the solicitudes of love, by
+opening necessities for sympathy--for counsel--or for mutual aid, had
+been shut out by foresight too elaborate, or by prosperity too cloying.
+But all this, had it otherwise been possible with my particular mind,
+and at my early age, was utterly precluded by one remarkable peculiarity
+in my temper. Whether it were that I derived from nature some jealousy
+and suspicion of all happiness which seems too perfect and unalloyed--[a
+spirit of restless distrust which in ancient times often led men to
+throw valuable gems into the sea, in the hope of thus propitiating the
+dire deity of misfortune, by voluntarily breaking the fearful chain of
+prosperity, and led some of them to weep and groan when the gems thus
+sacrificed were afterwards brought back to their hands by simple
+fishermen, who had recovered them in the intestines of fishes--a
+portentous omen, which was interpreted into a sorrowful indication that
+the Deity thus answered the propitiatory appeal, and made solemn
+proclamation that he had rejected it]--whether, I say, it were this
+spirit of jealousy awaked in me by too steady and too profound a
+felicity--or whether it were that great overthrows and calamities have
+some mysterious power to send forward a dim misgiving of their advancing
+footsteps, and really and indeed
+
+    'That in to-day already walks to-morrow;'--
+
+or whether it were partly, as I have already put the case in my first
+supposition, a natural instinct of distrust, but irritated and enlivened
+by a particular shock of superstitious alarm; which, or whether any of
+these causes it were that kept me apprehensive, and on the watch for
+disastrous change, I will not here undertake to determine. Too certain
+it is that I was so. I never ridded myself of an over-mastering and
+brooding sense, shadowy and vague, a dim abiding feeling (that sometimes
+was and sometimes was not exalted into a conscious presentiment) of some
+great calamity travelling towards me; not perhaps immediately
+impending--perhaps even at a great distance; but already--dating from
+some secret hour--already in motion upon some remote line of approach.
+This feeling I could not assuage by sharing it with Agnes. No motive
+could be strong enough for persuading me to communicate so gloomy a
+thought with one who, considering her extreme healthiness, was but too
+remarkably prone to pensive, if not to sorrowful contemplations. And
+thus the obligation which I felt to silence and reserve, strengthened
+the morbid impression I had received; whilst the remarkable incident I
+have adverted to served powerfully to rivet the superstitious chain
+which was continually gathering round me. The incident was this--and
+before I repeat it, let me pledge my word of honour, that I report to
+you the bare facts of the case, without exaggeration, and in the
+simplicity of truth:--There was at that time resident in the great city
+which is the scene of my narrative a woman, from some part of Hungary,
+who pretended to the gift of looking into futurity. She had made herself
+known advantageously in several of the greatest cities of Europe under
+the designation of the Hungarian Prophetess; and very extraordinary
+instances were cited amongst the highest circles of her success in the
+art which she professed. So ample were the pecuniary tributes which she
+levied upon the hopes and the fears, or the simple curiosity of the
+aristocracy, that she was thus able to display not unfrequently a
+disinterestedness and a generosity, which seemed native to her
+disposition, amongst the humbler classes of her applicants; for she
+rejected no addresses that were made to her, provided only they were not
+expressed in levity or scorn, but with sincerity, and in a spirit of
+confiding respect. It happened, on one occasion, when a nursery-servant
+of ours was waiting in her anteroom for the purpose of taking her turn
+in consulting the prophetess professionally, that she had witnessed a
+scene of consternation and unaffected maternal grief in this Hungarian
+lady upon the sudden seizure of her son, a child of four or five years
+old, by a spasmodic inflammation of the throat (since called croup),
+peculiar to children, and in those days not very well understood by
+medical men. The poor Hungarian, who had lived chiefly in warm, or at
+least not damp climates, and had never so much as heard of this
+complaint, was almost wild with alarm at the rapid increase of the
+symptoms which attend the paroxysms, and especially of that loud and
+distressing sound which marks the impeded respiration. Great, therefore,
+was her joy and gratitude on finding from our servant that she had
+herself been in attendance more than once upon cases of the same nature,
+but very much more violent,--and that, consequently, she was well
+qualified to suggest and to superintend all the measures of instant
+necessity, such as the hot-bath, the peculiar medicines, &c., which are
+almost sure of success when applied in an early stage. Staying to give
+her assistance until a considerable improvement had taken place in the
+child, our servant then hurried home to her mistress. Agnes, it may be
+imagined, despatched her back with such further and more precise
+directions as in a very short time availed to re-establish the child in
+convalescence. These practical services, and the messages of maternal
+sympathy repeatedly conveyed from Agnes, had completely won the heart of
+the grateful Hungarian, and she announced her intention of calling with
+her little boy, to make her personal acknowledgments for the kindness
+which had been shown to her. She did so, and we were as much impressed
+by the sultana-like style of her Oriental beauty, as she, on her part,
+was touched and captivated by the youthful loveliness of my angelic
+wife. After sitting for above an hour, during which time she talked with
+a simplicity and good feeling that struck us as remarkable in a person
+professing an art usually connected with so much of conscious fraud, she
+rose to take her leave. I must mention that she had previously had our
+little boy sitting on her knee, and had at intervals thrown a hasty
+glance upon the palms of his hands. On parting, Agnes, with her usual
+frankness, held out her hand. The Hungarian took it with an air of sad
+solemnity, pressed it fervently, and said,--'Lady, it is my part in this
+life to look behind the curtain of fate; and oftentimes I see such
+sights in futurity--some near, some far off--as willingly I would _not_
+see. For you, young and charming lady, looking like that angel which you
+are, no destiny can be equal to your deserts. Yet sometimes, true it is,
+God sees not as man sees; and He ordains, after His unfathomable
+counsels, to the heavenly-minded a portion in heaven, and to the
+children whom He loves a rest and a haven not built with hands.
+Something that I have seen dimly warns me to look no farther. Yet, if
+you desire it, I will do my office, and I will read for you with truth
+the lines of fate as they are written upon your hands.' Agnes was a
+little startled, or even shocked, by this solemn address; but, in a
+minute or so, a mixed feeling--one half of which was curiosity, and the
+other half a light-hearted mockery of her own mysterious awe in the
+presence of what she had been taught to view as either fraud or
+insanity--prompted her playfully to insist upon the fullest application
+of the Hungarian's art to her own case; nay, she would have the hands of
+our little Francis read and interpreted as well as her own, and she
+desired to hear the full professional judgment delivered without
+suppression or softening of its harshest awards. She laughed whilst she
+said all this; but she also trembled a little. The Hungarian first took
+the hand of our young child, and perused it with a long and steady
+scrutiny. She said nothing, but sighed heavily as she resigned it. She
+then took the hand of Agnes--looked bewildered and aghast--then gazed
+piteously from Agnes to her child--and at last, bursting into tears,
+began to move steadily out of the room. I followed her hastily, and
+remonstrated upon this conduct, by pointing her attention to the obvious
+truth--that these mysterious suppressions and insinuations, which left
+all shadowy and indistinct, were far more alarming than the most
+definite denunciations. Her answer yet rings in my ear:--'Why should I
+make myself odious to you and to your innocent wife? Messenger of evil I
+am, and have been to many; but evil I will not prophesy to her. Watch
+and pray! Much may be done by effectual prayer. Human means, fleshly
+arms, are vain. There is an enemy in the house of life' [here she
+quitted her palmistry for the language of astrology]; 'there is a
+frightful danger at hand, both for your wife and your child. Already on
+that dark ocean, over which we are all sailing, I can see dimly the
+point at which the enemy's course shall cross your wife's. There is but
+little interval remaining--not many hours. All is finished; all is
+accomplished; and already he is almost up with the darlings of your
+heart. Be vigilant, be vigilant, and yet look not to yourself, but to
+heaven, for deliverance.'
+
+This woman was not an impostor: she spoke and uttered her oracles under
+a wild sense of possession by some superior being, and of mystic
+compulsion to say what she would have willingly left unsaid; and never
+yet, before or since, have I seen the light of sadness settle with so
+solemn an expression into human eyes as when she dropped my wife's hand,
+and refused to deliver that burden of prophetic wo with which she
+believed herself to be inspired.
+
+The prophetess departed; and what mood of mind did she leave behind her
+in Agnes and myself? Naturally there was a little drooping of spirits at
+first; the solemnity and the heart-felt sincerity of fear and grief
+which marked her demeanour, made it impossible, at the moment when we
+were just fresh from their natural influences, that we should recoil
+into our ordinary spirits. But with the inevitable elasticity of youth
+and youthful gaiety we soon did so; we could not attempt to persuade
+ourselves that there had been any conscious fraud or any attempt at
+scenical effect in the Hungarian's conduct. She had no motive for
+deceiving us; she had refused all offerings of money, and her whole
+visit had evidently been made under an overflow of the most grateful
+feelings for the attentions shown to her child. We acquitted her,
+therefore, of sinister intentions; and with our feelings of jealousy,
+feelings in which we had been educated, towards everything that tended
+to superstition, we soon agreed to think her some gentle maniac or sad
+enthusiast, suffering under some form of morbid melancholy. Forty-eight
+hours, with two nights' sleep, sufficed to restore the wonted
+equilibrium of our spirits; and that interval brought us onwards to the
+6th of April--the day on which, as I have already said, my story
+properly commences.
+
+On that day, on that lovely 6th of April, such as I have described it,
+that 6th of April, about nine o'clock in the morning, we were seated at
+breakfast near the open window--we, that is Agnes, myself, and little
+Francis; the freshness of morning spirits rested upon us; the golden
+light of the morning sun illuminated the room; incense was floating
+through the air from the gorgeous flowers within and without the house;
+there in youthful happiness we sat gathered together, a family of love,
+and there we never sat again. Never again were we three gathered
+together, nor ever shall be, so long as the sun and its golden
+light--the morning and the evening--the earth and its flowers endure.
+
+Often have I occupied myself in recalling every circumstance the most
+trivial of this the final morning of what merits to be called my life.
+Eleven o'clock, I remember, was striking when Agnes came into my study,
+and said that she would go into the city (for we lived in a quite rural
+suburb), that she would execute some trifling commissions which she had
+received from a friend in the country, and would be at home again
+between one and two for a stroll which we had agreed to take in the
+neighbouring meadows. About twenty minutes after this she again came
+into my study dressed for going abroad; for such was my admiration of
+her, that I had a fancy--fancy it must have been, and yet still I felt
+it to be real--that under every change she looked best; if she put on a
+shawl, then a shawl became the most feminine of ornaments; if she laid
+aside her shawl and her bonnet, then how nymph-like she seemed in her
+undisguised and unadorned beauty! Full-dress seemed for the time to be
+best, as bringing forward into relief the splendour of her person, and
+allowing the exposure of her arms; a simple morning-dress, again, seemed
+better still, as fitted to call out the childlike innocence of her face,
+by confining the attention to that. But all these are feelings of fond
+and blind affection, hanging with rapture over the object of something
+too like idolatry. God knows, if that be a sin, I was but too profound a
+sinner; yet sin it never was, sin it could not be, to adore a beauty
+such as thine, my Agnes. Neither was it her beauty by itself, and that
+only, which I sought at such times to admire; there was a peculiar sort
+of double relation in which she stood at moments of pleasurable
+expectation and excitement, since our little Francis had become of an
+age to join our party, which made some aspects of her character trebly
+interesting. She was a wife--and wife to one whom she looked up to as
+her superior in understanding and in knowledge of the world, whom,
+therefore, she leaned to for protection. On the other hand, she was also
+a mother. Whilst, therefore, to her child she supported the matronly
+part of guide, and the air of an experienced person; to me she wore,
+ingenuously and without disguise, the part of a child herself, with all
+the giddy hopes and unchastised imaginings of that buoyant age. This
+double character, one aspect of which looks towards her husband and one
+to her children, sits most gracefully upon many a young wife whose heart
+is pure and innocent; and the collision between the two separate parts
+imposed by duty on the one hand, by extreme youth on the other, the one
+telling her that she is a responsible head of a family and the
+depository of her husband's honour in its tenderest and most vital
+interests, the other telling her, through the liveliest language of
+animal sensibility, and through the very pulses of her blood, that she
+is herself a child; this collision gives an inexpressible charm to the
+whole demeanour of many a young married woman, making her other
+fascinations more touching to her husband, and deepening the admiration
+she excites; and the more so, as it is a collision which cannot exist
+except among the very innocent. Years, at any rate, will irresistibly
+remove this peculiar charm, and gradually replace it by the graces of
+the matronly character. But in Agnes this change had not yet been
+effected, partly from nature, and partly from the extreme seclusion of
+her life. Hitherto she still retained the unaffected expression of her
+childlike nature; and so lovely in my eyes was this perfect exhibition
+of natural feminine character, that she rarely or never went out alone
+upon any little errand to town which might require her to rely upon her
+own good sense and courage, that she did not previously come to exhibit
+herself before me. Partly this was desired by me in that lover-like
+feeling of admiration already explained, which leads one to court the
+sight of a beloved object under every change of dress, and under all
+effects of novelty. Partly it was the interest I took in that exhibition
+of sweet timidity, and almost childish apprehensiveness, half disguised
+or imperfectly acknowledged by herself, which (in the way I have just
+explained) so touchingly contrasted with (and for that very reason so
+touchingly drew forth) her matronly character. But I hear some objector
+say at this point, ought not this very timidity, founded (as in part at
+least it was) upon inexperience and conscious inability to face the
+dangers of the world, to have suggested reasons for not leaving her to
+her own protection? And does it not argue on my part, an arrogant or too
+blind a confidence in the durability of my happiness, as though charmed
+against assaults, and liable to no shocks of sudden revolution? I reply
+that, from the very constitution of society, and the tone of manners in
+the city which we inhabited, there seemed to be a moral impossibility
+that any dangers of consequence should meet her in the course of those
+brief absences from my protection, which only were possible; that even
+to herself any dangers, of a nature to be anticipated under the known
+circumstances of the case, seemed almost imaginary; that even _she_
+acknowledged a propriety in being trained, by slight and brief
+separations from my guardianship, to face more boldly those cases of
+longer separation and of more absolute consignment to her own resources
+which circumstances might arise to create necessarily, and perhaps
+abruptly. And it is evident that, had she been the wife of any man
+engaged in the duties of a profession, she might have been summoned from
+the very first, and without the possibility of any such gradual
+training, to the necessity of relying almost singly upon her own courage
+and discretion. For the other question, whether I did not depend too
+blindly and presumptuously upon my good luck in not at least affording
+her my protection so long as nothing occurred to make it impossible? I
+may reply most truly that all my feelings ran naturally in the very
+opposite channel. So far from confiding too much in my luck, in the
+present instance I was engaged in the task of writing upon some points
+of business which could not admit of further delay; but now, and at all
+times, I had a secret aversion to seeing so gentle a creature thrown
+even for an hour upon her own resources, though in situations which
+scarcely seemed to admit of any occasion for taxing those resources; and
+often I have felt anger towards myself for what appeared to be an
+irrational or effeminate timidity, and have struggled with my own mind
+upon occasions like the present, when I knew that I could not have
+acknowledged my tremors to a friend without something like shame, and a
+fear to excite his ridicule. No; if in anything I ran into excess, it
+was in this very point of anxiety as to all that regarded my wife's
+security. Her good sense, her prudence, her courage (for courage she had
+in the midst of her timidity), her dignity of manner, the more
+impressive from the childlike character of her countenance, all should
+have combined to reassure me, and yet they did not. I was still anxious
+for her safety to an irrational extent; and to sum up the whole in a
+most weighty line of Shakspeare, I lived under the constant presence of
+a feeling which only that great observer of human nature (so far as I am
+aware) has ever noticed, viz., that merely the excess of my happiness
+made me jealous of its ability to last, and in that extent less capable
+of enjoying it; that in fact the prelibation of my tears, as a homage to
+its fragility, was drawn forth by my very sense that my felicity was too
+exquisite; or, in the words of the great master--
+
+    'I wept to have' [absolutely, by anticipation, shed tears in
+     possessing] 'what I so feared to lose.'
+
+Thus end my explanations, and I now pursue my narrative: Agnes, as I have
+said, came into my room again before leaving the house--we conversed for
+five minutes--we parted--she went out--her last words being that she would
+return at half-past one o'clock; and not long after that time, if ever mimic
+bells--bells of rejoicing, or bells of mourning, are heard in desert spaces
+of the air, and (as some have said), in unreal worlds, that mock our own,
+and repeat, for ridicule, the vain and unprofitable motions of man, then too
+surely, about this hour, began to toll the funeral knell of my earthly
+happiness--its final hour had sounded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One o'clock had arrived; fifteen minutes after, I strolled into the
+garden, and began to look over the little garden-gate in expectation of
+every moment descrying Agnes in the distance. Half an hour passed, and
+for ten minutes more I was tolerably quiet. From this time till
+half-past two I became constantly more agitated--_agitated_, perhaps, is
+too strong a word--but I was restless and anxious beyond what I should
+have chosen to acknowledge. Still I kept arguing, What is half an
+hour?--what is an hour? A thousand things might have occurred to cause
+that delay, without needing to suppose any accident; or, if an accident,
+why not a very trifling one? She may have slightly hurt her foot--she
+may have slightly sprained her ankle. 'Oh, doubtless,' I exclaimed to
+myself, 'it will be a mere trifle, or perhaps nothing at all.' But I
+remember that, even whilst I was saying this, I took my hat and walked
+with nervous haste into the little quiet lane upon which our garden-gate
+opened. The lane led by a few turnings, and after a course of about five
+hundred yards, into a broad high-road, which even at that day had begun
+to assume the character of a street, and allowed an unobstructed range
+of view in the direction of the city for at least a mile. Here I
+stationed myself, for the air was so clear that I could distinguish
+dress and figure to a much greater distance than usual. Even on such a
+day, however, the remote distance was hazy and indistinct, and at any
+other season I should have been diverted with the various mistakes I
+made. From occasional combinations of colour, modified by light and
+shade, and of course powerfully assisted by the creative state of the
+eye under this nervous apprehensiveness, I continued to shape into
+images of Agnes forms without end, that upon nearer approach presented
+the most grotesque contrasts to her impressive appearance. But I had
+ceased even to comprehend the ludicrous; my agitation was now so
+overruling and engrossing that I lost even my intellectual sense of it;
+and now first I understood practically and feelingly the anguish of hope
+alternating with disappointment, as it may be supposed to act upon the
+poor shipwrecked seaman, alone and upon a desolate coast, straining his
+sight for ever to the fickle element which has betrayed him, but which
+only can deliver him, and with his eyes still tracing in the far
+distance
+
+    'Ships, dim-discover'd, dropping from the clouds,'--
+
+which a brief interval of suspense still for ever disperses into hollow
+pageants of air or vapour. One deception melted away only to be
+succeeded by another; still I fancied that at last to a certainty I
+could descry the tall figure of Agnes, her gipsy hat, and even the
+peculiar elegance of her walk. Often I went so far as to laugh at
+myself, and even to tax my recent fears with unmanliness and effeminacy,
+on recollecting the audible throbbings of my heart, and the nervous
+palpitations which had besieged me; but these symptoms, whether
+effeminate or not, began to come back tumultuously under the gloomy
+doubts that succeeded almost before I had uttered this self-reproach.
+Still I found myself mocked and deluded with false hopes; yet still I
+renewed my quick walk, and the intensity of my watch for that radiant
+form that was fated never more to be seen returning from the cruel city.
+
+It was nearly half-past three, and therefore close upon two hours beyond
+the time fixed by Agnes for her return, when I became absolutely
+incapable of supporting the further torture of suspense, and I suddenly
+took the resolution of returning home and concerting with my female
+servants some energetic measures, though _what_ I could hardly say, on
+behalf of their mistress. On entering the garden-gate I met our little
+child Francis, who unconsciously inflicted a pang upon me which he
+neither could have meditated nor have understood. I passed him at his
+play, perhaps even unaware of his presence, but he recalled me to that
+perception by crying aloud that he had just seen his mamma.
+
+'When--where?' I asked convulsively.
+
+'Up-stairs in her bedroom,' was his instantaneous answer.
+
+His manner was such as forbade me to suppose that he could be joking;
+and, as it was barely possible (though, for reasons well-known to me, in
+the highest degree improbable), that Agnes might have returned by a
+by-path, which, leading through a dangerous and disreputable suburb,
+would not have coincided at any one point with the public road where I
+had been keeping my station. I sprang forward into the house, up-stairs,
+and in rapid succession into every room where it was likely that she
+might be found; but everywhere there was a dead silence, disturbed only
+by myself, for, in my growing confusion of thought, I believe that I
+rang the bell violently in every room I entered. No such summons,
+however, was needed, for the servants, two of whom at the least were
+most faithful creatures, and devotedly attached to their young mistress,
+stood ready of themselves to come and make inquiries of me as soon as
+they became aware of the alarming fact that I had returned without her.
+
+Until this moment, though having some private reasons for surprise that
+she should have failed to come into the house for a minute or two at the
+hour prefixed, in order to make some promised domestic arrangements for
+the day, they had taken it for granted that she must have met with me at
+some distance from home--and that either the extreme beauty of the day
+had beguiled her of all petty household recollections, or (as a
+conjecture more in harmony with past experiences) that my impatience and
+solicitations had persuaded her to lay aside her own plans for the
+moment at the risk of some little domestic inconvenience. Now, however,
+in a single instant vanished _every_ mode of accounting for their
+mistress's absence; and the consternation of our looks communicated
+contagiously, by the most unerring of all languages, from each to the
+other what thoughts were uppermost in our panic-stricken hearts. If to
+any person it should seem that our alarm was disproportioned to the
+occasion, and not justified at least by anything as yet made known to
+us, let that person consider the weight due to the two following
+facts--first, that from the recency of our settlement in this
+neighbourhood, and from the extreme seclusion of my wife's previous life
+at a vast distance from the metropolis, she had positively no friends on
+her list of visitors who resided in this great capital; secondly, and
+far above all beside, let him remember the awful denunciations, so
+unexpectedly tallying with this alarming and mysterious absence, of the
+Hungarian prophetess; these had been slighted--almost dismissed from our
+thoughts; but now in sudden reaction they came back upon us with a
+frightful power to lacerate and to sting--the shadowy outline of a
+spiritual agency, such as that which could at all predict the events,
+combining in one mysterious effect, with the shadowy outline of those
+very predictions. The power, that could have predicted, was as dim and
+as hard to grasp as was the precise nature of the evil that had been
+predicted.
+
+An icy terror froze my blood at this moment when I looked at the
+significant glances, too easily understood by me, that were exchanged
+between the servants. My mouth had been for the last two hours growing
+more and more parched, so that at present, from mere want of moisture, I
+could not separate my lips to speak. One of the women saw the vain
+efforts I was making, and hastily brought me a glass of water. With the
+first recovery of speech, I asked them what little Francis had meant by
+saying that he had seen his mother in her bedroom. Their reply was--that
+they were as much at a loss to discover his meaning as I was; that he
+had made the same assertion to them, and with so much earnestness, that
+they had, all in succession, gone up-stairs to look for her, and with
+the fullest expectation of finding her. This was a mystery which
+remained such to the very last; there was no doubt whatsoever that the
+child believed himself to have seen his mother; that he could not have
+seen her in her human bodily presence, there is as little doubt as there
+is, alas! that in this world he never _did_ see her again. The poor
+child constantly adhered to his story, and with a circumstantiality far
+beyond all power of invention that could be presumed in an artless
+infant. Every attempt at puzzling him or entangling him in
+contradictions by means of cross-examination was but labour thrown away;
+though, indeed, it is true enough that for those attempts, as will soon
+be seen, there was but a brief interval allowed.
+
+Not dwelling upon this subject at present, I turned to Hannah--a woman
+who held the nominal office of cook in our little establishment, but
+whose real duties had been much more about her mistress's person--and
+with a searching look of appeal I asked her whether, in this moment of
+trial, when (as she might see) I was not so perfectly master of myself
+as perhaps always to depend upon seeing what was best to be done, she
+would consent to accompany me into the city, and take upon herself those
+obvious considerations of policy or prudence which might but too easily
+escape my mind, darkened, and likely to be darkened, as to its power of
+discernment by the hurricane of affliction now too probably at hand. She
+answered my appeal with the fervour I expected from what I had already
+known of her character. She was a woman of a strong, fiery, perhaps I
+might say of heroic mind, supported by a courage that was absolutely
+indomitable, and by a strength of bodily frame very unusual in a woman,
+and beyond the promise even of her person. She had suffered as deep a
+wrench in her own affections as a human being can suffer; she had lost
+her one sole child, a fair-haired boy of most striking beauty and
+interesting disposition, at the age of seventeen, and by the worst of
+all possible fates; he lived (as we did at that time) in a large
+commercial city overflowing with profligacy, and with temptations of
+every order; he had been led astray; culpable he had been, but by very
+much the least culpable of the set into which accident had thrown him,
+as regarded acts and probable intentions; and as regarded palliations
+from childish years, from total inexperience, or any other alleviating
+circumstances that could be urged, having everything to plead--and of
+all his accomplices the only one who had anything to plead. Interest,
+however, he had little or none; and whilst some hoary villains of the
+party, who happened to be more powerfully befriended, were finally
+allowed to escape with a punishment little more than nominal, he and two
+others were selected as sacrifices to the offended laws. They suffered
+capitally. All three behaved well; but the poor boy in particular, with
+a courage, a resignation, and a meekness, so distinguished and beyond
+his years as to attract the admiration and the liveliest sympathy of the
+public universally. If strangers could feel in that way, if the mere
+hardened executioner could be melted at the final scene,--it may be
+judged to what a fierce and terrific height would ascend the affliction
+of a doating mother, constitutionally too fervid in her affections. I
+have heard an official person declare, that the spectacle of her
+desolation and frantic anguish was the most frightful thing he had ever
+witnessed, and so harrowing to the feelings, that all who could by
+their rank venture upon such an irregularity, absented themselves during
+the critical period from the office which corresponded with the
+government; for, as I have said, the affair took place in a large
+provincial city, at a great distance from the capital. All who knew this
+woman, or who were witnesses to the alteration which one fortnight had
+wrought in her person as well as her demeanour, fancied it impossible
+that she could continue to live; or that, if she did, it must be through
+the giving way of her reason. They proved, however, to be mistaken; or,
+at least, if (as some thought) her reason did suffer in some degree,
+this result showed itself in the inequality of her temper, in moody fits
+of abstraction, and the morbid energy of her manner at times under the
+absence of all adequate external excitement, rather than in any positive
+and apparent hallucinations of thought. The charm which had mainly
+carried off the instant danger to her faculties, was doubtless the
+intense sympathy which she met with. And in these offices of consolation
+my wife stood foremost. For, and that was fortunate, she had found
+herself able, without violence to her own sincerest opinions in the
+case, to offer precisely that form of sympathy which was most soothing
+to the angry irritation of the poor mother; not only had she shown a
+_direct_ interest in the boy, and not a mere interest of _reflection_
+from that which she took in the mother, and had expressed it by visits
+to his dungeon, and by every sort of attention to his comforts which his
+case called for, or the prison regulations allowed; not only had she
+wept with the distracted woman as if for a brother of her own; but,
+which went farther than all the rest in softening the mother's heart,
+she had loudly and indignantly proclaimed her belief in the boy's
+innocence, and in the same tone her sense of the crying injustice
+committed as to the selection of the victims, and the proportion of the
+punishment awarded. Others, in the language of a great poet,
+
+    'Had pitied _her_ and not her grief;'
+
+they had either not been able to see, or, from carelessness, had neglected
+to see, any peculiar wrong done to her in the matter which occasioned her
+grief,--but had simply felt compassion for her as for one summoned, in a
+regular course of providential and human dispensation, to face an
+affliction, heavy in itself, but not heavy from any special defect of
+equity. Consequently their very sympathy, being so much built upon the
+assumption that an only child had offended to the extent implied in his
+sentence, oftentimes clothed itself in expressions which she felt to be not
+consolations but insults, and, in fact, so many justifications of those whom
+it relieved her overcharged heart to regard as the very worst of enemies.
+Agnes, on the other hand, took the very same view of the case as herself;
+and, though otherwise the gentlest of all gentle creatures, yet here, from
+the generous fervour of her reverence for justice, and her abhorrence of
+oppression, she gave herself no trouble to moderate the energy of her
+language: nor did I, on my part, feeling that substantially she was in the
+right, think it of importance to dispute about the exact degrees of the
+wrong done or the indignation due to it. In this way it happened naturally
+enough that at one and the same time, though little contemplating either of
+these results, Agnes had done a prodigious service to the poor desolate
+mother by breaking the force of her misery, as well as by arming the active
+agencies of indignation against the depressing ones of solitary grief, and
+for herself had won a most grateful and devoted friend, who would have gone
+through fire and water to serve her, and was thenceforwards most anxious for
+some opportunity to testify how deep had been her sense of the goodness
+shown to her by her benign young mistress, and how incapable of suffering
+abatement by time. It remains to add, which I have slightly noticed before,
+that this woman was of unusual personal strength: her bodily frame matched
+with her intellectual: and I notice this _now_ with the more emphasis,
+because I am coming rapidly upon ground where it will be seen that this one
+qualification was of more summary importance to us--did us more 'yeoman's
+service' at a crisis the most awful--than other qualities of greater name
+and pretension. _Hannah_ was this woman's Christian name; and her name and
+her memory are to me amongst the most hallowed of my earthly recollections.
+
+One of her two fellow-servants, known technically amongst us as the
+'parlour-maid,' was also, but not equally, attached to her mistress; and
+merely because her nature, less powerfully formed and endowed, did not allow
+her to entertain or to comprehend any service equally fervid of passion or
+of impassioned action. She, however, was good, affectionate, and worthy to
+be trusted. But a third there was, a nursery-maid, and therefore more
+naturally and more immediately standing within the confidence of her
+mistress--her I could not trust: her I suspected. But of that hereafter.
+Meantime, Hannah--she upon whom I leaned as upon a staff in all which
+respected her mistress, ran up-stairs, after I had spoken and received her
+answer, in order hastily to dress and prepare herself for going out along
+with me to the city. I did not ask her to be quick in her movements: I knew
+there was no need: and, whilst she was absent, I took up, in one of my
+fretful movements of nervousness, a book which was lying upon a side table:
+the book fell open of itself at a particular page; and in that, perhaps,
+there was nothing extraordinary; for it was a little portable edition of
+_Paradise Lost_; and the page was one which I must naturally have turned to
+many a time: for to Agnes I had read all the great masters of literature,
+especially those of modern times; so that few people knew the high classics
+more familiarly: and as to the passage in question, from its divine beauty I
+had read it aloud to her, perhaps, on fifty separate occasions. All this I
+mention to take away any appearance of a vulgar attempt to create omens; but
+still, in the very act of confessing the simple truth, and thus weakening
+the marvellous character of the anecdote, I must notice it as a strange
+instance of the '_Sortes Miltonianae_'--that precisely at such a moment as
+this I should find thrown in my way, should feel tempted to take up, and
+should open, a volume containing such a passage as the following: and
+observe, moreover, that although the volume, _once being taken up_, would
+naturally open where it had been most frequently read, there were, however,
+many passages which had been read _as_ frequently--or more so. The
+particular passage upon which I opened at this moment was that most
+beautiful one in which the fatal morning separation is described between
+Adam and his bride--that separation so pregnant with wo, which eventually
+proved the occasion of the mortal transgression--the last scene between our
+first parents at which both were innocent and both were happy--although the
+superior intellect already felt, and, in the slight altercation preceding
+this separation, had already expressed a dim misgiving of some coming
+change: these are the words, and in depth of pathos they have rarely been
+approached:--
+
+    'Oft he to her his charge of quick return
+     Repeated; she to him as oft engag'd
+     To be returned by noon amid the bow'r,
+     And all things in best order to invite
+     Noon-tide repast, or afternoon's repose.
+     Oh much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve!
+     Of thy presumed return, event perverse!
+     Thou never from that hour in Paradise
+     Found'st either sweet repast, or sound repose.'
+
+'_My_ Eve!' I exclaimed, 'partner in _my_ paradise, where art thou? _Much
+failing_ thou wilt not be found, nor _much deceived_; innocent in any case
+thou art; but, alas! too surely by this time _hapless_, and the victim of
+some diabolic wickedness.' Thus I murmured to myself; thus I ejaculated;
+thus I apostrophised my Agnes; then again came a stormier mood. I could not
+sit still; I could not stand in quiet; I threw the book from me with
+violence against the wall; I began to hurry backwards and forwards in a
+short uneasy walk, when suddenly a sound, a step; it was the sound of the
+garden-gate opening, followed by a hasty tread. Whose tread! Not for a
+moment could it be fancied the oread step which belonged to that daughter of
+the hills--my wife, my Agnes; no, it was the dull massy tread of a man: and
+immediately there came a loud blow upon the door, and in the next moment,
+the bell having been found, a furious peal of ringing. Oh coward heart! not
+for a lease of immortality could I have gone forwards myself. My breath
+failed me; an interval came in which respiration seemed to be stifled--the
+blood to halt in its current; and then and there I recognised in myself the
+force and living truth of that Scriptural description of a heart consciously
+beset by evil without escape: 'Susannah _sighed_.' Yes, a long long sigh--a
+deep deep sigh--that is the natural language by which the overcharged heart
+utters forth the wo that else would break it. I sighed--oh how profoundly!
+But that did not give me power to move. Who will go to the door? I whispered
+audibly. Who is at the door? was the inaudible whisper of my heart. Then
+might be seen the characteristic differences of the three women. That one,
+whom I suspected, I heard raising an upper window to look out and
+reconnoitre. The affectionate Rachael, on the other hand, ran eagerly
+down-stairs; but Hannah, half dressed, even her bosom exposed, passed her
+like a storm; and before I heard any sound of opening a door, I saw from the
+spot where I stood the door already wide open, and a man in the costume of a
+policeman. All that he said I could not hear; but this I heard--that I was
+wanted at the police office, and had better come off without delay. He
+seemed then to get a glimpse of me, and to make an effort towards coming
+nearer; but I slunk away, and left to Hannah the task of drawing from him
+any circumstances which he might know. But apparently there was not much to
+tell, or rather, said I, there is too much, the _much_ absorbs the _many_;
+some one mighty evil transcends and quells all particulars. At length the
+door was closed, and the man was gone. Hannah crept slowly along the
+passage, and looked in hesitatingly. Her very movements and stealthy pace
+testified that she had heard nothing which, even by comparison, she could
+think good news. 'Tell me not now, Hannah,' I said; 'wait till we are in
+the open air.' She went up-stairs again. How short seemed the time till she
+descended!--how I longed for further respite! 'Hannah!' I said at length
+when we were fairly moving upon the road, 'Hannah! I am too sure you have
+nothing good to tell. But now tell me the worst, and let that be in the
+fewest words possible.'
+
+'Sir,' she said, 'we had better wait until we reach the office; for really I
+could not understand the man. He says that my mistress is detained upon some
+charge; but _what_, I could not at all make out. He was a man that knew
+something of you, sir, I believe, and he wished to be civil, and kept
+saying, "Oh! I dare say it will turn out nothing at all, many such charges
+are made idly and carelessly, and some maliciously." "But what charges?" I
+cried, and then he wanted to speak privately to you. But I told him that of
+all persons he must not speak to you, if he had anything painful to tell;
+for that you were too much disturbed already, and had been for some hours,
+out of anxiety and terror about my mistress, to bear much more. So, when he
+heard that, he was less willing to speak freely than before. He might prove
+wrong, he said; he might give offence; things might turn out far otherwise
+than according to first appearances; for his part, he could not believe
+anything amiss of so sweet a lady. And alter all it would be better to wait
+till we reached the office.'
+
+Thus much then was clear--Agnes was under some accusation. This was already
+worse than the worst I had anticipated. 'And then,' said I, thinking aloud
+to Hannah, 'one of two things is apparent to me; either the accusation is
+one of pure hellish malice, without a colour of probability or the shadow of
+a foundation, and that way, alas! I am driven in my fears by that Hungarian
+woman's prophecy; or, which but for my desponding heart I should be more
+inclined to think, the charge has grown out of my poor wife's rustic
+ignorance as to the usages then recently established by law with regard to
+the kind of money that could be legally tendered. This, however, was a
+suggestion that did not tend to alleviate my anxiety; and my nervousness had
+mounted to a painful, almost to a disabling degree, by the time we reached
+the office. Already on our road thither some parties had passed us who were
+conversing with eagerness upon the case: so much we collected from the many
+and ardent expressions about 'the lady's beauty,' though the rest of such
+words as we could catch were ill calculated to relieve my suspense. This,
+then, at least, was certain--that my poor timid Agnes had already been
+exhibited before a tumultuous crowd; that her name and reputation had gone
+forth as a subject of discussion for the public; and that the domestic
+seclusion and privacy within which it was her matronly privilege to move had
+already undergone a rude violation.
+
+The office, and all the purlieus of the office, were occupied by a dense
+crowd. That, perhaps, was always the case, more or less, at this time of
+day; but at present the crowd was manifestly possessed by a more than
+ordinary interest; and there was a unity in this possessing interest; all
+were talking on the same subject, the case in which Agnes had so recently
+appeared in some character or other; and by this time it became but too
+certain in the character of an accused person. Pity was the prevailing
+sentiment amongst the mob; but the opinions varied much as to the probable
+criminality of the prisoner. I made my way into the office. The presiding
+magistrates had all retired for the afternoon, and would not reassemble
+until eight o'clock in the evening. Some clerks only or officers of the
+court remained, who were too much harassed by applications for various forms
+and papers connected with the routine of public business, and by other
+official duties which required signatures or attestations, to find much
+leisure for answering individual questions. Some, however, listened with a
+marked air of attention to my earnest request for the circumstantial details
+of the case, but finally referred me to a vast folio volume, in which were
+entered all the charges, of whatever nature, involving any serious
+tendency--in fact, all that exceeded a misdemeanour--in the regular
+chronological succession according to which they came before the magistrate.
+Here, in this vast calendar of guilt and misery, amidst the _aliases_ or
+cant designations of ruffians--prostitutes--felons, stood the description,
+at full length, Christian and surnames all properly registered, of my
+Agnes--of her whose very name had always sounded to my ears like the very
+echo of mountain innocence, purity, and pastoral simplicity. Here in another
+column stood the name and residence of her accuser. I shall call him
+_Barratt_, for that was amongst his names, and a name by which he had at one
+period of his infamous life been known to the public, though not his
+principal name, or the one which he had thought fit to assume at this era.
+James Barratt, then, as I shall here call him, was a haberdasher--keeping a
+large and conspicuous shop in a very crowded and what was then considered a
+fashionable part of the city. The charge was plain and short. Did I live to
+read it? It accused Agnes M---- of having on that morning secreted in her
+muff, and feloniously carried away, a valuable piece of Mechlin lace, the
+property of James Barratt. And the result of the first examination was thus
+communicated in a separate column, written in red ink--'Remanded to the
+second day after to-morrow for final examination.' Everything in this
+sin-polluted register was in manuscript; but at night the records of each
+day were regularly transferred to a printed journal, enlarged by comments
+and explanatory descriptions from some one of the clerks, whose province it
+was to furnish this intelligence to the public journals. On that same night,
+therefore, would go forth to the world such an account of the case, and such
+a description of my wife's person, as would inevitably summon to the next
+exhibition of her misery, as by special invitation and advertisement, the
+whole world of this vast metropolis--the idle, the curious, the brutal, the
+hardened amateur in spectacles of wo, and the benign philanthropist who
+frequents such scenes with the purpose of carrying alleviation to their
+afflictions. All alike, whatever might be their motives or the spirit of
+their actions, would rush (as to some grand festival of curiosity and
+sentimental luxury) to this public martyrdom of my innocent wife.
+
+Meantime, what was the first thing to be done? Manifestly, to see Agnes:
+her account of the affair might suggest the steps to be taken. Prudence,
+therefore, at any rate, prescribed this course; and my heart would not have
+tolerated any other. I applied, therefore, at once, for information as to
+the proper mode of effecting this purpose without delay. What was my horror
+at learning that, by a recent regulation of all the police offices, under
+the direction of the public minister who presided over that department of
+the national administration, no person could be admitted to an interview
+with any accused party during the progress of the official examinations--or,
+in fact, until the final committal of the prisoner for trial. This rule was
+supposed to be attended by great public advantages, and had rarely been
+relaxed--never, indeed, without a special interposition of the police
+minister authorising its suspension. But was the exclusion absolute and
+universal? Might not, at least, a female servant, simply as the bearer of
+such articles as were indispensable to female delicacy and comfort, have
+access to her mistress? No; the exclusion was total and unconditional. To
+argue the point was manifestly idle; the subordinate officers had no
+discretion in the matter; nor, in fact, had any other official person,
+whatever were his rank, except the supreme one; and to him I neither had any
+obvious means of introduction, nor (in case of obtaining such an
+introduction) any chance of success; for the spirit of the rule, I foresaw
+it would be answered, applied with especial force to cases like the present.
+
+Mere human feelings of pity, sympathy with my too visible agitation,
+superadded to something of perhaps reverence for the blighting misery that
+was now opening its artillery upon me--for misery has a privilege, and
+everywhere is felt to be a holy thing--had combined to procure for me some
+attention and some indulgence hitherto. Answers had been given with
+precision, explanations made at length, and anxiety shown to satisfy my
+inquiries. But this could not last; the inexorable necessities of public
+business coming back in a torrent upon the official people after this
+momentary interruption, forbade them to indulge any further consideration
+for an individual case, and I saw that I must not stay any longer. I was
+rapidly coming to be regarded as a hindrance to the movement of public
+affairs; and the recollection that I might again have occasion for some
+appeal to these men in their official characters, admonished me not to abuse
+my privilege of the moment. After returning thanks, therefore, for the
+disposition shown to oblige me, I retired.
+
+Slowly did I and Hannah retrace our steps. Hannah sustained, in the tone of
+her spirits, by the extremity of her anger, a mood of feeling which I did
+not share. Indignation was to her in the stead of consolation and hope. I,
+for my part, could not seek even a momentary shelter from my tempestuous
+affliction in that temper of mind. The man who could accuse my Agnes, and
+accuse her of such a crime, I felt to be a monster; and in my thoughts he
+was already doomed to a bloody atonement (atonement! alas! what atonement!)
+whenever the time arrived that _her_ cause would not be prejudiced, or the
+current of public feeling made to turn in his favour by investing him with
+the semblance of an injured or suffering person. So much was settled in my
+thoughts with the stern serenity of a decree issuing from a judgment-seat.
+But that gave no relief, no shadow of relief, to the misery which was now
+consuming me. Here was an end, in one hour, to the happiness of a life. In
+one hour it had given way, root and branch--had melted like so much
+frost-work, or a pageant of vapoury exhalations. In a moment, in the
+twinkling of an eye, and yet for ever and ever, I comprehended the total
+ruin of my situation. The case, as others might think, was yet in suspense;
+and there was room enough for very rational hopes, especially where there
+was an absolute certainty of innocence. Total freedom from all doubt on that
+point seemed to justify almost more than hopes. This might be said, and most
+people would have been more or less consoled by it. I was not. I felt as
+certain, as irredeemably, as hopelessly certain of the final results as
+though I had seen the record in the books of heaven. 'Hope nothing,' I said
+to myself; 'think not of hope in this world, but think only how best to walk
+steadily, and not to reel like a creature wanting discourse of reason, or
+incapable of religious hopes under the burden which it has pleased God to
+impose, and which in this life cannot be shaken off. The countenance of man
+is made to look upward and to the skies. Thither also point henceforwards
+your heart and your thoughts. Never again let your thoughts travel
+earthwards. Settle them on the heavens, to which your Agnes is already
+summoned. The call is clear, and not to be mistaken. Little in _her_ fate
+now depends upon you, or upon anything that man can do. Look, therefore, to
+yourself; see that you make not shipwreck of your heavenly freight because
+your earthly freight is lost; and miss not, by any acts of wild and
+presumptuous despair, that final reunion with your Agnes, which can only be
+descried through vistas that open through the heavens.'
+
+Such were the thoughts, thoughts often made audible, which came
+spontaneously like oracles from afar, as I strode homewards with Hannah
+by my side. Her, meantime, I seemed to hear; for at times I seemed and I
+intended to answer her. But answer her I did not; for not ten words of
+all that she said did I really and consciously hear. How I went through
+that night is more entirely a blank in my memory, more entirely a
+chapter of chaos and the confusion of chaos, than any other passage the
+most impressive in my life. If I even slumbered for a moment, as at
+intervals I did sometimes, though never sitting down, but standing or
+pacing about throughout the night, and if in this way I attained a
+momentary respite from self-consciousness, no sooner had I reached this
+enviable state of oblivion, than some internal sting of irritation as
+rapidly dispersed the whole fickle fabric of sleep; and as if the
+momentary trance--this fugitive beguilement of my wo--had been conceded
+by a demon's subtle malice only with the purpose of barbing the pang, by
+thus forcing it into a stronger relief through the insidious peace
+preceding it. It is a well-known and most familiar experience to all the
+sons and daughters of affliction, that under no circumstances is the
+piercing, lancinating torment of a recent calamity felt so keenly as in
+the first moments of awaking in the morning from the night's slumbers.
+Just at the very instant when the clouds of sleep, and the whole
+fantastic illusions of dreaminess are dispersing, just as the realities
+of life are re-assuming their steadfast forms--re-shaping
+themselves--and settling anew into those fixed relations which they are
+to preserve throughout the waking hours; in that particular crisis of
+transition from the unreal to the real, the wo which besieges the brain
+and the life-springs at the heart rushes in afresh amongst the other
+crowd of realities, and has at the moment of restoration literally the
+force and liveliness of a new birth--the very same pang, and no whit
+feebler, as that which belonged to it when it was first made known.
+From the total hush of oblivion which had buried it and sealed it up, as
+it were, during the sleeping hours, it starts into sudden life on our
+first awaking, and is to all intents and purposes a new and not an old
+affliction--one which brings with it the old original shock which
+attended its first annunciation.
+
+That night--that first night of separation from my wife--_how_ it
+passed, I know not; I know only _that_ it passed, I being in our common
+bedchamber, that holiest of all temples that are consecrated to human
+attachments whenever the heart is pure of man and woman and the love is
+strong--I being in that bedchamber, once the temple now the sepulchre of
+our happiness,--I there, and my wife--my innocent wife--in a dungeon. As
+the morning light began to break, somebody knocked at the door; it was
+Hannah; she took my hand--misery levels all feeble distinctions of
+station, sex, age--she noticed my excessive feverishness, and gravely
+remonstrated with me upon the necessity there was that I should maintain
+as much health as possible for the sake of 'others,' if not for myself.
+She then brought me some tea, which refreshed me greatly; for I had
+tasted nothing at all beyond a little water since the preceding
+morning's breakfast. This refreshment seemed to relax and thaw the stiff
+frozen state of cheerless, rayless despair in which I had passed the
+night; I became susceptible of consolation--that consolation which lies
+involved in kindness and gentleness of manner--if not susceptible more
+than before of any positive hope. I sat down; and, having no witnesses
+to my weakness but this kind and faithful woman, I wept, and I found a
+relief in tears; and she, with the ready sympathy of woman, wept along
+with me. All at once she ventured upon the circumstances (so far as she
+had been able to collect them from the reports of those who had been
+present at the examination) of our calamity. There was little indeed
+either to excite or to gratify any interest or curiosity separate from
+the _personal_ interest inevitably connected with a case to which there
+were two such parties as a brutal, sensual, degraded ruffian, on one
+side in character of accuser, and on the other as defendant, a meek
+angel of a woman, timid and fainting from the horrors of her situation,
+and under the licentious gaze of the crowd--yet, at the same time, bold
+in conscious innocence, and in the very teeth of the suspicions which
+beset her, winning the good opinion, as well as the good wishes of all
+who saw her. There had been at this first examination little for her to
+say beyond the assigning her name, age, and place of abode; and here it
+was fortunate that her own excellent good sense concurred with her
+perfect integrity and intuitive hatred of all indirect or crooked
+courses in prompting her to an undisguised statement of the simple
+truth, without a momentary hesitation or attempt either at evasion or
+suppression. With equally good intentions in similar situations many a
+woman has seriously injured her cause by slight evasions of the entire
+truth, where nevertheless her only purpose has been the natural and
+ingenuous one of seeking to save the reputation untainted of a name
+which she felt to have been confided to her keeping. The purpose was an
+honourable one, but erroneously pursued. Agnes fell into no such error.
+She answered calmly, simply, and truly, to every question put by the
+magistrates; and beyond _that_ there was little opportunity for her to
+speak; the whole business of this preliminary examination being confined
+to the deposition of the accuser as to the circumstances under which he
+alleged the act of felonious appropriation to have taken place. These
+circumstances were perfectly uninteresting, considered in themselves;
+but amongst them was one which to us had the most shocking interest,
+from the absolute proof thus furnished of a deep-laid plot against
+Agnes. But for this one circumstance there would have been a possibility
+that the whole had originated in error--error growing out of and acting
+upon a nature originally suspicious, and confirmed perhaps by an
+unfortunate experience. And in proportion as that was possible, the
+chances increased that the accuser might, as the examinations advanced,
+and the winning character of the accused party began to develop itself,
+begin to see his error, and to retract his own over-hasty suspicions.
+But now we saw at a glance that for this hope there was no countenance
+whatever, since one solitary circumstance sufficed to establish a
+conspiracy. The deposition bore--that the lace had been secreted and
+afterwards detected in a muff; now it was a fact as well-known to both
+of us as the fact of Agnes having gone out at all--that she had laid
+aside her winter's dress for the first time on this genial sunny day.
+Muff she had not at the time, nor could have had appropriately from the
+style of her costume in other respects. What was the effect upon us of
+this remarkable discovery! Of course there died at once the hope of any
+abandonment by the prosecutor of his purpose; because here was proof of
+a predetermined plot. This hope died at once; but then, as it was one
+which never had presented itself to my mind, I lost nothing by which I
+had ever been solaced. On the other hand, it will be obvious that a new
+hope at the same time arose to take its place, viz., the reasonable one
+that by this single detection, if once established, we might raise a
+strong presumption of conspiracy, and moreover that, as a leading fact
+or clue, it might serve to guide us in detecting others. Hannah was
+sanguine in this expectation; and for a moment her hopes were
+contagiously exciting to mine. But the hideous despondency which in my
+mind had settled upon the whole affair from the very first, the
+superstitious presentiment I had of a total blight brooding over the
+entire harvest of my life and its promises (tracing itself originally, I
+am almost ashamed to own, up to that prediction of the Hungarian
+woman)--denied me steady light, anything--all in short but a wandering
+ray of hope. It was right, of course, nay, indispensable, that the
+circumstance of the muff should be strongly insisted upon at the next
+examination, pressed against the prosecutor, and sifted to the
+uttermost. An able lawyer would turn this to a triumphant account; and
+it would be admirable as a means of pre-engaging the good opinion as
+well as the sympathies of the public in behalf of the prisoner. But, for
+its final effect--my conviction remained, not to be shaken, that all
+would be useless; that our doom had gone forth, and was irrevocable.
+
+Let me not linger too much over those sad times. Morning came on as
+usual; for it is strange, but true, that to the very wretched it seems
+wonderful that times and seasons should keep their appointed courses in
+the midst of such mighty overthrows and such interruption to the courses
+of their own wonted happiness and their habitual expectations. Why
+should morning and night, why should all movements in the natural world
+be so regular, whilst in the moral world all is so irregular and
+anomalous? Yet the sun and the moon rise and set as usual upon the
+mightiest revolutions of empire and of worldly fortune that this planet
+ever beholds; and it is sometimes even a comfort to know that this will
+be the case. A great criminal, sentenced to an agonising punishment, has
+derived a fortitude and a consolation from recollecting that the day
+would run its inevitable course--that a day after all was _but_ a
+day--that the mighty wheel of alternate light and darkness must and
+would revolve--and that the evening star would rise as usual, and shine
+with its untroubled lustre upon the dust and ashes of what _had_ indeed
+suffered, and so recently, the most bitter pangs, but would then have
+ceased to suffer. 'La Journee,' said Damien,
+
+    'La journee sera dure, mais elle se passera.'
+
+'----_Se passera_:' yes, that is true, I whispered to myself; my day also,
+my season of trial will be hard to bear; but that also will have an end;
+that also '_se passera_.' Thus I talked or thought so long as I thought at
+all; for the hour was now rapidly approaching when thinking in any shape
+would for some time be at an end for me.
+
+That day, as the morning advanced, I went again, accompanied by Hannah,
+to the police court and to the prison--a vast, ancient, in parts
+ruinous, and most gloomy pile of building. In those days the
+administration of justice was, if not more corrupt, certainly in its
+inferior departments by far more careless than it is at present, and
+liable to thousands of interruptions and mal-practices, supporting
+themselves upon old traditionary usages which required at least half a
+century, and the shattering everywhere given to old systems by the
+French Revolution, together with the universal energy of mind applied to
+those subjects over the whole length and breadth of Christendom, to
+approach with any effectual reforms. Knowing this, and having myself had
+direct personal cognizance of various cases in which bribery had been
+applied with success, I was not without considerable hope that perhaps
+Hannah and myself might avail ourselves of this irregular passport
+through the gates of the prison. And, had the new regulation been of
+somewhat longer standing, there is little doubt that I should have been
+found right; unfortunately, as yet it had all the freshness of new-born
+vigour, and kept itself in remembrance by the singular irritation it
+excited. Besides this, it was a pet novelty of one particular minister
+new to the possession of power, anxious to distinguish himself, proud of
+his creative functions within the range of his office, and very
+sensitively jealous on the point of opposition to his mandates. Vain,
+therefore, on this day were all my efforts to corrupt the jailers; and,
+in fact, anticipating a time when I might have occasion to corrupt some
+of them for a more important purpose and on a larger scale, I did not
+think it prudent to proclaim my character beforehand as one who tampered
+with such means, and thus to arm against myself those jealousies in
+official people which it was so peculiarly important that I should keep
+asleep.
+
+All that day, however, I lingered about the avenues and vast courts in
+the precincts of the prison, and near one particular wing of the
+building, which had been pointed out to me by a jailer as the section
+allotted to those who were in the situation of Agnes; that is, waiting
+their final commitment for trial. The building generally he could
+indicate with certainty, but he professed himself unable to indicate the
+particular part of it which 'the young woman brought in on the day
+previous' would be likely to occupy; consequently he could not point out
+the window from which her cell (her '_cell!_' what a word!) would be
+lighted. 'But, master,' he went on to say, 'I would advise nobody to try
+that game.' He looked with an air so significant, and at the same time
+used a gesture so indicative of private understanding, that I at once
+apprehended his meaning, and assured him that he had altogether
+misconstrued my drift; that, as to attempts at escape, or at any mode of
+communicating with the prisoner from the outside, I trusted all _that_
+was perfectly needless; and that at any rate in my eyes it was perfectly
+hopeless. 'Well, master,' he replied, 'that's neither here nor there.
+You've come down handsomely, that I _will_ say; and where a gentleman
+acts like a gentleman, and behaves himself as such, I'm not the man to
+go and split upon him for a word. To be sure it's quite nat'ral that a
+gentleman--put case that a young woman is his fancy woman--it's nothing
+but nat'ral that he should want to get her out of such an old rat-hole
+as this, where many's the fine-timbered creature, both he and she, that
+has lain to rot, and has never got out of the old trap at all, first or
+last'----'How so?' I interrupted him; 'surely they don't detain the
+corpses of prisoners?' 'Ay, but mind you--put case that he or that she
+should die in this rat-trap before sentence is past, why then the prison
+counts them as its own children, and buries them in its own chapel--that
+old stack of pigeon-holes that you see up yonder to the right hand.' So,
+then, after all, thought I, if my poor Agnes should, in her desolation
+and solitary confinement to these wretched walls, find her frail
+strength give way--should the moral horrors of her situation work their
+natural effect upon her health, and she should chance to die within this
+dungeon, here within this same dungeon will she lie to the resurrection,
+and in that case her prison-doors have already closed upon her for ever.
+The man, who perhaps had some rough kindness in his nature, though
+tainted by the mercenary feelings too inevitably belonging to his
+situation, seemed to guess at the character of my ruminations by the
+change in my countenance, for he expressed some pity for my being 'in so
+much trouble'; and it seemed to increase his respect for me that this
+trouble should be directed to the case of a woman, for he appeared to
+have a manly sense of the peculiar appeal made to the honour and
+gallantry of man, by the mere general fact of the feebleness and the
+dependence of woman. I looked at him more attentively in consequence of
+the feeling tone in which he now spoke, and was surprised that I had not
+more particularly noticed him before; he was a fine-looking, youngish
+man, with a bold Robin-hood style of figure and appearance; and, morally
+speaking, he was absolutely transfigured to my eyes by the effect worked
+upon him for the moment, through the simple calling up of his better
+nature. However, he recurred to his cautions about the peril in a legal
+sense of tampering with the windows, bolts, and bars of the old decaying
+prison; which, in fact, precisely according to the degree in which its
+absolute power over its prisoners was annually growing less and less,
+grew more and more jealous of its own reputation, and punished the
+attempts to break loose with the more severity, in exact proportion as
+they were the more tempting by the chances of success. I persisted in
+disowning any schemes of the sort, and especially upon the ground of
+their hopelessness. But this, on the other hand, was a ground that in
+his inner thoughts he treated with scorn; and I could easily see that,
+with a little skilful management of opportunity, I might, upon occasion,
+draw from him all the secrets he knew as to the special points of
+infirmity in this old ruinous building. For the present, and until it
+should certainly appear that there was some use to be derived from this
+species of knowledge, I forbore to raise superfluous suspicions by
+availing myself further of his communicative disposition. Taking,
+however, the precaution of securing his name, together with his
+particular office and designation in the prison, I parted from him as if
+to go home, but in fact to resume my sad roamings up and down the
+precincts of the jail.
+
+What made these precincts much larger than otherwise they would have
+been, was the circumstance that, by a usage derived from older days,
+both criminal prisoners and those who were prisoners for debt, equally
+fell under the custody of this huge caravanserai for the indifferent
+reception of crime, of misdemeanour, and of misfortune. And those who
+came under the two first titles were lodged here through all stages of
+their connection with public justice; alike when mere objects of vague
+suspicion to the police, when under examination upon a specific charge,
+when fully committed for trial, when convicted and under sentence,
+awaiting the execution of that sentence, and, in a large proportion of
+cases, even through their final stage of punishment, when it happened to
+be of any nature compatible with indoor confinement. Hence it arose that
+the number of those who haunted the prison gates with or without a title
+to admission was enormous; all the relatives, or more properly the
+acquaintances and connections of the criminal population within the
+prison, being swelled by all the families of needy debtors who came
+daily either to offer the consolation of their society, or to diminish
+their common expenditure by uniting their slender establishments. One of
+the rules applied to the management of this vast multitude that were
+every day candidates for admission was, that to save the endless trouble
+as well as risk, perhaps, of opening and shutting the main gates to
+every successive arrival, periodic intervals were fixed for the
+admission by wholesale: and as these periods came round every two hours,
+it would happen at many parts of the day that vast crowds accumulated
+waiting for the next opening of the gate. These crowds were assembled in
+two or three large outer courts, in which also were many stalls and
+booths, kept there upon some local privilege of ancient inheritance, or
+upon some other plea made good by gifts or bribes--some by Jews and
+others by Christians, perhaps equally Jewish. Superadded to these
+stationary elements of this miscellaneous population, were others, drawn
+thither by pure motives of curiosity, so that altogether an almost
+permanent mob was gathered together in these courts; and amid this mob
+it was,--from I know not what definite motive, partly because I thought
+it probable that amongst these people I should hear the case of Agnes
+peculiarly the subject of conversation; and so, in fact, it did really
+happen,--but partly, and even more, I believe, because I now awfully
+began to shrink from solitude. Tumult I must have, and distraction of
+thought. Amid this mob, I say, it was that I passed two days. Feverish I
+had been from the first,--and from bad to worse, in such a case, was, at
+any rate, a natural progress; but, perhaps, also amongst this crowd of
+the poor, the abjectly wretched, the ill-fed, the desponding, and the
+dissolute, there might be very naturally a larger body of contagion
+lurking than accorded to their mere numerical expectations. There was at
+that season a very extensive depopulation going on in some quarters of
+this great metropolis, and in other cities of the same empire, by means
+of a very malignant typhus. This fever is supposed to be the peculiar
+product of jails; and though it had not as yet been felt as a scourge
+and devastator of this particular jail, or at least the consequent
+mortality had been hitherto kept down to a moderate amount, yet it was
+highly probable that a certain quantity of contagion, much beyond the
+proportion of other popular assemblages less uniformly wretched in their
+composition, was here to be found all day long; and doubtless my excited
+state, and irritable habit of body, had offered a peculiar
+predisposition that favoured the rapid development of this contagion.
+However this might be, the result was, that on the evening of the second
+day which I spent in haunting the purlieus of the prison (consequently
+the night preceding the second public examination of Agnes), I was
+attacked by ardent fever in such unmitigated fury, that before morning I
+had lost all command of my intellectual faculties. For some weeks I
+became a pitiable maniac, and in every sense the wreck of my former
+self; and seven entire weeks, together with the better half of an eighth
+week, had passed over my head whilst I lay unconscious of time and its
+dreadful freight of events, excepting in so far as my disordered brain,
+by its fantastic coinages, created endless mimicries and mockeries of
+these events--less substantial, but oftentimes less afflicting, or less
+agitating. It would have been well for me had my destiny decided that I
+was not to be recalled to this world of wo. But I had no such happiness
+in store. I recovered, and through twenty and eight years my groans
+have recorded the sorrow I feel that I did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I shall not rehearse circumstantially, and point by point, the sad
+unfolding, as it proceeded through successive revelations to me, of all
+which had happened during my state of physical incapacity. When I first
+became aware that my wandering senses had returned to me, and knew, by the
+cessation of all throbbings, and the unutterable pains that had so long
+possessed my brain, that I was now returning from the gates of death, a sad
+confusion assailed me as to some indefinite cloud of evil that had been
+hovering over me at the time when I first fell into a state of
+insensibility. For a time I struggled vainly to recover the lost connection
+of my thoughts, and I endeavoured ineffectually to address myself to sleep.
+I opened my eyes, but found the glare of light painful beyond measure.
+Strength, however, it seemed to me that I had, and more than enough, to
+raise myself out of bed. I made the attempt, but fell back, almost giddy
+with the effort. At the sound of the disturbance which I had thus made, a
+woman whom I did not know came from behind a curtain, and spoke to me.
+Shrinking from any communication with a stranger, especially one whose
+discretion I could not estimate in making discoveries to me with the
+requisite caution, I asked her simply what o'clock it was.
+
+'Eleven in the forenoon,' she replied.
+
+'And what day of the month?'
+
+'The second,' was her brief answer.
+
+I felt almost a sense of shame in adding--'The second! but of what month?'
+
+'Of June,' was the startling rejoinder.
+
+On the 8th of April I had fallen ill, and it was now actually the 2nd of
+June. Oh! sickening calculation! revolting register of hours! for in that
+same moment which brought back this one recollection, perhaps by steadying
+my brain, rushed back in a torrent all the other dreadful remembrances of
+the period, and now the more so, because, though the event was still
+uncertain as regarded my knowledge, it must have become dreadfully certain
+as regarded the facts of the case, and the happiness of all who were
+concerned. Alas! one little circumstance too painfully assured me that this
+event had not been a happy one. Had Agnes been restored to her liberty and
+her home, where would she have been found but watching at my bedside? That
+too certainly I knew, and the inference was too bitter to support.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On this same day, some hours afterwards, upon Hannah's return from the city,
+I received from her, and heard with perfect calmness, the whole sum of evil
+which awaited me. Little Francis--she took up her tale at that point--'was
+with God:' so she expressed herself. He had died of the same fever which had
+attacked me--had died and been buried nearly five weeks before. Too probably
+he had caught the infection from me. Almost--such are the caprices of human
+feeling--almost I could have rejoiced that this young memorial of my
+vanished happiness had vanished also. It gave me a pang, nevertheless, that
+the grave should thus have closed upon him before I had seen his fair little
+face again. But I steeled my heart to hear worse things than this. Next she
+went on to inform me that already, on the first or second day of our
+calamity, she had taken upon herself, without waiting for authority, on
+observing the rapid approaches of illness in me, and arguing the state of
+helplessness which would follow, to write off at once a summons in the most
+urgent terms to the brother of my wife. This gentleman, whom I shall call
+Pierpoint, was a high-spirited, generous young man as I have ever known.
+When I say that he was a sportsman, that at one season of the year he did
+little else than pursue his darling amusement of fox-hunting, for which
+indeed he had almost a maniacal passion--saying this, I shall already have
+prejudged him in the opinions of many, who fancy all such persons the slaves
+of corporal enjoyments. But, with submission, the truth lies the other way.
+According to my experience, people of these habits have their bodies more
+than usually under their command, as being subdued by severe exercise; and
+their minds, neither better nor worse on an average than those of their
+neighbours, are more available from being so much more rarely clogged by
+morbid habits in that uneasy yoke-fellow of the intellectual part--the body.
+He at all events was a man to justify in his own person this way of
+thinking; for he was a man not only of sound, but even of bold and energetic
+intellect, and in all moral respects one whom any man might feel proud to
+call his friend. This young man, Pierpoint, without delay obeyed the
+summons; and on being made acquainted with what had already passed, the
+first step he took was to call upon Barratt, and without further question
+than what might ascertain his identity, he proceeded to inflict upon him a
+severe horsewhipping. A worse step on his sister's account he could not have
+taken. Previously to this the popular feeling had run strongly against
+Barratt, but now its unity was broken. A new element was introduced into the
+question: Democratic feelings were armed against this outrage; gentlemen and
+nobles, it was said, thought themselves not amenable to justice; and again,
+the majesty of the law was offended at this intrusion upon an affair already
+under solemn course of adjudication. Everything, however, passes away under
+the healing hand of time, and this also faded from the public mind. People
+remembered also that he was a brother, and in that character, at any rate,
+had a right to some allowances for his intemperance; and what quickened the
+oblivion of the affair was, which in itself was sufficiently strange, that
+Barratt did not revive the case in the public mind by seeking legal
+reparation for his injuries. It was, however, still matter of regret that
+Pierpoint should have indulged himself in this movement of passion, since
+undoubtedly it broke and disturbed the else uniform stream of public
+indignation by investing the original aggressor with something like the
+character of an injured person; and therefore with some set-off to plead
+against his own wantonness of malice: his malice might now assume the nobler
+aspect of revenge.
+
+Thus far, in reporting the circumstances, Hannah had dallied--thus far I
+had rejoiced that she dallied, with the main burden of the wo; but now
+there remained nothing to dally with any longer--and she rushed along in
+her narrative, hurrying to tell--I hurrying to hear. A second, a third
+examination had ensued, then a final committal--all this within a week.
+By that time all the world was agitated with the case; literally not the
+city only, vast as that city was, but the nation was convulsed and
+divided into parties upon the question, Whether the prosecution were one
+of mere malice or not? The very government of the land was reported to
+be equally interested, and almost equally divided in opinion. In this
+state of public feeling came the trial. Image to yourself, oh reader,
+whosoever you are, the intensity of the excitement which by that time
+had arisen in all people to be spectators of the scene--then image to
+yourself the effect of all this, a perfect consciousness that in herself
+as a centre was settled the whole mighty interest of the
+exhibition--that interest again of so dubious and mixed a
+character--sympathy in some with mere misfortune--sympathy in others
+with female frailty and guilt, not perhaps founded upon an absolute
+unwavering belief in her innocence even amongst those who were most loud
+and positive as partisans in affirming it,--and then remember that all
+this hideous scenical display and notoriety settled upon one whose very
+nature, constitutionally timid, recoiled with the triple agony of
+womanly shame--of matronly dignity--of insulted innocence, from every
+mode and shape of public display. Combine all these circumstances and
+elements of the case, and you may faintly enter into the situation of my
+poor Agnes. Perhaps the best way to express it at once is by recurring
+to the case of a young female Christian martyr, in the early ages of
+Christianity, exposed in the bloody amphitheatre of Rome or Verona to
+'fight with wild beasts,' as it was expressed in mockery--she to fight!
+the lamb to fight with lions! But in reality the young martyr _had_ a
+fight to maintain, and a fight (in contempt of that cruel mockery)
+fiercer than the fiercest of her persecutors could have faced
+perhaps--the combat with the instincts of her own shrinking, trembling,
+fainting nature. Such a fight had my Agnes to maintain; and at that time
+there was a large party of gentlemen in whom the gentlemanly instinct
+was predominant, and who felt so powerfully the cruel indignities of her
+situation, that they made a public appeal in her behalf. One thing, and
+a strong one, which they said, was this:--'We all talk and move in this
+case as if, because the question appears doubtful to some people, and
+the accused party to some people wears a doubtful character, it would
+follow that she therefore had in reality a mixed character composed in
+joint proportions of the best and the worst that is imputed to her. But
+let us not forget that this mixed character belongs not to her, but to
+the infirmity of our human judgments--_they_ are mixed--_they_ are
+dubious--but she is not--she is, or she is not, guilty--there is no
+middle case--and let us consider for a single moment, that if this young
+lady (as many among us heartily believe) _is_ innocent, then and upon
+that supposition let us consider how cruel we should all think the
+public exposure which aggravates the other injuries (as in that case
+they must be thought) to which her situation exposes her.' They went on
+to make some suggestions for the officers of the court in preparing the
+arrangements for the trial, and some also for the guidance of the
+audience, which showed the same generous anxiety for sparing the
+feelings of the prisoner. If these did not wholly succeed in repressing
+the open avowal of coarse and brutal curiosity amongst the intensely
+vulgar, at least they availed to diffuse amongst the neutral and
+indifferent part of the public a sentiment of respect and forbearance
+which, emanating from high quarters, had a very extensive influence upon
+most of what met the eye or the ear of my poor wife. She, on the day of
+trial, was supported by her brother; and by that time she needed support
+indeed. I was reported to be dying; her little son was dead; neither had
+she been allowed to see him. Perhaps these things, by weaning her from
+all further care about life, might have found their natural effect in
+making her indifferent to the course of the trial, or even to its issue.
+And so, perhaps, in the main, they did. But at times some lingering
+sense of outraged dignity, some fitful gleams of old sympathies, 'the
+hectic of a moment,' came back upon her, and prevailed over the
+deadening stupor of her grief. Then she shone for a moment into a starry
+light--sweet and woful to remember. Then----but why linger? I hurry to
+the close: she was pronounced guilty; whether by a jury or a bench of
+judges, I do not say--having determined, from the beginning, to give no
+hint of the land in which all these events happened; neither is that of
+the slightest consequence. Guilty she was pronounced: but sentence at
+that time was deferred. Ask me not, I beseech you, about the muff or
+other circumstances inconsistent with the hostile evidence. These
+circumstances had the testimony, you will observe, of my own servants
+only; nay, as it turned out, of one servant exclusively: _that_
+naturally diminished their value. And, on the other side, evidence was
+arrayed, perjury was suborned, that would have wrecked a wilderness of
+simple truth trusting to its own unaided forces. What followed? Did
+this judgment of the court settle the opinion of the public? Opinion of
+the public! Did it settle the winds? Did it settle the motion of the
+Atlantic? Wilder, fiercer, and louder grew the cry against the wretched
+accuser: mighty had been the power over the vast audience of the
+dignity, the affliction, the perfect simplicity, and the Madonna beauty
+of the prisoner. That beauty so childlike, and at the same time so
+saintly, made, besides, so touching in its pathos by means of the
+abandonment--the careless abandonment and the infinite desolation of her
+air and manner--would of itself, and without further aid, have made many
+converts. Much more was done by the simplicity of her statements, and
+the indifference with which she neglected to improve any strong points
+in her own favour--the indifference, as every heart perceived, of
+despairing grief. Then came the manners on the hostile side--the haggard
+consciousness of guilt, the drooping tone, the bravado and fierce strut
+which sought to dissemble all this. Not one amongst all the witnesses,
+assembled on that side, had (by all agreement) the bold natural tone of
+conscious uprightness. Hence it could not be surprising that the storm
+of popular opinion made itself heard with a louder and a louder sound.
+The government itself began to be disturbed; the ministers of the
+sovereign were agitated; and, had no menaces been thrown out, it was
+generally understood that they would have given way to the popular
+voice, now continually more distinct and clamorous. In the midst of all
+this tumult obscure murmurs began to arise that Barratt had practised
+the same or similar villainies in former instances. One case in
+particular was beginning to be whispered about, which at once threw a
+light upon the whole affair: it was the case of a young and very
+beautiful married woman, who had been on the very brink of a catastrophe
+such as had befallen my own wife, when some seasonable interference, of
+what nature was not known, had critically delivered her. This case arose
+'like a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand,' then spread and
+threatened to burst in tempest upon the public mind, when all at once,
+more suddenly even than it had arisen, it was hushed up, or in some way
+disappeared. But a trifling circumstance made it possible to trace this
+case:--in after times, when means offered, but unfortunately no
+particular purpose of good, nor any purpose, in fact, beyond that of
+curiosity, it _was_ traced: and enough was soon ascertained to have
+blown to fragments any possible conspiracy emanating from this Barratt,
+had that been of any further importance. However, in spite of all that
+money or art could effect, a sullen growl continued to be heard amongst
+the populace of villainies many and profound that had been effected or
+attempted by this Barratt; and accordingly, much in the same way as was
+many years afterwards practised in London, when a hosier had caused
+several young people to be prosecuted to death for passing forged
+bank-notes, the wrath of the people showed itself in marking the shop
+for vengeance upon any favourable occasion offering through fire or
+riots, and in the meantime in deserting it. These things had been going
+on for some time when I awoke from my long delirium; but the effect they
+had produced upon a weak and obstinate and haughty government, or at
+least upon the weak and obstinate and haughty member of the government
+who presided in the police administration, was, to confirm and rivet the
+line of conduct which had been made the object of popular denunciation.
+More energetically, more scornfully, to express that determination of
+flying in the face of public opinion and censure, four days before my
+awakening, Agnes had been brought up to receive her sentence. On that
+same day (nay, it was said in that same hour), petitions, very
+numerously signed, and various petitions from different ranks, different
+ages, different sexes, were carried up to the throne, praying, upon
+manifold grounds, but all noticing the extreme doubtfulness of the case,
+for an unconditional pardon. By whose advice or influence, it was
+guessed easily, though never exactly ascertained, these petitions were
+unanimously, almost contemptuously, rejected. And to express the
+contempt of public opinion as powerfully as possible, Agnes was
+sentenced by the court, reassembled in full pomp, order, and ceremonial
+costume, to a punishment the severest that the laws allowed--viz. hard
+labour for ten years. The people raged more than ever; threats public
+and private were conveyed to the ears of the minister chiefly concerned
+in the responsibility, and who had indeed, by empty and ostentatious
+talking, assumed that responsibility to himself in a way that was
+perfectly needless.
+
+Thus stood matters when I awoke to consciousness: and this was the fatal
+journal of the interval--interval so long as measured by my fierce
+calendar of delirium--so brief measured by the huge circuit of events
+which it embraced, and their mightiness for evil. Wrath, wrath
+immeasurable, unimaginable, unmitigable, burned at my heart like a
+cancer. The worst had come. And the thing which kills a man for
+action--the living in two climates at once--a torrid and a frigid
+zone--of hope and fear--that was past. Weak--suppose I were for the
+moment: I felt that a day or two might bring back my strength. No
+miserable tremors of hope _now_ shook my nerves: if they shook from that
+inevitable rocking of the waters that follows a storm, so much might be
+pardoned to the infirmity of a nature that could not lay aside its
+fleshly necessities, nor altogether forego its homage to 'these frail
+elements,' but which by inspiration already lived within a region where
+no voices were heard but the spiritual voices of transcendant
+passions--of
+
+    'Wrongs unrevenged, and insults unredress'd.'
+
+Six days from that time I was well--well and strong. I rose from bed; I
+bathed; I dressed: dressed as if I were a bridegroom. And that _was_ in
+fact a great day in my life. I was to see Agnes. Oh! yes: permission had
+been obtained from the lordly minister that I should see my wife. Is it
+possible? Can such condescensions exist? Yes: solicitations from ladies,
+eloquent notes wet with ducal tears, these had won from the thrice
+radiant secretary, redolent of roseate attar, a countersign to some
+order or other, by which I--yes I--under license of a fop, and
+supervision of a jailer--was to see and for a time to converse with my
+own wife.
+
+The hour appointed for the first day's interview was eight o'clock in
+the evening. On the outside of the jail all was summer light and
+animation. The sports of children in the streets of mighty cities are
+but sad, and too painfully recall the circumstances of freedom and
+breezy nature that are not there. But still the pomp of glorious summer,
+and the presence, 'not to be put by,' of the everlasting light, that is
+either always present, or always dawning--these potent elements
+impregnate the very city life, and the dim reflex of nature which is
+found at the bottom of well-like streets, with more solemn powers to
+move and to soothe in summer. I struck upon the prison gates, the first
+among multitudes waiting to strike. Not because we struck, but because
+the hour had sounded, suddenly the gate opened; and in we streamed. I,
+as a visitor for the first time, was immediately distinguished by the
+jailers, whose glance of eye is fatally unerring. 'Who was it that I
+wanted?' At the name a stir of emotion was manifest, even there: the dry
+bones stirred and moved: the passions outside had long ago passed to the
+interior of this gloomy prison: and not a man but had his hypothesis on
+the case; not a man but had almost fought with some comrade (many had
+literally fought) about the merits of their several opinions.
+
+If any man had expected a scene at this reunion, he would have been
+disappointed. Exhaustion, and the ravages of sorrow, had left to dear
+Agnes so little power of animation or of action, that her emotions were
+rather to be guessed at, both for kind and for degree, than directly to
+have been perceived. She was in fact a sick patient, far gone in an
+illness that should properly have confined her to bed; and was as much
+past the power of replying to my frenzied exclamations, as a dying
+victim of fever of entering upon a strife of argument. In bed, however,
+she was not. When the door opened she was discovered sitting at a table
+placed against the opposite wall, her head pillowed upon her arms, and
+these resting upon the table. Her beautiful long auburn hair had escaped
+from its confinement, and was floating over the table and her own
+person. She took no notice of the disturbance made by our entrance, did
+not turn, did not raise her head, nor make an effort to do so, nor by
+any sign whatever intimate that she was conscious of our presence, until
+the turnkey in a respectful tone announced me. Upon that a low groan, or
+rather a feeble moan, showed that she had become aware of my presence,
+and relieved me from all apprehension of causing too sudden a shock by
+taking her in my arms. The turnkey had now retired; we were alone. I
+knelt by her side, threw my arms about her, and pressed her to my heart.
+She drooped her head upon my shoulder, and lay for some time like one
+who slumbered; but, alas! not as she had used to slumber. Her breathing,
+which had been like that of sinless infancy, was now frightfully short
+and quick; she seemed not properly to breathe, but to gasp. This,
+thought I, may be sudden agitation, and in that case she will gradually
+recover; half an hour will restore her. Wo is me! she did _not_ recover;
+and internally I said--she never _will_ recover. The arrows have gone
+too deep for a frame so exquisite in its sensibility, and already her
+hours are numbered.
+
+At this first visit I said nothing to her about the past; _that_, and
+the whole extent to which our communications should go, I left rather to
+her own choice. At the second visit, however, upon some word or other
+arising which furnished an occasion for touching on this hateful topic,
+I pressed her, contrary to my own previous intention, for as full an
+account of the fatal event as she could without a distressing effort
+communicate. To my surprise she was silent--gloomily--almost it might
+have seemed obstinately silent. A horrid thought came into my mind;
+could it, might it have been possible that my noble-minded wife, such
+she had ever seemed to me, was open to temptations of this nature? Could
+it have been that in some moment of infirmity, when her better angel was
+away from her side, she had yielded to a sudden impulse of frailty, such
+as a second moment for consideration would have resisted, but which
+unhappily had been followed by no such opportunity of retrieval? I had
+heard of such things. Cases there were in our own times (and not
+confined to one nation), when irregular impulses of this sort were known
+to have haunted and besieged natures not otherwise ignoble or base. I
+ran over some of the names amongst those which were taxed with this
+propensity. More than one were the names of people in a technical sense
+held noble. That, nor any other consideration, abated my horror. Better,
+I said, better (because more compatible with elevation of mind) better
+to have committed some bloody act--some murderous act. Dreadful was the
+panic I underwent. God pardon the wrong I did; and even now I pray to
+him--as though the past thing were a future thing and capable of
+change--that he would forbid her for ever to know what was the
+derogatory thought I had admitted. I sometimes think, by recollecting a
+momentary blush that suffused her marble countenance,--I think--I fear
+that she might have read what was fighting in my mind. Yet that would
+admit of another explanation. If she did read the very worst, meek
+saint! she suffered no complaint or sense of that injury to escape her.
+It might, however, be that perception, or it might be that fear which
+roused her to an effort that otherwise had seemed too revolting to
+undertake. She now rehearsed the whole steps of the affair from first to
+last; but the only material addition, which her narrative made to that
+which the trial itself had involved, was the following:--On two
+separate occasions previous to the last and fatal one, when she had
+happened to walk unaccompanied by me in the city, the monster Barratt
+had met her in the street. He had probably,--and this was, indeed,
+subsequently ascertained,--at first, and for some time afterwards,
+mistaken her rank, and had addressed some proposals to her, which, from
+the suppressed tone of his speaking, or from her own terror and
+surprise, she had not clearly understood; but enough had reached her
+alarmed ear to satisfy her that they were of a nature in the last degree
+licentious and insulting. Terrified and shocked rather than indignant,
+for she too easily presumed the man to be a maniac, she hurried
+homewards; and was rejoiced, on first venturing to look round when close
+to her own gate, to perceive that the man was not following. There,
+however, she was mistaken; for either on this occasion, or on some
+other, he had traced her homewards. The last of these rencontres had
+occurred just three months before the fatal 6th of April; and if, in any
+one instance, Agnes had departed from the strict line of her duty as a
+wife, or had shown a defect of judgment, it was at this point--in not
+having frankly and fully reported the circumstances to me. On the last
+of these occasions I had met her at the garden-gate, and had
+particularly remarked that she seemed agitated; and now, at recalling
+these incidents, Agnes reminded me that I had noticed that circumstance
+to herself, and that she had answered me faithfully as to the main fact.
+It was true she had done so; for she had said that she had just met a
+lunatic who had alarmed her by fixing his attention upon herself, and
+speaking to her in a ruffian manner; and it was also true that she did
+sincerely regard him in that light. This led me at the time to construe
+the whole affair into a casual collision with some poor maniac escaping
+from his keepers, and of no future moment, having passed by without
+present consequences. But had she, instead of thus reporting her own
+erroneous impression, reported the entire circumstances of the case, I
+should have given them a very different interpretation. Affection for
+me, and fear to throw me needlessly into a quarrel with a man of
+apparently brutal and violent nature--these considerations, as too often
+they do with the most upright wives, had operated to check Agnes in the
+perfect sincerity of her communications. She had told nothing _but_ the
+truth--only, and fatally it turned out for us both, she had not told the
+_whole_ truth. The very suppression, to which she had reconciled herself
+under the belief that thus she was providing for my safety and her own
+consequent happiness, had been the indirect occasion of ruin to both. It
+was impossible to show displeasure under such circumstances, or under
+any circumstances, to one whose self-reproaches were at any rate too
+bitter; but certainly, as a general rule, every conscientious woman
+should resolve to consider her husband's honour in the first case, and
+far before all other regards whatsoever; to make this the first, the
+second, the third law of her conduct, and his personal safety but the
+fourth or fifth. Yet women, and especially when the interests of
+children are at stake upon their husband's safety, rarely indeed are
+able to take this Roman view of their duties.
+
+To return to the narrative.--Agnes had not, nor could have, the most
+remote suspicion of this Barratt's connection with the shop which she
+had not accidentally entered; and the sudden appearance of this wretch
+it was, at the very moment of finding herself charged with so vile and
+degrading an offence, that contributed most of all to rob her of her
+natural firmness, by suddenly revealing to her terrified heart the depth
+of the conspiracy which thus yawned like a gulf below her. And not only
+had this sudden horror, upon discovering a guilty design in what before
+had seemed accident, and links uniting remote incidents which else
+seemed casual and disconnected, greatly disturbed and confused her
+manner, which confusion again had become more intense upon her own
+consciousness that she _was_ confused, and that her manner was greatly
+to her disadvantage; but--which was the worst effect of all, because the
+rest could not operate against her, except upon those who were present
+to witness it, whereas this was noted down and recorded--so utterly did
+her confusion strip her of all presence of mind, that she did not
+consciously notice (and consequently could not protest against at the
+moment when it was most important to do so, and most natural) the
+important circumstance of the muff. This capital objection, therefore,
+though dwelt upon and improved to the utmost at the trial, was looked
+upon by the judges as an after-thought; and merely because it had not
+been seized upon by herself, and urged in the first moments of her
+almost incapacitating terror on finding this amongst the circumstances
+of the charge against her--as if an ingenuous nature, in the very act of
+recoiling with horror from a criminal charge the most degrading, and in
+the very instant of discovering, with a perfect rapture of alarm, the
+too plausible appearance of probability amongst the circumstances, would
+be likely to pause, and with attorney-like dexterity, to pick out the
+particular circumstance that might admit of being _proved_ to be false,
+when the conscience proclaimed, though in despondence for the result,
+that all the circumstances were, as to the use made of them, one tissue
+of falsehoods. Agnes, who had made a powerful effort in speaking of the
+case at all, found her calmness increase as she advanced; and she now
+told me, that in reality there were two discoveries which she made in
+the same instant, and not one only, which had disarmed her firmness and
+ordinary presence of mind. One I have mentioned--the fact of Barratt,
+the proprietor of the shop, being the same person who had in former
+instances persecuted her in the street; but the other was even more
+alarming--it has been said already that it was _not_ a pure matter of
+accident that she had visited this particular shop. In reality, that
+nursery-maid, of whom some mention has been made above, and in terms
+expressing the suspicion with which even then I regarded her, had
+persuaded her into going thither by some representations which Agnes had
+already ascertained to be altogether unwarranted. Other presumptions
+against this girl's fidelity crowded dimly upon my wife's mind at the
+very moment of finding her eyes thus suddenly opened. And it was not
+five minutes after her first examination, and in fact five minutes after
+it had ceased to be of use to her, that she remembered another
+circumstance which now, when combined with the sequel, told its own
+tale;--the muff had been missed some little time before the 6th of
+April. Search had been made for it; but, the particular occasion which
+required it having passed off, this search was laid aside for the
+present, in the expectation that it would soon reappear in some corner
+of the house before it was wanted: then came the sunny day, which made
+it no longer useful, and would perhaps have dismissed it entirely from
+the recollection of all parties, until it was now brought back in this
+memorable way. The name of my wife was embroidered within, upon the
+lining, and it thus became a serviceable link to the hellish cabal
+against her. Upon reviewing the circumstances from first to last, upon
+recalling the manner of the girl at the time when the muff was missed,
+and upon combining the whole with her recent deception, by which she had
+misled her poor mistress into visiting this shop, Agnes began to see the
+entire truth as to this servant's wicked collusion with Barratt, though,
+perhaps, it might be too much to suppose her aware of the unhappy result
+to which her collusion tended. All this she saw at a glance when it was
+too late, for her first examination was over. This girl, I must add, had
+left our house during my illness, and she had afterwards a melancholy
+end.
+
+One thing surprised me in all this, Barratt's purpose must manifestly
+have been to create merely a terror in my poor wife's mind, and to stop
+short of any legal consequences, in order to profit of that panic and
+confusion for extorting compliances with his hideous pretensions. It
+perplexed me, therefore, that he did not appear to have pursued this
+manifestly his primary purpose, the other being merely a mask to conceal
+his true ends, and also (as he fancied) a means for effecting them. In
+this, however, I had soon occasion to find that I was deceived. He had,
+but without the knowledge of Agnes, taken such steps as were then open
+to him, for making overtures to her with regard to the terms upon which
+he would agree to defeat the charge against her by failing to appear.
+But the law had travelled too fast for him and too determinately; so
+that, by the time he supposed terror to have operated sufficiently in
+favour of his views, it had already become unsafe to venture upon such
+explicit proposals as he would otherwise have tried. His own safety was
+now at stake, and would have been compromised by any open or written
+avowal of the motives on which he had been all along acting. In fact, at
+this time he was foiled by the agent in whom he confided; but much more
+he had been confounded upon another point--the prodigious interest
+manifested by the public. Thus it seems--that, whilst he meditated only
+a snare for my poor Agnes, he had prepared one for himself; and finally,
+to evade the suspicions which began to arise powerfully as to his true
+motives, and thus to stave off his own ruin, had found himself in a
+manner obliged to go forward and consummate the ruin of another.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The state of Agnes, as to health and bodily strength, was now becoming
+such that I was forcibly warned--whatsoever I meditated doing, to do
+quickly. There was this urgent reason for alarm: once conveyed into that
+region of the prison in which sentences like hers were executed, it
+became hopeless that I could communicate with her again. All intercourse
+whatsoever, and with whomsoever, was then placed under the most rigorous
+interdict; and the alarming circumstance was, that this transfer was
+governed by no settled rules, but might take place at any hour, and
+would certainly be precipitated by the slightest violence on my part,
+the slightest indiscretion, or the slightest argument for suspicion.
+Hard indeed was the part I had to play, for it was indispensable that I
+should appear calm and tranquil, in order to disarm suspicions around
+me, whilst continually contemplating the possibility that I myself might
+be summoned to extremities which I could not so much as trust myself to
+name or distinctly to conceive. But thus stood the case; the
+Government, it was understood, angered by the public opposition,
+resolute for the triumph of what they called 'principle,' had settled
+finally that the sentence should be carried into execution. Now that
+she, that my Agnes, being the frail wreck that she had become, could
+have stood one week of this sentence practically and literally
+enforced--was a mere chimera. A few hours probably of the experiment
+would have settled that question by dismissing her to the death she
+longed for; but because the suffering would be short, was I to stand by
+and to witness the degradation--the pollution--attempted to be fastened
+upon her. What! to know that her beautiful tresses would be shorn
+ignominiously--a felon's dress forced upon her--a vile taskmaster with
+authority to----; blistered be the tongue that could go on to utter, in
+connection with her innocent name, the vile dishonours which were to
+settle upon her person! I, however, and her brother had taken such
+resolutions that this result was one barely possible; and yet I sickened
+(yes, literally I many times experienced the effect of physical
+sickness) at contemplating our own utter childish helplessness, and
+recollecting that every night during our seclusion from the prison the
+last irreversible step might be taken--and in the morning we might find
+a solitary cell, and the angel form that had illuminated it gone where
+we could not follow, and leaving behind her the certainty that we should
+see her no more. Every night, at the hour of locking up, _she_, at
+least, manifestly had a fear that she saw us for the last time; she put
+her arms feebly about my neck, sobbed convulsively, and, I believe,
+guessed--but, if really so, did not much reprove or quarrel with the
+desperate purposes which I struggled with in regard t o her own life.
+One thing was quite evident--that to the peace of her latter days, now
+hurrying to their close, it was indispensable that she should pass them
+undivided from me; and possibly, as was afterwards alleged, when it
+became easy to allege anything, some relenting did take place in high
+quarters at this time; for upon some medical reports made just now, a
+most seasonable indulgence was granted, viz. that Hannah was permitted
+to attend her mistress constantly; and it was also felt as a great
+alleviation of the horrors belonging to this prison, that candles were
+now allowed throughout the nights. But I was warned privately that these
+indulgences were with no consent from the police minister; and that
+circumstances might soon withdraw the momentary intercession by which we
+profited. With this knowledge we could not linger in our preparations;
+we had resolved upon accomplishing an escape for Agnes, at whatever risk
+or price; the main difficulty was her own extreme feebleness, which
+might forbid her to co-operate with us in any degree at the critical
+moment; and the main danger was--delay. We pushed forward, therefore, in
+our attempts with prodigious energy, and I for my part with an energy
+like that of insanity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first attempt we made was upon the fidelity to his trust of the
+chief jailer. He was a coarse vulgar man, brutal in his manners, but
+with vestiges of generosity in his character--though damaged a good deal
+by his daily associates. Him we invited to a meeting at a tavern in the
+neighbourhood of the prison, disguising our names as too certain to
+betray our objects, and baiting our invitation with some hints which we
+had ascertained were likely to prove temptations under his immediate
+circumstances. He had a graceless young son whom he was most anxious to
+wean from his dissolute connections, and to steady, by placing him in
+some office of no great responsibility. Upon this knowledge we framed
+the terms of our invitation.
+
+These proved to be effectual, as regarded our immediate object of
+obtaining an interview of persuasion. The night was wet; and at seven
+o'clock, the hour fixed for the interview, we were seated in readiness,
+much perplexed to know whether he would take any notice of our
+invitation. We had waited three quarters of an hour, when we heard a
+heavy lumbering step ascending the stair. The door was thrown open to
+its widest extent, and in the centre of the door-way stood a short,
+stout-built man, and the very broadest I ever beheld--staring at us with
+bold enquiring eyes. His salutation was something to this effect.
+
+'What the hell do you gay fellows want with me? What the blazes is this
+humbugging letter about? My son, and be hanged! what do you know of my
+son?'
+
+Upon this overture we ventured to request that he would come in and
+suffer us to shut the door, which we also locked. Next we produced the
+official paper nominating his son to a small place in the customs,--not
+yielding much, it was true, in the way of salary, but fortunately, and
+in accordance with the known wishes of the father, unburdened with any
+dangerous trust.
+
+'Well, I suppose I must say thank ye: but what comes next? What am I to
+do to pay the damages?' We informed him that for this particular little
+service we asked no return.
+
+'No, no,' said he, 'that'll not go down: that cat'll not jump. I'm not
+green enough for that. So, say away--what's the damage?' We then
+explained that we had certainly a favour and a great one to ask: ['Ay,
+I'll be bound you have,' was his parenthesis:] but that for this we were
+prepared to offer a separate remuneration; repeating that with respect
+to the little place procured for his son, it had not cost us anything,
+and therefore we did really and sincerely decline to receive anything in
+return; satisfied that, by this little offering, we had procured the
+opportunity of this present interview. At this point we withdrew a
+covering from a table upon which we had previously arranged a heap of
+gold coins, amounting in value to twelve hundred English guineas: this
+being the entire sum which circumstances allowed us to raise on so
+sudden a warning: for some landed property that we both had was so
+settled and limited, that we could not convert it into money either by
+way of sale, loan, or mortgage. This sum, stating to him its exact
+amount, we offered to his acceptance, upon the single condition that he
+would look aside, or wink hard, or (in whatever way he chose to express
+it) would make, or suffer to be made, such facilities for our liberating
+a female prisoner as we would point out. He mused: full five minutes he
+sat deliberating without opening his lips; At length he shocked us by
+saying, in a firm decisive tone that left us little hope of altering his
+resolution,--'No: gentlemen, it's a very fair offer, and a good deal of
+money for a single prisoner. I think I can guess at the person. It's a
+fair offer--fair enough. But, bless your heart! if I were to do the
+thing you want----why perhaps another case might be overlooked: but this
+prisoner, no: there's too much depending. No, they would turn me out of
+my place. Now the place is worth more to me in the long run than what
+you offer; though you bid fair enough, if it were only for my time in
+it. But look here: in case I can get my son to come into harness, I'm
+expecting to get the office for him after I've retired. So I can't do
+it. But I'll tell you what: you've been kind to my son: and therefore
+I'll not say a word about it. You're safe for me. And so good-night to
+you.' Saying which, and standing no further question, he walked
+resolutely out of the room and down-stairs.
+
+Two days we mourned over this failure, and scarcely knew which way to
+turn for another ray of hope;--on the third morning we received
+intelligence that this very jailer had been attacked by the fever,
+which, after long desolating the city, had at length made its way into
+the prison. In a very few days the jailer was lying without hope of
+recovery: and of necessity another person was appointed to fill his
+station for the present. This person I had seen, and I liked him less by
+much than the one he succeeded: he had an Italian appearance, and he
+wore an air of Italian subtlety and dissimulation. I was surprised to
+find, on proposing the same service to him, and on the same terms, that
+he made no objection whatever, but closed instantly with my offers. In
+prudence, however, I had made this change in the articles: a sum equal
+to two hundred English guineas, or one-sixth part of the whole money, he
+was to receive beforehand as a retaining fee; but the remainder was to
+be paid only to himself, or to anybody of his appointing, at the very
+moment of our finding the prison gates thrown open to us. He spoke
+fairly enough, and seemed to meditate no treachery; nor was there any
+obvious or known interest to serve by treachery; and yet I doubted him
+grievously.
+
+The night came: it was chosen as a gala night, one of two nights
+throughout the year in which the prisoners were allowed to celebrate a
+great national event: and in those days of relaxed prison management the
+utmost license was allowed to the rejoicing. This indulgence was
+extended to prisoners of all classes, though, of course, under more
+restrictions with regard to the criminal class. Ten o'clock came--the
+hour at which we had been instructed to hold ourselves in readiness. We
+had been long prepared. Agnes had been dressed by Hannah in such a
+costume externally (a man's hat and cloak, &c.) that, from her height,
+she might easily have passed amongst a mob of masquerading figures in
+the debtors' halls and galleries for a young stripling. Pierpoint and
+myself were also to a certain degree disguised; so far at least, that we
+should not have been recognised at any hurried glance by those of the
+prison officers who had become acquainted with our persons. We were all
+more or less disguised about the face; and in that age when masks were
+commonly used at all hours by people of a certain rank, there would have
+been nothing suspicious in any possible costume of the kind in a night
+like this, if we could succeed in passing for friends of debtors.
+
+I am impatient of these details, and I hasten over the ground. One
+entire hour passed away, and no jailer appeared. We began to despond
+heavily; and Agnes, poor thing! was now the most agitated of us all. At
+length eleven struck in the harsh tones of the prison-clock. A few
+minutes after, we heard the sound of bolts drawing, and bars
+unfastening. The jailer entered--drunk, and much disposed to be
+insolent. I thought it advisable to give him another bribe, and he
+resumed the fawning insinuation of his manner. He now directed us, by
+passages which he pointed out, to gain the other side of the prison.
+There we were to mix with the debtors and their mob of friends, and to
+await his joining us, which in that crowd he could do without much
+suspicion. He wished us to traverse the passages separately; but this
+was impossible, for it was necessary that one of us should support Agnes
+on each side. I previously persuaded her to take a small quantity of
+brandy, which we rejoiced to see had given her, at this moment of
+starting, a most seasonable strength and animation. The gloomy passages
+were more than usually empty, for all the turnkeys were employed in a
+vigilant custody of the gates, and examination of the parties going out.
+So the jailer had told us, and the news alarmed us. We came at length to
+a turning which brought us in sight of a strong iron gate, that divided
+the two main quarters of the prison. For this we had not been prepared.
+The man, however, opened the gate without a word spoken, only putting
+out his hand for a fee; and in my joy, perhaps, I gave him one
+imprudently large. After passing this gate, the distant uproar of the
+debtors guided us to the scene of their merriment; and when there, such
+was the tumult and the vast multitude assembled, that we now hoped in
+good earnest to accomplish our purpose without accident. Just at this
+moment the jailer appeared in the distance; he seemed looking towards
+us, and at length one of our party could distinguish that he was
+beckoning to us. We went forward, and found him in some agitation, real
+or counterfeit. He muttered a word or two quite unintelligible about the
+man at the wicket, told us we must wait a while, and he would then see
+what could be done for us. We were beginning to demur, and to express
+the suspicions which now too seriously arose, when he, seeing, or
+affecting to see some object of alarm, pushed us with a hurried movement
+into a cell opening upon the part of the gallery at which we were now
+standing. Not knowing whether we really might not be retreating from
+some danger, we could do no otherwise than comply with his signals; but
+we were troubled at finding ourselves immediately locked in from the
+outside, and thus apparently all our motions had only sufficed to
+exchange one prison for another.
+
+We were now completely in the dark, and found, by a hard breathing from
+one corner of the little dormitory, that it was not unoccupied. Having
+taken care to provide ourselves separately with means for striking a
+light, we soon had more than one torch burning. The brilliant light
+falling upon the eyes of a man who lay stretched on the iron bedstead,
+woke him. It proved to be my friend the under-jailer, Ratcliffe, but no
+longer holding any office in the prison. He sprang up, and a rapid
+explanation took place. He had become a prisoner for debt; and on this
+evening, after having caroused through the day with some friends from
+the country, had retired at an early hour to sleep away his
+intoxication. I on my part thought it prudent to entrust him
+unreservedly with our situation and purposes, not omitting our gloomy
+suspicions. Ratcliffe looked, with a pity that won my love, upon the
+poor wasted Agnes. He had seen her on her first entrance into the
+prison, had spoken to her, and therefore knew _from_ what she had
+fallen, _to_ what. Even then he had felt for her; how much more at this
+time, when he beheld, by the fierce light of the torches, her wo-worn
+features!
+
+'Who was it,' he asked eagerly, 'you made the bargain with? Manasseh?'
+
+'The same.'
+
+'Then I can tell you this--not a greater villain walks the earth. He is
+a Jew from Portugal; he has betrayed many a man, and will many another,
+unless he gets his own neck stretched, which might happen, if I told all
+I know.'
+
+'But what was it probable that this man meditated? Or how could it
+profit him to betray us?'
+
+'That's more than I can tell. He wants to get your money, and that he
+doesn't know how to bring about without doing his part. But that's what
+he never _will_ do, take my word for it. That would cut him out of all
+chance for the head-jailer's place.' He mused a little, and then told us
+that he could himself put us outside the prison-walls, and _would_ do it
+without fee or reward. 'But we must be quiet, or that devil will bethink
+him of me. I'll wager something he thought that I was out merry-making
+like the rest; and if he should chance to light upon the truth, he'll be
+back in no time.' Ratcliffe then removed an old fire-grate, at the back
+of which was an iron plate, that swung round into a similar fireplace
+in the contiguous cell. From that, by a removal of a few slight
+obstacles, we passed, by a long avenue, into the chapel. Then he left
+us, whilst he went out alone to reconnoitre his ground. Agnes was now in
+so pitiable a condition of weakness, as we stood on the very brink of
+our final effort, that we placed her in a pew, where she could rest as
+upon a sofa. Previously we had stood upon graves, and with monuments
+more or less conspicuous all around us: some raised by friends to the
+memory of friends--some by subscriptions in the prison--some by
+children, who had risen into prosperity, to the memory of a father,
+brother, or other relative, who had died in captivity. I was grieved
+that these sad memorials should meet the eye of my wife at this moment
+of awe and terrific anxiety. Pierpoint and I were well armed, and all of
+us determined not to suffer a recapture, now that we were free of the
+crowds that made resistance hopeless. This Agnes easily perceived; and
+_that_, by suggesting a bloody arbitration, did not lessen her
+agitation. I hoped therefore that, by placing her in the pew, I might at
+least liberate her for the moment from the besetting memorials of sorrow
+and calamity. But, as if in the very teeth of my purpose, one of the
+large columns which supported the roof of the chapel had its basis and
+lower part of the shaft in this very pew. On the side of it, and just
+facing her as she lay reclining on the cushions, appeared a mural
+tablet, with a bas-relief in white marble, to the memory of two
+children, twins, who had lived and died at the same time, and in this
+prison--children who had never breathed another air than that of
+captivity, their parents having passed many years within these walls,
+under confinement for debt. The sculptures were not remarkable, being a
+trite, but not the less affecting, representation of angels descending
+to receive the infants; but the hallowed words of the inscription,
+distinct and legible--'Suffer little children to come unto me, and
+forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God'--met her eye, and,
+by the thoughts they awakened, made me fear that she would become
+unequal to the exertions which yet awaited her. At this moment Ratcliffe
+returned, and informed us that all was right; and that, from the ruinous
+state of all the buildings which surrounded the chapel, no difficulty
+remained for us, who were, in fact, beyond the strong part of the
+prison, excepting at a single door, which we should be obliged to break
+down. But had we any means arranged for pursuing our flight, and turning
+this escape to account when out of confinement? All that, I assured him,
+was provided for long ago. We proceeded, and soon reached the door. We
+had one crow-bar amongst us, but beyond that had no better weapons than
+the loose stones found about some new-made graves in the chapel.
+Ratcliffe and Pierpoint, both powerful men, applied themselves by turns
+to the door, whilst Hannah and I supported Agnes. The door did not
+yield, being of enormous strength; but the wall did, and a large mass of
+stone-work fell outwards, twisting the door aside; so that, by
+afterwards working with our hands, we removed stones many enough to
+admit of our egress. Unfortunately this aperture was high above the
+ground, and it was necessary to climb over a huge heap of loose rubbish
+in order to profit by it. My brother-in-law passed first in order to
+receive my wife, quite helpless at surmounting the obstacle by her own
+efforts, out of my arms. He had gone through the opening, and, turning,
+round so as to face me, he naturally could see something that I did
+_not_ see. 'Look behind!' he called out rapidly. I did so, and saw the
+murderous villain Manasseh with his arm uplifted and in the act of
+cutting at my wife, nearly insensible as she was, with a cutlass. The
+blow was not for me, but for her, as the fugitive prisoner; and the law
+would have borne him out in the act. I saw, I comprehended the whole. I
+groped, as far as I could without letting my wife drop, for my pistols;
+but all that I could do would have been unavailing, and too late--she
+would have been murdered in my arms. But--and that was what none of us
+saw--neither I, nor Pierpoint, nor the hound Manasseh--one person stood
+back in the shade; one person had seen, but had not uttered a word on
+seeing Manasseh advancing through the shades; one person only had
+forecast the exact succession of all that was coming; me she saw
+embarrassed and my hands preoccupied--Pierpoint and Ratcliffe useless by
+position--and the gleam of the dog's eye directed her to his aim. The
+crow-bar was leaning against the shattered wall. This she had silently
+seized. One blow knocked up the sword; a second laid the villain
+prostrate. At this moment appeared another of the turnkeys advancing
+from the rear, for the noise of our assault upon the door had drawn
+attention in the interior of the prison, from which, however, no great
+number of assistants could on this dangerous night venture to absent
+themselves. What followed for the next few minutes hurried onwards,
+incident crowding upon incident, like the motions of a dream:--Manasseh,
+lying on the ground, yelled out 'The bell! the bell!' to him who
+followed. The man understood, and made for the belfry-door attached to
+the chapel; upon which Pierpoint drew a pistol, and sent the bullet
+whizzing past his ear so truly, that fear made the man obedient to the
+counter-orders of Pierpoint for the moment. He paused and awaited the
+issue.--In a moment had all cleared the wall, traversed the waste
+ground beyond it, lifted Agnes over the low railing, shaken hands with
+our benefactor Ratcliffe and pushed onwards as rapidly as we were able
+to the little dark lane, a quarter of a mile distant, where had stood
+waiting for the last two hours a chaise-and-four.
+
+[Ratcliffe, before my story closes, I will pursue to the last of my
+acquaintance with him, according to the just claims of his services. He
+had privately whispered to me, as we went along, that he could speak to
+the innocence of that lady, pointing to my wife, better than anybody. He
+was the person whom (as then holding an office in the prison) Barratt
+had attempted to employ as agent in conveying any messages that he found
+it safe to send--obscurely hinting the terms on which he would desist
+from prosecution. Ratcliffe had at first undertaken the negotiation from
+mere levity of character. But when the story and the public interest
+spread, and after himself becoming deeply struck by the prisoner's
+affliction, beauty, and reputed innocence, he had pursued it only as a
+means of entrapping Barratt into such written communications and such
+private confessions of the truth as might have served Agnes effectually.
+He wanted the art, however, to disguise his purposes: Barratt came to
+suspect him violently, and feared his evidence so far, even for those
+imperfect and merely oral overtures which he had really sent through
+Ratcliffe--that on the very day of the trial he, as was believed, though
+by another nominally, contrived that Ratcliffe should be arrested for
+debt; and, after harassing him with intricate forms of business, had
+finally caused him to be conveyed to prison. Ratcliffe was thus
+involved in his own troubles at the time; and afterwards supposed that,
+without written documents to support his evidence, he could not be of
+much service to the re-establishment of my wife's reputation. Six months
+after his services in the night-escape from the prison, I saw him, and
+pressed him to take the money so justly forfeited to him by Manasseh's
+perfidy. He would, however, be persuaded to take no more than paid his
+debts. A second and a third time his debts were paid by myself and
+Pierpoint. But the same habits of intemperance and dissolute pleasure
+which led him into these debts, finally ruined his constitution; and he
+died, though otherwise of a fine generous manly nature, a martyr to
+dissipation at the early age of twenty-nine. With respect to his prison
+confinement, it was so frequently recurring in his life, and was
+alleviated by so many indulgences, that he scarcely viewed it as a
+hardship: having once been an officer of the prison, and having thus
+formed connections with the whole official establishment, and done
+services to many of them, and being of so convivial a turn, he was, even
+as a prisoner, treated with distinction, and considered as a privileged
+son of the house.]
+
+It was just striking twelve o'clock as we entered the lane where the
+carriage was drawn up. Rain, about the profoundest I had ever witnessed,
+was falling. Though near to midsummer, the night had been unusually dark
+to begin with, and from the increasing rain had become much more so. We
+could see nothing; and at first we feared that some mistake had occurred
+as to the station of the carriage--in which case we might have sought
+for it vainly through the intricate labyrinth of the streets in that
+quarter. I first descried it by the light of a torch, reflected
+powerfully from the large eyes of the leaders. All was ready.
+Horse-keepers were at the horses' heads. The postilions were mounted;
+each door had the steps let down: Agnes was lifted in: Hannah and I
+followed: Pierpoint mounted his horse; and at the word--Oh! how strange
+a word!--'_All's right_,' the horses sprang off like leopards, a manner
+ill suited to the slippery pavement of a narrow street. At that moment,
+but we valued it little indeed, we heard the prison-bell ringing out
+loud and clear. Thrice within the first three minutes we had to pull up
+suddenly, on the brink of formidable accidents, from the dangerous speed
+we maintained, and which, nevertheless, the driver had orders to
+maintain, as essential to our plan. All the stoppages and hinderances of
+every kind along the road had been anticipated previously, and met by
+contrivance, of one kind or other; and Pierpoint was constantly a little
+ahead of us to attend to anything that had been neglected. The
+consequence of these arrangements was--- that no person along the road
+could possibly have assisted to trace us by anything in our appearance:
+for we passed all objects at too flying a pace, and through darkness too
+profound, to allow of any one feature in our equipage being distinctly
+noticed. Ten miles out of town, a space which we traversed in forty-four
+minutes, a second relay of horses was ready; but we carried on the same
+postilions throughout. Six miles a-head of this distance we had a second
+relay; and with this set of horses, after pushing two miles further
+along the road, we crossed by a miserable lane five miles long, scarcely
+even a bridge road, into another of the great roads from the capital;
+and by thus crossing the country, we came back upon the city at a point
+far distant from that at which we left it. We had performed a distance
+of forty-two miles in three hours, and lost a fourth hour upon the
+wretched five miles of cross-road. It was therefore four o'clock, and
+broad daylight, when we drew near the suburbs of the city; but a most
+happy accident now favoured us; a fog the most intense now prevailed;
+nobody could see an object six feet distant; we alighted in an
+uninhabited new-built street, plunged into the fog, thus confounding our
+traces to any observer. We then stepped into a hackney-coach which had
+been stationed at a little distance. Thence, according to our plan, we
+drove to a miserable quarter of the town, whither the poor only and the
+wretched resorted; mounted a gloomy dirty staircase, and, befriended by
+the fog, still growing thicker and thicker, and by the early hour of the
+morning, reached a house previously hired, which, if shocking to the eye
+and the imagination from its squalid appearance and its gloom, still was
+a home--a sanctuary--an asylum from treachery, from captivity, from
+persecution. Here Pierpoint for the present quitted us: and once more
+Agnes, Hannah, and I, the shattered members of a shattered family, were
+thus gathered together in a house of our own.
+
+Yes: once again, daughter of the hills, thou sleptst as heretofore in my
+encircling arms; but not again in that peace which crowned thy innocence
+in those days, and should have crowned it now. Through the whole of our
+flying journey, in some circumstances at its outset strikingly recalling
+to me that blessed one which followed our marriage, Agnes slept away
+unconscious of our movements. She slept through all that day and the
+following night; and I watched over her with as much jealousy of all
+that might disturb her, as a mother watches over her new-born baby; for
+I hoped, I fancied, that a long--long rest, a rest, a halcyon calm, a
+deep, deep Sabbath of security, might prove healing and medicinal. I
+thought wrong; her breathing became more disturbed, and sleep was now
+haunted by dreams; all of us, indeed, were agitated by dreams; the past
+pursued me, and the present, for high rewards had been advertised by
+Government to those who traced us; and though for the moment we were
+secure, because we never went abroad, and could not have been naturally
+sought in such a neighbourhood, still that very circumstance would
+eventually operate against us. At length, every night I dreamed of our
+insecurity under a thousand forms; but more often by far my dreams
+turned upon our wrongs; wrath moved me rather than fear. Every night,
+for the greater part, I lay painfully and elaborately involved, by deep
+sense of wrong,
+
+    '----in long orations, which I pleaded
+     Before unjust tribunals.'[20]
+
+And for poor Agnes, her also did the remembrance of mighty wrongs occupy
+through vast worlds of sleep in the same way--though coloured by that
+tenderness which belonged to her gentler nature. One dream in
+particular--a dream of sublime circumstances--she repeated to me so
+movingly, with a pathos so thrilling, that by some profound sympathy it
+transplanted itself to my own sleep, settled itself there, and is to
+this hour a part of the fixed dream-scenery which revolves at intervals
+through my sleeping life. This it was:--She would hear a trumpet
+sound--though perhaps as having been the prelude to the solemn entry of
+the judges at a town which she had once visited in her childhood; other
+preparations would follow, and at last all the solemnities of a great
+trial would shape themselves and fall into settled images. The audience
+was assembled, the judges were arrayed, the court was set. The prisoner
+was cited. Inquest was made, witnesses were called; and false witnesses
+came tumultuously to the bar. Then again a trumpet was heard, but the
+trumpet of a mighty archangel; and then would roll away thick clouds and
+vapours. Again the audience, but another audience, was assembled; again
+the tribunal was established; again the court was set; but a tribunal
+and a court--how different to her! _That_ had been composed of men
+seeking indeed for truth, but themselves erring and fallible creatures;
+the witnesses had been full of lies, the judges of darkness. But here
+was a court composed of heavenly witnesses--here was a righteous
+tribunal--and then at last a judge that could not be deceived. The judge
+smote with his eye a person who sought to hide himself in the crowd; the
+guilty man stepped forward; the poor prisoner was called up to the
+presence of the mighty judge; suddenly the voice of a little child was
+heard ascending before her. Then the trumpet sounded once again; and
+then there were new heavens and a new earth; and her tears and her
+agitation (for she had seen her little Francis) awoke the poor
+palpitating dreamer.
+
+[20] From a MS. poem of a great living Poet. [Written in January 1838.
+The lines occur in Wordsworth's _Prelude_, Book Tenth, line 410. The
+passage stands thus:--
+
+    ----------'the unbroken dream entangled me
+    In long orations, which I strove to plead
+    Before unjust tribunals,--with a voice
+    Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense,
+    Death-like, of treacherous desertion, felt
+    In the last place of refuge--my own soul.'--H.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two months passed on: nothing could possibly be done materially to raise
+the standard of those wretched accommodations which the house offered.
+The dilapidated walls, the mouldering plaster, the blackened
+mantel-pieces, the stained and polluted wainscots--what could be
+attempted to hide or to repair all this by those who durst not venture
+abroad? Yet whatever could be done, Hannah did, and, in the meantime,
+very soon indeed my Agnes ceased to see or to be offended by these
+objects. First of all her sight went from her; and nothing which
+appealed to that sense could ever more offend her. It is to me the one
+only consolation I have, that my presence and that of Hannah, with such
+innocent frauds as we concerted together, made her latter days pass in a
+heavenly calm, by persuading her that our security was absolute, and
+that all search after us had ceased, under a belief on the part of
+Government that we had gained the shelter of a foreign land. All this
+was a delusion; but it was a delusion--blessed be Heaven!--which lasted
+exactly as long as her life, and was just commensurate with its
+necessity. I hurry over the final circumstances.
+
+There was fortunately now, even for me, no fear that the hand of any
+policeman or emissary of justice could effectually disturb the latter
+days of my wife; for, besides pistols always lying loaded in an inner
+room, there happened to be a long narrow passage on entering the house,
+which, by means of a blunderbuss, I could have swept effectually, and
+cleared many times over; and I know what to do in a last extremity. Just
+two months it was, to a day, since we had entered the house; and it
+happened that the medical attendant upon Agnes, who awakened no
+suspicion by his visits, had prescribed some opiate or anodyne which had
+not come; being dark early, for it was now September, I had ventured out
+to fetch it. In this I conceived there could be no danger. On my return
+I saw a man examining the fastenings of the door. He made no opposition
+to my entrance, nor seemed much to observe it--but I was disturbed. Two
+hours after, both Hannah and I heard a noise about the door, and voices
+in low conversation. It is remarkable that Agnes heard this also--so
+quick had grown her hearing. She was agitated, but was easily calmed;
+and at ten o'clock we were all in bed. The hand of Agnes was in mine; so
+only she felt herself in security. She had been restless for an hour,
+and talking at intervals in sleep. Once she certainly wakened, for she
+pressed her lips to mine. Two minutes after, I heard something in her
+breathing which did not please me. I rose hastily--brought a
+light--raised her head--two long, long gentle sighs, that scarcely moved
+the lips, were all that could be perceived. At that moment, at that very
+moment, Hannah called out to me that the door was surrounded. 'Open it!'
+I said; six men entered; Agnes it was they sought; I pointed to the bed;
+they advanced, gazed, and walked away in silence.
+
+After this I wandered about, caring little for life or its affairs, and
+roused only at times to think of vengeance upon all who had contributed
+to lay waste my happiness. In this pursuit, however, I was confounded as
+much by my own thoughts as by the difficulties of accomplishing my
+purpose. To assault and murder either of the two principal agents in
+this tragedy, what would it be, what other effect could it have, than to
+invest them with the character of injured and suffering people, and thus
+to attract a pity or a forgiveness at least to their persons which never
+otherwise could have illustrated their deaths? I remembered, indeed, the
+words of a sea-captain who had taken such vengeance as had offered at
+the moment upon his bitter enemy and persecutor (a young passenger on
+board his ship), who had informed against him at the Custom-house on his
+arrival in port, and had thus effected the confiscation of his ship, and
+the ruin of the captain's family. The vengeance, and it was all that
+circumstances allowed, consisted in coming behind the young man
+clandestinely and pushing him into the deep waters of the dock, when,
+being unable to swim, he perished by drowning. 'And the like,' said the
+captain, when musing on his trivial vengeance, 'and the like happens to
+many an honest sailor.' Yes, thought I, the captain was right. The
+momentary shock of a pistol-bullet--what is it? Perhaps it may save the
+wretch after all from the pangs of some lingering disease; and then
+again I shall have the character of a murderer, if known to have shot
+him; he will with many people have no such character, but at worst the
+character of a man too harsh (they will say), and possibly mistaken in
+protecting his property. And then, if not known as the man who shot him,
+where is the shadow even of vengeance? Strange, it seemed to me, and
+passing strange, that I should be the person to urge arguments in behalf
+of letting this man escape. For at one time I had as certainly, as
+inexorably, doomed him as ever I took any resolution in my life. But the
+fact is, and I began to see it upon closer view, it is not easy by any
+means to take an adequate vengeance for any injury beyond a very trivial
+standard; and that with common magnanimity one does not care to avenge.
+Whilst I was in this mood of mind, still debating with myself whether I
+should or should not contaminate my hands with the blood of this
+monster, and still unable to shut my eyes upon one fact, viz. that my
+buried Agnes could above all things have urged me to abstain from such
+acts of violence, too evidently useless, listlessly and scarcely knowing
+what I was in quest of, I strayed by accident into a church where a
+venerable old man was preaching at the very moment I entered; he was
+either delivering as a text, or repeating in the course of his sermon,
+these words--'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' By some
+accident also he fixed his eyes upon me at the moment; and this
+concurrence with the subject then occupying my thoughts so much
+impressed me, that I determined very seriously to review my half-formed
+purposes of revenge; and well it was that I did so: for in that same
+week an explosion of popular fury brought the life of this wretched
+Barratt to a shocking termination, pretty much resembling the fate of
+the De Witts in Holland. And the consequences to me were such, and so
+full of all the consolation and indemnification which this world could
+give me, that I have often shuddered since then at the narrow escape I
+had had from myself intercepting this remarkable retribution. The
+villain had again been attempting to play off the same hellish scheme
+with a beautiful young rustic which had succeeded in the case of my
+ill-fated Agnes. But the young woman in this instance had a high, and,
+in fact, termagant spirit. Rustic as she was, she had been warned of the
+character of the man; everybody, in fact, was familiar with the recent
+tragedy. Either her lover or her brother happened to be waiting for her
+outside the window. He saw in part the very tricks in the act of
+perpetration by which some article or other, meant to be claimed as
+stolen property, was conveyed into a parcel she had incautiously laid
+down. He heard the charge against her made by Barratt, and seconded by
+his creatures--heard her appeal--sprang to her aid--dragged the ruffian
+into the street, when in less time than the tale could be told, and
+before the police (though tolerably alert) could effectually interpose
+for his rescue, the mob had so used or so abused the opportunity they
+had long wished for, that he remained the mere disfigured wreck of what
+had once been a man, rather than a creature with any resemblance to
+humanity. I myself heard the uproar at a distance, and the shouts and
+yells of savage exultation; they were sounds I shall never forget,
+though I did not at that time know them for what they were, or
+understood their meaning. The result, however, to me was something
+beyond this, and worthy to have been purchased with my heart's blood.
+Barratt still breathed; spite of his mutilations he could speak; he was
+rational. One only thing he demanded--it was that his dying confession
+might be taken. Two magistrates and a clergyman attended. He gave a list
+of those whom he had trepanned, and had failed to trepan, by his
+artifices and threats, into the sacrifice of their honour. He expired
+before the record was closed, but not before he had placed my wife's
+name in the latter list as the one whose injuries in his dying moments
+most appalled him. This confession on the following day went into the
+hands of the hostile minister, and my revenge was perfect.
+
+
+
+
+MR. SCHNACKENBERGER;
+
+OR,
+
+TWO MASTERS FOR ONE DOG.
+
+FROM THE GERMAN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+IN WHAT MANNER MR. SCHNACKENBERGER MADE HIS ENTRY INTO B----.
+
+
+The sun had just set, and all the invalids at the baths of B---- had
+retired to their lodgings, when the harsh tones of welcome from the
+steeple announced the arrival of a new guest. Forthwith all the windows
+were garrisoned with young faces and old faces, pretty faces and ugly
+faces; and scarce one but was overspread with instantaneous merriment--a
+_feu-de-joie_ of laughter, that travelled up the street in company with
+the very extraordinary object that now advanced from the city gates.
+Upon a little, meagre, scare-crow of a horse, sate a tall,
+broad-shouldered young fellow, in a great-coat of bright pea-green,
+whose variegated lights and shades, from soaking rains and partial
+dryings, bore sullen testimony to the changeable state of the weather
+for the last week. Out of this great-coat shot up, to a monstrous
+height, a head surmounted by a huge cocked hat, one end of which hung
+over the stem, the other over the stern of the horse: the legs belonging
+to this head were sheathed in a pair of monstrous boots, technically
+called 'field-pieces,' which, descending rather too low, were well
+plaistered with flesh-coloured mud. More, perhaps, in compliance with
+the established rule, than for any visible use, a switch was in the
+rider's hand; for to attribute to such a horse, under such a load, any
+power to have quitted a pace that must have satisfied the most rigorous
+police in Poland, was obviously too romantic. Depending from his side,
+and almost touching the ground, rattled an enormous back-sword, which
+suggested to the thinking mind a salutary hint to allow free passage,
+without let or unseasonable jesting, to Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger,
+student at the University of X----. He, that might be disposed to
+overlook this hint, would certainly pay attention to a second, which
+crept close behind the other in the shape of a monstrous dog, somewhat
+bigger than the horse, and presenting on every side a double tier of
+most respectable teeth. Observing the general muster of the natives,
+which his appearance had called to the windows, the rider had unslung
+and mounted a pipe, under whose moving canopy of clouds and vapours he
+might advance in greater tranquillity: and during this operation, his
+very thoughtful and serious horse had struck up a by-street--and made a
+dead stop, before his rider was aware, at the sign of the Golden Sow.
+
+Although the gold had long since vanished from the stone beast, and, to
+say the truth, every part of the house seemed to sympathise admirably
+with the unclean habits of its patron image, nevertheless, Mr. Jeremiah
+thought proper to comply with the instincts of his horse; and, as nobody
+in the street, or in the yard, came forward to answer his call, he gave
+himself no further trouble, but rode on through the open door right
+forwards into the bar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HOW MR. JEREMIAH CAME TO TAKE UP HIS QUARTERS AT THE GOLDEN SOW.
+
+
+'The Lord, and his angels, protect us!--As I live, here comes the late
+governor!' ejaculated the hostess, Mrs. Bridget Sweetbread; suddenly
+startled out of her afternoon's nap by the horse's hoofs--and seeing
+right before her what she took for the apparition of Don Juan; whom, as
+it afterwards appeared, she had seen in a pantomime the night before.
+
+'Thunder and lightning! my good woman,' said the student laughing,
+'would you dispute the reality of my flesh and blood?'
+
+Mrs. Bridget, however, on perceiving her mistake, cared neither for the
+sword nor for the dog, but exclaimed, 'Why then, let me tell you, Sir,
+it's not the custom in this country to ride into parlours, and disturb
+honest folks when they're taking their rest. Innkeeping's not the trade
+it has been to me, God he knows: but, for all that, I'll not put up with
+such work from nobody.'
+
+'Good, my dear creature; what you say is good--very good: but let me
+tell you, it's _not_ good that I must be kept waiting in the street, and
+no soul in attendance to take my horse and feed him.'
+
+'Oh, that base villain of a hostler!' said the landlady, immediately
+begging pardon, and taking hold of the bridle, whilst Mr.
+Schnackenberger dismounted.
+
+'That's a good creature,' said he; 'I love you for this: and I don't
+care if I take up my quarters here, which at first was not my intention.
+Have you room for me?'
+
+'Room!' answered Mrs. Sweetbread; 'ah! now there's just the whole Golden
+Sow at your service; the more's the pity.'
+
+On Mr. Jeremiah's asking the reason for this superfluity of room, she
+poured out a torrent of abuse against the landlord of _The
+Double-barrelled Gun_, who--not content with having at all times done
+justice to his sign--had latterly succeeded, with the help of vicious
+coachmen and unprincipled postilions, in drawing away her whole
+business, and had at length utterly ruined the once famous inn of _The
+Golden Sow_. And true it was that the apartment, into which she now
+introduced her guest, showed some vestiges of ancient splendour, in the
+pictures of six gigantic sows. The late landlord had been a butcher, and
+had christened his inn from his practice of slaughtering a pig every
+week; and the six swine, as large as life, and each bearing a separate
+name, were designed to record his eminent skill in the art of fattening.
+
+His widow, who was still in mourning for him, must certainly have
+understood Mr. Schnackenberger's words, '_I love you for this_,' in a
+sense very little intended by the student. For she brought up supper
+herself; and, with her own hand, unarmed with spoon or other implement,
+dived after and secured a little insect which was floundering about in
+the soup. So much the greater was her surprise on observing, that, after
+such flattering proofs of attention, her guest left the soup untouched;
+and made no particular application to the other dishes--so well
+harmonising with the general character of the Golden Sow. At last,
+however, she explained his want of appetite into the excess of his
+passion for herself; and, on that consideration, failed not to lay
+before him a statement of her flourishing circumstances, and placed in
+a proper light the benefits of a marriage with a woman somewhat older
+than himself.
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger, whose good-nature was infinite, occasionally
+interrupted his own conversation with Juno, the great dog, who meantime
+was dispatching the supper without any of her master's scruples, to
+throw in a 'Yes,' or a 'No,'--a, 'Well,' or a 'So, so.' But at length
+his patience gave way, and he started up--saying, 'Well: _Sufficit_:
+Now--march, old witch!' This harmless expression she took in such ill
+part, that, for mere peace' sake, he was obliged to lead her to the door
+and shut her out: and then, undressing himself, he stepped into bed;
+and, in defiance of the straw which everywhere stuck out, and a quilt of
+a hundred-weight,[21] he sunk into a deep slumber under the agreeable
+serenade of those clamorous outcries which Mrs. Sweetbread still kept up
+on the outside of the door.
+
+[21] The custom in North Germany is to sleep _under_ a bed as well as
+_upon_ one; consequently, when this happens to be a cheap one, it cannot
+be stuffed with feathers, down, &c., but with some heavier material.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN WHICH OUR HERO POLISHES A ROUGH-RIDER.
+
+
+'Fire and furies!' exclaimed Mr. Schnackenberger, as Juno broke out into
+uproarious barking about midnight: the door was opened from the outside;
+and in stepped the landlady, arrayed in a night-dress that improved her
+charms into a rivalry with those of her sign at the street-door;
+accompanied by a fellow, who, by way of salutation, cracked an immense
+hunting-whip.
+
+'So it's here that I'm to get my own again?' cried the fellow: and
+forthwith Mr. Jeremiah stepped out of bed, and hauled him up to the
+light of the lamp which the landlady carried.
+
+'Yes, Sir,' said, the rough-rider, 'it's I, sure enough;' and, to judge
+by the countenance of his female conductor, every accent of his anger
+was music of the spheres to her unquenchable wrath: 'I'm the man, sure
+enough, whose horse you rode away with; and _that_ you'll find to be a
+true bill.'
+
+'Rode away with!' cried Mr. Jeremiah: 'Now, may the sweetest of all
+thunderbolts----But, rascal, this instant what's to pay? then take thy
+carrion out of the stable, and be off.' So saying, Mr. Schnackenberger
+strode to the bed for his well-filled purse.
+
+On these signs of solvency, however, the horse-dealer turned up the
+gentle phasis of his character, and said, 'Nay, nay; since things are
+so, why it's all right; and, in the Lord's name, keep the horse as long
+as you want him.'
+
+
+'Dog! in the first place, and firstly, tell me what's your demand? in
+the second place, and secondly, go to the d----l.'
+
+But whilst the rough-rider continued with low bows to decline the first
+offer, being satisfied, as it seemed, with the second, the choleric Mr.
+Schnackenberger cried out, 'Seize him, Juno!' And straightway Juno
+leaped upon him, and executed the arrest so punctually--that the
+trembling equestrian, without further regard to ceremony, made out his
+charge.
+
+Forthwith Mr. Jeremiah paid down the demand upon the table, throwing in
+something extra, with the words, '_That_ for the fright.' The dealer in
+horse-flesh returned him a thousand thanks; hoped for his honour's
+further patronage; and then, upon being civilly assured by Mr. Jeremiah,
+that if he did not in one instant _walk_ down the stairs, he would, to
+his certain knowledge, have to _fly_ down them; the rough-rider, in
+company with the landlady, took a rapid and polite leave of Mr.
+Schnackenberger; who was too much irritated by the affront to compose
+himself again to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HOW MR. SCHNACKENBERGER AND JUNO CONDUCT THEMSELVES WHEN THE HOUSE
+BECOMES TOO HOT TO HOLD THEM.
+
+
+Day was beginning to dawn, when a smoke, which forced its way through
+the door, and which grew every instant thicker and more oppressive, a
+second time summoned Mr. Schnackenberger from his bed. As he threw open
+the door, such a volume of flames rolled in from the staircase--which
+was already on fire from top to bottom--that he saw there was no time to
+be lost: so he took his pipe, loaded it as quickly as possible, lighted
+it from the flames of the staircase, began smoking, and then, drawing on
+his pea-green coat and buckling on his sword, he put his head out of the
+window to see if there were any means of escape. To leap right down upon
+the pavement seemed too hazardous; and the most judicious course, it
+struck him, would be to let himself down upon the Golden Sow, which was
+at no great depth below his window, and from this station to give the
+alarm. Even this, however, could not be reached without a leap: Mr.
+Schnackenberger attempted it; and, by means of his great talents for
+equilibristic exercises, he hit the mark so well, that he planted
+himself in the very saddle, as it were, upon the back of this
+respectable brute. Unluckily, however, there was no house opposite; and
+Mrs. Sweetbread with her people slept at the back. Hence it was, that
+for a very considerable space of time he was obliged to continue riding
+the sign of the Golden Sow; whilst Juno, for whom he could not possibly
+make room behind him, looked out of the window, and accompanied her
+master's text of occasional clamours for assistance, with a very
+appropriate commentary of howls.
+
+Some Poles at length passed by: but, not understanding one word of
+German--and seeing a man thus betimes in the morning mounted on the
+golden sow, smoking very leisurely, and occasionally hallooing, as if
+for his private amusement, they naturally took Mr. Schnackenberger for a
+maniac: until, at length, the universal language of fire, which now
+began to burst out of the window, threw some light upon the darkness of
+their Polish understandings. Immediately they ran for assistance, which
+about the same moment the alarm-bells began to summon.
+
+However, the fire-engines arrived on the ground before the ladders:
+these last were the particular objects of Mr. Jeremiah's wishes:
+meantime, in default of those, and as the second best thing that could
+happen, the engines played with such a well-directed stream of water
+upon the window--upon the Golden Sow--and upon Mr. Jeremiah
+Schnackenberger, that for one while they were severally rendered
+tolerably fire-proof. When at length the ladders arrived, and the people
+were on the point of applying them to the Golden Sow, he earnestly
+begged that they would, first of all, attend to a case of more urgent
+necessity: for himself, he was well mounted--as they saw; could assure
+them that he was by no means in a combustible state; and, if they would
+be so good as to be a little more parsimonious with their water, he
+didn't care if he continued to pursue his morning's ride a little
+longer. On the other hand, Juno at the window to the right was reduced
+every moment to greater extremities, as was pretty plainly indicated by
+the increasing violence of her howling.
+
+But the people took it ill that they should be desired to rescue a
+four-legged animal; and peremptorily refused.
+
+'My good lads,' said the man upon the sow, 'for heaven's sake don't
+delay any longer: one heaven, as Pfeffel observes, is over all good
+creatures that are pilgrims on this earth--let their travelling coat
+(which by the way is none of their own choosing) be what it may;--smooth
+like yours and mine, or shaggy like Juno's.'
+
+But all to no purpose: not Pfeffel himself _in propria persona_ could
+have converted them from the belief that to take any trouble about such
+a brute was derogatory to the honour of the very respectable citizens of
+B----.
+
+However, when Mr. Jeremiah drew his purse-strings, and offered a golden
+ducat to him that would render this service to his dog, instantly so
+many were the competitors for the honour of delivering the excellent
+pilgrim in the shaggy coat, that none of them would resign a ladder to
+any of the rest: and thus, in this too violent zeal for her safety,
+possibly Juno would have perished--but for a huge Brunswick sausage,
+which, happening to go past in the mouth of a spaniel, violently
+irritated the appetite of Juno, and gave her courage for the _salto
+mortale_ down to the pavement.
+
+'God bless my soul,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, to the men who stood
+mourning over the golden soap-bubble that had just burst before their
+eyes, 'what's to be done now?' and, without delay, he offered the ducat
+to him that would instantly give chase to Juno, who had already given
+chase to the sausage round the street corner, and would restore her to
+him upon the spot. And such was the agitation of Mr. Schnackenberger's
+mind, that for a few moments he seemed as if rising in his stirrups--and
+on the point of clapping spurs to the Golden Sow for the purpose of
+joining in the chase.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FROM WHICH MAY BE DESCRIED THE OBJECT OF MR. SCHNACKENBERGER'S JOURNEY
+TO B----, AND A PROSPECT OF AN INTRODUCTION TO HIGH LIFE.
+
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger's consternation was, in fact, not without very
+rational grounds. The case was this. Juno was an English bitch--infamous
+for her voracious appetite in all the villages, far and wide, about the
+university--and, indeed, in all respects, without a peer throughout the
+whole country. Of course, Mr. Schnackenberger was much envied on her
+account by a multitude of fellow students; and very large offers were
+made him for the dog. To all such overtures, however, the young man had
+turned a deaf ear for a long time, and even under the heaviest pecuniary
+distresses; though he could not but acknowledge to himself that Juno
+brought him nothing but trouble and vexation. For not only did this
+brute (generally called the monster) make a practice of visiting other
+people's kitchens, and appropriating all unguarded dainties--but she
+went even to the length of disputing the title to their own property
+with he-cooks and she-cooks, butchers, and butchers' wives, &c.; and
+whosoever had once made acquaintance with the fore-paws of this ravenous
+lady, allowed her thenceforwards, without resistance, to carry off all
+sausages or hams which she might choose to sequestrate, and directly
+presented a bill to her master; in which bill it commonly happened that
+indemnification for the fright, if not expressly charged as one of the
+items, had a blank space, however, left for its consideration beneath
+the sum total. At length, matters came to that pass, that the
+reimbursement of Juno's annual outrages amounted to a far larger sum
+than Mr. Schnackenberger's own--not very frugal expenditure. On a day,
+therefore, when Juno had made an entire clearance of the larder
+appropriated to a whole establishment of day-labourers--and Mr.
+Schnackenberger had, in consequence, been brought into great trouble in
+the university courts, in his first moments of irritation he asked his
+friend Mr. Fabian Sebastian, who had previously made him a large offer
+for the dog, whether he were still disposed to take her on those terms.
+'Undoubtedly,' said Mr. Sebastian--promising, at the same time, to lay
+down the purchase money on that day se'nnight, upon delivery of the
+article.
+
+Delivery of the article would, no question, have been made upon the
+spot, had not the vendor repented of his bargain the next moment after
+it was concluded: on that account he still kept the dog in his own
+possession, and endeavoured, during the week's respite, to dispose his
+friend's mind to the cancelling of the contract. He, however, insisted
+on the punctual fulfilment of the treaty--letter and spirit. Never had
+Mr. Schnackenberger been so much disturbed in mind as at this period.
+Simply with the view of chasing away the nervous horrors which possessed
+his spirits, he had mounted his scare-crow and ridden abroad into the
+country. A remittance, which he had lately received from home, was still
+in his purse; and, said he to himself, suppose I were just to ride off
+to the baths at B---- about fifteen miles distant! Nobody would know me
+there; and I might at any rate keep Juno a fortnight longer! And exactly
+in this way it had happened that Mr. Schnackenberger had come to B----.
+
+At this instant, he was indebted to a lucky accident for a momentary
+diversion of his thoughts from the danger which threatened him in regard
+to Juno. Amongst other visitors to the baths, who were passing by at
+this early hour, happened to be the Princess of * *. Her carriage drew
+up at the very moment when Mr. Jeremiah, having dismounted from the sow,
+was descending the ladder: with her usual gracious manner, she
+congratulated the student upon his happy deliverance; and, finding that
+he was a countryman of her own, she invited him to a ball which she gave
+on the evening of that day, in honour of the King's birthday.
+
+Now it must be acknowledged that a ball-room was not exactly the stage
+on which Mr. Schnackenberger's habits of life had qualified him for
+shining: however, the pleasure of a nearer acquaintance with the
+interesting princess--held out too flattering a prospect to allow of
+his declining her invitation. Just at this moment Juno returned.
+
+Meantime the fire (occasioned probably by a spark falling from the
+landlady's lamp amongst the straw under the staircase) had been
+extinguished: and Mrs. Sweetbread, who had at length been roused at the
+back, now made her appearance; and with many expressions of regret for
+what had happened to Mr. Schnackenberger, who had entirely
+re-established himself in her esteem by his gold-laden purse, and also
+by what she called his 'very handsome behaviour' to the horse-dealer,
+she requested that he would be pleased to step into one of her back
+rooms; at the same time, offering to reinstate his clothes in wearable
+condition by drying them as rapidly as possible: a necessity which was
+too clamorously urgent for immediate attention--to allow of the dripping
+student's rejecting her offer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+IN WHAT MANNER MR. JEREMIAH PREPARED HIMSELF FOR THE BALL.
+
+
+As Mr. Jeremiah stood looking out of the window for the purpose of
+whiling away a tedious forenoon, it first struck his mind--upon the
+sight of a number of men dressed very differently from himself--that
+his wardrobe would scarcely match with the festal splendour of the
+_fete_ at which he was to be present in the evening. Even if it had been
+possible to overlook the tarnished lustre of his coat, not much
+embellished by its late watery trials upon the golden sow, yet he could
+not possibly make his appearance in a surtout. He sent therefore to one
+tailor after another: but all assured him that they had their hands much
+too full of business to undertake the conversion of his surtout into a
+dress coat against the evening; still less could they undertake to make
+a new one. Just as vainly did he look about for shoes: many were on
+sale; but none of them with premises spacious enough to accommodate his
+very respectable feet.
+
+All this put him into no little perplexity. True it was, that Mrs.
+Sweetbread had spontaneously thrown open to his inspection the wardrobe
+of her deceased husband. But even _he_ had contrived to go through this
+world in shoes of considerably smaller dimensions than Mr. Jeremiah
+demanded. And from a pretty large choice of coats there was not one
+which he could turn to account. For, to say nothing of their being one
+and all too short by a good half ell, even in the very best of them he
+looked precisely as that man looks who has lately slaughtered a hog, or
+as that man looks who designs to slaughter a hog.
+
+Now, then, when all his plans for meeting the exigencies of his case had
+turned out abortive, suddenly a bold idea struck him. In a sort of
+inspiration he seized a pair of scissors, for the purpose of converting
+with his own untutored hand of genius his pea-green surtout into a
+pea-green frock. This operation having, in his own judgment, succeeded
+to a marvel, he no longer hesitated to cut out a pair of ball shoes from
+his neat's-leather 'field-pieces.' Whatever equipments were still
+wanting could be had for money, with the exception of a shirt; and, as
+to _that_, the wedding shirt of the late Mr. Sweetbread would answer the
+purpose very passably.
+
+What provoked our hero most of all were the new patent shoe-buckles, the
+fine points of which would not take firm hold of the coarse leather
+shoes, but on every bold step burst asunder--so that he was obliged to
+keep his eye warily upon them, and in consideration of their tender
+condition, to set his feet down to the ground very gently.
+
+The hostess had just sunk pretty deep into her customary failing of
+intoxication, when he went to her and asked how he looked in his gala
+dress.
+
+'Look!' said she; 'why, like a king baked in gingerbread. Ah! now, such
+a man as you is the man for my money:--stout, and resolute, and active,
+and a man that----'
+
+'Basta! sufficit, my dear.'
+
+'To be sure, for his professional merit, I mustn't say anything against
+the late Mr. Sweetbread: No, nobody must say anything against _that_: he
+was the man for slaughtering of swine; Oh! he slaughtered them, that it
+was beautiful to see! pigs in particular, and pigs in general, were what
+he understood. Ah! lord! to my dying day I shall never forget the great
+sow that he presented to our gracious princess when she was at the
+baths, two years come Michaelmas. Says her Highness to him, says
+she,--"Master," says she, "one may see by your look that you understand
+how to fatten: anybody," says she, "may see it in his face: a child may
+see it by the very look on him. Ah!" says her Highness, "he's the man
+for swine: he was born to converse with hogs: he's a heaven-born curer
+of bacon."--Lord! Mr. Schnackenberger, you'll not believe how these
+gracious words revived my very heart! The tears came into my eyes, and I
+couldn't speak for joy. But, when all's said and done, what's fame?
+what's glory? say I. A man like you is the man for me: but for such
+another lazy old night-cap as the late Mr. Sweetbread----'
+
+'Bah! sufficit, sweetheart;' at the same time squeezing her hand, which
+she took as an intimation that she ought not to trouble herself with the
+past, but rather look forward to a joyous futurity.
+
+As the hour drew near for presenting himself in the circle of the
+princess, Mr. Jeremiah recommended to her the most vigilant care of
+Juno, from whom he very unwillingly separated himself in these last days
+of their connection--and not until he had satisfied himself that it was
+absolutely impossible to take her with him to the ball. Another
+favourite, namely, his pipe, ought also, he feared, in strict propriety
+to be left behind. But in the first place, 'who knows,' thought he, 'but
+there may be one room reserved for such ladies and gentlemen as choose
+to smoke?' And, secondly, let _that_ be as it might, he considered that
+the great _meerschaum_[22] head of his pipe--over which he watched as
+over the apple of his eye--could nowhere be so safely preserved as in
+his own pocket: as to any protuberance that it might occasion, _that_ he
+valued not at a rush. Just as little did he care for the grotesque
+appearance of the mouth-piece, which in true journeyman's fashion stuck
+out from the opening of his capacious pocket to a considerable distance.
+
+[22] '_Meerschaum_:' I believe a particular kind of clay, called
+'sea-spray,' from its fineness and lightness, from which the boles of
+pipes are made in Turkey--often at enormous prices, and much imported
+into Germany, where they are in great request. Such is the extent of
+_my_ knowledge on the subject; or perhaps of my ignorance. But, in fact,
+I know nothing about it.
+
+'And now don't you go and forget some people in the midst of all this
+show of powdered puppies,' cried the landlady after him.
+
+'Ah! my darling!' said he, laughing, 'just mind Juno: have an eye to
+Juno, my darling;' and for Juno's sake he suppressed the '_old witch_,'
+that his lips were itching a second time to be delivered of.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MR. SCHNACKENBERGER IS ENAMOURED, AND OF WHOM; AND WHAT PROSPECTS OPEN
+UPON HIM IN HIS PURSUIT OF 'LA BELLE PASSION.'
+
+
+At the hotel of the princess, all the resources of good taste and
+hospitality were called forth to give _eclat_ to the _fete_, and do
+honour to the day; and by ten o'clock, a very numerous and brilliant
+company had already assembled.
+
+So much the more astounding must have been the entry of Mr. Jeremiah
+Schnackenberger; who, by the way, was already familiar to the eyes of
+many, from his very public entrance into the city on the preceding
+evening, and to others from his morning's exhibition on the golden sow.
+His eyes and his thoughts being occupied by the single image of the
+fascinating hostess, of course it no more occurred to him to remark that
+his self-constructed coat was detaching itself at every step from its
+linings, whilst the pockets of the ci-devant surtout still displayed
+their original enormity of outline--than in general it would ever have
+occurred to him that the _tout ensemble_ of his costume was likely to
+make, and _had_, in fact, made a very great sensation.
+
+This very general attention to Mr. Schnackenberger, and the total
+unconsciousness of this honour on the part of Mr. Schnackenberger
+himself, did not escape the notice of the princess; and, at the first
+opportunity, she dispatched a gentleman to draw his attention to the
+indecorum of his dress--and to put him in the way of making the proper
+alterations. Laughter and vexation struggled in Mr. Schnackenberger's
+mind, when he became aware of the condition of his equipments: and he
+very gladly accompanied the ambassador of his hostess into a private
+room, where clothes and shoes were furnished him, in which he looked
+like any other reasonable man. On his return to the ball-room, he lost
+no time in making his acknowledgments to the princess, and explaining
+the cause of his unbecoming attire. The princess, with a natural
+goodness of heart and true hospitality, was anxious to do what she could
+to restore her strange guest to satisfaction with himself, and to
+establish him in some credit with the company: she had besides
+discovered with pleasure that amidst all his absurdities, Mr.
+Schnackenberger was really a man of some ability: on these several
+considerations, therefore, she exerted herself to maintain a pretty long
+conversation with him; which honour Mr. Jeremiah so far misinterpreted,
+as to ascribe it to an interest of a very tender character. To Mr.
+Schnackenberger, who had taken up the very extraordinary conceit that
+his large person had some attractions about it, there could naturally be
+nothing very surprising in all this: and he felt himself called upon not
+to be wanting to himself, but to push his good fortune. Accordingly, he
+kept constantly about the person of the princess: let her move in what
+direction she would, there was Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger at hand
+ready to bewitch her with his conversation; and, having discovered that
+she was an amateur of botany, and purposed visiting a botanical garden
+on the following day, he besieged her with offers of his services in the
+capacity of guide.
+
+'Possibly, when the time comes,' said the princess, aloud, 'I shall
+avail myself of your goodness;' and the visible displeasure, with which
+she withdrew herself from his worrying importunities, so obviously
+disposed all the bystanders to smile--that Mr. Schnackenberger himself
+became alive to his own _betise_, and a blush of shame and vexation
+suffused his countenance. What served at the moment greatly to
+exasperate these feelings, was the behaviour of a certain Mr. Von
+Pilsen--who had from the first paid uncommon attention to the very
+extraordinary phenomenon presented by Mr. Schnackenberger's person--had
+watched the whole course of the persecutions with which he had
+distressed the princess--and at this moment seemed quite unable to set
+any bounds to his laughter. In extreme dudgeon, Mr. Schnackenberger
+hastened into one of the most remote apartments, and flung himself back
+upon a sofa. Covering his, eyes with his hands, he saw none of the
+numbers who passed by him. But the first time that he looked up, behold!
+a paper was lying upon his breast. He examined it attentively; and found
+the following, words written in pencil, to all appearance by a female
+hand: 'We are too narrowly watched in this place. To-morrow morning
+about nine o'clock! The beautiful botanic gardens will secure us a
+fortunate rendezvous.'
+
+'Aye,' said Mr. Jeremiah, 'sure enough it's from her!' He read the note
+again and again: and the more unhappy he had just now been, so much the
+more was he now intoxicated with his dawning felicities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+IN WHICH JUNO PLAYS A PRINCIPAL PART.
+
+
+The rattling of a chain through crashing glass and porcelain, which
+spread alarm through the ball-room, would hardly have drawn Mr.
+Schnackenberger's attention in his present condition of rapturous
+elevation, had not the well-known voice of Juno reached his ears at the
+same moment. He hurried after the sound--shocked, and to be shocked. The
+fact was simply this: Juno had very early in the evening withdrawn
+herself from the _surveillance_ of the Golden Sow, and had followed her
+master's steps. Often ejected from the mansion of the princess, she had
+as often returned; so that at last it was thought best to chain her up
+in the garden. Unfortunately, a kitten belonging to a young female
+attendant of the princess had suddenly run past; Juno made a rush after
+it; the chain broke away from the woodwork of the kennel; the
+panic-struck kitten retreated into the house--taking the first road
+which presented: close upon the rear of the kitten pressed Juno and her
+chain; close upon the rear of Juno pressed the young woman in anguish
+for her kitten's life, and armed with a fly-flapper; and, the road
+happening to lead into the ball-room, the whole train--pursuers and
+pursued--helter-skelter fell into the quarters of the waltzers. The
+kitten attempted to take up a position behind a plateau on one of the
+side-boards: but from this she was immediately dislodged by Juno; and
+the retreat commencing afresh right across the side-boards which were
+loaded with refreshments, all went to wreck--glasses and china, all was
+afloat--sherbet and lemonade, raspberry-vinegar and orgeat: and at the
+very moment when Mr. Jeremiah returned, the belligerent powers dripping
+with celestial nectar--having just charged up a column of dancers--were
+wheeling through the door by which he had entered: and the first check
+to the wrath of Juno was the seasonable arrest of her master's voice.
+
+That the displeasure of the dancers, who had been discomposed and
+besprinkled by Juno, fell entirely upon her master, was pretty evident
+from their faces. Of all the parties concerned, however, none was more
+irritated than the young woman; she was standing upon the stairs,
+caressing and fondling her kitten, as Mr. Schnackenberger went down,
+leading Juno in his pocket-handkerchief; and she let drop some such very
+audible hints upon the ill-breeding and boorishness of certain pretended
+gentlemen, that Mr. Schnackenberger would, without doubt, have given her
+a very severe reprimand--if he had not thought it more dignified to
+affect to overlook her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+WHICH TREATS OF EXPERIMENTS NOT VERY COMMON AT BIRTHDAY _FETES_.
+
+
+'Now, my dears,' said Mr. Von Pilsen to a party who were helping him to
+laugh at the departed Mr. Schnackenberger, 'as soon as the fellow
+returns, we must get him into our party at supper.'
+
+'Returns?' exclaimed another; 'why I should fancy he had had enough of
+birthday _fetes_ for one life.'
+
+'You think so?' said Von Pilsen: 'so do not I. No, no, my good creature;
+I flatter myself that I go upon pretty sure grounds: I saw those eyes
+which he turned upon the princess on making his exit: and mind what I
+say, he takes his beast home, and----comes back again. Therefore, be
+sure, and get him amongst us at supper, and set the barrel abroach. I
+wouldn't for all the world the monster should go away untapped.'
+
+The words were scarce uttered, when, sure enough, the body, or 'barrel,'
+of Mr. Schnackenberger did roll into the room for a second time.
+Forthwith Von Pilsen and his party made up to him; and Pilsen having
+first with much art laboured to efface any suspicions which might have
+possessed the student's mind in consequence of his former laughter,
+proceeded to thank him for the very extraordinary sport which his dog
+had furnished; and protested that he must be better acquainted with
+him.
+
+'Why, as to _that_,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, 'a better acquaintance
+must naturally be very agreeable to me. But, in respect to the dog, and
+what you call the sport, I'm quite of another opinion; and would give
+all I'm worth that it had not happened.'
+
+'Oh! no,' they all declared; 'the _fete_ would have wanted its most
+brilliant features if Mr. Schnackenberger or his dog had been absent.
+No, no: without flattery he must allow them to call him the richest fund
+of amusement--the brightest attraction of the evening.' But
+Schnackenberger shook his head incredulously; said he wished he could
+think so: but with a deep sigh he persisted in his own opinion; in which
+he was the more confirmed, when he perceived that the princess, who was
+now passing him to the supper-room, turned away her eyes the moment she
+perceived him.
+
+In this state of mind Mr. Jeremiah naturally, but unconsciously, lent
+himself to the designs of his new acquaintances. Every glass that the
+devil of mischief and of merry malice poured out, did the devil of
+Schnackenberger's despair drink off; until at last the latter devil was
+tolerably well drowned in wine.
+
+About this time enter Juno again--being her second (and positively last)
+appearance upon these boards. Mr. Jeremiah's new friends paid so much
+homage to the promising appearance of her jaws, that they made room for
+her very respectfully as she pressed up to her master. He, whose recent
+excesses in wine had re-established Juno in the plenitude of her favour,
+saw with approving calmness his female friend lay both her fore-paws on
+the table--and appropriate all that remained on his plate, to the
+extreme astonishment of all present.
+
+'My friend,' said Mr. Jeremiah, to a footman who was on the point of
+pulling away the unbidden guest, 'don't you, for God's sake, get into
+any trouble. My Juno understands no jesting on these occasions: and it
+might so happen that she would leave a mark of her remembrance with you,
+that you would not forget so long as you lived.'
+
+'But I suppose, Sir, you won't expect that a dog can be allowed to sup
+with her Highness's company!'
+
+'Oh! faith, Sir, credit me--the dog is a more respectable member of
+society than yourself, and many a one here present: so just leave me and
+my Juno unmolested. Else I may, perhaps, take the trouble to make an
+example of you.'
+
+The princess, whose attention was now drawn, made a sign to the servant
+to retire; and Von Pilsen and his friends could scarcely keep down their
+laughter to a well-bred key, when Mr. Schnackenberger drew his pipe from
+his pocket--loaded it--lit it at one of the chandeliers over the
+supper-table--and, in one minute, wrapped the whole neighbourhood in a
+voluminous cloud of smoke.
+
+As some little damper to their merriment, however, Mr. Schnackenberger
+addressed a few words to them from time to time:--'You laugh,
+gentlemen,' said he; 'and, doubtless, there's something or other very
+amusing,--no doubt, infinitely amusing, if one could but find it out.
+However, I could make your appetites for laughing vanish--aye, vanish in
+one moment. For, understand me now, one word--one little word from me to
+Juno, and, in two minutes, the whole room shall be as empty as if it had
+been swept out with a broom. Just the first that I look at, no matter
+whom, she catches by the breast--aye, just you, Sir, or you, Sir, or
+you, Mr. Von Pilsen,' (fixing his eye upon him) 'if I do but say--seize
+him, Juno!' The word had fled: and in the twinkling of an eye, Juno's
+fore-paws, not over clean, were fixed in the elegant white silk
+waistcoat of Mr. Von Pilsen.
+
+This scene was the signal for universal uproar and alarm. Even Mr.
+Jeremiah, on remarking the general rising of the company, though totally
+unaware that his harmless sport had occasioned it, rose also; called the
+dog off: and comforted Von Pilsen, who was half dead with fright, by
+assuring him that had he but said--'Bite him, Juno!'--matters would have
+ended far worse.
+
+On Mr. Schnackenberger's standing up, his bodily equilibrium was
+manifestly so much endangered, that one of the company, out of mere
+humanity, offered his servant to see him safe home. A slight
+consciousness of his own condition induced our hero to accept of this
+offer: through some misunderstanding, however, the servant led him, not
+to the Golden Sow, but to the Double-barrelled Gun.
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger, on being asked for his number, said 'No. 5;' that
+being the number of his room at the Golden Sow. He was accordingly shown
+up to No. 5: and, finding a bed under an alcove, he got into it dressed
+as he was; and, in one moment, had sunk into a profound slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+WHICH NARRATES AN ENGAGEMENT ON UNEQUAL TERMS--FIRST FOR ONE SIDE, THEN
+FOR THE OTHER.
+
+
+Half an hour after came the true claimant; who, being also drunk, went
+right up-stairs without troubling the waiter; and forthwith getting into
+bed, laid himself right upon Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger.
+
+'D----n this heavy quilt,' said the student, waking up and recollecting
+the hundred-pounder of the preceding night; and, without further
+ceremony, he kicked the supposed quilt into the middle of the room.
+
+Now began war: for the 'quilt' rose up without delay; and Mr.
+Schnackenberger, who had been somewhat worse handled than his opponent
+by the devil of drunkenness, would doubtless have come by the worst, had
+he not in his extremity ejaculated 'Juno!' whereupon she, putting aside
+all selfish considerations, which at the moment had fastened her to a
+leg of mutton in the kitchen, rushed up on the summons of duty, and
+carried a reinforcement that speedily turned the scale of victory. The
+alarm, which this hubbub created, soon brought to the field of battle
+the whole population of the inn, in a very picturesque variety of
+night-dresses; and the intruding guest would in all likelihood have been
+kicked back to the Golden Sow; but that the word of command to the
+irritated Juno, which obviously trembled on his lips, was deemed worthy
+of very particular attention and respect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+IN WHICH UNFORTUNATE LOVE MEDITATES REVENGE.
+
+
+At half-past ten on the following morning, at which time Mr.
+Schnackenberger first unclosed his eyes, behold! at the foot of his bed
+was sitting my hostess of the Golden Sow. 'Aye,' said she, 'I think it's
+time, Sir: and it's time, I think, to let you know what it is to affront
+a creditable body before all the world.'
+
+'Nay, for God's sake, old one, what's the matter?' said Mr.
+Schnackenberger, laughing and sitting bolt upright in bed.
+
+'Old? Well, if I have a few more years on my head, I've a little more
+thought _in_ it: but, perhaps, you're not altogether so thoughtless as
+I've been fancying in your actings towards me poor unfortunate widow: if
+that's the case, you are a base wicked man; and you deserve--'
+
+'Why, woman, how now? Has a tarantula bit you; or what is it? Speak.'
+
+'Speak! Aye, I'll speak; and all the world shall hear me. First of all
+come you riding into my bar like a crazy man: and I, good easy creature,
+let myself be wheedled, carry you meat--drink--everything--with my own
+hands; sit by your side; keep you in talk the whole evening, for fear
+you should be tired; and, what was my reward? "March," says you, "old
+witch." Well, that passed on. At midnight I am called out of my bed--for
+your sake: and the end of that job is, that along of you the Sow is half
+burned down. But for all that, I say never an ill word to you. I open
+the late Mr. Sweetbread's clothes-presses to you: his poor innocent
+wedding-shirt you don over your great shameless body; go off; leave me
+behind with a masterful dog, that takes a roast leg of mutton from off
+the spit; and, when he should have been beat for it, runs off with it
+into the street. You come back with the beast. Not to offend you, I say
+never a word of what he has done. Off you go again: well: scarce is your
+back turned, when the filthy carrion begins running my rabbits up and
+down the yard; eats up all that he can catch; and never a one would have
+been left to tell the tale, if the great giantical hostler (him as
+blacked your shoes) hadn't ha' cudgelled him off. And after all this,
+there are you hopping away at the ball wi' some painted doll--looking
+babies in her eyes--quite forgetting me that has to sit up for you at
+home pining and grieving: and all isn't enough, but at last you must
+trot off to another inn.'
+
+'What then,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, 'is it fact that I'm not at the
+Golden Sow?'
+
+'Charming!' said Mrs. Sweetbread; 'and so you would make believe you
+don't know it; but I shall match you, or find them as will: rest you
+sure of _that_.'
+
+'Children!' said Mr. Schnackenberger to the waiter and boots, who were
+listening in astonishment with the door half-open; 'of all loves, rid me
+of this monster.'
+
+'Aye, what!' said she in a voice of wrath; and put herself on the
+defensive. But a word or two of abuse against the landlord of the
+Double-barrelled Gun, which escaped her in her heat, irritated the men
+to that degree, that in a few moments afterwards Mrs. Sweetbread was
+venting her wrath in the street--to the wonder of all passers-by, who
+looked after her until she vanished into the house of a well-known
+attorney.
+
+Meantime, Mr. Schnackenberger, having on inquiry learned from the waiter in
+what manner he had come to the inn--and the night-scene which had followed,
+was apologizing to the owner of No. 5,--when, to his great alarm the church
+clock struck eleven. 'Nine,' he remembered, was the hour fixed by the
+billet: and the more offence he might have given to the princess by his
+absurdities over-night, of which he had some obscure recollection, so much
+the more necessary was it that he should keep the appointment. The botanic
+garden was two miles off: so, shutting up Juno, he ordered a horse: and in
+default of boots, which, alas! existed no longer in that shape, he mounted
+in silk stockings and pumps; and rode off at a hand gallop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MR. SCHNACKENBERGER'S ENGAGEMENT WITH AN OLD BUTTERWOMAN.
+
+
+The student was a good way advanced on his road, when he descried the
+princess, attended by another lady and a gentleman approaching in an open
+carriage. As soon, however, as he was near enough to be recognised by the
+party in the carriage, the princess turned away her head with manifest signs
+of displeasure--purely, as it appeared, to avoid noticing Mr. Jeremiah.
+Scarcely, however, was the carriage past him, together with Mr. Von Pilsen,
+who galloped by him in a tumult of laughter, when the ill-fate of our hero
+so ordered it, that all eyes which would not notice him for his honour
+should be reverted upon his disgrace. The white turnpike gate so frightened
+our rider's horse, that he positively refused to pass it: neither whip nor
+spur would bring him to reason. Meantime, up comes an old butterwoman.[23]
+At the very moment when she was passing, the horse in his panic steps back
+and deposits one of his hind legs in the basket of the butterwoman: down
+comes the basket with all its eggs, rotten and sound; and down comes the old
+woman, squash, into the midst of them. "Murder! Murder!" shouted the
+butterwoman; and forthwith every individual thing that could command a pair
+or two pair of legs ran out of the turnpike-house; the carriage of the
+princess drew up, to give the ladies a distant view of Mr. Schnackenberger
+engaged with the butterwoman; and Mr. Von Pilsen wheeled his horse round
+into a favourable station for seeing anything the ladies might overlook.
+Rage gave the old butterwoman strength; she jumped up nimbly, and seized Mr.
+Schnackenberger so stoutly by the laps of his coat, that he vainly
+endeavoured to extricate himself from her grasp. At this crisis, up came
+Juno, and took her usual side in such disputes. But to do this with effect,
+Juno found it necessary first of all to tear off the coat lap; for, the old
+woman keeping such firm hold of it, how else could Juno lay her down on her
+back--set her paws upon her breast--and then look up to her master, as if
+asking for a certificate of having acquitted herself to his satisfaction?
+
+[23] In the original--'eine marketenderin,' a female sutler: but I have
+altered it, to save an explanation of what the old sutler was after.
+
+To rid himself of spectators, Mr. Jeremiah willingly paid the old woman the
+full amount of her demand, and then returned to the city. It disturbed him
+greatly, however, that the princess should thus again have seen him under
+circumstances of disgrace. Anxious desire to lay open his heart before
+her--and to place himself in a more advantageous light, if not as to his
+body, yet at all events as to his intellect--determined him to use his
+utmost interest with her to obtain a private audience; 'at which,' thought
+he, 'I can easily beg her pardon for having overslept the appointed hour.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+IN WHICH GOOD LUCK AND BAD LUCK ARE DISTRIBUTED IN EQUAL PROPORTIONS.
+
+
+The good luck seemed to have anticipated Mr. Schnackenberger's nearest
+wishes. For on reaching the Double-barrelled Gun, whither he arrived without
+further disturbance than that of the general gazing to which he was exposed
+by the fragment of a coat which survived from the late engagement, a billet
+was put into his hands of the following tenor: 'Come and explain this
+evening, if you can explain, your astonishing neglect of this morning's
+appointment. I shall be at the theatre; and shall do what I can to dismiss
+my attendants.'
+
+But bad luck came also--in the person of a lawyer. The lawyer stated that he
+called on the part of the landlady of the Golden Sow, to put the question
+for the last time in civil terms, 'whether Mr. Schnackenberger were prepared
+to fulfil those just expectations which he had raised in her heart; or
+whether she must be compelled to pursue her claims by due course of law.'
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger was beginning to launch out with great fury upon the
+shameless and barefaced impudence of such expectations: but the attorney
+interrupted him; and observed with provoking coolness, 'that there was no
+occasion for any warmth--no occasion in the world; that certainly Mrs.
+Sweetbread could not have framed these expectations wholly out of the air:
+something (and he grinned sarcastically), something, it must be supposed,
+had passed: now, for instance, this wedding-shirt of the late Mr.
+Sweetbread--she would hardly, I think, have resigned this to your use, Mr.
+Schnackenberger, unless some engagements had preceded either in the shape of
+words or of actions. However, said he, this is no part of my business: what
+remains for me to do on this occasion is to present her account; and let me
+add, that I am instructed to say that, if you come to a proper understanding
+with her on the first point, no further notice will be taken of this last
+part of my client's demand.
+
+The unfortunate Mr. Schnackenberger considered the case most ruefully and in
+awful perturbation. He perspired exceedingly. However, at length--'Come, I
+don't care,' said he, 'I know what I'll do:' and then sitting down, he drew
+up a paper, which he presented to Mr. Attorney; at the same time, explaining
+to him that, rather than be exposed in a court of justice as a supposed
+lover of Mrs. Sweetbread's, he was content to pay the monstrous charges of
+her bill without applying to a magistrate for his revision: but upon this
+condition only, that Mrs. Sweetbread should for herself, heirs, and
+assigns, execute a general release with regard to Mr. Jeremiah
+Schnackenberger's body, according to the form here drawn up by himself, and
+should engage on no pretence whatever to set up any claim to him in times to
+come.
+
+The attorney took his leave for the purpose of laying this _release_ before
+his client: but the landlord of the Double-barrelled Gun, to whom in
+confidence Mr. Jeremiah disclosed his perilous situation, shook his head,
+and said, that if the other party signed the release on the conditions
+offered, it would be fortunate: as in that case, Mr. Schnackenberger would
+come off on much easier terms than twenty-three other gentlemen had done,
+who had all turned into the Golden Sow on different occasions, but not one
+of whom had ever got clear of the Golden Sow without an expensive contest at
+law. 'God bless my soul!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, who now 'funked'[24]
+enormously; 'if that's the case, she might well have so much spare room to
+offer me: twenty-three gentlemen! God bless my soul!'
+
+[24] If any reader should happen not to be acquainted with this word, which,
+however, is fine old English, and classical at Eton, &c.--the nearest
+synonym which I remember at this moment is _Expavesco_.
+
+At this instant, a servant brought back the shoes and clothes of Mr.
+Schnackenberger's own manufacture, which had been pulled off and left at the
+hotel of the princess. The student gave up the pumps and the borrowed coat
+to the astonished servant, with an assurance that he would wait on her
+Highness and make his personal excuses to her, on account of 'a little
+accident' which had that morning befallen the coat. He then dispatched his
+own coat to a quarter where something or other might be done to fit it for
+this sublunary world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+IN WHAT WAY MR. JEREMIAH SUPPLIES THE WANT OF HIS COAT.
+
+
+The play-hour was arrived; and yet no coat was forthcoming from the tailor:
+on the contrary, the tailor himself was gone to the play. The landlord of
+the Double-barrelled Gun, who would readily have lent one, was off upon a
+rural excursion, and not expected at home before the next morning; and the
+waiter, whose assistance would not have been disdained in such a pressing
+emergency, was of so spare and meagre a habit, that, in spite of furious
+exertions on the part of Mr. Schnackenberger, John's coat would not let
+itself be entered upon by this new tenant. In this exigency, John bethought
+him of an old clothesman in the neighbourhood. There he made inquiries. But
+he, alas! was out on his summer rounds with his whole magazine of clothes;
+no one article being left with his wife, except a great box-coat, such as is
+technically called a 'dreadnought,' for which it was presumed that no demand
+could possibly arise at this season of the year.
+
+On this report being made, to the great astonishment of the waiter, Mr.
+Jeremiah said, 'Well, then, let us have the dreadnought. If the Fates
+ordain that I should go to the play in the dog-days apparelled in a
+dreadnought, let not me vainly think of resisting their decrees.'
+
+'But,' said the waiter, shrugging his shoulders, 'the people----'
+
+'The what?' said Mr. Schnackenberger: 'the _people_--was it you said; the
+_people_? Pray how many people do you reckon to a man? No, Sir, do as I bid
+you; just bring me the dreadnought and a round hat.'
+
+The waiter obeyed: and, although the dreadnought was by one good ell too
+short, yet Mr. Jeremiah exulted in his strange apparel, because he flattered
+himself that in such a disguise he could preserve a strict incognito; with a
+view to which he also left Juno behind, recommending her to the vigilant
+attentions of the waiter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+WHICH CONTAINS A PLAY WITHIN A PLAY.
+
+
+All the world was astonished, when from the door of the Double-barrelled Gun
+a man stepped forth on the hottest day in August, arrayed as for a Siberian
+winter in a dreadnought, guarded with furs, and a hat pressed down, so as
+almost to cover his face. The train of curious persons who attended his
+motions naturally grew larger at every step.
+
+Whosoever had hitherto doubted whether this man were mad--doubted no
+longer when he was seen to enter the theatre; where in the lightest
+summer-clothing the heat was scarcely supportable.
+
+Within the theatre, the attention of all people was directed so
+undividedly upon himself, that even Mr. Schnackenberger began to opine
+that he had undertaken something extraordinary: so much the more,
+thought he, will it be prudent to hide my face, that I may not again
+compromise my dignity in the presence of her Highness. But this
+concealment of his face raised the strongest suspicions against him.
+Throughout the whole house--pit--boxes--and galleries--there was but one
+subject of conversation, viz. the man in the dreadnought; and, whilst
+in all other parts the house was crowded to excess, upon his bench no
+soul would sit: and he _created_ as much superfluity of room as he had
+_found_ at the Golden Sow. At length the manager waited upon him, and
+requested that he would either retire from the theatre, or that he would
+explain what could have induced him to make his appearance in a costume
+which had spread alarm and anxiety through the public mind; and which
+was likely to do a serious injury to the receipts of the night.
+
+At this moment several children began to cry--taking him for black[25]
+Robert. The consequence was, that, as they could not be pacified, the
+first scene was mere dumb show to the audience; and some giddy young
+people set up a loud 'off, off, Dreadnought!' which cry was instantly
+seconded by the public. Nevertheless, as the princess at that instant
+entered her box, Mr. Schnackenberger, however hard pressed, thought it
+became him to maintain his post to the last extremity. This extremity
+forthwith appeared in the shape of three armed soldiers, who, on behalf
+of the police, took him into custody. Possibly Mr. Jeremiah might have
+shown himself less tractable to the requests of these superannuated
+antiquities--but for two considerations; first, that an opportunity
+might thus offer of exchanging his dreadnought for a less impressive
+costume; and, secondly, that in case of his declining to accompany them,
+he saw signs abroad that a generous and enlightened public did very
+probably purpose to kick him out; a conjecture which was considerably
+strengthened by the universal applause which attended his exit at quick
+time.
+
+[25] In the original _Knecht Rupert_. The allusion is to an old
+Christmas usage of North Germany: a person comes in disguise, in the
+character of an ambassador from heaven, with presents for all the young
+children who are reported to him as good and obedient: but those who are
+naughty he threatens and admonishes. See Coleridge's _Friend_, vol. ii.
+p. 322.
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger was escorted by an immense retinue of old
+street-padders and youthful mud-larks to the city gaol. His own view of
+the case was, that the public had been guilty of a row, and ought to be
+arrested. But the old Mayor, who was half-deaf, comprehended not a
+syllable of what he said: all his remonstrances about 'pressing
+business' went for nothing: and, when he made a show of escaping upon
+seeing the gloomy hole into which he was now handed, his worship
+threatened him with drawing out the city guard.
+
+From one of this respectable body, who brought him straw to lie upon,
+and the wretched prison allowance of food, he learned that his
+examination could not take place that day nor even the next; for the
+next was a holiday, on which Mr. Mayor never did any business. On
+receiving this dolorous information, Mr. Schnackenberger's first impulse
+was to knock down his informant and run away: but a moment's
+consideration satisfied him--that, though he might by this means escape
+from his cell, he could have no chance of forcing the prison gates.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+IN WHAT WAY MR. JEREMIAH ESCAPES; AND WHAT HE FINDS IN THE STREET.
+
+
+A most beautiful moonlight began at this juncture to throw its beams in
+the prison, when Mr. Schnackenberger, starting up from his sleepless
+couch, for pure rage, seized upon the iron bars of his window, and shook
+them with a fervent prayer, that instead of bars it had pleased God to
+put Mr. Mayor within his grasp. To his infinite astonishment, the bars
+were more obedient to his wrath than could have been expected. One shake
+more, and like a row of carious teeth they were all in Mr.
+Schnackenberger's hand.
+
+It may be supposed that Mr. Schnackenberger lost no time in using his
+good fortune; indeed, a very slight jump would suffice to place him at
+liberty. Accordingly, when the sentinel had retired to a little
+distance, he flung his dreadnought out of the window--leaped upon
+it--and stood without injury on the outside of the prison.
+
+'Who goes there?' cried the alarmed sentinel, coyly approaching the spot
+from which the noise issued.
+
+'Nobody,' said the fugitive: and by way of answer to the
+challenge--'Speak, or I must fire'--which tremulously issued from the
+lips of the city hero, Mr. Schnackenberger, gathering up his
+dreadnought to his breast, said in a hollow voice, 'Fellow, thou art a
+dead man.'
+
+Straightway the armed man fell upon his knees before him, and cried
+out--'ah! gracious Sir! have mercy upon me. I am a poor wig-maker; and a
+bad trade it is; and I petitioned his worship, and have done for this
+many a year, to be taken into the city guard; and yesterday I passed--'
+
+'Passed what?'
+
+'Passed my examination, your honour:--his worship put me through the
+manual exercise: and I was 'triculated into the corps. It would be a sad
+thing, your honour, to lose my life the very next day after I was
+'triculated.'
+
+'Well,' said Mr. Jeremiah, who with much ado forbore laughing
+immoderately, 'for this once I shall spare your life: but then
+remember--not a word, no sound or syllable.'
+
+'Not one, your honour, I vow to heaven.'
+
+'And down upon the spot deliver me your coat, side arms, and hat.'
+
+But the martial wig-maker protested that, being already ill of a cold,
+he should, without all doubt, perish if he were to keep guard in his
+shirt-sleeves.
+
+'Well, in that case, this dreadnought will be a capital article: allow
+me to prescribe it--it's an excellent sudorific.'
+
+Necessity has no law: and so, to save his life, the city hero, after
+some little struggle, submitted to this unusual exchange.
+
+'Very good!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, as the warrior in the
+dreadnought, after mounting his round hat, again shouldered his
+musket:--'Now, good-night;' and so saying, he hastened off to the
+residence of the Mayor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+MR. JEREMIAH'S NIGHT INTERVIEW WITH THE MAYOR UPON STATE AFFAIRS.
+
+
+'Saints in heaven! is this the messenger of the last day?' screamed out
+a female voice, as the doorbell rang out a furious alarum--peal upon
+peal--under that able performer, Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger. She
+hastened to open the door; but, when she beheld a soldier in the state
+uniform, she assured him it was all over with him; for his worship was
+gone to bed; and, when _that_ was the case, he never allowed of any
+disturbance without making an example.
+
+'Aye, but I come upon state business.'
+
+'No matter,' said the old woman, 'it's all one: when his worship sleeps,
+business must sleep: that's the law, I'll assure you, and _has_ been any
+time since I can think on. He always commits, at the least.'
+
+'Very likely; but I _must_ speak to him.'
+
+'Well, then, take the consequences on yourself,' said she: 'recollect,
+you're a state soldier; you'll be brought to a court-martial; you'll be
+shot.'
+
+'Ah! well: that's _my_ concern.'
+
+'Mighty well,' said the old woman: 'one may as well speak to the wind.
+However, _I_'ll get out the way: _I_'ll not come near the hurricane. And
+don't you say, I didn't warn you.'
+
+So saying, she let him up to her master's bed-room door, and then
+trotted off as fast and as far as she could.
+
+At this moment Mr. Mayor, already wakened and discomposed by the violent
+tintinnabulation, rushed out: 'What!' said he, 'am I awake? Is it a
+guardsman that has this audacity?'
+
+'No guardsman, Mr. Mayor,' said our hero; in whose face his worship was
+vainly poring with the lamp to spell out the features of some one
+amongst the twelve members of the state-guard; 'no guardsman, but a
+gentleman that was apprehended last night at the theatre.'
+
+'Ah!' said the Mayor, trembling in every limb, 'a prisoner, and escaped?
+And perhaps has murdered the guard?--What would you have of me--me, a
+poor, helpless, unfortunate man?'
+
+And, at every word he spoke, he continued to step back towards a bell
+that lay upon the table.
+
+'_Basta_,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, taking the bell out of his hands.
+'Mr. Mayor, I'm just the man in the dreadnought. And I've a question to
+ask you, Mr. Mayor; and I thought it was rather long to wait until
+morning; so I took the liberty of coming for an answer to-night; and I'd
+think myself particularly obliged to you for it now:--Upon what
+authority do you conceive yourself entitled to commit me, an innocent
+man, and without a hearing, to an abominable hole of a dungeon? I have
+not murdered the guard, Mr. Mayor: but I troubled him for his regimental
+coat, that I might gain admittance to your worship: and I left him the
+dreadnought in exchange.'
+
+'The dreadnought?' said the Mayor. 'Aye: now this very dreadnought it
+was, Sir, that compelled me (making a low bow) to issue my warrant for
+your apprehension.' And it then came out, that in a list of stolen
+goods recently lodged with the magistrates, a dreadnought was
+particularly noticed: and Mr. Mayor having seen a man enter the theatre
+in an article answering to the description, and easily identified by a
+black cross embroidered upon the back, was obliged by his duty to have
+him arrested; more especially as the wearer had increased the suspicion
+against himself by concealing his face.
+
+This explanation naturally reconciled Mr. Schnackenberger to the arrest:
+and as to the filthy dungeon, _that_ admitted of a still simpler
+apology, as it seemed that the town afforded no better.
+
+'Why then, Mr. Mayor,--as things stand, it seems to me that in the point
+of honour I ought to be satisfied: and in that case I still consider
+myself your prisoner, and shall take up my quarters for this night in
+your respectable mansion.'
+
+'But no!' thought Mr. Mayor: 'better let a rogue escape, than keep a man
+within my doors that may commit a murder on my body.' So he assured Mr.
+Schnackenberger--that he had accounted in the most satisfactory manner
+for being found in possession of the dreadnought; took down the name of
+the old clothesman from whom it was hired; and lighting down his now
+discharged prisoner, he declared, with a rueful attempt at smiling, that
+it gave him the liveliest gratification on so disagreeable an occasion
+to have made so very agreeable an acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+MISERY ACQUAINTS MR. SCHNACKENBERGER WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS.
+
+
+When Mr. Schnackenberger returned home from his persecutions, he found
+the door of the Double-barrelled Gun standing wide open: and, as he had
+observed a light in his own room, he walked right up-stairs without
+disturbing the sleeping waiter. But to his great astonishment, two
+gigantic fellows were posted outside the door; who, upon his affirming
+that he must be allowed to enter his own room, seemed in some foreign
+and unintelligible language to support the negative of that proposition.
+Without further scruple or regard to their menacing gestures, he pressed
+forwards to the chamber door; but immediately after felt himself laid
+hold of by the two fellows--one at his legs, the other at his head--and,
+spite of his most indignant protests, carried down-stairs into the yard.
+There he was tumbled into a little _depot_ for certain four-footed
+animals--with whose golden representative he had so recently formed an
+acquaintance no less intimate;--and, the height of the building not
+allowing of his standing upright, he was disposed to look back with
+sorrow to the paradise lost of his station upon the back of the quiet
+animal whom he had ridden on the preceding day. Even the dungeon
+appeared an elysium in comparison with his present lodgings, where he
+felt the truth of the proverb brought home to him--that it is better to
+be alone than in bad company.
+
+Unfortunately, the door being fastened on the outside, there remained
+nothing else for him to do than to draw people to the spot by a vehement
+howling. But the swine being disturbed by this unusual outcry, and a
+general uproar taking place among the inhabitants of the stye, Mr.
+Schnackenberger's single voice, suffocated by rage, was over-powered by
+the swinish accompaniment. Some little attention was, however, drawn to
+the noise amongst those who slept near to the yard: but on the waiter's
+assuring them that it was 'only a great pig who would soon be quiet,'
+that the key could not be found, and no locksmith was in the way at that
+time of night, the remonstrants were obliged to betake themselves to the
+same remedy of patience, which by this time seemed to Mr. Jeremiah also
+the sole remedy left to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+WHOSE END RECONCILES OUR HERO WITH ITS BEGINNING.
+
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger's howling had (as the waiter predicted) gradually
+died away, and he was grimly meditating on his own miseries, to which
+he had now lost all hope of seeing an end before daylight, when the
+sudden rattling of a key at the yard door awakened flattering hopes in
+his breast. It proved to be the waiter, who came to make a gaol
+delivery--and on letting him out said, 'I am commissioned by the
+gentlemen to secure your silence;' at the same time putting into his
+hand a piece of gold.
+
+'The d----l take your gold!' said Mr. Schnackenberger: 'is this the
+practice at your house--first to abuse your guests, and then have the
+audacity to offer them money?'
+
+'Lord, protect us!' said the waiter, now examining his face, 'is it you?
+but who would ever have looked for you in such a dress as this? The
+gentlemen took you for one of the police. Lord! to think what a trouble
+you'll have had!'
+
+And it now came out, that a party of foreigners had pitched upon Mr.
+Jeremiah's room as a convenient one for playing at hazard and some other
+forbidden games; and to prevent all disturbance from the police, had
+posted their servants, who spoke not a word of German, as sentinels at
+the door.
+
+'But how came you to let my room for such a purpose?'
+
+'Because we never expected to see you to-night; we had heard that the
+gentleman in the dreadnought had been taken up at the theatre, and
+committed. But the gentlemen are all gone now; and the room's quite at
+your service.'
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger, however, who had lost the first part of the night's
+sleep from suffering, was destined to lose the second from pleasure: for
+the waiter now put into his hands the following billet: 'No doubt you
+must have waited for me to no purpose in the passages of the theatre:
+but alas! our firmest resolutions we have it not always in our power to
+execute; and on this occasion, I found it quite impossible consistently
+with decorum to separate myself from my attendants. Will you therefore
+attend the hunt to-morrow morning? there I hope a better opportunity
+will offer.'
+
+It added to his happiness on this occasion that the princess had
+manifestly not detected him as the man in the dreadnought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+IN WHICH MR. SCHNACKENBERGER ACTS UPON THE AMBITIOUS FEELINGS OF A MAN
+IN OFFICE FOR AN AMIABLE PURPOSE.
+
+
+Next morning, when the Provost-marshal came to fetch back the
+appointments of the military wig-maker, it struck our good-natured
+student that he had very probably brought the poor fellow into an
+unpleasant scrape. He felt, therefore, called upon as a gentleman, to
+wait upon the Mayor, and do his best to beg him off. In fact, he arrived
+just in time: for all the arrangements were complete for demonstrating
+to the poor wig-maker, by an _a posteriori_ line of argument, the
+importance of valour in his new employment.
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger entreated the Mayor to be lenient: courage, he said,
+was not every man's business: as a wig-maker, the prisoner could have
+had little practice in that virtue: the best of wigs were often made by
+cowards: 'and even as a soldier,' said he, 'it's odds if there should be
+such another alarm for the next hundred years.' But all in vain: his
+judge was too much incensed: 'Such a scandalous dereliction of duty!'
+said he; 'No, no: I must make an example of him.'
+
+Hereupon, Mr. Jeremiah observed, that wig-makers were not the only
+people who sometimes failed in the point of courage: 'Nay,' said he, 'I
+have known even mayors who by no means shone in that department of duty:
+and in particular, I am acquainted with some who would look exceedingly
+blue, aye d----lish blue indeed, if a student whom I have the honour to
+know should take it into his head to bring before the public a little
+incident in which they figured, embellished with wood-cuts, representing
+a retreat by forced marches towards a bell in the background.'
+
+Mr. Mayor changed colour; and pausing a little to think, at length he
+said--'Sir, you are in the right; every man has his weak moments. But
+it would be unhandsome to expose them to the scoffs of the public.'
+
+'Why, yes, upon certain conditions.'
+
+'Which conditions I comply with,' said his worship; and forthwith he
+commuted the punishment for a reprimand and a short confinement.
+
+On these terms Mr. Schnackenberger assured him of his entire silence
+with respect to all that had passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+IN WHICH THE HOPES OF TWO LOVERS ARE WRECKED AT ONCE.
+
+
+'Beg your pardon, Sir, are you Mr. Schnackenberger?' said a young man to
+our hero, as he was riding out of the city gate.
+
+'Yes, Sir, I'm the man; what would you have with me?' and, at the same
+time looking earnestly at him, he remembered his face amongst the
+footmen on the birth-night.
+
+'At the Forester's house--about eleven o'clock,' whispered the man
+mysteriously.
+
+'Very good,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, nodding significantly; and
+forthwith, upon the wings of rapturous anticipation, he flew to the
+place of rendezvous.
+
+On riding into the Forester's court-yard, among several other open
+carriages, he observed one lined with celestial blue, which, with a
+strange grossness of taste, exhibited upon the cushions a medley of
+hams, sausages, &c. On entering the house, he was at no loss to discover
+the owner of the carriage; for in a window-seat of the bar sate the
+landlady of the Golden Sow, no longer in widow's weeds, but arrayed in
+colours brighter than a bed of tulips.
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger was congratulating himself on his quarrel with her,
+which he flattered himself must preclude all amicable intercourse, when
+she saw him, and to his horror approached with a smiling countenance.
+Some overtures towards reconciliation he saw were in the wind: but, as
+these could not be listened to except on one condition, he determined to
+meet her with a test question: accordingly, as she drew near, simpering
+and languishing,
+
+'Have you executed?' said he abruptly, 'Have you executed?'
+
+'Have I what?' said Mrs. Sweetbread.
+
+'Executed? Have you executed the release?'
+
+'Oh! you bad man! But come now: I know----'
+
+At this moment, however, up came some acquaintances of Mrs.
+Sweetbread's, who had ridden out to see the hunt; and, whilst her
+attention was for one moment drawn off to them, Mr. Schnackenberger
+slipped unobserved into a parlour: it was now half-past ten by the
+Forester's clock; and he resolved to wait here until the time fixed by
+the princess. Whilst sitting in this situation, he heard in an adjoining
+room (separated only by a slight partition) his own name often repeated:
+the voice was that of Mr. Von Pilsen; loud laughter followed every
+sentence; and on attending more closely, Mr. Schnackenberger perceived
+that he was just terminating an account of his own adventures at the
+Golden Sow, and of his consequent embroilment with the amorous landlady.
+All this, however, our student would have borne with equanimity. But
+next followed a disclosure which mortified his vanity in the uttermost
+degree. A few words sufficed to unfold to him that Mr. Von Pilsen, in
+concert with the waiter of the Double-barrelled Gun and that young
+female attendant of the princess, whose kitten had been persecuted by
+Juno, had framed the whole plot, and had written the letters which Mr.
+Schnackenberger had ascribed to her Highness. He had scarce patience to
+hear out the remainder. In some way or other, Von Pilsen had so far
+mistaken our hero, as to pronounce him 'chicken-hearted:' and upon this
+ground, he invited his whole audience to an evening party at the public
+rooms of the Double-barrelled Gun--where he promised to play off Mr.
+Schnackenberger as a glorious exhibition for this night only.
+
+Furious with wrath, and moreover anxious to escape before Von Pilsen and
+his party should see him, and know that this last forgery no less than
+the others had succeeded in duping him into a punctual observance of the
+appointment, Mr. Schnackenberger rushed out of the room, seized his
+horse's bridle--and was just on the point of mounting, when up came his
+female tormentor, Mrs. Sweetbread.
+
+'Come, come, now,' said she, smiling in her most amiable manner; 'we
+were both under a mistake yesterday morning: and both of us were too
+hasty. The booby of a lad took you to the Gun, when you wanted nothing
+but the Sow: you were a little "fresh," and didn't know it; and I
+thought you did it on purpose. But I know better now. And here I am to
+fetch you back to the Sow: so come along: and we'll forget and forgive
+on both sides.'
+
+So saying, she would have taken his arm most lovingly: but Mr.
+Schnackenberger stoutly refused. He had nothing to do with her but to
+pay his bill; he wanted nothing of her but his back-sword, which he had
+left at the Sow; and he made a motion towards his stirrup. But Mrs.
+Sweetbread laid her hand upon his arm, and asked him tenderly--if her
+person were then so utterly disgusting to him that, upon thus meeting
+him again by his own appointment, he had at once forgotten all his
+proposals?
+
+'Proposals! what proposals?' shrieked the persecuted student;
+'Appointment! what appointment?'
+
+'Oh, you base, low-lived villain! don't you go for to deny it, now:
+didn't you offer to be reconciled? didn't you bid me to come here, that
+we might settle all quietly in the forest? Aye, and we _will_ settle it:
+and nothing shall ever part us more; nothing in the world; for what God
+has joined----'
+
+'Drunken old witch!' interrupted Mr. Jeremiah, now sufficiently
+admonished by the brandy fumes which assailed him as to the proximate
+cause of Mrs. Sweetbread's boldness; 'seek lovers elsewhere.' And
+hastily turning round to shake her off, he perceived to his horror that
+an immense crowd had by this time assembled behind them. In the rear,
+and standing upon the steps of the Forester's house, stood Von Pilsen
+and his party, convulsed with laughter; immediately below them was the
+whole body of the hunters, who had called here for refreshment--upon
+whose faces struggled a mixed expression of merriment and wonder: and at
+the head of the whole company stood a party of butchers and butchers'
+boys returning from the hunt, whose fierce looks and gestures made it
+evident that they sympathized with the wrongs of Mrs. Sweetbread, the
+relict of a man who had done honour to their body--and were prepared to
+avenge them in any way she might choose. She, meantime, whose whole
+mighty love was converted into mighty hatred by the opprobrious words
+and fierce repulse of Mr. Schnackenberger, called heaven and earth, and
+all present, to witness her wrongs; protested that he had himself
+appointed the meeting at the Forest-house; and in confirmation drew
+forth a letter.
+
+At sight of the letter, a rattling peal of laughter from Mr. Von Pilsen
+left no room to doubt, in our student's mind, from whose witty
+manufactory it issued; and a rattling peal of wrath from the butchers'
+boys left no room to doubt in anybody's mind what would be its
+consequences. The letter was, in fact, pretty much what Mrs. Sweetbread
+alleged: it contained a large and unlimited offer of Mr.
+Schnackenberger's large and unlimited person; professed an ardour of
+passion which could brook no delay; and entreated her to grant him an
+interview for the final arrangement of all preliminaries at the
+Forest-house.
+
+Whilst this letter was reading, Mr. Schnackenberger perceived that there
+was no time to be lost: no Juno, unfortunately, was present, no 'deus ex
+machina' to turn the scale of battle, which would obviously be too
+unequal, and in any result (considering the quality of the assailants)
+not very glorious. So, watching his opportunity, he vaulted into his
+saddle, and shot off like an arrow. Up went the roar of laughter from
+Von Pilsen and the hunters: up went the roar of fury from the butchers
+and their boys: in the twinkling of an eye all were giving chase;
+showers of stones sang through the trees; threats of vengeance were in
+his ears; butchers' dogs were at his horse's heels; butchers' curses
+were on the wind; a widow's cries hung upon his flight. The hunters
+joined in the pursuit; a second chase was before them; Mr. Pilsen had
+furnished them a second game. Again did Mr. Schnackenberger perspire
+exceedingly; once again did Mr. Schnackenberger 'funk' enormously; yet,
+once again did Mr. Schnackenberger shiver at the remembrance of the
+Golden Sow, and groan at the name of Sweetbread. He retained, however,
+presence of mind enough to work away at his spurs incessantly; nor ever
+once turned his head until he reached the city gates, which he entered
+at the _pas de charge_, thanking heaven that he was better mounted than
+on his first arrival at B----.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS.
+
+
+Rapidly as Mr. Schnackenberger drove through the gates, he was arrested
+by the voice of the warder, who cited him to instant attendance at the
+town-hall. Within the memory of man, this was the first time that any
+business had been transacted on a holiday; an extraordinary sitting was
+now being held; and the prisoner under examination was----Juno. 'Oh!
+heaven and its mercies! when will my afflictions cease?' said the
+exhausted student; 'when shall I have a respite?' Respite there could be
+none at present; for the case was urgent; and, unless Juno could find
+good bail, she was certain of being committed on three very serious
+charges of 1. trespass; 2. assault and battery; 3. stealing in a
+dwelling-house. The case was briefly this: Juno had opened so
+detestable an overture of howling on her master's departure for the
+forest, that the people at the Double-barrelled Gun, out of mere
+consideration for the city of B----, had found it necessary to set her
+at liberty; whereupon, as if the devil drove her, forthwith the brute
+had gone off in search of her old young enemy the kitten, at the hotel
+of the princess. She beat up the kitten's quarters again; and again she
+drove in the enemy pell-mell into her camp in the kitchen. The young
+mistress of the kitten, out of her wits at seeing her darling's danger,
+had set down a pail of milk, in which she was washing a Brussels' veil
+and a quantity of Mechlin lace belonging to the princess--and hurried
+her kitten into a closet. In a moment she returned, and found--milk,
+Brussels' veil, Mechlin lace, vanished--evaporated into Juno's throat,
+'abiit--evasit--excessit--erupit!' only the milk-pail, upon some
+punctilio of delicacy in Juno, was still there; and Juno herself stood
+by, complacently licking her milky lips, and expressing a lively
+satisfaction with the texture of Flanders' manufactures. The princess,
+vexed at these outrages on her establishment, sent a message to the
+town-council, desiring that banishment for life might be inflicted on a
+dog of such revolutionary principles, whose presence (as she understood)
+had raised a general consternation throughout the city of B----.
+
+Mr. Mayor, however, had not forgotten the threatened report of a certain
+retreat to a bell, illustrated by wood-cuts; and therefore, after
+assuring her Highness of his readiness to serve her, he added, that
+measures would be adopted to prevent similar aggressions--but that
+unhappily, from peculiar circumstances connected with this case, no
+further severities could be inflicted. Meantime, while this note was
+writing, Juno had contrived to liberate herself from arrest.
+
+Scarce had she been absent three minutes, when in rushed to the
+town-council the eternal enemy of the Mayor--Mr. Deputy Recorder. The
+large goose's liver, the largest, perhaps, that for some centuries had
+been bred and born in B----, and which was destined this very night to
+have solemnised the anniversary of Mrs. Deputy Recorder's birth; this
+liver, and no other, had been piratically attacked, boarded, and
+captured, in the very sanctuary of the kitchen, 'by that flibustier
+(said he) that buccaneer--that Paul Jones of a Juno.' Dashing the tears
+from his eyes, Mr. Deputy Recorder went on to perorate; 'I ask,' said
+he, 'whether such a Kentucky marauder ought not to be outlawed by all
+nations, and put to the ban of civilised Europe? If not'--and then Mr.
+Deputy paused for effect, and struck the table with his fist--'if not,
+and such principles of Jacobinism and French philosophy are to be
+tolerated; then, I say, there is an end to social order and religion:
+Sansculotterie, Septemberising, and red night-caps, will flourish over
+once happy Europe; and the last and best of kings, and our most shining
+lights, will follow into the same bottomless abyss, which has already
+swallowed up (and his voice faltered)--my liver.'
+
+'Lights and liver!' said Mr. Schnackenberger; 'I suppose you mean liver
+and lights; but, lord! Mr. Recorder, what a bilious view you take of the
+case! Your liver weighs too much in this matter; and where that happens,
+a man's judgment is sure to be jaundiced.'
+
+However, the council thought otherwise: Mr. Deputy's speech had produced
+a deep impression; and, upon his motion, they adjudged that, in twelve
+hours, Juno should be conducted to the frontiers of the city lands, and
+there solemnly outlawed: after which it should be free to all citizens
+of B---- to pursue her with fire and sword; and even before that period,
+if she were met without a responsible guide. Mr. Schnackenberger pleaded
+earnestly for an extension of the armistice; but then arose, for the
+second time, with Catonic severity of aspect, Mr. Deputy Recorder; he
+urged so powerfully the necessity of uncompromising principle in these
+dangerous times, insisted so cogently on the false humanity of misplaced
+lenity, and wound up the whole by such a pathetic array of the crimes
+committed by Juno--of the sausages she had robbed, the rabbits she had
+strangled, the porcelain she had fractured, the raspberry-vinegar she
+had spilt, the mutton she had devoted to chops ('her own "chops,"
+remember,' said Mr. Schnackenberger), the Brussels' veil, and the
+Mechlin lace, which she had swallowed, the domestic harmony which she
+had disturbed, the laws of the land which she had insulted and outraged,
+the peace of mind which she had invaded, and, finally, (said he) 'as if
+all this were not enough, the liver--the goose's liver--_my_ liver--my
+unoffending liver'--('and lights,' said Mr. Schnackenberger) 'which she
+has burglariously and inhumanly immolated to her brutal propensities:'
+on all this Mr. Deputy executed such a bravura, and the sins of Juno
+chased each other so rapidly, and assumed so scarlet a hue, that the
+council instantly negatived her master's proposition; the single
+dissentient voice being that of Mr. Mayor, who, with tears in his eyes,
+conjured Mr. Schnackenberger not to confound the innocent with the
+guilty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+IN WHICH MISFORTUNE EMPTIES HER LAST VIAL UPON THE HEAD OF MR.
+SCHNACKENBERGER.
+
+
+Exhausted by the misfortunes of the day, towards evening Mr. Jeremiah
+was reposing at his length, and smoking in the window-seat of his room.
+Solemn clouds of smoke expressed the gloomy vapours which rested on his
+brain. The hours of Juno's life, it seemed to him, were numbered; every
+soul in B----was her sworn foe--bipeds and quadrupeds, men, women, dogs,
+cats, children, kittens, deputy-recorders, rabbits, cooks,
+legs-of-mutton, to say nothing of goose-livers, sausages, haunches of
+venison, and 'quilts.'--If he were to take country-lodgings for her, and
+to send her out of B----, what awaited her there? Whither could she go,
+but some butcher--some butterwoman--some rough-rider or other had a
+private account to settle with her?--'Unhappy creature!' ejaculated the
+student, 'torment of my life!'
+
+At this moment Mr. Schnackenberger's anxious ruminations were further
+enforced by the appearance of the town-crier under his window: inert as
+the town-council were in giving effect to their own resolutions, on this
+occasion it was clear that they viewed the matter as no joke; and were
+bent on rigorously following up their sentence. For the crier proclaimed
+the decree by beat of drum; explained the provisos of the twelve hours'
+truce, and enjoined all good citizens, and worthy patriots, at the
+expiration of that period, to put the public enemy to the sword,
+wherever she should be found, and even to rise _en masse_, if that
+should be necessary, for the extermination of the national robber--as
+they valued their own private welfare, or the honour and dignity of the
+state.
+
+'English fiend!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, 'will nothing reclaim thee?
+Now that I am rid of my German plague, must I be martyred by my English
+plague?' For be it mentioned that, on our hero's return from the
+council, he had received some little comfort in his afflictions from
+hearing that Mrs. Sweetbread had, upon her return to B----, testified
+her satisfaction with the zealous leader of the butchers' boys, by
+forthwith bestowing upon him her widowed hand and heart, together with
+the Sow and its appurtenances. 'English fiend!' resumed Mr.
+Schnackenberger, 'most _e_dacious and _au_dacious of quadrupeds! can
+nothing be done for thee? Is it impossible to save thy life?' And again
+he stopped to ruminate. For her _meta_physics it was hopeless to cure;
+but could nothing be done for her _physics_? At the university of X----
+she had lived two years next door neighbour to the Professor of Moral
+Philosophy, and had besides attended many of his lectures without any
+sort of benefit to her morals, which still continued of the very worst
+description. 'But could no course of medical treatment,' thought her
+master, 'correct her inextinguishable voracity? Could not her pulse be
+lowered? Might not her appetite, or her courage, be tamed? Would a
+course of tonics be of service to her? Suppose I were to take her to
+England to try the effect of her native air; would any of the great
+English surgeons or physicians be able to prescribe for her effectually?
+Would opium cure her? Yet there was a case of bulimy at Toulouse, where
+the French surgeons caught the patient and saturated him with opium; but
+it was of no use; for he ate[26] as many children after it as before.
+Would Mr. Abernethy, with his blue pill and his Rufus pill, be of any
+service to her? Or the acid bath--or the sulphate of zinc--or the white
+oxide of bismuth?--or soda-water? For, perhaps, her liver may be
+affected. But, lord! what talk I of her liver? Her liver's as sound as
+mine. It's her disposition that's in fault; it's her moral principles
+that are relaxed; and something must be done to brace them. Let me
+consider.'
+
+[26] This man, whose case I have read in some French Medical Memoirs,
+was a desperate fellow: he cared no more for an ounce of opium, than for
+a stone of beef, or half a bushel of potatoes: all three would not have
+made him a breakfast. As to children, he denied in the most tranquil
+manner that he ate them. ''Pon my honour,' he sometimes said, 'between
+ourselves, I never _do_ eat children.' However, it was generally agreed,
+that he was paedophagous, or infantivorous. Some said that he first
+drowned them; whence I sometimes called him the paedobaptist. Certain it
+is, that wherever he appeared, a sudden scarcity of children
+prevailed.--_Note of the Translator._
+
+At this moment a cry of 'murder, murder!' drew the student's eyes to
+the street below him; and there, to afflict his heart, stood his
+graceless Juno, having just upset the servant of a cook's shop, in the
+very act of rifling her basket; the sound of the drum was yet ringing
+through the streets; the crowd collected to hear it had not yet
+withdrawn from the spot; and in this way was Juno expressing her
+reverence for the proclamation of the town-council of B----.
+
+'Fiend of perdition!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, flinging his darling
+pipe at her head, in the anguish of his wrath, and hastening down to
+seize her. On arriving below, however, there lay his beautiful sea-foam
+pipe in fragments upon the stones; but Juno had vanished--to reappear no
+more in B----.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+AND SET YOU DOWN THAT IN ALEPPO ONCE--OTHELLO.
+
+
+The first thing Mr. Schnackenberger did was to draw his purse-strings,
+and indemnify the cook-maid. The next thing Mr. Schnackenberger did was
+to go into the public-room of the Gun, call for a common pipe, and seat
+himself growling in a corner.--Of all possible privileges conferred by
+the laws, the very least desirable is that of being created game: Juno
+was now invested with that 'painful pre-eminence;' she was solemnly
+proclaimed game: and all qualified persons, _i. e._ every man, woman,
+and child, were legally authorised to sink--burn--or destroy her. 'Now
+then,' said Mr. Schnackenberger to himself, 'if such an event should
+happen--if any kind soul should blow out the frail light of Juno's life,
+in what way am I to answer the matter to her purchaser, Mr. Fabian
+Sebastian?' Such were the thoughts which fumed away from the anxious
+mind of Mr. Schnackenberger in surging volumes of smoke.
+
+Together with the usual evening visitors of the public-rooms at the Gun,
+were present also Mr. Von Pilsen, and his party. Inflamed with wine and
+insolence, Mr. Von Pilsen began by advancing the following proposition:
+That in this sublunary world there are marvellous fools. 'Upon this
+hint' he spake: and 'improving' his text into a large commentary, he
+passed in review various sketches from the life of Mr. Schnackenberger
+in B----, not forgetting the hunting scene; and everywhere threw in such
+rich embellishments and artist-like touches, that at last the room rang
+with laughter.
+
+Mr. Jeremiah alone sat moodily in his corner, and moved no muscle of his
+face; so that even those, who were previously unacquainted with the
+circumstances, easily divined at whose expense Mr. Von Pilsen's witty
+performance proceeded.
+
+At length Von Pilsen rose and said, 'Gentlemen, you think, perhaps,
+that I am this day in the best of all possible humours. Quite the
+contrary, I assure you: pure fiction--mere counterfeit mirth--put on to
+disguise my private vexation; for vexed I am, and will be, that I can
+find nobody on whom to exercise my right arm. Ah! what a heavenly fate
+were mine, if any man would take it into his head to affront me; or if
+any other man would take it into his head to think that I had affronted
+him, and would come hither to demand satisfaction!' So saying, he
+planted himself in a chair in the very middle of the saloon; and ever
+and anon leered at Mr. Schnackenberger in so singular a manner, that no
+one could fail to see at whom his shafts were pointed.
+
+Still it seemed as if our hero had neither ears nor eyes. For he
+continued doggedly to work away at his 'cloud-compelling' pipe ([Greek:
+nephelegereta Schnakenberger]), without ever looking at his challenger.
+
+When at length he rose, everybody supposed that probably he had had
+badgering enough by this time, and meant to decamp quietly. All present
+were making wry faces, in order to check their bursting laughter, until
+Mr. Schnackenberger were clear of the room; that done, each prepared to
+give free vent to his mirth and high compliments to Mr. Von Pilsen, upon
+the fine style in which he had 'done execution upon Cawdor.'
+_De_camping, however, entered not into Mr. Schnackenberger's military
+plans; he rather meant to _en_camp over against Von Pilsen's position:
+calmly, therefore, with a leisurely motion, and _gradu militari_, did he
+advance towards his witty antagonist. The latter looked somewhat paler
+than usual: but, as this was no time for retreating, and he saw the
+necessity of conducting the play with spirit to its _denouement_,--he
+started up, and exclaimed: 'Ah! here is the very man I was wishing for!
+framed after my very heart's longing. Come, dear friend, embrace me: let
+us have a fraternal hug.'
+
+'Basta!' cried Mr. Jeremiah, attaching his shoulder, and squeezing him,
+with a right hand of 'high pressure,' down into his chair--'This is a
+very good story, Mr. Von Pilsen, that you have told us: and pity it were
+that so good a story should want a proper termination. In future,
+therefore, my Pilsen,
+
+    When you shall these unhappy deeds relate,
+
+be sure you do not forget the little sequel which I shall furnish: tell it
+to the end, my Pilsen:
+
+    And set you down that in Aleppo once--'
+
+Here the whole company began to quake with the laughter of anticipation--
+
+    'And set you down that in Aleppo once--
+
+when a fribble--a coxcomb--a puppy dared to traduce a student from the
+university of X----
+
+    I took the circumcised dog by the nose, And smote him thus----'
+
+at the same time breaking his pipe calmly on the very prominent nose of Mr.
+Von Pilsen.
+
+Inextinguishable laughter followed from all present: Mr. Von Pilsen quitted
+the room forthwith: and next morning was sought for in vain in B----.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+WHICH CONTAINS A DUEL--AND A DEATH.
+
+
+Scarcely had Mr. Schnackenberger withdrawn to his apartment, when a pair of
+'field-pieces' were heard clattering up-stairs--such and so mighty as, among
+all people that on earth do dwell, no mortal wore, himself only except, and
+the student, Mr. Fabian Sebastian. Little had he thought under his evening
+canopy of smoke, that Nemesis was treading so closely upon his heels.
+
+'Sir, my brother,' began Mr. Student Fabian, 'the time is up: and here am I,
+to claim my rights. Where is the dog? The money is ready: deliver the
+article: and payment shall be made.'
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger shrugged his shoulders.
+
+'Nay, my brother, no jesting (if you please) on such serious occasions: I
+demand my article.'
+
+'What, if the article have vanished?'
+
+'Vanished!' said Mr. Fabian; 'why then we must fight, until it comes back
+again.--Sir, my brother, you have acted nefariously enough in absconding
+with goods that you had sold: would you proceed to yet greater depths in
+nefariousness, by now withholding from me my own article?'
+
+So saying, Mr. Fabian paid down the purchase money in hard gold upon the
+table. 'Come, now, be easy,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, 'and hear me.'
+
+'Be easy, do you say? _That_ will I not: but hear I will, and with all my
+heart, provided it be nothing unhearable--nor anything in question of my
+right to the article: else, you know, come knocks.' 'Knocks!' said Jeremiah:
+'and since when, I should be glad to know, has the Schnackenberger been in
+the habit of taking knocks without knocking again, and paying a pretty large
+per centage?'
+
+'Ah! very likely. That's your concern. As to me, I speak only for myself and
+for my article.' Hereupon Mr. Schnackenberger made him acquainted with the
+circumstances, which were so unpalatable to the purchaser of 'the article,'
+that he challenged Mr. Schnackenberger to single combat there and then.
+
+'Come,' said Mr. Fabian; 'but first put up the purchase money: for I, at
+least, will practise nothing that is nefarious.'
+
+Mr. Schnackenberger did so; redeemed his sword from Mrs. Sweetbread by
+settling her bill; buckled it on; and attended Mr. Fabian to the
+neighbouring forest.
+
+Being arrived at a spot suitable to their purpose, and their swords drawn,
+Mr. Schnackenberger said--'Upon my word it's a shocking thing that we must
+fight upon this argument: not but it's just what I have long expected.
+Junonian quarrels I have had, in my time, 747; and a Junonian duel is
+nothing more than I have foreseen for this last week. Yet, after all,
+brother, I give you my honour that the brute is not worth a duel: for, fools
+as we have been in our rivalship about her, between ourselves she is a mere
+agent of the fiend, and minister of perdition, to him who is so unhappy as
+to call her his.'
+
+'Like enough, my brother; haven't a doubt you're in the right, for you know
+her best: still it would be nefarious in a high degree if our blades were to
+part without crossing each other. We must tilt a bit: Sir, my brother, we
+must tilt. So lunge away at me; and never fear but I'll lunge as fast as
+you.'
+
+So said--so done: but scarce had Mr. Sebastian pushed his first 'carte over
+the arm,' which was well parried by his antagonist, when, with a loud
+outcry, in rushed Juno; and, without troubling herself about the drawn
+swords, she drove right at the pit of Mr. Sebastian's stomach, knocked the
+breath out of his body, the sword out of his hand, and himself upon his
+back.
+
+'Ah! my goddess, my Juno!' cried Mr. Schnackenberger; 'Nec vox hominem
+sonat, oh Dea certe!'
+
+'Nec vox hominem sonat?' said Mr. Fabian, rising: 'Faith, you're right
+there; for I never heard a voice more like a brute's in my life.'
+
+'Down then, down, Juno,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, as Juno was preparing for
+a second campaign against Mr. Fabian's stomach: Mr. Fabian, on his part,
+held out his hand to his brother student--saying, 'all quarrels are now
+ended.' Mr. Jeremiah accepted his hand cordially. Mr. Fabian offered to
+resign 'the article,' however agitating to his feelings. Mr. Jeremiah,
+though no less agitated, protested he should not. 'I will, by all that's
+magnanimous,' said Mr. Fabian. 'By the memory of Curtius, or whatever else
+is most sacred in self-sacrifice, you shall not,' said Mr. Jeremiah. 'Hear
+me, thou light of day,' said Mr. Fabian kneeling. 'Hear _me_,' interrupted
+Mr. Jeremiah, kneeling also: yes, the Schnackenberger knelt, but carefully
+and by circumstantial degree; for he was big and heavy as a rhinoceros, and
+afraid of capsizing, and perspired freely. Mr. Fabian kneeled like a
+dactyle: Mr. Jeremiah kneeled like a spondee, or rather like a molossus.
+Juno, meantime, whose feelings were less affected, did not kneel at all;
+but, like a tribrach, amused herself with chasing a hare which just then
+crossed one of the forest ridings. A moment after was heard the report of a
+fowling-piece. Bitter presentiment of the truth caused the kneeling duelists
+to turn their heads at the same instant. Alas! the subject of their
+high-wrought contest was no more: English Juno lay stretched in her blood!
+Up started the 'dactyle;' up started the 'spondee;' out flew their swords;
+curses, dactylic and spondaic, began to roll; and the gemini of the
+university of X, side by side, strode after the Junonicide, who proved to be
+a forester. The forester wisely retreated, before the storm, into his
+cottage; from an upper window of which he read to the two coroners, in this
+inquest after blood, a section of the forest-laws, which so fully justified
+what he had done--that, like the reading of the English riot act, it
+dispersed the gemini, both dactylic and spondaic, who now held it advisable
+to pursue the matter no further.
+
+'Sir, my brother,' said Mr. Fabian, embracing his friend over the corpse of
+Juno, 'see what comes of our imitating Kotzebue's plays! Nothing but our
+nefarious magnanimity was the cause of Juno's untimely end. For had we,
+instead of kneeling (which by the way seemed to "punish" you a good deal),
+had we, I say, vested the property in one or other of us, she, instead of
+diverting her ennui by hunting, would have been trotting home by the side of
+her master--and the article would have been still living.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE FUNERAL GAMES.
+
+
+'Now then,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, entering the Double-barrelled Gun with
+his friend,--'Now, waiter, let us have Rhenish and Champagne, and all other
+good things with which your Gun is charged: fire off both barrels upon us:
+Come, you dog, make ready--present; for we solemnise a funeral to-day:' and,
+at the same time, he flung down the purchase-money of Juno upon the table.
+The waiter hastened to obey his orders.
+
+The longer the two masters of Juno drank together, the more did they
+convince themselves that her death was a real blessing to herself, who had
+thus obviously escaped a life of severe cudgelling, which her voracity would
+have entailed upon her: 'yes,' they both exclaimed; 'a blessing to
+herself--to her friends in particular--and to the public in general.'
+
+To conclude, the price of Juno was honourably drunk up to the last farthing,
+in celebration of her obsequies at this one sitting.
+
+[Greek: Hos hoi g'amphiepon taphon Hektoros hippodamoio.]
+
+
+END OF 'MR. SCHNACKENBERGER.'
+
+
+
+
+ANGLO-GERMAN DICTIONARIES.
+
+
+The German dictionaries, compiled for the use of Englishmen studying that
+language, are all bad enough, I doubt not, even in this year 1823; but those
+of a century back are the most ludicrous books that ever mortal read:
+_read_, I say, for they are well worth reading, being often as good as a
+jest book. In some instances, I am convinced that the compilers (Germans
+living in Germany) had a downright hoax put upon them by some facetious
+Briton whom they had consulted; what is given as the English equivalent for
+the German word being not seldom a pure coinage that never had any existence
+out of Germany. Other instances there are, in which the words, though not of
+foreign manufacture, are almost as useless to the English student as if they
+were; slang-words, I mean, from the slang vocabulary, current about the
+latter end of the seventeenth century. These must have been laboriously
+culled from the works of Tom Brown, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Echard, Jeremy
+Collier, and others, from 1660 to 1700, who were the great masters of this
+_vernacular_ English (as it might emphatically be called, with a reference
+to the primary[27] meaning of the word _vernacular_): and I verily believe,
+that, if any part of this slang has become, or ever should become a dead
+language to the English critic, his best guide to the recovery of its true
+meaning will be the German dictionaries of Bailey, Arnold, &c. in their
+earliest editions. By one of these, the word _Potztausend_ (a common German
+oath) is translated, to the best of my remembrance, thus:--'Udzooks,
+Udswiggers, Udswoggers, Bublikins, Boblikins, Splitterkins,' &c. and so on,
+with a large choice of other elegant varieties. Here, I take it, our friend
+the hoaxer had been at work: but the drollest example I have met with of
+their slang is in the following story told to me by Mr. Coleridge. About the
+year 1794, a German, recently imported into Bristol, had happened to hear of
+Mrs. X., a wealthy widow. He thought it would be a good speculation to offer
+himself to the lady's notice as well qualified to 'succeed' to the late Mr.
+X.; and accordingly waited on the lady with that intention. Having no great
+familiarity with English, he provided himself with a copy of one of the
+dictionaries I have mentioned; and, on being announced to the lady, he
+determined to open his proposal with this introductory sentence--Madam,
+having heard that Mr. X., late your husband, is dead: but coming to the last
+word 'gestorben' (dead), he was at a loss for the English equivalent; so,
+hastily pulling out his dictionary (a huge 8vo.), he turned to the word
+'sterben,' (to die),--and there found----; but what he found will be best
+collected from the dialogue which followed, as reported by the lady:--
+
+_German._ Madam, hahfing heard that Mein Herr X., late your man,
+is----(these words he kept chiming over as if to himself, until he arrived
+at No. 1 of the interpretations of 'sterben,'--when he roared out, in high
+glee at his discovery)----is, dat is--has, _kicked de bucket_.
+
+_Widow._ (With astonishment.)--'Kicked the bucket,' Sir!--what--
+
+_German._ Ah! mein Gott!--Alway Ich make mistake: I vou'd have
+said--(beginning again with the same solemnity of tone)--since dat Mein Herr
+X., late your man, hav--_hopped de twig_--(which words he screamed out with
+delight, certain that he had now hit the nail upon the head).
+
+_Widow._ Upon my word, Sir, I am at a loss to understand you: 'Kicked the
+bucket,' and 'hopped the twig----!'
+
+_German._ (Perspiring with panic.) Ah, Madam! von--two--tree--ten tousand
+pardon: vat sad, wicket dictionary I haaf, dat alway bring me in trouble:
+but now you shall hear--(and then, recomposing himself solemnly for a third
+effort, he began as before)--Madam, since I did hear, or wash hearing, dat
+Mein Herr X., late your man, haaf--(with a triumphant shout) haaf, I say,
+_gone to Davy's locker_----
+
+[27] What I mean is this. Vernacular (from _verna_, a slave born in his
+master's house). 1. The homely idiomatic language in opposition to any mixed
+jargon, or lingua franca, spoken by an imported slave:--2. Hence, generally,
+the pure mother-tongue as opposed to the same tongue corrupted by false
+refinement. By vernacular English, therefore, in the primary sense, and I
+mean, such homely English as is banished from books and polite conversation
+to Billingsgate and Wapping.
+
+Further he would have gone; but the widow could stand no more: this nautical
+phrase, familiar to the streets of Bristol, allowed her no longer to
+misunderstand his meaning; and she quitted the room in a tumult of
+laughter, sending a servant to show her unfortunate suitor out of the house,
+with his false friend the dictionary; whose help he might, perhaps, invoke
+for the last time, on making his exit, in the curses--'Udswoggers,
+Boblikins, Bublikins, Splitterkins!'
+
+N.B. As test words for trying a _modern_ German dictionary, I will advise
+the student to look for the words--_Beschwichtigen Kulisse_, and _Mansarde_.
+The last is originally French, but the first is a true German word; and, on
+a question arising about its etymology, at the house of a gentleman in
+Edinburgh, could not be found in any one, out of five or six modern
+Anglo-German dictionaries.
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE END.
+
+
+
+
+                         RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+
+                               LONDON & BUNGAY.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de
+Quincey, Vol. 2, by Thomas de Quincey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS DE QUINCEY ***
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