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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature
+and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2007 [EBook #22402]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
+
+OF
+
+_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._
+
+MARCH, 1873.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by J. B.
+LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.
+
+
+[Illustration: ALGIERS FROM THE SEA.]
+
+A fact need not be a fixed fact to be a very positive one; and Kabylia,
+a region to whose outline no geographer could give precision, has long
+existed as the most uncomfortable reality in colonial France.
+Irreconcilable Kabylia, hovering as a sort of thunderous cloudland among
+the peaks of the Atlas Mountains, is respected for a capacity it has of
+rolling out storms of desperate warriors. These troops disgust and
+confound the French by making every hut and house a fortress: like the
+clansmen of Roderick Dhu, they lurk behind the bushes, animating each
+tree or shrub with a preposterous gun charged with a badly-moulded
+bullet. The Kabyle, when excited to battle, goes to his death as
+carelessly as to his breakfast: his saint or marabout has promised him
+an immediate heaven, without the critical formality of a judgment-day.
+He fights with more than feudal faithfulness and with undiverted
+tenacity. He is in his nature unconquerable. So that the French, though
+they have riddled this thunder-cloud of a Kabylia with their shot,
+seamed it through and through with military roads, and established a
+beautiful _fort national_ right in the middle of it, on the plateau of
+Souk-el-Arba, possess it to-day about as thoroughly as we Americans
+might possess a desirable thunder-storm which should be observed hanging
+over Washington, and which we should annex by means of electrical
+communications transpiercing it in every direction, and a resident
+governor fixed at the centre in a balloon. France has gorged Kabylia,
+with the rest of Algeria, but she has never digested it.
+
+[Illustration: "IMPREGNABLE KABYLIA."]
+
+A trip through Algeria, such as we now propose, belongs, as a
+pleasure-excursion, only to the present age. In the last it was made
+involuntarily. Only sixty years ago the English spinster or spectacled
+lady's-companion, as she crossed over from the mouth of the Tagus to the
+mouth of the Tiber, or from Marseilles to Naples, looked out for capture
+by "the Algerines" as quite a reasonable eventuality. (Who can forget
+Töpfer's mad etchings for _Bachelor Butterfly_, of which this little
+episode forms the incident?) Her respectable mind was filled with
+speculations as to how many servants "a dey's lady" was furnished with,
+and what was the amount of her pin-money. A stout, sound-winded
+Christian gentleman, without vices and kind in fetters, sold much
+cheaper than a lady, being worth thirty pounds, or only about one-tenth
+the value of Uncle Tom.
+
+[Illustration: BOUGIE, AND HILL OF GOURAYA.]
+
+The opening up of Algeria to the modern tourist and Murray's guide-books
+is in fact due to the American nation. So late as 1815 the Americans,
+along with the other trading nations, were actually paying to the dey
+his preposterous tribute for exemption from piratical seizure. In this
+year, however, we changed our mind and sent Decatur over. On the 28th of
+June he made his appearance at Algiers, having picked up and disposed of
+some Algerine craft, the frigate Mashouda and the brig Estido. The
+Algerines gave up all discussion with a messenger so positive in his
+manners, and in two days Decatur introduced our consul-general Shaler,
+who attended to the release of American captives and the positive
+stoppage of tribute.
+
+The example was followed by other nations. Lord Exmouth bombarded
+Algiers in 1816, and reduced most of it to ashes. In 1827 the dey opened
+war with France by hitting the French consul with his fan. Charles X.
+retorted upon the fan with thirty thousand troops and a fleet. The fort
+of Algiers was exploded by the last survivor of its garrison, a negro of
+the deserts, who rushed down with a torch into the powder-cellar.
+Algeria collapsed. The dey went to Naples, the janizaries went to
+Turkey, and Algeria became French.
+
+From this time the country became more or less open, according as France
+could keep it quiet, to the inroads of that modern beast of ravin, the
+tourist. The Kabyle calls the tourist _Roumi_ (Christian), a form,
+evidently, of our word Roman, and referable to the times when the bishop
+of Hippo and such as he identified the Christian with the Romanist in
+the Moorish mind.
+
+Modern Algiers, viewed from the sea, wears upon its luminous walls small
+trace of its long history of blood. As we contemplate its mosques and
+houses flashing their white profiles into the sky, it is impossible not
+to muse upon the contrast between its radiant and picturesque aspect
+and its veritable character as the accomplice of every crime and every
+baseness known to the Oriental mind. To see that sunny city basking
+between its green hills, you would hardly think of it as the abode of
+bandits; yet two powerful tribes still exist, now living in huts which
+crown the heights of Boudjareah overlooking the sea, who formerly
+furnished the boldest of the pitiless corsairs. To the iron hooks of the
+Bab (or gate) of Azoun were hung by the loins our Christian brothers who
+would not accept the Koran; at the Bab-el-Oued, the Arab rebels, not
+confounded even in their deaths with the dogs of Christians, were
+beheaded by the yataghan; and in the blue depths we sail over, whose
+foam washes the bases of the temples, hapless women have sunk for ever,
+tied in a leather bag between a cat and a serpent.
+
+The history, in truth, is the history--always a cruel one--of an
+overridden nation compelled to bear a part in the wickedness of its
+oppressors. This rubric of blood may be read in many a dismal page.
+Algeria was a slave before England was Christian. The greatest African
+known to the Church, Augustine, has left a pathetic description of the
+conquest of his country by the Vandals in the fifth century: it was
+attended with horrible atrocities, the enemy leaving the slain in
+unburied heaps, so as to drive out the garrisons by pestilence. When
+Spain overthrew the Moors she took the coast-cities of Morocco and
+Algeria. Afterward, when Aruch Barbarossa, the "Friend of the Sea," had
+seized the Algerian strongholds as a prize for the Turks, and his system
+of piracy was devastating the Mediterranean, Spain with other countries
+suffered, and we have a vivid picture of an Algerine bagnio and
+bagnio-keeper from the pen of the illustrious prisoner Cervantes. "Our
+spirits failed" (he writes) "in witnessing the unheard-of cruelties that
+Hassan exercised. Every day were new punishments, accompanied with cries
+of cursing and vengeance. Almost daily a captive was thrown upon the
+hooks, impaled or deprived of sight, and that without any other motive
+than to gratify the thirst of human blood natural to this monster, and
+which inspired even the executioners with horror."
+
+While our fancy traces the figure of the author of _Don Quixote_, a
+plotting captive, behind the walls of Algiers, the steamer is
+withdrawing, and the view of the city becomes more beautiful at every
+turn of the paddles. We pass through a whole squadron of fishing-boats,
+hovering on their long lateen sails, and seeming like butterflies
+balanced upon the waves, which are blue as the petal of the iris.
+Algiers gradually becomes a mere impression of light. The details have
+been effaced little by little, and melted into a general hue of gold and
+warmth: the windowless houses and the walls extending in terraces
+confuse interchangeably their blank masses. The dark green hills of
+Boudjareah and Mustapha seem to have opened their sombre flanks to
+disclose a marble-quarry: the city, piled up with pale and blocklike
+forms, appears to sink into the mountains again as the boat retires,
+although the picturesque buildings of the Casbah, cropping out upon the
+summit, linger long in sight, like rocks of lime. As we pass Cape
+Matifou we see rising over its shoulder the summits of the Atlas range,
+among whose peaks we hope to be in a fortnight, after passing Bona,
+Philippeville and Constantina.
+
+Sailing along this coast of the Mediterranean resembles an excursion on
+one of the Swiss lakes. Four hours after passing Algiers, in going
+eastwardly toward the port of Philippeville, we come in sight of Dellys,
+a little town of poor appearance, where the hussars of France first
+learned the peculiarities of Kabyle fighting. This warfare was something
+novel. In place of the old gusty sweeps of cavaliers on horseback,
+falling on the French battalions or glancing around them in whirlwinds,
+the soldiers had to extirpate the Kabyles hidden in the houses. It was
+not fighting--it was ferreting. Each house in Dellys was a fort which
+had to be taken by siege. Each garden concealed behind its palings the
+"flower" of Kabyle chivalry, only to be uprooted by the bayonet. The
+women fought with fury.
+
+We follow our course along these exquisite blue waters, and soon have a
+glimpse, at three miles distance, of an isolated, abrupt cone, trimmed
+at the summit into the proportions of a pyramid. It is the hill of
+Gouraya, an enormous mass of granite which lifts its scarped summit over
+the port of Bougie, called Salda by Strabo. We approach and watch the
+enormous rock seeming to grow taller and taller as we nestle beneath it
+in the beautiful harbor. Bougie lies on a narrow and stony beach in the
+embrace of the mountain, white and coquettish, spreading up the rocky
+wall as far as it can, and looking aloft to the protecting summit two
+thousand feet above it. We abstain from dismounting, but sweep the city
+with field-glasses from the deck of the ship, recollecting that Bougie
+was bombarded in the reign of the Merrie Monarch by Sir Edward Spragg.
+We trace the ravine of Sidi-Touati, which breaks the town in half as it
+splits its way into the sea. Here, in 1836, the French commandant,
+Salomon de Mussis, was treacherously shot while at a friendly conference
+with the sheikh Amzian, the pretext being the murder of a marabout by
+the French sentinels. The incident is worth mentioning, because it
+brought into light some of the nobler traits of Kabyle character. The
+sheikh, for killing a guest with whom he had just taken coffee, was
+reproached by the natives as "the man who murdered with one hand and
+took gifts with the other," and was forced by mere popular contempt from
+his sheikhship, to perish in utter obscurity.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN RELICS AT PHILIPPEVILLE.]
+
+Putting on steam again, we recede from Bougie, and passing Djigelly,
+with its overpoweringly large barracks and hospital, doubling Cape
+Bougarone and sighting the fishing-village of Stora, we arrive at the
+new port-city of Philippeville. This colony, a plantation of Louis
+Philippe's upon the site of the Roman Russicada, has only thirty-four
+years of existence, and contains twenty Frenchmen for every Arab found
+within it. It differs, however, from our American thirty-year-old towns
+in the interesting respect of showing the traces of an older
+civilization. French savants here examine the ruins of the theatre and
+the immense Roman reservoirs in the hillside, and take "squeezes" of
+inscriptions marked upon the antique altar, column or cippus. On an
+ancient pillar was found an amusing grafita, the sketch of some Roman
+schoolboy, showing an _aquarius_ (or water-carrier) loaded with his twin
+buckets. Philippeville, nursed among these glowing African hills, has
+the look of some bad melodramatic joke. Its European houses, streets
+laid out with the surveyor's chain, pompous church, and arcades like a
+Rue de Rivoli in miniature, make a foolish show indeed, in place of the
+walls, white, unwinking and mysterious, which ordinarily enclose the
+Eastern home or protect the Arab's wife behind their blinded windows.
+
+[Illustration: LION-SHAPED ROCK, HARBOR OF BONA.]
+
+If we leave Philippeville in the evening, we find ourselves next morning
+in the handsome roadstead of Bona. This, for the present, will terminate
+our examination of the coast, for, however fond we may be of level
+traveling, we cannot reasonably expect to get over the Atlas Mountains
+by hugging the shore. The harbor of Bona, though broad and beautiful, is
+somewhat dangerous, concealing numbers of rocks which lurk at about the
+surface of the water. Other rocks, standing boldly out at the entrance
+of the port, offer a singular aspect, being sculptured into strange
+forms by the sea. One makes a very good statue of a lion, lying before
+the city as its guard, and looking across the waves for an enemy as the
+foam caresses its monstrous feet.
+
+Dismounting from shipboard, we become landsmen for the remainder of our
+journey, and wave adieu to the steamboat which has brought us as we
+linger a moment on the mole of Bona. This city is named from the ancient
+Hippo, out of whose ruins, a mile to the southward, it was largely
+built. The Arabs call it "the city of jujube trees"--Beled-el-Huneb. To
+the Roumi (or Christian) traveler the interest of the spot concentrates
+in one historic figure, that of Saint Augustine. In the basilica of
+Hippo, of which the remains are believed to have been identified in some
+recent excavations, the sainted bishop shook the air with his learned
+and penetrating eloquence. Here he exhorted the faithful to defend their
+religious liberty and their lives, uncertain if the Vandal hordes of
+Genseric were not about to sweep away the faith and the language of
+Rome. Here, where the forest of El Edoug spreads a shadow like that of
+memory over the scene of his walks and labors, he brought his grand life
+of expiation to a holy close, praying with his last breath for his
+disciples oppressed by the invaders. We reach the site of Hippo (or
+Hippone) by a Roman bridge, restored to its former solidity by the
+French, over whose arches the bishop must have often walked, meditating
+on his youth of profligacy and vain scholarship, and over the abounding
+Divine grace which had saved him for the edification of all futurity.
+
+[Illustration: SHOPKEEPER AT BONA.]
+
+Bona has a street named Saint Augustine, but it is, by one of the
+strange paradoxes which history is constantly playing us, owned entirely
+by Jews, and those of one sole family. This fact indicates how the
+thrifty race has prospered since the French occupancy. Formerly
+oppressed and ill-treated, taxed and murdered by the Turks, and only
+permitted to dress in the mournfulest colors, the Jew of Algeria hid
+himself as if life were something he had stolen, and for which he must
+apologize all his days. Now, treated with the same liberality as any
+other colonist, the Jew indulges in every ostentation of dress except as
+to the color of the turban, which, in small towns like Bona, still
+preserves the black hue of former days of oppression. On Saturdays the
+children of Jacob fairly blaze with gold and gay colors. On their
+working days they line the principal streets, eyeing the passers-by with
+a cool, easy indifference, but never losing a chance of business. In
+Algeria this race is generally thought to present a picture of
+arrogance, knavery and rank cowardice not equaled on the face of the
+globe. An English traveler saw an Arab, after maddening himself with
+opium and absinthe, run a-mok among the shopkeepers who lined the
+principal street of Algiers. Selecting the Hebrews, he drove before him
+a throng of twenty, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, who
+allowed themselves to be knocked down with the obedience of ninepins. A
+Frenchman stopped the maniac after he had killed one Jew and wounded
+several, none of them making any effort at defence.
+
+A few narrow streets, bordered with Moorish architecture, contain the
+native industry of Bona. It is about equally divided between the Jews
+and the M'zabites, who, like the Kabyles, are a remnant of the
+stiff-necked old Berber tribe. The M'zabites preserve the pure Arab
+dress--the haik, or small bornouse without hood, the broad breeches
+coming to the knee, the bare legs, and the turban rolled up into a coil
+of ropes. Thus accoutred, and squatting in the ledges of their small
+booths, the jewelers, blacksmiths and tailors of Bona are found at their
+work.
+
+Returning to Philippeville by land, and remaining as short a time as
+possible in this unedifying city, which is a bad and overheated
+imitation of a French provincial town, we concede only so much to its
+modern character as to hire a fine open carriage in which to proceed
+inland toward Constantina. This city is reached after a calm, meditative
+ride through sunny hills and groves. After so quiet a preparation the
+first view of Constantina is fairly astounding. Encircled by a grand
+curve of mountainous precipices, rises a gigantic rock, washed by a moat
+formed of the roaring cascades of the river Rummel. On the flat top of
+this naked rock, like the Stylites on his pillar, stands Constantina.
+The Arabs used to say that Constantina was a stone in the midst of a
+flood, and that, according to their Prophet, it would require as many
+Franks to raise that stone as it would of ants to lift an egg at the
+bottom of a milk-pot.
+
+[Illustration: CONSTANTINA.]
+
+This city, under its old Roman name of Cirta, was one of the principal
+strongholds of Numidia. In 1837 it was one of the most hotly-defended
+strongholds of the Kabyles. The French have renamed, as "Gate of the
+Breach," the old Bab-el-Djedid, where Colonel Lamoricière entered at the
+head of his Zouaves. The city had to be conquered in detail, house by
+house. Lamoricière himself was wounded: the Kabyles, driven to their
+last extremity, evacuated the Casbah on the summit of the rock, and let
+down their women by ropes into the abyss; the ropes, overweighted by
+these human clusters, broke, piling the bodies and fragments of bodies
+in heaps beneath the precipice, while some of the natives descended the
+steep rock safely with the agility of goats.
+
+Of all the large Algerian cities, Constantina is that which has best
+preserved its primitive signet. In most quarters it remains what it was
+under the Turks. These quarters are still undermined, rather than laid
+out, with close and crooked streets, where the rough white houses are
+pierced with narrow windows, closed to the inquisitive eye of the Roumi.
+The roofs are of tile, for the winters on the hills are too severe to
+permit the flat, terraced roofs of Algiers or Bona. These white houses,
+roofed with brown, give a perfectly original aspect to the city as seen
+from any of the neighboring eminences. The plateau of Mansourah is
+connected with the town by a magnificent Roman bridge, two stories in
+height, restored by the French.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN BRIDGE AT CONSTANTINA.]
+
+From this bridge, which is three hundred feet high by three hundred and
+fifteen feet in length, and has five arches, you look down into the bed
+of the Rummel, while the vultures and eagles scream around you, and you
+recite the words of the poet El Abdery, who called this river a bracelet
+which encircles an arm. The gorge opens out into a beautiful plain rich
+with pomegranates, figs and orange trees. The sea is forty-eight miles
+away.
+
+The last bey of Constantina, not knowing that he was merely building for
+the occupancy of the French governors who were to come after him,
+decreed himself, some fifty years ago, a stately pleasure-dome, after
+the fashion of Kubla Khan. From the ruins of Constantina, Bona and
+Tunis, Ahmed Bey picked up whatever was most beautiful in the way of
+Roman marbles and carving. With these he built his halls, while the
+Rummel, through caverns measureless to man, ran on below. Some
+Frenchman of importance will now-a-days give you the freedom of this
+curious piece of Turkish construction, where, among storks and ibises
+gravely perched on one stilt, you examine the relics of Roman history,
+preserved by its very destroyers, according to the grotesque providence
+that watches over the study of archæology.
+
+[Illustration: BEY'S PALACE, CONSTANTINA.]
+
+You are told how Ahmed, wishing to adorn the walls of his gallery or
+loggia with frescoes, of which he had heard, but which he had no artist
+capable of executing, whether Arab, Moor or Jew, applied to a prisoner.
+The man was a French shoemaker, who had never touched a brush: he vainly
+tried to decline the honor, but the bey was inflexible: "You are a vile
+liar: all the Christians can paint. Liberty if you succeed, death if you
+disobey me."
+
+[Illustration: SHAMPOOING THE ROUMI.]
+
+Extremely nervous was the hand which the painter _malgré lui_ applied to
+the unlooked-for task. From the laborious travail of his brain issued at
+length an odd mass of arabesques with which the walls were somehow
+covered. His invention exhausted, he awaited in an agony of fear the
+inspection of his Turkish master. He came, and was enchanted. The
+painter was free, and the bey observed: "The dog wanted to deceive me: I
+knew that all the Christians could paint."
+
+You are amazed to find, in this nest of Islamite savagery and among
+these wild rocks, the uttermost accent of modern French politeness. Your
+presence is a windfall in quarters so retired, and you sit among orange
+plants and straying gazelles, while the military band throws softly out
+against the inaccessible crags the famous tower-scene from the fourth
+act of _Il Trovatore_. As night draws on, tired of your explorations,
+you seek a Moorish bath.
+
+Let no tourist, experienced only in the effeminate imitations of the
+hummum to be found in New York or London, expect similar considerate
+treatment in Algeria. He will be more likely to receive the attention of
+the M'zabite bather after the fashion narrated in the following
+paragraph, which is a quotation from an English journalist in the land
+of the Kabyles:
+
+"We were told to sit down upon a marble seat in the middle of the hall,
+which we had no sooner done than we became sensible of a great increase
+of heat: after this each of us was taken into a closet of milder
+temperature, where, after placing a white cloth on the floor and taking
+off our napkins, they laid us down, leaving us to the further operations
+of two naked, robust negroes. These men, newly brought from the interior
+of Africa, were ignorant of Arabic; so I could not tell them in what way
+I wished to be treated, and they handled me as roughly as if I had been
+a Moor inured to hardship. Kneeling with one knee upon the ground, each
+took me by a leg and began rubbing the soles of my feet with a pumice
+stone. After this operation on my feet, they put their hands into a
+small bag and rubbed me all over with it as hard as they could. The
+distortions of my countenance must have told them what I endured, but
+they rubbed on, smiling at each other, and sometimes giving me an
+encouraging look, indicating by their gestures the good it would do me.
+While they were thus currying me they almost drowned me by throwing warm
+water upon me with large silver vessels, which were in the basin under a
+cock fastened in the wall. When this was over they raised me up, putting
+my head under the cock, by which means the water flowed all over my
+body; and, as if this was not sufficient, my attendants continued plying
+their vessels. Then, having dried me with very fine napkins, they each
+of them very respectfully kissed my hand. I considered this as a sign
+that my torment was over, and was going to dress myself, when one of the
+negroes, grimly smiling, stopped me till the other returned with a kind
+of earth, which they began to rub all over my body without consulting my
+inclination. I was as much surprised to see it take off all the hair as
+I was pained in the operation; for this earth is so quick in its effect
+that it burns the skin if left upon the body. This being finished, I
+went through a second ablution, after which one of them seized me behind
+by the shoulders, and setting his two knees against the lower part of my
+back, made my bones crack, so that for a time I thought they were
+entirely dislocated. Nor was this all, for after whirling me about like
+a top to the right and left, he delivered me to his comrade, who used me
+in the same manner: and then, to my no small satisfaction, opened the
+closet door."
+
+[Illustration: HAMMO-EL-ZOUAOUI.]
+
+This is the true Moorish bath. Meantime, the M'zabite or negro, as he
+dislocates your legs, cracks your spinal column or dances over you on
+his knees, drones forth a kind of native psalmody, which, melting into
+the steamy atmosphere of the place, seems to be the litany of happiness
+and of the pure in heart. Clean in body and soul as you never were
+before, skinned, depilated, dissected, you emerge for a new life of
+ideal perfection, feeling as if you were suddenly relieved of your body.
+
+[Illustration: "BALEK!"]
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN CONSTANTINA.]
+
+There is held every Friday at Constantina a grand assembly of the
+fire-eating marabouts, the fanatics who have given so much trouble to
+their French rulers. Every revolution among the Kabyles is a religious
+movement, set in motion by the wild enthusiasm of the "saints." The
+religious orders of Kabylia, all of them differing in various degrees
+from Turkish Mohammedanism, are of some half dozen varieties, adapted to
+minds of various cultivation. Some, as that of Sidi-Yusef-Hansali, are
+mild in their rites and of a purely didactic or religious nature. This
+latter sect originated in Constantina, comprises two thousand brothers
+or khouans, and was in 1865 under the authority of Hammo-el-Zouaoui, a
+direct descendant of Yusef-Hansali. An hour passed in the college of
+this order, where the whole formula of worship consists in saying a
+hundred times "God forgive!" then, a hundred other times, "Allah ill'
+Allah: Mohammed ressoul Allah!" may be monotonous, but it is not
+revolutionary. From this tautological brotherhood, through various
+degrees of emotional activity, you arrive at the wild doings of the
+fire-eaters, or followers of Mohammed-ben-Aissa. This Aissa was a native
+of Meknes in Morocco, where he died full of years and piety three
+hundred years ago. His legend states that being originally very poor, he
+attempted to support his family in the truly Oriental manner, not by
+working for them, but by spending his whole time at the mosque in prayer
+for their miraculous sustenance. His inertia and his faith were
+acceptable to Mohammed, who appeared to Aissa's wife with baskets of
+food, and to Aissa with the order to found a sect. The allegory
+expressed by the disgusting actions of the order would seem to be that
+anything is nourishment to the true believer. They therefore exhibit
+themselves as eating red-hot iron, scorpions and prickly cactus. Various
+travelers, some of them cool hands and accurate observers, have seen
+these khouans at their horrible feasts without being able to explain
+the imposture. A British soldier, an experienced Indian officer,
+happened to be in Kabylia just before the breaking out of the great
+Sepoy rebellion in India, and was introduced to one of the fire-eating
+orgies by Major Deval at Tizi-ouzou, where our journey into Kabylia is
+to terminate. With his own eyes he saw a khouan, excited by half an
+hour's chanting and beating the tom-tom, drive a sword four inches deep
+into his chest by hitting it with a tile. The man marched around and
+exhibited it to the congregation as it quivered in his naked body.
+Another seared his face and hands with a large red-hot iron, holding it
+finally with his mouth without other support. Another chewed up an
+entire leaf of a cactus with its dangerous spikes, which sting one's
+hands severely and remain rankling in the flesh. Another filled his
+mouth with live coals from a brazier, and walked around blowing out
+sparks. Another swallowed a living scorpion, a small snake, broken glass
+and nails. The spectator was in the midst of these enthusiasts, being
+touched by them in their antics, yet he could detect no foul play,
+except that he imagined the sword in the first-named experiment to have
+been driven into an old wound or between the skin and the flesh. It was
+to counteract the influence of the fire-eating marabouts that the French
+government sent over Robert Houdin, the ingenious mechanician, but
+though he eclipsed their wonders by tricks of electricity and sleight,
+he has left but a lame explanation of the "juggleries" of the Algerine
+saints.
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT MOSQUE, CONSTANTINA.]
+
+The worst attribute of these khouans is, that after having excited the
+ignorant Kabyles to many a losing war by their magnetism, they remain
+themselves behind the curtain, safe and sarcastic.
+
+In the Moorish quarter of Constantina, where the streets are about five
+feet wide, you sit down to watch the perpetual come-and-go of the
+inhabitants. Taking a cup of fragrant coffee--which, as the reader
+knows, is in Eastern countries eaten at the same time that it is
+drunk--you sit on a stone bench of the coffee-house and contemplate
+mules, horses, asses, passengers, buyers, sellers, loungers, Arabs,
+Turks, Kabyles, Jews, Moors and spahis. On every side you hear the cry
+of "Balek! balek!" This means "Look out!" and the word is closely
+followed by the causative fact. The street is unpaved, the horse is
+unshod, the hoofs cannot be heard, and you have hardly time to efface
+yourself against a wall when a cavalier passes by like a careless
+torrent, scattering the white bornouses centrifugally from his pathway
+as he advances. The streets, as we observed, are very narrow. Each has
+its own manufacture. Here are the tailors; here, in this deafening
+alley, are the blacksmiths; farther on are the shoemakers, and you are
+driven mad with wonder at the quantities of slippers made for a people
+which goes eternally barefoot. Springing out of this dædal intricacy of
+booths and workshops rise the slender minarets of prayer, of which the
+principal one belongs to a mosque said to be the most beautiful in
+Algeria. The interior of this chief mosque is not deprived of ornament,
+having its columns of pink marble, its elliptical Moorish arches, and
+its tiles of painted fayence set in the walls. In the centre is the
+pulpit, coarsely painted red and blue, where the imaum recites his
+prayers. Three small, lofty windows are filled with carved lacework. The
+floor is spread with carpets for the knees of the rich, with matting for
+the poor. Over all rises the square, crescent-crowned minaret--no
+_belfry_, but a steeple where the chimes are rung by the human voice.
+Night and day, from the heights of their slender towers, the muezzins
+toll out their vibrating notes like a bell, inviting the faithful to
+prayers with the often-heard signal: "Allah ill' Allah: Mohammed resoul
+Allah!"
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+THE NATIONAL TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-WAY.
+
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF NEW RIVER.]
+
+The offices of running water have afforded a fertile theme for the poet
+and the philosopher. In the ruder ages of the world the water-ways which
+carve their course over the face of the globe were regarded only in the
+light of natural barriers against hostile invasion; and thus arose the
+historic principle--
+
+    Lands intersected by a narrow frith
+    Abhor each other.
+
+But civilization has demonstrated that they subserve a much higher
+purpose, that the rivers of a country are its great arteries and
+highways of trade, and that they fulfill functions as numerous and
+benign in the political economy as in the physical geography of the
+regions they furrow. In the Old World, the advancing streams of culture,
+science and commerce, and even the migrations of nations, have ebbed and
+flowed along the classic valleys of the Rhine, the Rhone and the Danube;
+and the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile are rich in
+memories of the world's mightiest and most splendid empires. In America
+the fertile watersheds of the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri are
+fast becoming what their antitypes of the great continent have been in
+the past. The outspreading wave of civilization and population has
+already reached westward to the foot of the Rocky Mountains from the
+Gulf of Mexico to Montana and Idaho, while even the basin of the
+Columbia River is rapidly filling up with an active, thriving and busy
+people, who can smile at the poet's vision:
+
+    Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
+    Save its own dashings.
+
+The water-courses of a country are not less valuable to it than the
+little Pactolus was to the ancient city of Sardis, through whose streets
+it ran freighted with gold. But these natural highways of human
+intercourse, like most of Nature's provisions, are capable of indefinite
+artificial extension and multiplication. Our finest modern canals are
+scarcely smaller, and certainly capable of more uninterrupted, safe and
+heavy navigation, than many of the rivers which have figured in history,
+and which Pascal so graphically described as "_moving roads_ that carry
+us whither we wish to go."
+
+Such considerations as these have a profound bearing on many of the
+great economic problems of the age, but on none more than upon the grand
+problem which is now agitating the national mind in the United States:
+_How to connect its seaboard and central regions by water_. A glance at
+the map of the Union shows that its vast interior lies ensconced between
+the two mountain-walls of the Rocky chain on its western side and the
+Appalachian chain on its eastern side. Hemmed in by these barriers is
+the immense expanse of the most prolific, populous and prosperous
+section on the continent, which, taking its name from "the Father of
+Waters," is geographically designated as the _Mississippi Valley_,
+estimated by Professor J. W. Foster of the Chicago University to contain
+an area of two million four hundred and fifty-five thousand square
+miles, equal to that of all Europe excepting Russia, Norway and Sweden.
+Unlike the inland basin of Asia, in which the vast, mountain-girt Desert
+of Gobi stretches out its seas of sand, stony, sterile and desolate, the
+inland basin of America is its garden-spot and granary. Swept by the
+vapor-bearing winds and rain-distilling clouds from the Gulf of Mexico,
+and blessed with an excellent climate, it contains all the physical
+elements of an empire within itself. Its position makes it the national
+strong-hold, so that with military men it has grown into an adage,
+"Whoever is master of the Mississippi is lord of the continent." It is
+yet but half developed, but no far-seeing mind can form any estimate of
+its future growth and opulence. "With a varied and splendid
+entourage--an imperial cordon of States--nothing," says Dr. John W.
+Draper of New York, "can prevent the Mississippi Valley from becoming in
+less than three centuries the centre of human power." The only wall of
+partition that shuts it off from the great marts of the world is formed
+by the chain of the Alleghanies, which stretch along the Atlantic
+seaboard, from south-west to north-east, for twelve hundred miles. This
+natural barrier, with a mean altitude of two thousand feet, is destitute
+of a central axis, and consists, as the two Rogerses, who have most
+fully explored its ridges, showed, of a series of convex and concave
+flexures, "giving them the appearance of so many colossal
+entrenchments." With a broad artificial channel cut through its sunken
+defiles and picturesque gorges, there would at once be opened a gateway
+for the flow and reflow of the heavy commerce of the Western World.
+
+In 1781 the practical and philosophic eye of Thomas Jefferson perceived
+the national necessity for a great trans-Alleghany water-line, and early
+in the year 1786, though still tossed on the wave of the Revolution, and
+not yet recovered from the shock of British invasion, the State which
+gave birth to the author of the "Declaration of Independence" declared
+for the enterprise. With all the means and energy at its command it
+pushed forward the work from year to year, and directed it, as Mr.
+Jefferson had proposed, so as to connect the head-waters of the James
+River, flowing from the Alleghany summits to the ocean, with the
+mountain-river known as the Great Kanawha, which rises near the
+fountains of the upper James and descends into the broad bosom of the
+Ohio. Although this undertaking was prosecuted slowly at first, it was
+permanently recognized as one that must go on; in 1832 and 1835 it
+received new impulses; and in 1840 it had reached the piedmont
+districts. In 1847 a powerful impetus was given to the work, and it was
+thenceforth, till 1856, forced rapidly westward up the eastern slopes of
+the Alleghanies, as a complete and working structure, above a point
+three hundred miles from the Atlantic capes, and two hundred miles from
+Richmond, leaving an unfinished gap to the upper or navigable part of
+Kanawha River of a little over one hundred and fifty miles. This
+enormous work was more than half finished at an outlay of $10,436,869--a
+sum which, during the economic period of its expenditure, went as far as
+nearly twice that amount would go now.
+
+By recent legislation the State of Virginia proposes to turn over the
+entire property of the canal to the United States, on the sole condition
+of its being finished by the government and converted into a national
+water-highway for the good of the common country--in other words, upon
+the one condition of its _nationalization_.
+
+It is sometimes contended that the day of canals has passed, and
+henceforward the railway must take their place. But this notion is
+opposed to the present economic necessities of the world, as well as to
+the provisions of Nature, which evidently point to the utilization of
+the hydraulic systems of the globe. The lavish and prodigal use of the
+coal-deposit of the earth, and the deforesting of vast tracts of soil to
+supply fuel for the locomotive and the stationary engine, have already
+wrought incalculable and almost irremediable evils. The past year has
+seen the prices of all English coals go up at least eighty per cent.,
+and the coal-famine of Great Britain, foreseen some years ago, has
+already threatened to sap the vigor of her industrial systems and
+destroy her manufacturing supremacy, or, at any rate, place her at the
+mercy of the United States for the fuel with which to operate them. The
+denudation of the vast territories of the United States by the axe of
+emigration has already told in a marked degree upon the condition of its
+climate, and greatly affected its meteorology and rainfall; while the
+railroads, which have spread their Briarean arms over the whole country,
+by their immense consumption of wood for cross-ties, sills, fuel,
+snow-sheds, bridges, etc., have wellnigh stripped the land of its
+timber, leaving its bosom exposed to the biting blasts of winter and to
+the fiery blaze of the summer sun.
+
+The problem of more rapid canal navigation is speedily approaching
+solution, and to give up the water-lines of the larger sections would be
+fatal to their commercial development. "The Erie Canal," said a
+distinguished citizen of New York a short time ago, "now conveys
+one-fourth of the whole export of that vast interior region I have
+described (the Mississippi drainage), and as much of it during its six
+months of uninterrupted navigation as all of the trunk railways together
+during the same time." "Every canal-boat," he added, "which comes to
+Albany with an average cargo is more than the average of the New York
+Central Railroad trains. In the busy canal season more than one hundred
+and fifty such boats come daily to tide-water, and the New York Central
+Railroad traffic never reaches thirty trains a day." Such a canal
+traffic would make more than twenty miles of uninterrupted
+railroad-cars, which could not, by any possibility, be handled by the
+largest force of railroad employés with expedition or convenience. The
+_furore_ which the steam-engine has excited and so long maintained in
+the mechanical world is decidedly abating. Engineers are everywhere at
+work studying the practicability of employing new forces. The solar
+heat, the wind-power, the water-power of rivers, and even the tidal
+energy of the sea, have been and are now being harnessed to the
+machineries of Europe. These reservoirs of force are kept perennially
+full by the sun and the moon, to whose action they are due, and at a
+future period, when men have prodigally squandered their heritage of
+coal and wood wealth, they will be invoked by the mechanic and
+manufacturer to furnish their chief motive-power. As an economist of the
+force-_capital_ deposited by the sun's influence in the bowels of the
+earth during its carboniferous epoch, and as using, instead of it, the
+force-_interest_ received annually from the sun through the medium of
+rain and wind, the water-way will and must become one of the most
+generally employed engines of the higher civilizations yet to be.
+
+So long as the subject of trans-Alleghany water-communication was viewed
+as one merely affecting individual States, it possessed no national
+interest. But in its present aspect it is of vast moment, both national
+and international. While many overcrowded portions of the Old World are
+often confronted with both the spectre and the reality of gaunt famine,
+and their breadless thousands are looking wistfully to the fresh and
+prolific fields of the New, for relief, there are annually lost to the
+country and the world vast stores of corn, which the Western farmers
+cannot afford to send by railroad to the seaboard for foreign shipment,
+and freely use as a substitute for fuel. This fact is suggestive and
+significant. To understand its import we have only to look at the
+geographical position of the West and the Mississippi Valley, isolated
+in the heart of a continent.
+
+There are three outlets for the commerce of these sections seeking New
+York, the emporium of the New World, and the chief trans-Atlantic
+markets: 1. By the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and thence by
+transhipment to New York and Europe. 2. By the northern lakes to the St.
+Lawrence Valley, or by the former to the Erie Canal. 3. By the costly
+transportation of railroads over the Alleghanies or along the
+lake-shores eastward.
+
+[Illustration: THE CANAL BASIN AT LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA.]
+
+The first of these routes is of course the longest, both in time and
+distance. It takes the merchandise by an extensive détour, which, from
+the mouth of the Ohio River, _viâ_ the Gulf, to New York, exceeds three
+thousand miles. Although lying in the powerful current of the Gulf
+Stream, which is a propelling force speeding forward the vessel that
+trusts its warm, blue waters, this route is exposed to the most violent
+cyclonic storms, and navigators shun and evade it during the equinoctial
+or hurricane season. But, barring danger and distance, no country with
+such an outlet to the sea as the Mississippi River affords can be
+considered dependent upon any artificial communication. Notwithstanding
+the objections which exist to this long route (which is both expensive
+and long), its trade is rapidly increasing from the very exigencies of
+the case. The introduction of the barge-system on the great Western
+rivers has greatly facilitated and cheapened transportation. Steam-tugs,
+carrying neither passengers nor freight, are substituted for the
+steamboat. These tugs never stop except to coal and attach the barges,
+already loaded before their arrival at a city, and proceed with great
+despatch. Steaming steadily on, night and day, they make the trip from
+St. Louis to New Orleans almost as quickly as the oft-detained
+steamboat. The distance has been made between these cities by a tug,
+with ten heavily-freighted barges, in six days. The tugs plying on the
+Minnesota River carry with good speed barges containing thirty thousand
+bushels of wheat, and the freight of a single trip would fill more than
+eighty railroad-cars. This transportation is cheap, because the tugs
+require less than one-fourth the expense for running and management
+required by the steamboats. The carriage of grain from Minnesota to New
+Orleans by this method costs no more than the freightage from the same
+point to Chicago by rail. A boatload of wheat from St. Paul, taking the
+river route, is not once handled until it is put aboard ship at the
+Crescent City. The mighty energy of the North-west--"the Germany of
+America," as it has been well called by Dr. Draper--has long since
+discovered that the Mississippi is the best existing route to European
+markets. Grain can be shipped by way of St. Louis and New Orleans to New
+York and Europe twenty cents a bushel cheaper than it can be carried by
+the other existing routes. As long ago as 1868 the Illinois Central
+Railroad took hold of the West India and Southern trade through the
+river route, and offered such commercial inducements to Western
+importers that "Havana sends her products by this route to the
+North-west, instead of by New York."[A] As the North-west expands and
+multiplies in resources and population, it will be compelled to transact
+its foreign and seaboard commerce through the noble navigable waters of
+the Mississippi, unless it can obtain a short and cheap transportation
+to New York by some trans-Alleghany water-line. In the event of the
+North-western trade being diverted southward along the great natural
+artery of the continent, where no tolls, no tariffs and no transhipments
+are required, the loss will fall most heavily upon New York and the
+seaboard marts. The increasing stream of South American commerce, in the
+same event, must inevitably take the short, speedy and entirely
+inexpensive route to the North-west (through the broad and free highway
+of the "Father of Waters"), rather than encounter the delay, danger and
+expense of the Gulf-Stream route to New York, and thence by rail or the
+Lakes to its destination. The longer the present trade-status continues,
+and the mammoth corporations of the railroads force the transportation
+of the North-west, the West and the Mississippi Valley to take the river
+and Gulf route to the sea, the greater and more fixed becomes the
+diversion of this incalculable commerce from the great markets of the
+Middle and Eastern States. So far, therefore, from the far West being at
+the mercy of the East in this matter, the former has the advantage. The
+East, rather than allow the present tendency of the commercial current
+to set well in toward the Gulf, and wear a channel for itself, should
+strain every nerve to keep it steadily moving toward its own maritime
+cities. The great cities of the Atlantic seaboard can better afford to
+construct a water-line over the mountains at their own cost than to run
+the risk of the Mississippi River becoming the commercial avenue for its
+vast valley and drainage, and thus bearing the golden stream away from
+their harbors and streets.
+
+The Utopian idea that Norfolk may become the rival of the great seaports
+and centres of capital, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, is
+without the field of discussion. It is not more possible than that a
+magnetized knife-blade should exert a more powerful attraction than the
+largest lodestone or the mightiest electro-magnet.
+
+The Lake route from the Mississippi Valley to the East was made
+continuous and complete by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. The
+day of the old flat-boats had not then closed, and the application of
+steam to river navigation was still in its infancy. The growth of the
+West--which has always outstripped its internal improvements--like an
+immense river long dammed up, bursting the barriers that confined it,
+forced its way toward the sea. Although it was said at first that the
+canal would never pay, "the opening of this work," as the Superintendent
+of the Census says, "was an announcement of a new era in the internal
+grain-trade of the United States. To the pioneer, the agriculturist and
+the merchant the grand avenue developed a new world. From that period do
+we date the rise and progress of the North-west." This splendid
+structure is to-day the great artery of Eastern wealth; and but for the
+fact that for six months in the year, when the vast sea of Western
+commerce would seek an outlet through its banks to the East, it is
+locked by ice, it would be widened into a ship-canal. It lies in the
+very track of the great north-westerly winds, which descend with
+torrential rush and polar cold over the Lakes, and thence through
+Northern New York. Last year, as late as the third of March, when the
+vegetation of the Middle States was beginning to spring forth in vernal
+beauty, the whole of the lower Lake region and Western and Northern New
+York were swept by these Arctic tempests; and this is the climatic rule
+rather than an exceptional case. Even in the season of open water the
+Lakes are exposed to the most violent storms, and within their narrow
+shores hundreds of vessels are annually lost. The mariner overtaken by
+what would be a moderate gale in a broad sea is in imminent peril for
+want of sea-room; and in a snow-storm, however light--whose winds
+elsewhere he would court to fill his sails and propel his craft--his
+course is beset with danger and difficulty. For more than half the year
+navigation is suspended by the thickening terrors of the tempest and the
+accumulated obstacles of ice.[B] And yet, with all the obstacles which
+impair the utility of the Lake route while it is in operation, the
+volume of Western produce prefers it, or rather is forced by the
+necessities of the case to employ it. And these necessities will
+continue to increase. With the aid of all the railroads now or to be
+constructed, the rapid expansion of Western commerce has distanced the
+facilities of transport. The iron horse, as has been well said, has
+always stimulated industry and production beyond his power to carry it.
+It was the forcible remark of the English traveler Sir Morton Peto that
+the American railroads from West to East were "choked with traffic." So
+great is the inadequacy of all existing outlets for conveying the more
+than Amazonian streams of trans-Alleghany merchandise that it has long
+since become the interest of every great corporation, as well as of
+every citizen of the country, to open for them new and national
+highways.
+
+From this digression, embracing facts and views which seemed essential
+to an intelligent discussion of the main subject, we pass on to examine
+the Appalachian outlet by which the great Western empire of America may
+find its way to the sea. The bird's-eye view here presented will show
+the Appalachian mountain-chain, and the waters which thread their way
+along its gentle slopes eastward to the Atlantic basin and westward to
+the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. The Alleghanies bear a striking
+geographic resemblance to the Highlands of Scotland, so famed in song
+and story. Like the central Grampian Hills--those majestic buttresses in
+whose recesses the old Caledonians found secure and impregnable asylums
+from the Roman legions--except that they are richer in verdure and less
+lofty, they form the grand natural rampart of the American Union. To use
+the words of Lavallée, the French military historian and statistician,
+"Mountains play the principal part in military operations: true ramparts
+of states, they interrupt the development of strategic movements, and
+render the greatest efforts necessary for their passage and possession.
+They are the poetical part of the theatre of the art of war." If the day
+ever comes, as come it may, when the kingly powers of the world combine
+to crush the republican institutions of the United States, and swarm the
+harbors and bays of our Atlantic seaboard with their allied navies, the
+defiles of the Alleghanies will prove the Thermopylæs of the Union; and
+against their eastern base the surging wave of invasion must be stayed,
+if stayed at all. Like the Scottish peaks,
+
+    The grisly champions that guard
+    The infant rills of Highland Dee,
+
+or the Spanish wall of the Pyrenean chain, on whose Sierras, in 1808,
+Wellington's blazing lines of Torres Vedras arrested Massena's march,
+the mountains that look out on our Atlantic sea-front must ever be of
+the highest military importance.
+
+To throw across their central ridges a great aqueduct is no mean
+undertaking of merely local significance, but may take rank with the old
+Roman aqueducts, with the magnificent roads constructed by Napoleon over
+the Alps, and with the more modern and now triumphant tunnels through
+Mont Cenis and the Hoosac Mountains, and the rapidly-progressing railway
+over the Andes from Callao to the Amazon Valley.
+
+The broad and national features of the proposed trans-Alleghany
+water-way have so strongly commended themselves to President Grant that
+in his last message he recommends preliminary Congressional action, and
+in a more recent address to a number of distinguished visitors at the
+Executive Mansion he used much stronger and bolder language in assuring
+them that "he hoped Congress would give such encouragement to the
+measure as to secure the completion of the canal." He has in these words
+only repeated the sentiments of his illustrious predecessors, George
+Washington and Thomas Jefferson, in behalf of the value of the work. We
+have already alluded to Mr. Jefferson's early advocacy of a water-line
+by the James and Kanawha Rivers. The first idea of this enterprise seems
+to have been suggested to Washington as early as the year 1753, after
+his celebrated trip from Jamestown to Fort Duquesne as an envoy of
+Governor Dinwiddie. At the close of the Revolutionary war he made an
+arduous and personal exploration of the country for many hundred miles.
+He kept a journal in which were minutely recorded his conversations with
+all intelligent persons he met respecting the facilities for internal
+navigation afforded by the rivers rising in the Alleghany Mountains and
+flowing either east or west. Returning to Mount Vernon October 4, 1784,
+he wrote, as the result of his observations, to the then governor of
+Virginia, the father of William Henry Harrison: "I shall take the
+liberty now, my dear sir, to suggest a matter which would (if I am not
+too short-sighted a politician) mark your administration as an important
+era in the annals of this country. It has been my decided opinion that
+the _shortest_, _easiest_ and _least expensive_ communication with the
+invaluable and extensive country back of us would be by one or both of
+the rivers of this State which have their sources in the Appalachian
+Mountains." General Washington, on the 26th of August, 1785, became the
+first president of the company authorized by the legislation which he
+had suggested previously to Governor Harrison. It is well known that the
+same views entertained by Washington and Jefferson were held and
+advocated by Mr. Madison, long before the most prescient statesman could
+descry the faintest image of that colossal empire of population, wealth
+and rapid development now lying west of the Alleghanies.
+
+For the great future water-ways which are needed for the Western, the
+North-western and the Mississippi Valley trade there are several routes
+that have been demonstrated to be practicable. One of these is by a
+projected canal to connect the Coosa River with the Alabama River, and
+thence following that stream to the Gulf of Mexico. This, if ever
+carried out, as eventually it is probable will be the case, would avoid
+the bars and dangers of the navigation of the lower Mississippi, and in
+a measure obviate the necessity of the proposed sub-canals in Louisiana
+and other engineering expedients to remove or turn the very serious
+river-obstacles to an outlet south of New Orleans. Another proposal is
+to connect the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, and to run a canal from the
+latter to the Ocmulgee or Savannah River, and thence by the use of slack
+water to reach the harbors of Savannah and Charleston. This scheme has
+been clearly proved to be feasible, although the distance seems
+objectionable. The third (or central) water-line proposed is that so
+long agitated since the beginning of the present century, so often
+surveyed and re-surveyed by the most eminent engineers, and not long
+since by the United States Engineer Corps under the direction of General
+A. A. Humphreys, the chief engineer of the United States army. It is the
+shortest and most direct line, and has the advantage that it is, as we
+have seen, already nearly half completed, from the head of tide-water on
+the James River, above Lexington, to Buchanan, near the summit-level of
+the mountains. The engineers who have reported upon it--among whom are
+the late Colonel E. Lorraine, Benjamin H. Latrobe, Esq., and other
+eminent engineers--estimate that the largest sum required for its
+completion to the Kanawha River is $37,364,000, and the length of time
+required four years. "Of this large sum, however," they say, "it can be
+clearly shown that there will be no need of any other advance by
+government than the interest which will accumulate while the work is in
+progress, which, by issuing the bonds every six months, as required,
+will not reach the sum of _six million dollars. And this is every cent
+that will ever be required to be advanced_. Should the government
+undertake to make the work a fine one, it will of course cost the whole
+amount estimated, but this would be more than made up by its increased
+benefits to the whole country.
+
+"The work when completed, even at a low rate of tolls--not over about
+half the rate charged on the Erie Canal--will return the advance, pay
+the interest and redeem the principal in less than twenty years.
+
+[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-LINE.]
+
+"In considering this question we are not left to mere conjecture. The
+wonderful history of the Erie Canal, and a comparison of the
+circumstances connected with the operations of that great work with
+those under which this enterprise will be inaugurated and accompanied,
+furnish sufficient data for reliable conclusions."
+
+When we consider that the Erie Canal, though frozen up and useless for
+half the year, has not only long since paid for its construction out of
+its tolls, but makes a present of itself to the State, with _about
+thirty millions of dollars_ of net profit, and that it does more than
+five times the business of the great New York Central Railroad,
+transporting annually over five million tons of cargo (which exceeds the
+total foreign commerce of New York City), and yet is "choked" and gorged
+with freight, the close figuring of the engineers does not appear to be
+questionable.
+
+The immense saving in the cost of water-carriage as compared with that
+of railway-transportation is hardly conceived by the public mind. Many
+of the railroads carry produce at very low and reasonable rates, but
+they cannot afford to take it at much if any less than _three times the
+amount_ charged by the canals. It appears from the report of the New
+York State Engineer for 1868 that the average receipts per ton per mile
+on the New York Central Railroad and the Erie Railway was 2.92 cents and
+2.42 cents respectively; while on the New York State canals it was 1
+cent only, tolls included. But a trans-Alleghany canal would, after
+getting fully into operation, be able to transport produce more cheaply
+than the New York canals, which are frozen over about five months of the
+year, and during the very period when the great tide of Western
+freightage and the ingathered crops is pressing most heavily for an
+outlet to the East.[C] There are many products of the West and the
+Mississippi Valley that will not bear the cost of transportation to the
+Eastern cities, either by rail, Gulf or Lake route, because they would
+consume _in transitu_ for freight between sixty and seventy per cent. of
+their market value in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
+
+These views have been ably and earnestly pressed time and again upon
+Congress by Eastern and Western statesmen, merchants and citizens of all
+classes, by the press of all parties, and by the boards of trade and
+commercial conventions. The surveys cover every foot of the proposed
+James River Canal extension to the Ohio Valley, which, by general
+consent, seems to be regarded as the most eligible because it is the
+most direct central route, and because the State of Virginia has most
+munificently offered to remand the half-completed work to the general
+government on the sole condition of its _nationalization_.
+
+If, as history has always testified, it be true that
+
+              Mountains interposed
+    Make enemies of nations, which had else,
+    Like kindred drops, been mingled into one,
+
+it would be difficult, as it is unnecessary, even to attempt to form an
+adequate estimate of this great trans-Alleghany highway as a benign and
+powerful agent in the political reconstruction and moral unification of
+the American States.
+
+After leaving Buchanan, the proposed route for the extension of the
+James River and Kanawha Canal runs westward to the mouth of Fork Run, a
+small mountain-river, and ascends that stream to the summit-level,
+seventeen hundred feet above tide-water. It then pierces the main range
+of the Alleghanies, passing under Tuckahoe and Katis Mountains by a
+tunnel nearly eight miles long, and emerges into the valley of the
+Greenbrier River on the western mountain-slope. Its water-line pursues
+its course by slack-water navigation down the Greenbrier to New River,
+and down New River to Lyken's Shoals on the Kanawha, eighty-five miles
+above its mouth. The last distance of eighty-five miles will be
+traversed by open navigation, as the Kanawha Valley permits it. Major W.
+B. Craighill of the Engineer Corps, in his able report to General A. A.
+Humphreys on this central water-line, says: "The recent completion of
+the Mont Cenis Tunnel in Europe, and the rapid progress made with the
+Hoosac Tunnel in this country, with the experience gained in these
+works, and the improved facilities daily coming into use for carrying on
+such operations, induce us to approach such an undertaking as the
+Lorraine tunnel not only without apprehension of failure, but with a
+feeling of assured certainty of success. It is no longer an
+extraordinary, but an ordinary, undertaking."
+
+The practical capacity of the water-line when completed will be of
+almost unlimited extent, while the canal proper with its locks will have
+a capacity of from fifteen to twenty millions of tons annually. In the
+fall and early winter, after the harvests are over, and during the very
+season that the highway is most needed, and when the northern routes are
+blocked by ice, this trans-Alleghany water-way will be open.
+
+The local trade in its path would alone justify its construction. It
+will penetrate the finest mineral lands of Virginia and West Virginia,
+which have been so long locked up from the world. The great Kanawha
+coal-fields and iron- and salt-mines are unsurpassed by any now known in
+any part of the globe. In the large demand from England and Europe for
+coal, which is finding expression in the large orders sent to
+Philadelphia and Baltimore for Pennsylvania and Maryland coal,[D] there
+is the best possible evidence that the local trade of the national canal
+would be enormous. So highly thought of is the Kanawha cannel coal that
+it is now shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans,
+and sent thence by sea to New York, where it brings per ton about three
+times the price of anthracite in that market. It is equal to the best
+English and Nova Scotia cannel, while the Kanawha bituminous and splint
+coals are unsurpassed by any others. The veins lie horizontally, and
+vary from three to fifteen feet in thickness, the aggregate thickness of
+the various strata amounting in some localities to forty or fifty feet
+of the solid carbon.
+
+But, great as are the local interests and the trade of the water-line,
+they are entirely lost sight of in the national aspect of the question.
+
+The population now demanding a direct and central highway for its great
+inland commerce, according to the best estimates (those of Poor), cannot
+fall short of fifteen millions, and most probably exceeds that number.
+It is now conclusively established that the centre of gravity of our
+national population has crossed the Appalachian chain. Professor Hilgard
+of the Coast Survey prepared a year ago, at the request of the Hon. J.
+A. Garfield of Ohio, a series of calculations to ascertain this centre
+of gravity by the four last censuses. Supposing a plane of the exact
+shape and size of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, loaded with
+the actual population, he determined the points on which it would
+balance. In the recently-published words[E] of Mr. Garfield we give the
+following results of Professor Hilgard's calculations: By this process
+he found that in 1840 the centre of gravity of the population was at a
+point in Virginia near the eastern foot of the Appalachian chain, and
+near the parallel of 39° N. latitude. In 1850 this centre had moved
+westward fifty-seven miles across the mountains, to a point nearly south
+of Parkersburg, Virginia. In 1860 it had moved westward eighty-two
+miles, to a point nearly south of Chillicothe, Ohio. In 1870 it had
+reached a point near Wilmington, Clinton county, Ohio, about forty-five
+miles north-east of Cincinnati. In no case had it widely departed from
+the thirty-ninth parallel. If the same rate be maintained during the
+next three decades, which I doubt, it will fall in the neighborhood of
+Bloomington, Indiana, by 1900. Professor Hilgard also found that a line
+drawn from Lake Erie, at the north-eastern corner of Ohio, to Pensacola
+in Florida, would divide the population of the United States, as it
+stood in 1870, into two equal parts. This line is nearly parallel to the
+line of the Atlantic coast. From these calculations it will appear that
+both the "centre of gravity" and the line that divides the population in
+half are more than one hundred and fifty miles west of the Appalachian
+chain.
+
+If these computations be correct, Poor's figures are too low by two or
+three millions at least. But, apart from the demand for an
+inter-continental canal by the population on the west of the Appalachian
+chain, the seaboard States and cities east of the Appalachians are, as
+we have already shown, as profoundly interested in such a national cheap
+thoroughfare as is the former section. Careful estimates have shown that
+the surplus produce[F] of the trans-Alleghany sections and the
+Mississippi Valley cannot be less than twenty-five million tons; and
+this would immediately seek an outlet through the Virginia water-line
+to the sea. The saving that would result to the West and to the whole
+country would be enormous; and at a very moderate calculation the amount
+would be an average of two dollars per ton on the river route, _viâ_ New
+Orleans, and ten dollars per ton over the railroad routes. The
+completion of a comparatively short canal of eighty miles, to cover the
+gap from Buchanan to the upper Kanawha, would without the shadow of
+exaggeration save the West forty millions of dollars a year; and the
+central water-line would yield an interest of ten to fifteen per cent.
+on the capital invested, while opening a continuous water-road from
+Liverpool to Omaha, running nearly due west, fifty-nine hundred miles in
+length! By reducing the freights on the other present thoroughfares
+through the influence of wholesome competition, it would perhaps at once
+lessen the cost of inland transportation by nearly one hundred millions
+of dollars annually!
+
+These considerations, and the added fact that for many years the
+chambers of commerce of the great Western cities, the many commercial
+conventions that have met, and the legislatures of the States bordering
+on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, have earnestly and unanimously
+memorialized Congress in behalf of the completion of this great
+inter-continental highway, fully establish the _national_ character of
+the measure now pending in the national councils.
+
+                        THOMPSON B. MAURY.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] New York _Times_.
+
+[B] From the 3d to the 6th of March, last year, the thermometer at
+Rochester was several degrees _below zero_; at Troy, New York, on the
+5th it stood at -14° (_below zero_); at Ogdensburg, New York, at -32°
+(_below zero_); at Watertown, New York, -34° (_below zero_)! These
+intense colds recur as late as April.
+
+[C] The average of twenty years shows that the James River and Kanawha
+Canal was closed annually by ice only fifteen days; the longest period
+in any one year was fifty-six days.
+
+[D] A single English order for Cumberland coal, to be shipped by a
+Baltimore dealer last December, was for three hundred thousand tons.
+
+[E] New York _Nation_, December 19, 1872.
+
+[F] Last year's grain-yield in the Mississippi Valley was one billion
+and thirty-six millions of bushels. In many parts of the West, for want
+of transportation, corn is now sold for as little as eighteen and twenty
+cents per bushel, and the husks are worth, for fuel, nearly as much as
+the grain. One of the great newspapers of the West, the Chicago
+_Inter-Ocean_ (January 8th) in discussing editorially "The Reason
+Farming does not Pay" in that country, forcibly says: "A charge of
+thirty cents per bushel for the carriage of corn, when the freight
+should be only fifteen cents, absorbs _one-half the value of the crop_;
+and this process, repeated from year to year during the whole period of
+a decade, exhausts what would otherwise become the surplus of the
+farmer, and finally impoverishes the entire agricultural community."
+
+
+
+
+A PRINCESS OF THULE.
+
+BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+"LOCHABER NO MORE."
+
+On a small headland of the distant island of Lewis an old man stood
+looking out on a desolate waste of rain-beaten sea. It was a wild and a
+wet day. From out of the louring south-west fierce gusts of wind were
+driving up volumes and flying rags of clouds, and sweeping onward at the
+same time the gathering waves that fell hissing and thundering on the
+shore. Far as the eye could reach the sea and the air and the sky seemed
+to be one indistinguishable mass of whirling and hurrying vapor, as if
+beyond this point there were no more land, but only wind and water, and
+the confused and awful voices of their strife.
+
+The short, thick-set, powerfully-built man who stood on this solitary
+point paid little attention to the rain that ran off the peak of his
+sailor's cap or to the gusts of wind that blew about his bushy gray
+beard. He was still following, with an eye accustomed to pick out
+objects far at sea, one speck of purple that was now fading into the
+gray mist of the rain; and the longer he looked the less it became,
+until the mingled sea and sky showed only the smoke that the great
+steamer left in its wake. As he stood there, motionless and regardless
+of everything around him, did he cling to the fancy that he could still
+trace out the path of the vanished ship? A little while before it had
+passed almost close to him. He had watched it steam out of Stornoway
+harbor. As the sound of the engines came nearer and the big boat went
+by, so that he could have almost called to it, there was no sign of
+emotion on the hard and stern face, except, perhaps, that the lips were
+held firm and a sort of frown appeared over the eyes. He saw a tiny
+white handkerchief being waved to him from the deck of the vessel; and
+he said, almost as though he were addressing some one there, "My good
+little girl!"
+
+But in the midst of that roaring of the sea and the wind how could any
+such message be delivered? And already the steamer was away from the
+land, standing out to the lonely plain of waters, and the sound of the
+engines had ceased, and the figures on the deck had grown faint and
+visionary. But still there was that one speck of white visible; and the
+man knew that a pair of eyes that had many a time looked into his
+own--as if with a faith that such intercommunion could never be
+broken--were now trying, through overflowing and blinding tears, to send
+him a last look of farewell.
+
+The gray mists of the rain gathered within their folds the big vessel
+and all the beating hearts it contained, and the fluttering of that
+little token disappeared with it. All that remained was the sea,
+whitened by the rushing of the wind and the thunder of waves on the
+beach. The man, who had been gazing so long down into the south-east,
+turned his face landward, and set out to walk over a tract of wet grass
+and sand toward a road that ran near by. There was a large wagonette of
+varnished oak and a pair of small, powerful horses waiting for him
+there; and having dismissed the boy who had been in charge, he took the
+reins and got up. But even yet the fascination of the sea and of that
+sad farewell was upon him, and he turned once more, as if, now that
+sight could yield him no further tidings, he would send her one more
+word of good-bye. "My poor little Sheila!" That was all he said; and
+then he turned to the horses and sent them on, with his head down to
+escape the rain, and a look on his face like that of a dead man.
+
+As he drove through the town of Stornoway the children playing within
+the shelter of the cottage doors called to each other in a whisper, and
+said, "That is the King of Borva."
+
+But the elderly people said to each other, with a shake of the head, "It
+iss a bad day, this day, for Mr. Mackenzie, that he will be going home
+to an empty house. And it will be a ferry bad thing for the poor folk of
+Borva, and they will know a great difference, now that Miss Sheila iss
+gone away, and there iss nobody--not anybody at all--left in the island
+to tek the side o' the poor folk."
+
+He looked neither to the right nor to the left, though he was known to
+many of the people, as he drove away from the town into the heart of the
+lonely and desolate land. The wind had so far died down, and the rain
+had considerably lessened, but the gloom of the sky was deepened by the
+drawing on of the afternoon, and lay heavily over the deary wastes of
+moor and hill. What a wild and dismal country was this which lay before
+and all around him, now that the last traces of human occupation were
+passed! There was not a cottage, not a stone wall, not a fence, to break
+the monotony of the long undulations of moorland, which in the distance
+rose into a series of hills that were black under the darkened sky. Down
+from those mountains, ages ago, glaciers had slowly crept to eat out
+hollows in the plains below; and now in those hollows were lonely lakes,
+with not a tree to break the line of their melancholy shores. Everywhere
+around were the traces of the glacier-drift--great gray boulders of
+gneiss fixed fast into the black peat-moss or set amid the browns and
+greens of the heather. The only sound to be heard in this wilderness of
+rock and morass was the rushing of various streams, rain-swollen and
+turbid, that plunged down their narrow channels to the sea.
+
+The rain now ceased altogether, but the mountains in the far south had
+grown still darker, and to the fisherman passing by the coast it must
+have seemed as though the black peaks were holding converse with the
+louring clouds, and that the silent moorland beneath was waiting for the
+first roll of the thunder. The man who was driving along this lonely
+route sometimes cast a glance down toward this threatening of a storm,
+but he paid little heed to it. The reins lay loose on the backs of the
+horses, and at their own pace they followed, hour after hour, the rising
+and falling road that led through the moorland and past the gloomy
+lakes. He may have recalled mechanically the names of those stretches of
+water--the Lake of the Sheiling, the Lake of the Oars, the Lake of the
+Fine Sand, and so forth--to measure the distance he had traversed; but
+he seemed to pay little attention to the objects around him, and it was
+with a glance of something like surprise that he suddenly found himself
+overlooking that great sea-loch on the western side of the island in
+which was his home.
+
+He drove down the hill to the solitary little inn of Garra-na-hina. At
+the door, muffled up in a warm woolen plaid, stood a young girl,
+fair-haired, blue-eyed, and diffident in look.
+
+"Mr. Mackenzie," she said, with that peculiar and pleasant intonation
+that marks the speech of the Hebridean who has been taught English in
+the schools, "it wass Miss Sheila wrote to me to Suainabost, and she
+said I might come down from Suainabost and see if I can be of any help
+to you in the house."
+
+The girl was crying, although the blue eyes looked bravely through the
+tears as if to disprove the fact.
+
+"Ay, my good lass," he said, putting his hand gently on her head, "and
+it wass Sheila wrote to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and I hef come down from Suainabost."
+
+"It is a lonely house you will be going to," he said absently.
+
+"But Miss Sheila said I wass--I wass to--" But here the young girl
+failed in her effort to explain that Miss Sheila had asked her to go
+down to make the house less lonely. The elderly man in the wagonette
+seemed scarcely to notice that she was crying: he bade her come up
+beside him; and when he had got her into the wagonette he left some
+message with the innkeeper, who had come to the door, and drove off
+again.
+
+They drove along the high land that overlooks a portion of Loch Roag,
+with its wonderful network of islands and straits, and then they stopped
+on the lofty plateau of Callernish, where there was a man waiting to
+take the wagonette and horses.
+
+"And you would be seeing Miss Sheila away, sir?" said the man; "and it
+wass Duncan Macdonald will say that she will not come back no more to
+Borva."
+
+The old man with the big gray beard only frowned and passed on. He and
+the girl made their way down the side of the rocky hill to the shore,
+and here there was an open boat awaiting them. When they approached, a
+man considerably over six feet in height, keen-faced, gray-eyed,
+straight-limbed and sinewy in frame, jumped into the big and rough boat
+and began to get ready for their departure. There was just enough wind
+to catch the brown mainsail, and the King of Borva took the tiller, his
+henchman sitting down by the mast. And no sooner had they left the shore
+and stood out toward one of the channels of this arm of the sea, than
+the tall, spare keeper began to talk of that which made his master's eye
+grow dark. "Ah, well," he said, in the plaintive drawling of his race,
+"and it iss an empty house you will be going to, Mr. Mackenzie; and it
+iss a bad thing for us all that Miss Sheila hass gone away; and it iss
+many's ta time she will hef been wis me in this very boat--"
+
+"---- ---- ---- ---- you, Duncan Macdonald!" cried Mackenzie, in an
+access of fury, "what will you talk of like that? It iss every man,
+woman and child on the island will talk of nothing but Sheila! I will
+drive my foot through the bottom of the boat if you do not hold your
+peace!"
+
+The tall gillie patiently waited until his master had exhausted his
+passion, and then he said, as if nothing had occurred, "And it will not
+do much good, Mr. Mackenzie, to tek ta name o' God in vain; and there
+will be ferry much more of that now since Miss Sheila iss gone away, and
+there will be much more of trinking in ta island, and it will be a great
+difference, mirover. And she will be so far away that no one will see
+her no more--far away beyond ta Sound of Sleat, and far away beyond
+Oban, as I hef heard people say. And what will she do in London, when
+she has no boat at all, and she will never go out to ta fishing? And I
+will hear people say that you will walk a whole day and never come to ta
+sea, and what will Miss Sheila do for that? And she will tame no more o'
+ta wild-ducks' young things, and she will find out no more o' ta nests
+in the rocks, and she will hef no more horns when the deer is killed,
+and she will go out no more to see ta cattle swim across Loch Roag when
+they go to ta sheilings. It will be all different, all different, now;
+and she will never see us no more. And it iss as bad as if you wass a
+poor man, Mr. Mackenzie, and had to let your sons and your daughters go
+away to America, and never come back no more. And she ta only one in
+your house! And it wass the son o' Mr. Macintyre of Sutherland he would
+hef married her, and come to live on ta island, and not hef Miss Sheila
+go away among strangers that doesna ken her family, and will put no
+store by her, no more than if she wass a fisherman's lass. It wass Miss
+Sheila herself had a sore heart tis morning when she went away; and she
+turned and she looked at Borva as the boat came away, and I said, Tis
+iss the last time Miss Sheila will be in her boat, and she will not come
+no more again to Borva."
+
+Mr. Mackenzie heard not one word or syllable of all this. The dead,
+passionless look had fallen over the powerful features, and the deep-set
+eyes were gazing, not on the actual Loch Roag before them, but on the
+stormy sea that lies between Lewis and Skye, and on a vessel
+disappearing in the midst of the rain. It was by a sort of instinct that
+he guided this open boat through the channels, which were now getting
+broader as they neared the sea, and the tall and grave-faced keeper
+might have kept up his garrulous talk for hours without attracting a
+look or a word.
+
+It was now the dusk of the evening, and wild and strange indeed was the
+scene around the solitary boat as it slowly moved along. Large
+islands--so large that any one of them might have been mistaken for the
+mainland--lay over the dark waters of the sea, remote, untenanted and
+silent. There were no white cottages along these rocky shores; only a
+succession of rugged cliffs and sandy bays, but half mirrored in the
+sombre water below. Down in the south the mighty shoulders and peaks of
+Suainabhal and its sister mountains were still darker than the darkening
+sky; and when at length the boat had got well out from the network of
+islands and fronted the broad waters of the Atlantic, the great plain of
+the western sea seemed already to have drawn around it the solemn mantle
+of the night.
+
+"Will you go to Borvabost, Mr. Mackenzie, or will we run her into your
+own house?" asked Duncan--Borvabost being the name of the chief village
+on the island.
+
+"I will not go on to Borvabost," said the old man peevishly. "Will they
+not have plenty to talk about at Borvabost?"
+
+"And it iss no harm tat ta folk will speak of Miss Sheila," said the
+gillie with some show of resentment: "it iss no harm tey will be sorry
+she is gone away--no harm at all, for it wass many things tey had to
+thank Miss Sheila for; and now it will be all ferry different--"
+
+"I tell you, Duncan Macdonald, to hold your peace!" said the old man,
+with a savage glare of the deep-set eyes; and then Duncan relapsed into
+a sulky silence and the boat held on its way.
+
+In the gathering twilight a long gray curve of sand became visible, and
+into the bay thus indicated Mackenzie turned his small craft. This
+indentation of the island seemed as blank of human occupation as the
+various points and bays they had passed, but as they neared the shore a
+house came into sight, about half-way up the slope rising from the sea
+to the pasture-land above. There was a small stone pier jutting out at
+one portion of the bay, where a mass of rocks was imbedded in the white
+sand; and here at length the boat was run in, and Mackenzie helped the
+young girl ashore.
+
+The two of them, leaving the gillie to moor the little vessel that had
+brought them from Callernish, went silently toward the shore, and up the
+narrow road leading to the house. It was a square, two-storied
+substantial building of stone, but the stone had been liberally oiled to
+keep out the wet, and the blackness thus produced had not a very
+cheerful look. Then, on this particular evening the scant bushes
+surrounding the house hung limp and dark in the rain, and amid the
+prevailing hues of purple, blue-green and blue the bit of scarlet coping
+running round the black house was wholly ineffective in relieving the
+general impression of dreariness and desolation.
+
+The King of Borva walked into a large room, which was but partially lit
+by two candles on the table and by the blaze of a mass of peats in the
+stone fireplace, and threw himself into a big easy-chair. Then he
+suddenly seemed to recollect his companion, who was timidly standing
+near the door, with her shawl still round her head.
+
+"Mairi," he said, "go and ask them to give you some dry clothes. Your
+box it will not be here for half an hour yet." Then he turned to the
+fire.
+
+"But you yourself, Mr. Mackenzie, you will be ferry wet--"
+
+"Never mind me, my lass: go and get yourself dried."
+
+"But it wass Miss Sheila," began the girl diffidently--"it wass Miss
+Sheila asked me--she asked me to look after you, sir--"
+
+With that he rose abruptly, and advanced to her and caught her by the
+wrist. He spoke quite quietly to her, but the girl's eyes, looking up at
+the stern face, were a trifle frightened.
+
+"You are a ferry good little girl, Mairi," he said slowly, "and you will
+mind what I say to you. You will do what you like in the house, you will
+take Sheila's place as much as you like, but you will mind this--not to
+mention her name, not once. Now go away, Mairi, and find Scarlett
+Macdonald, and she will give you some dry clothes; and you will tell her
+to send Duncan down to Borvabost, and bring up John the Piper and
+Alister-nan-Each, and the lads of the _Nighean dubh_, if they are not
+gone home to Habost yet. But it iss John the Piper must come directly."
+
+The girl went away to seek counsel of Scarlett Macdonald, Duncan's wife,
+and Mr. Mackenzie proceeded to walk up and down the big and half-lit
+chamber. Then he went to a cupboard, and put out on the table a number
+of tumblers and glasses, with two or three odd-looking bottles of
+Norwegian make, consisting of four semicircular tubes of glass meeting
+at top and bottom, leaving the centre of the vessel thus formed open. He
+stirred up the blazing peats in the fireplace. He brought down from a
+shelf a box filled with coarse tobacco, and put it on the table. But he
+was evidently growing impatient, and at last he put on his cap again and
+went out into the night.
+
+The air blew cold in from the sea, and whistled through the bushes that
+Sheila had trained about the porch. There was no rain now, but a great
+and heavy darkness brooded overhead, and in the silence he could hear
+the breaking of the waves along the hard coast. But what was this other
+sound he heard, wild and strange in the stillness of the night--a shrill
+and plaintive cry that the distance softened until it almost seemed to
+be the calling of a human voice? Surely those were words that he heard,
+or was it only that the old, sad air spoke to him?--
+
+    For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,
+    Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.
+
+That was the message that came to him out of the darkness, and it seemed
+to him as if the sea and the night and the sky were wailing over the
+loss of his Sheila. He walked away from the house and up the hill
+behind. Led by the sound of the pipes, that grew louder and more
+unearthly as he approached, he found himself at length on a bit of high
+table-land overlooking the sea, where Sheila had had a rude bench of
+iron and wood fixed into the rock. On this bench sat a little old man,
+humpbacked and bent, and with long white hair falling down to his
+shoulders. He was playing the pipes--not wildly and fiercely, as if he
+were at a drinking-bout of the lads come home from the Caithness
+fishing, nor yet gayly and proudly, as if he were marching at the head
+of a bridal-procession, but slowly, mournfully, monotonously, as though
+he were having the pipes talk to him.
+
+Mackenzie touched him on the shoulder, and the old man started. "Is it
+you, Mr. Mackenzie?" he said in Gaelic. "It is a great fright you have
+given me."
+
+"Come down to the house, John. The lads from Habost and Alister, and
+some more will be coming; and you will get a ferry good dram, John, to
+put wind in the pipes."
+
+"It is no dram I am thinking of, Mr. Mackenzie," said the old man. "And
+you will have plenty of company without me. But I will come down to the
+house, Mr. Mackenzie--oh yes, I will come down to the house--but _in a
+little while_ I will come to the house."
+
+Mackenzie turned from him with a petulant exclamation, and went along
+and down the hill rapidly, as he could hear voices in the darkness. He
+had just got into the house when his visitors arrived. The door of the
+room was opened, and there appeared some six or eight tall and stalwart
+men, mostly with profuse brown beards and weatherbeaten faces, who
+advanced into the chamber with some show of shyness. Mackenzie offered
+them a rough and hearty welcome, and as soon as their eyes had got
+accustomed to the light bade them help themselves to the whisky on the
+table. With a certain solemnity each poured out a glass and drank
+"_Shlainte!_" to his host as if it were some funeral rite. But when he
+bade them replenish their glasses, and got them seated with their faces
+to the blaze of the peats, then the flood of Gaelic broke loose. Had the
+wise little girl from Suainabost warned these big men? There was not a
+word about Sheila uttered. All their talk was of the reports that had
+come from Caithness, and of the improvements of the small harbor near
+the Butt, and of the black sea-horse that had been seen in Loch
+Suainabhal, and of some more sheep having been found dead on the Pladda
+Isles, shot by the men of the English smacks. Pipes were lit, the peats
+stirred up anew, another glass or two of whisky drunk, and then, through
+the haze of the smoke, the browned faces of the men could be seen in
+eager controversy, each talking faster than the other, and comparing
+facts and fancies that had been brooded over through solitary nights of
+waiting on the sea. Mackenzie did not sit down with them: he did not
+even join them in their attention to the curious whisky-flasks. He paced
+up and down the opposite side of the room, occasionally being appealed
+to with a story or a question, and showing by his answers that he was
+but vaguely hearing the vociferous talk of his companions. At last he
+said, "Why the teffle does not John the Piper come? Here, you men--you
+sing a song, quick! None of your funeral songs, but a good brisk one of
+trinking and fighting."
+
+But were not nearly all their songs--like those of all dwellers on a
+rocky and dangerous coast--of a sad and sombre hue, telling of maidens
+whose lovers were drowned, and of wives bidding farewell to husbands
+they were never to see again? Slow and mournful are the songs that the
+northern fishermen sing as they set out in the evening, with the
+creaking of their long oars keeping time to the music, until they get
+out beyond the shore to hoist the red mainsail and catch the breeze
+blowing over from the regions of the sunset. Not one of these Habost
+fishermen could sing a brisk song, but the nearest approach to it was a
+ballad in praise of a dark-haired girl, which they, owning the _Nighean
+dubh_, were bound to know. And so one young fellow began to sing, "Mo
+Nighean dubh d'fhas boidheach dubh, mo Nighean dubh na treig mi,"[G] in
+a slow and doleful fashion, and the others joined in the chorus with a
+like solemnity. In order to keep time, four of the men followed the
+common custom of taking a pocket handkerchief (in this case an immense
+piece of brilliant red silk, which was evidently the pride of its owner)
+and holding it by the four corners, letting it slowly rise and fall as
+they sang. The other three men laid hold of a bit of rope, which they
+used for the same purpose. "Mo Nighean dubh," unlike most of the Gaelic
+songs, has but a few verses; and as soon as they were finished the young
+fellow, who seemed pleased with his performances, started another
+ballad. Perhaps he had forgotten his host's injunction, perhaps he knew
+no merrier song, but at any rate he began to sing the "Lament of
+Monaltrie." It was one of Sheila's songs. She had sung it the night
+before in this very room, and her father had listened to her describing
+the fate of young Monaltrie as if she had been foretelling her own, and
+scarcely dared to ask himself if ever again he should hear the voice
+that he loved so well. He could not listen to the song. He abruptly left
+the room, and went out once more into the cool night-air and the
+darkness. But even here he was not allowed to forget the sorrow he had
+been vainly endeavoring to banish, for in the far distance the pipes
+still played the melancholy wail of Lochaber.
+
+    Lochaber no more! Lochaber no more!
+
+--that was the only solace brought him by the winds from the sea; and
+there were tears running down the hard gray face as he said to himself,
+in a broken voice, "Sheila, my little girl, why did you go away from
+Borva?"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE FAIR-HAIRED STRANGER.
+
+"Why, you must be in love with her yourself!"
+
+"I in love with her? Sheila and I are too old friends for that!"
+
+The speakers were two young men seated in the stern of the steamer
+Clansman as she ploughed her way across the blue and rushing waters of
+the Minch. One of them was a tall young fellow of three-and-twenty, with
+fair hair and light blue eyes, whose delicate and mobile features were
+handsome enough in their way, and gave evidence of a nature at once
+sensitive, nervous and impulsive. He was clad in light gray from head to
+heel--a color that suited his fair complexion and yellow hair; and he
+lounged about the white deck in the glare of the sunlight, steadying
+himself from time to time as an unusually big wave carried the Clansman
+aloft for a second or two, and then sent her staggering and groaning
+into a hissing trough of foam. Now and again he would pause in front of
+his companion, and talk in a rapid, playful, and even eloquent fashion
+for a minute or two; and then, apparently a trifle annoyed by the slow
+and patient attention which greeted his oratorical efforts, would start
+off once more on his unsteady journey up and down the white planks.
+
+The other was a man of thirty-eight, of middle height, sallow complexion
+and generally insignificant appearance. His hair was becoming
+prematurely gray. He rarely spoke. He was dressed in a suit of rough
+blue cloth, and indeed looked somewhat like a pilot who had gone ashore,
+taken to study and never recovered himself. A stranger would have
+noticed the tall and fair young man who walked up and down the gleaming
+deck, evidently enjoying the brisk breeze that blew about his yellow
+hair, and the sunlight that touched his pale and fine face or sparkled
+on his teeth when he laughed, but would have paid little attention to
+the smaller, brown-faced, gray-haired man, who lay back on the bench
+with his two hands clasped round his knee, and with his eyes fixed on
+the southern heavens, while he murmured to himself the lines of some
+ridiculous old Devonshire ballad or replied in monosyllables to the
+rapid and eager talk of his friend.
+
+Both men were good sailors, and they had need to be, for although the
+sky above them was as blue and clear as the heart of a sapphire, and
+although the sunlight shone on the decks and the rigging, a strong
+north-easter had been blowing all the morning, and there was a
+considerable sea on. The far blue plain was whitened with the tumbling
+crests of the waves, that shone and sparkled in the sun, and ever and
+anon a volume of water would strike the Clansman's bow, rise high in
+the air with the shock, and fall in heavy showers over the forward
+decks. Sometimes, too, a wave caught her broadside, and sent a handful
+of spray over the two or three passengers who were safe in the stern;
+but the decks here remained silvery and white, for the sun and wind
+speedily dried up the traces of the sea-showers.
+
+At length the taller of the young men came and sat down by his
+companion: "How far to Stornoway yet?"
+
+"An hour."
+
+"By Jove, what a distance! All day yesterday getting up from Oban to
+Skye, all last night churning our way up to Loch Gair, all to-day
+crossing to this outlandish island, that seems as far away as
+Iceland;--and for what?"
+
+"But don't you remember the moonlight last night as we sailed by the
+Cuchullins? And the sunrise this morning as we lay in Loch Gair? Were
+not these worth coming for?"
+
+"But that was not what you came for, my dear friend. No. You came to
+carry off this wonderful Miss Sheila of yours, and of course you wanted
+somebody to look on; and here I am, ready to carry the ladder and the
+dark lantern and the marriage-license. I will saddle your steeds for you
+and row you over lakes, and generally do anything to help you in so
+romantic an enterprise."
+
+"It is very kind of you, Lavender," said the other with a smile, "but
+such adventures are not for old fogies like me. They are the exclusive
+right of young fellows like you, who are tall and well-favored, have
+plenty of money and good spirits, and have a way with you that all the
+world admires. Of course the bride will tread a measure with you. Of
+course all the bridesmaids would like to see you marry her. Of course
+she will taste the cup you offer her. Then a word in her ear, and away
+you go as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and as if the
+bridegroom was a despicable creature merely because God had only given
+him five feet six inches. But you couldn't have a Lochinvar five feet
+six."
+
+The younger man blushed like a girl and laughed a little, and was
+evidently greatly pleased. Nay, in the height of his generosity he began
+to protest. He would not have his friend imagine that women cared only
+for stature and good looks. There were other qualities. He himself had
+observed the most singular conquests made by men who were not
+good-looking, but who had a certain fascination about them. His own
+experience of women was considerable, and he was quite certain that the
+best women, now--the sort of women whom a man would respect--the women
+who had brains--
+
+And so forth and so forth. The other listened quite gravely to these
+well-meant, kindly, blundering explanations, and only one who watched
+his face narrowly could have detected in the brown eyes a sort of amused
+consciousness of the intentions of the amiable and ingenuous youth.
+
+"Do you really mean to tell me, Ingram," continued Lavender in his rapid
+and impetuous way--"do you mean to tell me that you are not in love with
+this Highland princess? For ages back you have talked of nothing but
+Sheila. How many an hour have I spent in clubs, up the river, down at
+the coast, everywhere, listening to your stories of Sheila, and your
+praises of Sheila, and your descriptions of Sheila! It was always
+Sheila, and again Sheila, and still again Sheila. But, do you know,
+either you exaggerated or I failed to understand your descriptions; for
+the Sheila I came to construct out of your talk is a most incongruous
+and incomprehensible creature. First, Sheila knows about stone and lime
+and building; and then I suppose her to be a practical young woman, who
+is a sort of overseer to her father. But Sheila, again, is romantic and
+mysterious, and believes in visions and dreams; and then I take her to
+be an affected school-miss. But then Sheila can throw a fly and play her
+sixteen-pounder, and Sheila can adventure upon the lochs in an open
+boat, managing the sail herself; and then I find her to be a tom-boy.
+But, again, Sheila is shy and rarely speaks, but looks unutterable
+things with her soft and magnificent eyes; and what does that mean but
+that she is an ordinary young lady, who has not been in society, and who
+is a little interesting, if a little stupid, while she is unmarried, and
+who after marriage calmly and complacently sinks into the dull domestic
+hind, whose only thought is of butchers' bills and perambulators?"
+
+This was a fairly long speech, but it was no longer than many which
+Frank Lavender was accustomed to utter when in the vein for talking. His
+friend and companion did not pay much heed. His hands were still clasped
+round his knee, his head leaning back, and all the answer he made was to
+repeat, apparently to himself, these not very pertinent lines:
+
+    "In Ockington, in Devonsheer,
+    My vather he lived vor many a yeer;
+    And I his son with him did dwell,
+    To tend his sheep: 'twas doleful well.
+                        Diddle-diddle!"
+
+"You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for a man who has to knock
+about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to
+everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person,
+and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him
+in his own house--that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment
+that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage--but a
+man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife."
+
+Another pause.
+
+    "It happened on a zartin day
+    Four-score o' the sheep they rinned astray:
+    Says vather to I, 'Jack, rin arter 'm, du!'
+    Sez I to vather, 'I'm darned if I du!'
+                        Diddle-diddle!"
+
+"Now you are the sort of a man, I should think, who would never get
+careless about your wife. You would always believe about her what you
+believed at first; and I dare say you would live very happily in your
+own house if she was a decent sort of woman. But you would have to go
+out into society sometimes; and the very fact that you had not got
+careless--as many men would, leaving their wives to produce any sort of
+impression they might--would make you vexed that the world could not
+off-hand value your wife as you fancy she ought to be valued. Don't you
+see?"
+
+This was the answer:
+
+    "Purvoket much at my rude tongue,
+    A dish o' brath at me he vlung,
+    Which so incensed me to wrath,
+    That I up an' knack un instantly to arth.
+                        Diddle-diddle!"
+
+"As for your Princess Sheila, I firmly believe you have some romantic
+notion of marrying her and taking her up to London with you. If you
+seriously intend such a thing, I shall not argue with you. I shall
+praise her by the hour together, for I may have to depend on Mrs. Edward
+Ingram for my admission to your house. But if you only have the fancy as
+a fancy, consider what the result would be. You say she has never been
+to a school; that she has never had the companionship of a girl of her
+own age; that she has never read a newspaper; that she has never been
+out of this island; and that almost her sole society has been that of
+her mother, who educated her and tended her, and left her as ignorant of
+the real world as if she had lived all her life in a lighthouse.
+Goodness gracious! what a figure such a girl would cut in South
+Kensington!"
+
+"My dear fellow," said Ingram at last, "don't be absurd. You will soon
+see what are the relations between Sheila Mackenzie and me, and you will
+be satisfied. I marry her? Do you think I would take the child to London
+to show her its extravagance and shallow society, and break her heart
+with thinking of the sea, and of the rude islanders she knew, and of
+their hard and bitter struggle for life? No. I should not like to see my
+wild Highland doe shut up in one of your southern parks among your tame
+fallow-deer. She would look at them askance. She would separate herself
+from them; and by and by she would make one wild effort to escape, and
+kill herself. That is not the fate in store for our good little Sheila;
+so you need not make yourself unhappy about her or me.
+
+    'Now all ye young men, of every persuasion,
+    Never quarl wi' your vather upon any occasion;
+    For instead of being better, you'll vind you'll be wuss,
+    For he'll kick you out o' doors, without a varden in your puss!
+                        Diddle-diddle!'
+
+Talking of Devonshire, how is that young American lady you met at
+Torquay in the spring?"
+
+"There, now, is the sort of woman a man would be safe in marrying!"
+
+"And how?"
+
+"Oh, well, you know," said Frank Lavender. "I mean the sort of woman who
+would do you credit--hold her own in society, and that sort of thing.
+You must meet her some day. I tell you, Ingram, you will be delighted
+and charmed with her manners and her grace, and the clever things she
+says; at least, everybody else is."
+
+"Ah, well!"
+
+"You don't seem to care much for brilliant women," remarked the other,
+rather disappointed that his companion showed so little interest.
+
+"Oh yes, I like brilliant women very well. A clever woman is always a
+pleasanter companion than a clever man. But you were talking of the
+choice of a wife; and pertness in a girl, although it may be amusing at
+the time, may become something else by and by. Indeed, I shouldn't
+advise a young man to marry an epigrammatist, for you see her shrewdness
+and smartness are generally the result of experiences in which _he_ has
+had no share."
+
+"There may be something in that," said Lavender carelessly; "but of
+course, you know, with a widow it is different; and Mrs. Lorraine never
+does go in for the _ingénue_."
+
+The pale blue cloud that had for some time been lying faintly along the
+horizon now came nearer and more near, until they could pick out
+something like the configuration of the island, its bays and
+promontories and mountains. The day seemed to become warmer as they got
+out of the driving wind of the Channel, and the heavy roll of the sea
+had so far subsided. Through comparatively calm water the great Clansman
+drove her way, until, on getting near the land and under shelter of the
+peninsula of Eye, the voyagers found themselves on a beautiful blue
+plain, with the spacious harbor of Stornoway opening out before them.
+There, on the one side, lay a white and cleanly town, with its shops
+and quays and shipping. Above the bay in front stood a great gray
+castle, surrounded by pleasure-grounds and terraces and gardens; while
+on the southern side the harbor was overlooked by a semicircle of hills,
+planted with every variety of tree. The white houses, the blue bay and
+the large gray building set amid green terraces and overlooked by wooded
+hills, formed a bright and lively little picture on this fresh and
+brilliant forenoon; and young Lavender, who had a quick eye for
+compositions which he was always about to undertake, but which never
+appeared on canvas, declared enthusiastically that he would spend a day
+or two in Stornoway on his return from Borva, and take home with him
+some sketch of the place.
+
+"And is Miss Sheila on the quay yonder?" he asked.
+
+"Not likely," said Ingram. "It is a long drive across the island, and I
+suppose she would remain at home to look after our dinner in the
+evening."
+
+"What? The wonderful Princess Sheila look after our dinner! Has she
+visions among the pots and pans, and does she look unutterable things
+when she is peeling potatoes?"
+
+Ingram laughed: "There will be a pretty alteration in your tune in a
+couple of days. You are sure to fall in love with her, and sigh
+desperately for a week or two. You always do when you meet a woman
+anywhere. But it won't hurt you much, and she won't know anything about
+it."
+
+"I should rather like to fall in love with her, to see how furiously
+jealous you would become. However, here we are."
+
+"And there is Mackenzie--the man with the big gray beard and the peaked
+cap--and he is talking to the chamberlain of the island."
+
+"What does he get up on his wagonette for, instead of coming on board to
+meet you?"
+
+"Oh, that is one of his little tricks," said Ingram with a good-humored
+smile. "He means to receive us in state, and impress you, a stranger,
+with his dignity. The good old fellow has a hundred harmless ways like
+that, and you must humor him. He has been accustomed to be treated _en
+roi_, you know."
+
+"Then the papa of the mysterious princess is not perfect?"
+
+"Perhaps I ought to tell you now that Mackenzie's oddest notion is that
+he has a wonderful skill in managing men, and in concealing the manner
+of his doing it. I tell you this that you mayn't laugh and hurt him when
+he is attempting something that he considers particularly crafty, and
+that a child could see through."
+
+"But what is the aim of it all?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+"He does not do a little bet occasionally?"
+
+"Oh dear! no. He is the best and honestest fellow in the world, but it
+pleases him to fancy that he is profoundly astute, and that other people
+don't see the artfulness with which he reaches some little result that
+is not of the least consequence to anybody."
+
+"It seems to me," remarked Mr. Lavender with a coolness and a shrewdness
+that rather surprised his companion, "that it would not be difficult to
+get the King of Borva to assume the honors of a papa-in-law."
+
+The steamer was moored at last: the crowd of fishermen and loungers drew
+near to meet their friends who had come up from Glasgow--for there are
+few strangers, as a rule, arriving at Stornoway to whet the curiosity of
+the islanders--and the tall gillie who had been standing by Mackenzie's
+horses came on board to get the luggage of the young men.
+
+"Well, Duncan," said the elder of them, "and how are you, and how is Mr.
+Mackenzie, and how is Miss Sheila? You have not brought her with you, I
+see."
+
+"But Miss Sheila is ferry well, whatever, Mr. Ingram, and it is a great
+day, this day, for her, tat you will be coming to the Lewis; and it wass
+tis morning she wass up at ta break o' day, and up ta hills to get some
+bits o' green things for ta rooms you will hef, Mr. Ingram. Ay, it iss
+a great day, tis day, for Miss Sheila."
+
+"By Jove, they all rave about Sheila up in this quarter!" said Lavender,
+giving Duncan a fishing-rod and a bag he had brought from the cabin. "I
+suppose in a week's time I shall begin to rave about her too. Look
+sharp, Ingram, and let us have audience of His Majesty."
+
+The King of Borva fixed his eye on young Lavender, and scanned him
+narrowly as he was being introduced. His welcome of Ingram had been most
+gracious and friendly, but he received his companion with something of a
+severe politeness. He requested him to take a seat beside him, so that
+he might see the country as they went across to Borva; and Lavender
+having done so, Ingram and Duncan got into the body of the wagonette,
+and the party drove off.
+
+Passing through the clean and bright little town, Mackenzie suddenly
+pulled up his horses in front of a small shop, in the window of which
+some cheap bits of jewelry were visible. The man came out, and Mr.
+Mackenzie explained with some care and precision that he wanted a silver
+brooch of a particular sort. While the jeweler had returned to seek the
+article in question, Frank Lavender was gazing around him in some wonder
+at the appearance of so much civilization on this remote and
+rarely-visited island. There were no haggard savages, unkempt and
+scantily clad, coming forth from their dens in the rocks to stare wildly
+at the strangers. On the contrary, there was a prevailing air of comfort
+and "bienness" about the people and their houses. He saw handsome girls
+with coal-black hair and fresh complexions, who wore short and thick
+blue petticoats, with a scarlet tartan shawl wrapped round their bosom
+and fastened at the waist; stalwart, thick-set men, in loose blue jacket
+and trowsers and scarlet cap, many of them with bushy red beards; and
+women of extraordinary breadth of shoulder, who carried enormous loads
+in a creel strapped on their back, while they employed their hands in
+contentedly knitting stockings as they passed along. But what was the
+purpose of these mighty loads of fish-bones they carried--burdens that
+would have appalled a railway porter of the South?
+
+"You will see, sir," observed the King of Borva in reply to Lavender's
+question, "there is not much of the phosphates in the grass of this
+island; and the cows they are mad to get the fish-bones to lick, and it
+iss many of them you cannot milk unless you put the bones before them."
+
+"But why do the lazy fellows lounging about there let the women carry
+those enormous loads?"
+
+Mr. Mackenzie stared: "Lazy fellows! They hef harder work than any you
+will know of in your country; and besides the fishing they will do the
+ploughing and much of the farm-work. And iss the women to do none at
+all? That iss the nonsense that my daughter talks; but she has got it
+out of books, and what do they know how the poor people hef to live?"
+
+At this moment the jeweler returned with some half dozen brooches
+displayed on a plate, and shining with all the brilliancy of cairngorm
+stones, polished silver and variously-colored pebbles.
+
+"Now, John Mackintyre, this is a gentleman from London," said Mackenzie,
+regarding the jeweler sternly, "and he will know all apout such fine
+things, and you will not put a big price on them."
+
+It was now Lavender's turn to stare, but he good-naturedly accepted the
+duties of referee, and eventually a brooch was selected and paid for,
+the price being six shillings. Then they drove on again.
+
+"Sheila will know nothing of this--it will be a great surprise for her,"
+said Mackenzie, almost to himself, as he opened the white box and saw
+the glaring piece of jewelry lying on the white cotton.
+
+"Good heavens, sir!" cried Frank Lavender, "you don't mean to say you
+bought that brooch for your daughter?"
+
+"And why not?" said the King of Borva in great surprise.
+
+The young man perceived his mistake, grew considerably confused, and
+only said, "Well, I should have thought that--that some small piece of
+gold jewelry, now, would be better suited for a young lady."
+
+Mackenzie smiled shrewdly: "I had something to go on. It wass Sheila
+herself was in Stornoway three weeks ago, and she wass wanting to buy a
+brooch for a young girl who has come down to us from Suainabost and is
+very useful in the kitchen, and it wass a brooch just like this one she
+gave to her."
+
+"Yes, to a kitchen-maid," said the young man meekly.
+
+"But Mairi is Sheila's cousin," said Mackenzie with continued surprise.
+
+"Lavender does not understand Highland ways yet, Mr. Mackenzie," said
+Ingram from behind. "You know we in the South have different fashions.
+Our servants are nearly always strangers to us--not relations and
+companions."
+
+"Oh, I hef peen in London myself," said Mackenzie in somewhat of an
+injured tone; and then he added with a touch of self-satisfaction, "and
+I hef been in Paris, too."
+
+"And Miss Sheila, has she been in London?" asked Lavender, feigning
+ignorance.
+
+"She has never been out of the Lewis."
+
+"But don't you think the education of a young lady should include some
+little experience of traveling?"
+
+"Sheila, she will be educated quite enough; and is she going to London
+or Paris without me?"
+
+"You might take her."
+
+"I have too much to do on the island now, and Sheila has much to do. I
+do not think she will ever see any of those places, and she will not be
+much the worse."
+
+Two young men off for their holidays, a brilliant day shining all around
+them, the sweet air of the sea and the moorland blowing about
+them,--this little party that now drove away from Stornoway ought to
+have been in the best of spirits. And indeed the young fellow who sat
+beside Mackenzie was bent on pleasing his host by praising everything he
+saw. He praised the gallant little horses that whirled them past the
+plantations and out into the open country. He praised the rich black
+peat that was visible in long lines and heaps, where the townspeople
+were slowly eating into the moorland. Then all these traces of
+occupation were left behind, and the travelers were alone in the
+untenanted heart of the island, where the only sounds audible were the
+humming of insects in the sunlight and the falling of the streams. Away
+in the south the mountains were of a silvery and transparent blue.
+Nearer at hand the rich reds and browns of the moorland softened into a
+tender and beautiful green on nearing the margins of the lakes; and
+these stretches of water were now as fair and bright as the sky above
+them, and were scarcely ruffled by the moorfowl moving out from the
+green rushes. Still nearer at hand great masses of white rock lay
+embedded in the soft soil; and what could have harmonized better with
+the rough and silver-gray surface than the patches of rose-red
+bell-heather that grew up in their clefts or hung over their summits?
+The various and beautiful colors around seemed to tingle with light and
+warmth as the clear sun shone on them and the keen mountain-air blew
+over them; and the King of Borva was so far thawed by the enthusiasm of
+his companions that he regarded the far country with a pleased smile, as
+if the enchanted land belonged to him, and as if the wonderful colors
+and the exhilarating air and the sweet perfumes were of his own
+creation.
+
+Mr. Mackenzie did not know much about tints and hues, but he believed
+what he heard; and it was perhaps, after all, not very surprising that a
+gentleman from London, who had skill of pictures and other delicate
+matters, should find strange marvels in a common stretch of moor, with a
+few lakes here and there, and some lines of mountain only good for
+sheilings. It was not for him to check the raptures of his guest. He
+began to be friendly with the young man, and could not help regarding
+him as a more cheerful companion than his neighbor Ingram, who would sit
+by your side for an hour at a time without breaking the monotony of the
+horses' tramp with a single remark. He had formed a poor opinion of
+Lavender's physique from the first glimpse he had of his white fingers
+and girl-like complexion; but surely a man who had such a vast amount of
+good spirits and such a rapidity of utterance must have something
+corresponding to these qualities in substantial bone and muscle. There
+was something pleasing and ingenuous too about this flow of talk. Men
+who had arrived at years of wisdom, and knew how to study and use their
+fellows, were not to be led into these betrayals of their secret
+opinions; but for a young man--what could be more pleasing than to see
+him lay open his soul to the observant eye of a master of men? Mackenzie
+began to take a great fancy to young Lavender.
+
+"Why," said Lavender, with a fine color mantling in his cheeks as the
+wind caught them on a higher portion of the road, "I had heard of Lewis
+as a most bleak and desolate island, flat moorland and lake, without a
+hill to be seen. And everywhere I see hills, and yonder are great
+mountains which I hope to get nearer before we leave."
+
+"We have mountains in this island," remarked Mackenzie slowly as he kept
+his eye on his companion--"we have mountains in this island sixteen
+thousand feet high."
+
+Lavender looked sufficiently astonished, and the old man was pleased. He
+paused for a moment or two, and said, "But this iss the way of it: you
+will see that the middle of the mountains it has all been washed away by
+the weather, and you will only have the sides now dipping one way and
+the other at each side o' the island. But it iss a very clever man in
+Stornoway will tell me that you can make out what wass the height o' the
+mountain, by watching the dipping of the rocks on each side; and it iss
+an older country, this island, than any you will know of; and there were
+the mountains sixteen thousand feet high long before all this country
+and all Scotland and England wass covered with ice."
+
+The young man was very desirous to show his interest in this matter, but
+did not know very well how. At last he ventured to ask whether there
+were any fossils in the blocks of gneiss that were scattered over the
+moorland.
+
+"Fossils?" said Mackenzie. "Oh, I will not care much about such small
+things. If you will ask Sheila, she will tell you all about it, and
+about the small things she finds growing on the hills. That iss not of
+much consequence to me; but I will tell you what is the best thing the
+island grows: it is good girls and strong men--men that can go to the
+fishing, and come back to plough the fields and cut the peat and build
+the houses, and leave the women to look after the fields and the gardens
+when they go back again to the fisheries. But it is the old people--they
+are ferry cunning, and they will not put their money in the bank at
+Stornoway, but will hide it away about the house, and then they will
+come to Sheila and ask for money to put a pane of glass in their house.
+And she has promised that to every one who will make a window in the
+wall of their house; and she is very simple with them, and does not
+understand the old people that tell lies. But when I hear of it, I say
+nothing to Sheila--she will know nothing about it--but I hef a watch put
+upon the people; and it wass only yesterday I will take back two
+shillings she gave to an old woman of Borvabost that told many lies.
+What does a young thing know of these old people? She will know nothing
+at all, and it iss better for some one else to look after them, but not
+to speak one word of it to her."
+
+"It must require great astuteness to manage a primitive people like
+that," said young Lavender with an air of conviction; and the old man
+eagerly and proudly assented, and went on to tell of the manifold
+diplomatic arts he used in reigning over his small kingdom, and how his
+subjects lived in blissful ignorance that this controlling power was
+being exercised.
+
+They were startled by an exclamation from Ingram, who called to
+Mackenzie to pull up the horses just as they were passing over a small
+bridge.
+
+"Look there, Lavender! did you ever see salmon jumping like that? Look
+at the size of them!"
+
+"Oh, it iss nothing," said Mackenzie, driving on again. "Where you will
+see the salmon, it is in the narrows of Loch Roag, where they come into
+the rivers, and the tide is low. Then you will see them jumping; and if
+the water wass too low for a long time, they will die in hundreds and
+hundreds."
+
+"But what makes them jump before they get into the rivers?"
+
+Old Mackenzie smiled a crafty smile, as if he had found out all the ways
+and the secrets of the salmon: "They will jump to look about them--that
+iss all."
+
+"Do you think a salmon can see where he is going?"
+
+"And maybe you will explain this to me, then," said the king with a
+compassionate air: "how iss it the salmon will try to jump over some
+stones in the river, and he will see he cannot go over them; but does he
+fall straight down on the stones and kill himself? Neffer--no, neffer.
+He will get back to the pool he left by turning in the air: that is what
+I hef seen hundreds of times myself."
+
+"Then they must be able to fly as well as see in the air."
+
+"You may say about it what you will please, but that is what I
+know--that is what I know ferry well myself."
+
+"And I should think there were not many people in the country who knew
+more about salmon than you," said Frank Lavender. "And I hear, too, that
+your daughter is a great fisher."
+
+But this was a blunder. The old man frowned: "Who will tell you such
+nonsense? Sheila has gone out many times with Duncan, and he will put a
+rod in her hands: yes, and she will have caught a fish or two, but it
+iss not a story to tell. My daughter she will have plenty to do about
+the house, without any of such nonsense. You will expect to find us all
+savages, with such stories of nonsense."
+
+"I am sure not," said Lavender warmly. "I have been very much struck
+with the civilization of the island, so far as I have seen it; and I
+can assure you I have always heard of Miss Sheila as a singularly
+accomplished young lady."
+
+"Yes," said Mackenzie somewhat mollified, "Sheila has been well brought
+up: she is not a fisherman's lass, running about wild and catching the
+salmon. I cannot listen to such nonsense, and it iss Duncan will tell
+it."
+
+"I can assure you, no. I have never spoken to Duncan. The fact is,
+Ingram mentioned that your daughter had caught a salmon or two--as a
+tribute to her skill, you know."
+
+"Oh, I know it wass Duncan," said Mackenzie, with a deeper frown coming
+over his face. "I will hef some means taken to stop Duncan from talking
+such nonsense."
+
+The young man, knowing nothing as yet of the child-like obedience paid
+to the King of Borva by his islanders, thought to himself, "Well, you
+are a very strong and self-willed old gentleman, but if I were you I
+should not meddle much with that tall keeper with the eagle beak and the
+gray eyes. I should not like to be a stag, and know that that fellow was
+watching me somewhere with a rifle in his hands."
+
+At length they came upon the brow of the hill overlooking
+Garra-na-hina[H] and the panorama of the western lochs and mountains.
+Down there on the side of the hill was the small inn, with its little
+patch of garden; then a few moist meadows leading over to the estuary of
+the Black River; and beyond that an illimitable prospect of heathy
+undulations rising into the mighty peaks of Cracabhal, Mealasabhal and
+Suainabhal. Then on the right, leading away out to the as yet invisible
+Atlantic, lay the blue plain of Loch Roag, with a margin of yellow
+seaweed along its shores, where the rocks revealed themselves at low
+water, and with a multitude of large, variegated and verdant islands
+which hid from sight the still greater Borva beyond.
+
+They stopped to have a glass of whisky at Garra-na-hina, and Mackenzie
+got down from the wagonette and went into the inn.
+
+"And this is a Highland loch!" said Lavender, turning to his companion
+from the South. "It is an enchanted sea: you could fancy yourself in the
+Pacific, if only there were some palm trees on the shores of the
+islands. No wonder you took for an Eve any sort of woman you met in such
+a paradise!"
+
+"You seem to be thinking a good deal about that young lady."
+
+"Well, who would not wish to make the acquaintance of a pretty girl,
+especially when you have plenty of time on your hands, and nothing to do
+but pay her little attentions, you know, and so forth, as being the
+daughter of your host?"
+
+There was no particular answer to such an incoherent question, but
+Ingram did not seem so well pleased as he had been with the prospect of
+introducing his friend to the young Highland girl whose praises he had
+been reciting for many a day.
+
+However, they drank their whisky, drove on to Callernish, and here
+paused for a minute or two to show the stranger a series of large
+so-called Druidical stones which occupy a small station overlooking the
+loch. Could anything have been more impressive than the sight of these
+solitary gray pillars placed on this bit of table-land high over the
+sea, and telling of a race that vanished ages ago, and left the
+surrounding plains and hills and shores a wild and untenanted solitude?
+But, somehow Lavender did not care to remain among those voiceless
+monuments of a forgotten past. He said he would come and sketch them
+some other day. He praised the picture all around, and then came back to
+the stretch of ruffled blue water lying at the base of the hill. "Where
+was Mr. Mackenzie's boat?" he asked.
+
+They left the high plain, with its _Tuir-sachan_,[I] or Stones of
+Mourning, and descended to the side of the loch. In a few moments,
+Duncan, who had been disposing of the horses and the wagonette,
+overtook them, got ready the boat, and presently they were cutting
+asunder the bright blue plain of summer waves.
+
+At last they were nearing the King of Borva's home, and Ingram began to
+study the appearance of the neighboring shores, as if he would pick out
+some feature of the island he remembered. The white foam hissed down the
+side of the open boat. The sun burned hot on the brown sail. Far away
+over the shining plain the salmon were leaping into the air, catching a
+quick glint of silver on their scales before they splashed again into
+the water. Half a dozen sea-pyes, with their beautiful black and white
+plumage and scarlet beaks and feet, flew screaming out from the rocks
+and swept in rapid circles above the boat. A long flight of solan geese
+could just be seen slowly sailing along the western horizon. As the
+small craft got out toward the sea the breeze freshened slightly, and
+she lay over somewhat as the brine-laden winds caught her and tingled on
+the cheeks of her passengers from the softer South. Finally, as the
+great channel widened out, and the various smaller islands disappeared
+behind, Ingram touched his companion on the shoulder, looked over to a
+long and low line of rock and hill, and said, "Borva!"
+
+And this was Borva!--nothing visible but an indefinite extent of rocky
+shore, with here and there a bay of white sand, and over that a
+table-land of green pasture, apparently uninhabited.
+
+"There are not many people on the island," said Lavender, who seemed
+rather disappointed with the look of the place.
+
+"There are three hundred," said Mackenzie with the air of one who had
+experienced the difficulties of ruling over three hundred islanders.
+
+He had scarcely spoken when his attention was called by Duncan to some
+object that the gillie had been regarding for some minutes back.
+
+"Yes, it iss Miss Sheila," said Duncan.
+
+A sort of flush of expectation passed over Lavender's face, and he
+sprang to his feet. Ingram laughed. Did the foolish youth fancy he
+could see half as far as this gray-eyed, eagle-faced man, who had now
+sunk into his accustomed seat by the mast? There was nothing visible to
+ordinary eyes but a speck of a boat, with a single sail up, which was
+apparently, in the distance, running in for Borva.
+
+"Ay, ay, ay," said Mackenzie in a vexed way, "it is Sheila, true enough;
+and what will she do out in the boat at this time, when she wass to be
+at home to receive the gentlemen that hef come all the way from London?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Mackenzie," said Lavender, "I should be sorry to think that
+our coming had interfered in any way whatever with your daughter's
+amusements."
+
+"Amusements!" said the old man with a look of surprise. "It iss not
+amusements she will go for: that is no amusements for her. It is for
+some teffle of a purpose she will go, when it iss the house that is the
+proper place for her, with friends coming from so great a journey."
+
+Presently it became clear that a race between the two boats was
+inevitable, both of them making for the same point. Mackenzie would take
+no notice of such a thing, but there was a grave smile on Duncan's face,
+and something like a look of pride in his keen eyes.
+
+"There iss no one, not one," he said, almost to himself, "will take her
+in better than Miss Sheila--not one in ta island. And it wass me tat
+learnt her every bit o' ta steering about Borva."
+
+The strangers could now make out that in the other boat there were two
+girls--one seated in the stern, the other by the mast. Ingram took out
+his handkerchief and waved it: a similar token of recognition was
+floated out from the other vessel. But Mackenzie's boat presently had
+the better of the wind, and slowly drew on ahead, until, when her
+passengers landed on the rude stone quay, they found the other and
+smaller craft still some little distance off.
+
+Lavender paid little attention to his luggage. He let Duncan do with it
+what he liked. He was watching the small boat coming in, and getting a
+little impatient, and perhaps a little nervous, in waiting for a
+glimpse of the young lady in the stern. He could vaguely make out that
+she had an abundance of dark hair looped up; that she wore a small straw
+hat with a short white feather in it; and that, for the rest, she seemed
+to be habited entirely in some rough and close-fitting costume of dark
+blue. Or was there a glimmer of a band of rose-red round her neck?
+
+The small boat was cleverly run alongside the jetty: Duncan caught her
+bow and held her fast, and Miss Sheila, with a heavy string of lythe in
+her right hand, stepped, laughing and blushing, on to the quay. Ingram
+was there. She dropped the fish on the stones and took his two hands in
+hers, and without uttering a word looked a glad welcome into his face.
+It was a face capable of saying unwritten things--fine and delicate in
+form, and yet full of an abundance of health and good spirits that shone
+in the deep gray-blue eyes. Lavender's first emotion was one of surprise
+that he should have heard this handsome, well-knit and proud-featured
+girl called "little Sheila," and spoken of in a pretty and caressing
+way. He thought there was something almost majestic in her figure, in
+the poising of her head and the outline of her face. But presently he
+began to perceive some singular suggestions of sensitiveness and
+meekness in the low, sweet brow, in the short and exquisitely-curved
+upper lip, and in the look of the tender blue eyes, which had long black
+eyelashes to give them a peculiar and indefinable charm. All this he
+noticed hastily and timidly as he heard Ingram, who still held the
+girl's hands in his, saying, "Well, Sheila, and you haven't quite
+forgotten me? And you are grown such a woman now: why, I mustn't call
+you Sheila any more, I think. But let me introduce to you my friend, who
+has come all the way from London to see all the wonderful things of
+Borva."
+
+If there was any embarrassment or blushing during that simple ceremony,
+it was not on the side of the Highland girl, for she frankly shook hands
+with him, and said, "And are you very well?"
+
+The second impression which Lavender gathered from her was, that nowhere
+in the world was English pronounced so beautifully as in the island of
+Lewis. The gentle intonation with which she spoke was so tender and
+touching--the slight dwelling on the _e_ in "very" and "well" seemed to
+have such a sound of sincerity about it, that he could have fancied he
+had been a friend of hers for a lifetime. And if she said "ferry" for
+"very," what then? It was the most beautiful English he had ever heard.
+
+The party now moved off toward the shore, above the long white curve of
+which Mackenzie's house was visible. The old man himself led the way,
+and had, by his silence, apparently not quite forgiven his daughter for
+having been absent from home when his guests arrived.
+
+"Now, Sheila," said Ingram, "tell me all about yourself: what have you
+been doing?"
+
+"This morning?" said the girl, walking beside him with her hand laid on
+his arm, and with the happiest look on her face.
+
+"This morning, to begin with. Did you catch those fish yourself?"
+
+"Oh no, there was no time for that. And it was Mairi and I saw a boat
+coming in, and it was going to Mevaig, but we overtook it, and got some
+of the fish, and we thought we should be back before you came. However,
+it is no matter, since you are here. And you have been very well? And
+did you see any difference in Stornoway when you came over?"
+
+Lavender began to think that Styornoway sounded ever so much more
+pleasant than mere Stornoway.
+
+"We had not a minute to wait in Stornoway. But tell me, Sheila, all
+about Borva and yourself: that is better than Stornoway. How are your
+schools getting on? And have you bribed or frightened all the children
+into giving up Gaelic yet? How is John the Piper? and does the Free
+Church minister still complain of him? And have you caught any more
+wild-ducks and tamed them? And are there any gray geese up at
+Loch-an-Eilean?"
+
+"Oh, that is too many at once," said Sheila, laughing. "But I am afraid
+your friend will find Borva very lonely and dull. There is not much
+there at all, for all the lads are away at the Caithness fishing. And
+you should have shown him all about Stornoway, and taken him up to the
+castle and the beautiful gardens."
+
+"He has seen all sorts of castles, Sheila, and all sorts of gardens in
+every part of the world. He has seen everything to be seen in the great
+cities and countries that are only names to you. He has traveled in
+France, Italy, Russia, Germany, and seen all the big towns that you hear
+of in history."
+
+"That is what I should like to do if I were a man," said Sheila; "and
+many and many a time I wish I had been a man, that I could go to the
+fishing and work in the fields, and then, when I had enough money, go
+away and see other countries and strange people."
+
+"But if you were a man, I should not have come all the way from London
+to see you," said Ingram, patting the hand that lay on his arm.
+
+"But if I were a man," said the girl, quite frankly, "I should go up to
+London to see you."
+
+Mackenzie smiled grimly, and said, "Sheila, it is nonsense you will
+talk."
+
+At this moment Sheila turned round and said, "Oh, we have forgotten poor
+Mairi. Mairi, why did you not leave the fish for Duncan? They are too
+heavy for you. I will carry them to the house?"
+
+But Lavender sprang forward, and insisted on taking possession of the
+thick cord with its considerable weight of lythe.
+
+"This is my cousin Mairi," said Sheila; and forthwith the young,
+fair-faced, timid-eyed girl shook hands with the gentlemen, and said,
+just as if she had been watching Sheila, "And are you ferry well, sir?"
+
+For the rest of the way up to the house Lavender walked by the side of
+Sheila; and as the string of lythe had formed the introduction to their
+talk, it ran pretty much upon natural history. In about five minutes she
+had told him more about sea-birds and fish than ever he knew in his
+life; and she wound up this information by offering to take him out on
+the following morning, that he might himself catch some lythe.
+
+"But I am a wretchedly bad fisherman, Miss Mackenzie," he said. "It is
+some years since I tried to throw a fly."
+
+"Oh, there is no need for good fishing when you catch lythe," she said
+earnestly. "You will see Mr. Ingram catch them. It is only a big white
+fly you will need, and a long line, and when the fish takes the fly,
+down he goes--a great depth. Then when you have got him and he is
+killed, you must cut the sides, as you see that is done, and string him
+to a rope and trail him behind the boat all the way home. If you do not
+do that, it iss no use at all to eat. But if you like the
+salmon-fishing, my papa will teach you that. There is no one," she added
+proudly, "can catch salmon like my papa--not even Duncan--and the
+gentlemen who come in the autumn to Stornoway, they are quite surprised
+when my papa goes to fish with them."
+
+"I suppose he is a good shot too," said the young man, amused to notice
+the proud way in which the girl spoke of her father.
+
+"Oh, he can shoot anything. He will shoot a seal if he comes up but for
+one moment above the water; and all the birds--he will get you all the
+birds if you will wish to take any away with you. We have no deer on the
+island--it is too small for that--but in the Lewis and in Harris there
+are many, many thousands of deer, and my papa has many invitations when
+the gentlemen come up in the autumn; and if you look in the game-book of
+the lodges, you will see there is not any one who has shot so many deer
+as my papa--not any one whatever."
+
+At length they reached the building of dark and rude stone-work, with
+its red coping, its spacious porch and its small enclosure of garden in
+front. Lavender praised the flowers in this enclosure: he guessed they
+were Sheila's particular care; but in truth there was nothing rare or
+delicate among the plants growing in this exposed situation. There were
+a few clusters of large yellow pansies, a calceolaria or two, plenty of
+wallflower, some clove-pinks, and an abundance of sweet-william in all
+manner of colors. But the chief beauty of the small garden was a
+magnificent tree-fuchsia which grew in front of one of the windows, and
+was covered with deep rose-red flowers set amid its small and deep-green
+leaves. For the rest, a bit of honeysuckle was trained up one side of
+the porch, and at the small wooden gate there were two bushes of
+sweetbrier that filled the warm air with fragrance.
+
+Just before entering the house the two strangers turned to have a look
+at the spacious landscape lying all around in the perfect calm of a
+summer day. And lo! before them there was but a blinding mass of white
+that glared upon their eyes, and caused them to see the far sea and the
+shores and the hills as but faint shadows appearing through a silvery
+haze. A thin fleece of cloud lay across the sun, but the light was
+nevertheless so intense that the objects near at hand--a disused boat
+lying bottom upward, an immense anchor of foreign make, and some such
+things--seemed to be as black as night as they lay on the warm road. But
+when the eye got beyond the house and the garden, and the rough hillside
+leading down to Loch Roag, all the world appeared to be a blaze of calm,
+silent and luminous heat. Suainabhal and its brother mountains were only
+as clouds in the south. Along the western horizon the portion of the
+Atlantic that could be seen lay like a silent lake under a white sky. To
+get any touch of color, they had to turn eastward, and there the
+sunlight faintly fell on the green shores of Borva, on the narrows of
+Loch Roag, and the loose red sail of a solitary smack that was slowly
+coming round a headland. They could hear the sound of the long oars. A
+pale line of shadow lay in the wake of the boat, but otherwise the black
+hull and the red sail seemed to be coming through a plain of molten
+silver. When the young men turned to go into the house the hall seemed a
+cavern of impenetrable darkness, and there was a flush of crimson light
+dancing before their eyes.
+
+When Ingram had had his room pointed out, Lavender followed him into it
+and shut the door.
+
+"By Jove, Ingram," he said, with a singular light of enthusiasm on his
+handsome face, "what a beautiful voice that girl has! I have never heard
+anything so soft and musical in all my life; and then when she smiles
+what perfect teeth she has! And then, you know, there is an appearance,
+a style, a grace about her figure--But, I say, do you seriously mean to
+tell me you are not in love with her?"
+
+"Of course I am not," said the other impatiently, as he was busily
+engaged with his portmanteau.
+
+"Then let me give you a word of information," said the younger man, with
+an air of profound shrewdness: "she is in love with you."
+
+Ingram rose with some little touch of vexation on his face: "Look here,
+Lavender: I am going to talk to you seriously. I wish you wouldn't fancy
+that every one is in that condition of simmering love-making you delight
+in. You never were in love, I believe--I doubt whether you ever will
+be--but you are always fancying yourself in love, and writing very
+pretty verses about it, and painting very pretty heads. I like the
+verses and the paintings well enough, however they are come by; but
+don't mislead yourself into believing that you know anything whatever of
+a real and serious passion by having engaged in all sorts of imaginative
+and semi-poetical dreams. It is a much more serious thing than that,
+mind you, when it comes to a man. And, for Heaven's sake, don't
+attribute any of that sort of sentimental make-believe to either Sheila
+Mackenzie or myself. We are not romantic folks. We have no imaginative
+gifts whatever, but we are very glad, you know, to be attentive and
+grateful to those who have. The fact is, I don't think it quite fair--"
+
+"Let us suppose I am lectured enough" said the other, somewhat stiffly.
+"I suppose I am as good a judge of the character of a woman as most
+other men, although I am no great student, and have no hard and dried
+rules of philosophy at my fingers' ends. Perhaps, however, one may learn
+more by mixing with other people and going out into the world than by
+sitting in a room with a dozen of books, and persuading one's self that
+men and women are to be studied in that fashion."
+
+"Go away, you stupid boy, and unpack your portmanteau, and don't quarrel
+with me," said Ingram, putting out on the table some things he had
+brought for Sheila; "and if you are friendly with Sheila and treat her
+like a human being, instead of trying to put a lot of romance and
+sentiment about her, she will teach you more than you could learn in a
+hundred drawing-rooms in a thousand years."
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THERE WAS A KING IN THULE.
+
+He never took that advice. He had already transformed Sheila into a
+heroine during the half hour of their stroll from the beach and around
+the house. Not that he fell in love with her at first sight, or anything
+even approaching to that. He merely made her the central figure of a
+little speculative romance, as he had made many another woman before. Of
+course, in these little fanciful dramas, written along the sky-line, as
+it were, of his life, he invariably pictured himself as the fitting
+companion of the fair creature he saw there. Who but himself could
+understand the sentiment of her eyes, and teach her little love-ways,
+and express unbounded admiration of her? More than one practical young
+woman, indeed, in certain circles of London society, had been informed
+by her friends that Mr. Lavender was dreadfully in love with her; and
+had been much surprised, after this confirmation of her suspicions, that
+he sought no means of bringing the affair to a reasonable and sensible
+issue. He did not even amuse himself by flirting with her, as men would
+willingly do who could not be charged with any serious purpose whatever.
+His devotion was more mysterious and remote. A rumor would get about
+that Mr. Lavender had finished another of those charming heads in
+pastel, which, at a distance, reminded one of Greuze, and that Lady
+So-and-so, who had bought it forthwith, had declared that it was the
+image of this young lady who was partly puzzled and partly vexed by the
+incomprehensible conduct of her reputed admirer. It was the fashion, in
+these social circles, to buy those heads of Lavender when he chose to
+paint them. He had achieved a great reputation by them. The good people
+liked to have a genius in their own set whom they had discovered, and
+who was only to be appreciated by persons of exceptional taste and
+penetration. Lavender, the uninitiated were assured, was a most
+cultivated and brilliant young man. He had composed some charming songs.
+He had written, from time to time, some quite delightful little poems,
+over which fair eyes had grown full and liquid. Who had not heard of the
+face that he painted for a certain young lady whom every one expected
+him to marry?
+
+The young man escaped a great deal of the ordinary consequences of this
+petting, but not all. He was at bottom really true-hearted, frank and
+generous--generous even to an extreme--but he had acquired a habit of
+producing striking impressions which dogged and perverted his every
+action and speech. He disliked losing a few shilling at billiards, but
+he did not mind losing a few pounds: the latter was good for a story.
+Had he possessed any money to invest in shares, he would have been
+irritated by small rises or small falls; but he would have been vain of
+a big rise, and he would have regarded a big fall with equanimity, as
+placing him in a dramatic light. The exaggerations produced by this
+habit of his fostered strange delusions in the minds of people who did
+not know him very well: and sometimes the practical results, in the way
+of expected charities or what not, amazed him. He could not understand
+why people should have made such mistakes, and resented them as an
+injustice.
+
+And as they sat at dinner on this still, brilliant evening in summer, it
+was Sheila's turn to be clothed in the garments of romance. Her father,
+with his great gray beard and heavy brow, became the King of Thule,
+living in this solitary house overlooking the sea, and having memories
+of a dead sweetheart. His daughter, the princess, had the glamour of a
+thousand legends dwelling in her beautiful eyes; and when she walked by
+the shores of the Atlantic, that were now getting yellow under the
+sunset, what strange and unutterable thoughts must appear in the wonder
+of her face! He remembered no more how he had pulled to pieces Ingram's
+praises of Sheila. What had become of the "ordinary young lady, who
+would be a little interesting, if a little stupid, before marriage, and
+after marriage sink into the dull, domestic hind"? There could be no
+doubt that Sheila often sat silent for a considerable time, with her
+eyes fixed on her father's face when he spoke, or turning to look at
+some other speaker. Had Lavender now been asked if this silence had not
+a trifle of dullness in it, he would have replied by asking if there
+were dullness in the stillness and the silence of the sea. He grew to
+regard her calm and thoughtful look as a sort of spell; and if you had
+asked him what Sheila was like, he would have answered by saying that
+there was moonlight in her face.
+
+The room, too, in which this mystic princess sat was strange and
+wonderful. There were no doors visible, for the four walls were
+throughout covered by a paper of foreign manufacture, representing
+spacious Tyrolese landscapes and incidents of the chase. When Lavender
+had first entered this chamber his eye had been shocked by these coarse
+and prominent pictures--by the green rivers, the blue lakes and the
+snow-peaks that rose above certain ruddy chalets. Here a chamois was
+stumbling down a ravine, and there an operatic peasant, some eight or
+ten inches in actual length, was pointing a gun. The large figures, the
+coarse colors, the impossible scenes--all this looked, at first sight,
+to be in the worst possible taste; and Lavender was convinced that
+Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable
+decoration. But somehow, when he turned to the line of ocean that was
+visible from the window, to the lonely shores of the island and the
+monotony of colors showing in the still picture without, he began to
+fancy that there might be a craving up in these latitudes for some
+presentation, however rude and glaring, of the richer and more
+variegated life of the South. The figures and mountains on the walls
+became less prominent. He saw no incongruity in a whole chalet giving
+way, and allowing Duncan, who waited at table, to bring forth from this
+aperture to the kitchen a steaming dish of salmon, while he spoke some
+words in Gaelic to the servants at the other end of the tube. He even
+forgot to be surprised at the appearance of little Mairi, with whom he
+had shaken hands a little while before, coming round the table with
+potatoes. He did not, as a rule, shake hands with servant-maids, but was
+not this fair-haired, wistful-eyed girl some relative, friend or
+companion of Shiela's? and had he not already begun to lose all
+perception of the incongruous or the absurd in the strange pervading
+charm with which Sheila's presence filled the place?
+
+He suddenly found Mackenzie's deep-set eyes fixed upon him, and became
+aware that the old man had been mysteriously announcing to Ingram that
+there were more political movements abroad than people fancied. Sheila
+sat still and listened to her father as he expounded these things, and
+showed that, although at a distance, he could perceive the signs of the
+times. Was it not incumbent, moreover, on a man who had to look after a
+number of poor and simple folks, that he should be on the alert?
+
+"It iss not bekass you will live in London you will know everything,"
+said the King of Borva, with a certain significance in his tone. "There
+iss many things a man does not see at his feet that another man will see
+who is a good way off. The International, now--"
+
+He glanced furtively at Lavender.
+
+"--I hef been told there will be agents going out every day to all
+parts of this country and other countries, and they will hef plenty of
+money to live like gentlemen, and get among the poor people, and fill
+their minds with foolish nonsense about a revolution. Oh yes, I hear
+about it all, and there iss many members of Parliament in it; and it iss
+every day they will get farther and farther, all working hard, though no
+one sees them who does not understand to be on the watch."
+
+Here again the young man received a quiet, scrutinizing glance; and it
+began to dawn upon him, to his infinite astonishment, that Mackenzie
+half suspected him of being an emissary of the International. In the
+case of any other man he would have laughed and paid no heed, but how
+could he permit Sheila's father to regard him with any such suspicion?
+
+"Don't you think, sir," he said boldly, "that those Internationalists
+are a lot of incorrigible idiots?"
+
+As if a shrewd observer of men and motives were to be deceived by such a
+protest! Mackenzie regarded him with increased suspicion, although he
+endeavored to conceal the fact that he was watching the young man from
+time to time. Lavender saw all the favor he had won during the day
+disappearing, and moodily wondered when he should have a chance of
+explanation.
+
+After dinner they went outside and sat down on a bench in the garden,
+and the men lit their cigars. It was a cool and pleasant evening. The
+sun had gone down in red fire behind the Atlantic, and there was still
+left a rich glow of crimson in the west, while overhead, in the pale
+yellow of the sky, some filmy clouds of rose-color lay motionless. How
+calm was the sea out there, and the whiter stretch of water coming into
+Loch Roag! The cool air of the twilight was scented with sweetbrier. The
+wash of the ripples along the coast could be heard in the stillness. It
+was a time for lovers to sit by the sea, careless of the future or the
+past.
+
+But why would this old man keep prating of his political prophecies?
+Lavender asked of himself. Sheila had spoken scarcely a word all the
+evening; and of what interest could it be to her to listen to theories
+of revolution and the dangers besetting our hot-headed youth? She merely
+stood by the side of her father, with her hand on his shoulder. He
+noticed, however, that she paid particular attention whenever Ingram
+spoke; and he wondered whether she perceived that Ingram was partly
+humoring the old man, at the same time that he was pleasing himself with
+a series of monologues, interrupted only by his cigar.
+
+"That is true enough, Mr. Mackenzie," Ingram would say, lying back with
+his two hands clasped round his knee, as usual: "you've got to be
+careful of the opinions that are spread abroad, even in Borva, where not
+much danger is to be expected. But I don't suppose our young men are
+more destructive in their notions than young men always have been. You
+know every young fellow starts in life by knocking down all the beliefs
+he finds before him, and then he spends the rest of his life in setting
+them up again. It is only after some years he gets to know that all the
+wisdom of the world lies in the old commonplaces he once despised. He
+finds that the old familiar ways are the best, and he sinks into being a
+commonplace person, with much satisfaction to himself. My friend
+Lavender, now, is continually charging me with being commonplace. I
+admit the charge. I have drifted back into all the old ways and
+beliefs--about religion and marriage and patriotism, and what not--that
+ten years ago I should have treated with ridicule."
+
+"Suppose the process continues?" suggested Lavender, with some evidence
+of pique.
+
+"Suppose it does," continued Ingram carelessly. "Ten years hence I may
+be proud to become a vestryman, and have the most anxious care about the
+administration of the rates. I shall be looking after the drainage of
+houses and the treatment of paupers and the management of Sunday
+schools--But all this is an invasion of your province, Sheila," he
+suddenly added, looking up to her.
+
+The girl laughed, and said, "Then I have been commonplace from the
+beginning?"
+
+Ingram was about to make all manner of protests and apologies, when
+Mackenzie said, "Sheila, it wass time you will go in-doors, if you have
+nothing about your head. Go in and sing a song to us, and we will listen
+to you; and not a sad song, but a good merry song. These teffles of the
+fishermen, it iss always drownings they will sing about from the morning
+till the night."
+
+Was Sheila about to sing in this clear, strange twilight, while they sat
+there and watched the yellow moon come up behind the southern hills?
+Lavender had heard so much of her singing of those fishermen's ballads
+that he could think of nothing more to add to the enchantment of this
+wonderful night. But he was disappointed. The girl put her hand on her
+father's head, and reminded him that she had had her big greyhound Bras
+imprisoned all the afternoon, that she had to go down to Borvabost with
+a message for some people who were leaving by the boat in the morning,
+and would the gentlemen therefore excuse her not singing to them for
+this one evening?
+
+"But you cannot go away down to Borvabost by yourself, Sheila," said
+Ingram. "It will be dark before you return."
+
+"It will not be darker than this all the night through," said the girl.
+
+"But I hope you will let us go with you," said Lavender, rather
+anxiously; and she assented with a gracious smile, and went to fetch the
+great deerhound that was her constant companion.
+
+And lo! he found himself walking with a princess in this wonder-land
+through that magic twilight that prevails in northern latitudes.
+Mackenzie and Ingram had gone on in front. The large deerhound, after
+regarding him attentively, had gone to its mistress's side, and remained
+closely there. Lavender could scarcely believe his ears that the girl
+was talking to him lightly and frankly, as though she had known him for
+years, and was telling him of all her troubles with the folks at
+Borvabost, and of those poor people whom she was now going to see. No
+sooner did he understand that they were emigrants, and that they were
+going to Glasgow before leaving finally for America, than in quite an
+honest and enthusiastic fashion he began to bewail the sad fate of such
+poor wretches as have to forsake their native land, and to accuse the
+aristocracy of the country of every act of selfishness, and to charge
+the government with a shameful indifference. But Sheila brought him up
+suddenly. In the gentlest fashion she told him what she knew of these
+poor people, and how emigration affected them, and so forth, until he
+was ready to curse the hour in which he had blundered into taking a side
+on a question about which he cared nothing and knew less.
+
+"But some other time," continued Sheila, "I will tell you what we do
+here, and I will show you a great many letters I have from friends of
+mine who have gone to Greenock and to New York and Canada. Oh yes, it is
+very bad for the old people: they never get reconciled to the
+change--never; but it is very good for the young people, and they are
+glad of it, and are much better off than they were here. You will see
+how proud they are of the better clothes they have, and of good food,
+and of money to put in the bank; and how could they get that in the
+Highlands, where the land is so poor that a small piece is of no use,
+and they have not money to rent the large sheep-farms? It is very bad to
+have people go away--it is very hand on many of them--but what can they
+do? The piece of ground that was very good for the one family, that is
+expected to keep the daughters when they marry, and the sons when they
+marry, and then there are five or six families to live on it. And hard
+work--that will not do much with very bad land and the bad weather we
+have here. The people get downhearted when they have their crops spoiled
+by the long rain, and they cannot get their peats dried; and very often
+the fishing turns out bad, and they have no money at all to carry on the
+farm. But now you will see Borvabost."
+
+Lavender had to confess that this wonderful princess would persist in
+talking in a very matter-of-fact way. All the afternoon, while he was
+weaving a luminous web of imagination around her, she was continually
+cutting it asunder, and stepping forth as an authority on the growing of
+some wretched plants or the means by which rain was to be excluded from
+window-sills. And now, in this strange twilight, when she ought to have
+been singing of the cruelties of the sea or listening to half-forgotten
+legends of mermaids, she was engaged with the petty fortunes of men and
+girls who were pleased to find themselves prospering in the Glasgow
+police-force or educating themselves in a milliner's shop in Edinburgh.
+She did not appear conscious that she was a princess. Indeed, she seemed
+to have no consciousness of herself at all, and was altogether occupied
+in giving him information about practical subjects in which he professed
+a profound interest he certainly did not feel.
+
+But even Sheila, when they had reached the loftiest part of their route,
+and could see beneath them the island and the water surrounding it, was
+struck by the exceeding beauty of the twilight; and as for her
+companion, he remembered it many a time thereafter as if it were a dream
+of the sea. Before them lay the Atlantic--a pale line of blue, still,
+silent and remote. Overhead, the sky was of a clear, pale gold, with
+heavy masses of violet cloud stretched across from north to south, and
+thickening as they got near to the horizon. Down at their feet, near the
+shore, a dusky line of huts and houses was scarcely visible; and over
+these lay a pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move in the still
+air. Then they saw the bay into which the White Water runs, and they
+could trace the yellow glimmer of the river stretching into the island
+through a level valley of bog and morass. Far away, toward the east, lay
+the bulk of the island--dark green undulations of moorland and pasture;
+and there, in the darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the
+clear light of the sky, and was gleaming westward like a star. But all
+this was as nothing to the glory that began to shine in the south-east,
+where the sky was of a pale violet over the peaks of Mealasabhal and
+Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dome, rose the golden crescent of
+the moon, warm in color, as though it still retained the last rays of
+the sunset. A line of quivering gold fell across Loch Roag, and touched
+the black hull and spars of the boat in which Sheila had been sailing in
+the morning. That bay down there, with its white sands and massive
+rocks, its still expanse of water, and its background of mountain-peaks
+palely colored by the yellow moonlight, seemed really a home for a magic
+princess who was shut off from all the world. But here, in front of
+them, was another sort of sea and another sort of life--a small
+fishing-village hidden under a cloud of pale peat-smoke, and fronting
+the great waters of the Atlantic itself, which lay under a gloom of
+violet clouds.
+
+"Now," said Sheila with a smile, "we have not always weather as good as
+this in the island. Will you not sit on the bench over there with Mr.
+Ingram, and wait until my papa and I come up from the village again?"
+
+"May not I go down with you?"
+
+"No. The dogs would learn you were a stranger, and there would be a
+great deal of noise, and there will be many of the poor people asleep."
+
+So Sheila had her way; and she and her father went down the hillside
+into the gloom of the village, while Lavender went to join his friend
+Ingram, who was sitting on the wooden bench, silently smoking a clay
+pipe.
+
+"Well, I have never seen the like of this," said Lavender in his
+impetuous way: "it is worth going a thousand miles to see. Such colors
+and such clearness! and then the splendid outlines of those mountains,
+and the grand sweep of this loch! This is the sort of thing that drives
+me to despair, and might make one vow never to touch a brush again. And
+Sheila says it will be like this all the night through."
+
+He was unaware that he had spoken of her in a very familiar way, but
+Ingram noticed it.
+
+"Ingram," he said suddenly, "that is the first girl I have ever seen
+whom I should like to marry."
+
+"Stuff!"
+
+"But it is true. I have never seen any one like her--so handsome, so
+gentle, and yet so very frank in setting you right. And then she is so
+sensible, you know, and not too proud to have much interest in all sorts
+of common affairs--"
+
+There was a smile in Ingram's face, and his companion stopped in some
+vexation: "You are not a very sympathetic confidant."
+
+"Because I know the story of old. You have told it me about twenty
+women, and it is always the same. I tell you, you don't know anything at
+all about Sheila Mackenzie yet: perhaps you never may. I suppose you
+will make a heroine of her, and fall in love with her for a fortnight,
+and then go back to London and get cured by listening to the witticisms
+of Mrs. Lorraine."
+
+"Thank you very much."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean to offend you. Some day, no doubt, you will love a
+woman for what she is, not for what you fancy her to be; but that is a
+piece of good-fortune that seldom occurs to a youth of your age. To
+marry in a dream, and wake up six months afterward--that is the fate of
+ingenuous twenty-three. But don't you let Mackenzie hear you talk of
+marrying Sheila, or he'll have some of his fishermen throw you into Loch
+Roag."
+
+"There, now, that _is_ one point I can't understand about her," said
+Lavender eagerly. "How can a girl of her shrewdness and good sense have
+such a belief in that humbugging old idiot of a father of hers, who
+fancies me a political emissary, and plays small tricks to look like
+diplomacy? It is always 'My papa can do this,' and 'My papa can do
+that,' and 'There is no one at all like my papa.' And she is continually
+fondling him, and giving little demonstrations of affection, of which he
+takes no more notice than if he were an Arctic bear."
+
+Ingram looked up with some surprise in his face. "You don't mean to say,
+Lavender," he said slowly, "that you are already jealous of the girl's
+own father?"
+
+He could not answer, for at this moment Sheila, her father and the big
+greyhound came up the hill. And again it was Lavender's good fortune to
+walk with Sheila across the moorland path they had traversed some little
+time before. And now the moon was still higher in the heavens, and the
+yellow lane of light that crossed the violet waters of Loch Roag
+quivered in a deeper gold. The night-air was scented with the Dutch
+clover growing down by the shore. They could hear the curlew whistling
+and the plover calling amid that monotonous plash of the waves that
+murmured all around the coast. When they returned to the house the
+darker waters of the Atlantic and the purple clouds of the west were
+shut out from sight, and before them there was only the liquid plain of
+Loch Roag, with its pathway of yellow fire, and far away on the other
+side the shoulders and peaks of the southern mountains, that had grown
+gray and clear and sharp in the beautiful twilight. And this was
+Sheila's home.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[G] "My black-haired girl, my pretty girl, my black-haired girl, don't
+leave me." _Nighean dubh_ is pronounced _Nyean du_.
+
+[H] Literally, _Gearaidh-na'h-Aimhne_--"the cutting of the river."
+
+[I] Another name given by the islanders to these stones is
+_Fir-bhreige_, "false men." Both names, False Men and the Mourners,
+should be of some interest to antiquarians, for they will suit pretty
+nearly any theory.
+
+
+
+
+WINTER.
+
+
+    The golden sunshine has fled away,
+    The clouds o'erhead hang heavy and gray,
+    The world is woefully sad to-day;
+
+    And I am thinking of you, dear, you.
+    The cold clay hides from the rain and dew
+    The tenderest heart that the world e'er knew.
+
+    Why should I think of you when the rain
+    Smiteth so sharply the window-pane,
+    And the wild winds round the old house 'plain?
+
+    You were so sweet and sunny and bright,
+    Ever your presence brought life and light,
+    And I recall you in storm and night.
+
+    When snow-shrouds hang on the corpse-cold trees,
+    When sharp frosts sting and the north winds freeze,
+    What has your mem'ry to do with these?
+
+    O fair lost love! O love that is dead!
+    The pleasant days from my life are fled,
+    The rosy morns and the sunsets red.
+
+    The light has faded from out my life,
+    Leaving the clouds and the stormy strife,
+    And the keen sharp cold that cuts like a knife.
+
+    The days and the months, how slow they glide,
+    Gray-robed and cold-breathed and frozen-eyed!
+    The summer died for me when you died.
+
+    O world of woe and of want and pain!
+    O heaven of clouds and storm and rain!
+    When shall I find my summer again?
+
+
+                        LUCY H. HOOPER.
+
+
+
+
+NEW WASHINGTON.
+
+
+A stranger visiting the national capital should begin by leaving it. He
+should cross the Anacostia River at the Navy-yard, climb the heights
+behind the village of Uniontown, be careful to find exactly the right
+path, and seat himself on the parapet of old Fort Stanton. His feeling
+of fatigue will be overcome by one of astonishment that the scene should
+contain so much that is beautiful in nature, so much that is exceedingly
+novel if not very good in art, and so much that has the deepest
+historical interest. From the blue hills of Prince George's county in
+Maryland winds the Anacostia, whose waters at his feet float all but the
+very largest vessels of our navy, while but six miles above they float
+nothing larger than a Bladensburg goose. To the left flows the Potomac,
+a mile wide. Between the rivers lies Washington. A vast amphitheatre,
+its green or gray walls cloven only by the two rivers, appears to
+surround the city. "Amphitheatre" is the word, for within the great
+circle, proportioned to it in size and magnificence, dwarfing all other
+objects, stands the veritable arena where our public gladiators and wild
+beasts hold their combats. This of course is the Capitol, whose white
+dome rises like a blossoming lily from the dark expanse below.
+
+Along these summits are the remains of a chain of earthworks that
+completely enveloped the capital. They are all overgrown by verdure, and
+are fast disappearing; but whenever the site of one is relieved against
+the clear sky a grassy embrasure or a bit of rampart may yet be seen
+from a distance. Here stretched
+
+    The watchfires of a hundred circling camps,
+
+whose light is in the "Battle-Hymn of the Republic," for it was a
+personal view of them, and of these altars built in the evening dews and
+damps, which gave form to the great lyric. Here in a few years, when
+more of the business-men of Washington shall have learned how to do
+business, or when her social development shall have detained the
+cultured and wealthy who now come and go, will be found a circle of
+beautiful villas and nearly all the luxuries of summer life.
+
+Below the high bank opposite, where the Congressional Cemetery skirts
+the city, where some famous men are actually buried, and where Congress
+places cenotaphs that look like long rows of antiquated beehives for all
+who die while members of that body, a line of black dots crosses the
+Anacostia like the corks of a fisherman's seine. They are the piles that
+upheld a bridge in the summer of 1814. On the hills to the right the
+little army of five thousand redcoats made a feint toward this bridge,
+and caused the Americans to burn it. Away to the left, across the
+Potomac, stretches Long Bridge, which was also fired the next night by
+the British and by the fleeing inhabitants of the captured town.
+
+The eight miles of Virginia shore visible from Washington contain really
+but three objects. Two or three dark chimneys and steeples and a few
+misty outlines are all one needs to see of Alexandria, which is six
+miles down the river, and appears about as ancient as its Egyptian
+namesake. Nearer, the monotony is broken by the tower of Fairfax
+Seminary; nearer still, among the oaks of Arlington, by the mansion of
+Custis-Lee, imposing, pillared and cream-colored; or it was the last in
+the days when cream had a color.
+
+Descending from the old fort, the stranger should go at once to
+Georgetown and climb up into the little burying-ground of Holyrood. The
+view thence will give him all that was excluded from the other. He will
+now be prepared to examine Washington in detail, and as this is not a
+guide-book he shall go his way alone. But the "gentle reader" is
+requested to linger an hour longer upon the natural walls and look down
+with me on the dark city.
+
+Below is such a growth of beautiful and strange that we can understand
+it only by remembering that we look down on all the United States. Into
+that problem of squares and circles and triangles wise men from the East
+plunge and see Beacon street; wise men from the West plunge and see
+Poker Flat; and from the highest ground we can find we will try to see
+the whole of Washington. We cannot distinguish a friend's house from an
+enemy's. The lines are mingled and the colors blended by our distance.
+Individuals are lost to sight entirely. What would be such a conflict of
+sounds down there that we should never be certain of what we heard, is
+now so faint a hum that it does not disturb us or affect our speech. We
+have risen into a better atmosphere, and find that some things which
+were ugly have grown good and graceful.
+
+To allude to all the noted and novel things in this complicated scene
+would be to fill a book, and enough pre-Raphaelites are already browsing
+there. Giving due attention to particulars in their places, we must yet
+give effects in sweeping strokes, steering as best we can between the
+Scylla of didactic details and the Charybdis of glittering generalities.
+
+The candid observer wonders not that Washington is so far below what it
+ought to be, but that it exists as a city at all. It has suffered
+calamities that would have extinguished any other place. The vitality
+that could survive them would seem capable of surviving anything. Other
+towns have had to contend against natural disadvantages, but they have
+had the aid of citizens who knew what they wanted, and who used the
+public money and energy and brains for the public good. But here has
+been the novel sight of a city having every natural advantage, yet
+compelled to fight its own citizens for life; to see the public money
+and energy and brains--what little there were--used to kill not only the
+town, but the people in it; to support men of weight in the community
+who really did not want it polluted by trade or manufactures or any
+such vulgar things.
+
+The Capitol, which now, like the Irishman's shanty, has the front door
+on the back side, was made to face the east because in that direction
+lay as fine a site as ever a town possessed, and there the city was to
+be built. To the westward the ground was such that men are living who as
+boys waded for reed-birds and caught catfish where now is the centre of
+business. The necessity of transforming this tract in the very beginning
+of trade retarded the general growth incalculably. The owners of the
+good ground didn't want to do anything themselves, and were too greedy
+to let anybody else. The Executive Mansion, a mile to the westward,
+attracted other public buildings about it; the people who had to support
+themselves bought real estate in the swamps; those who lived without
+business of their own followed them of course; and the fine plateau
+prepared by Nature has been touched only so far as improvement has been
+compelled by forces radiating from the other side of the Capitol. The
+life and trade that tend to crystallize around one centre are still much
+dissipated by the policy that ruined Capitol Hill; but as this can no
+longer endanger the general prosperity, it is now more a blessing than a
+calamity. It makes sure and speedy the reclamation of the waste places,
+while the improvement of all the good ones must take place at last. The
+owners of the barren sites which yet break the continuity of blocks in
+good localities can sit still and "hold on" if they please, but they
+must expect to see the "worthless" tracts--Swampoodle, Murder Bay and
+Hell's Bottom--fill with life and rise in value faster than their own.
+
+Another calamity, which has grown with the city instead of being
+outgrown, is the changes that have been permitted to take place in the
+Potomac. Long Bridge, instead of being built so as to permit an
+uninterrupted flow of the stream, was composed for a great distance of
+an earthen road--a dam--arresting half the water of the river. This
+temporarily benefited the Georgetown channel, no doubt, by forcing all
+the water into it. But a marsh is rising in the middle of the stream,
+creeping rapidly up to the Washington wharves, threatening the health of
+the city, and so crippling its commerce that an expensive remedy must be
+speedily applied. There is some difference of opinion as to the
+comparative injuries and benefits arising from the bridge, but the fact
+remains clear that this important river has suffered needless injury to
+a degree that is deplorable. In the past, however, the fault has been as
+much with the city as with Congress. That body cannot improve rivers
+where there is no commerce to be benefited, nor give new facilities to
+towns that do not make the most of what they have. But the gazer from
+Fort Stanton--glancing beyond the Navy-yard and the shot-battered
+monitors that lie there, across Greenleaf's Point and the Arsenal, made
+tragic by the death of many a British soldier and of the Lincoln-Seward
+assassins half a century later--overlooking the wharves of Washington
+and dimly descrying the masts at Georgetown, now sees a traffic that has
+earned a consideration it has not received. A few weeks ago we paused in
+an after-dinner walk, down there on the Arsenal boulevard, to watch the
+troubles of a crew and the labors of a tug which were altogether too
+suggestive. A senseless fellow of a captain came sailing up the river
+from a foreign port, his vessel laden with a valuable cargo, and
+attempted a landing at Washington. He knew no better than to suppose
+that the capital of this nation, on one of our finest rivers, possessing
+all its days a navy-yard, would permit itself to be approached by a
+merchantman. He stuck in the mud within a hundred yards of the wharf.
+There he spent three or four days in anxiety and chagrin, and finally
+got a tug to pull him back into navigable water. He swung about, made
+haste down the river and took his vessel to another port, uttering some
+natural oaths, no doubt, and wondering what kind of country he had got
+into. A small vessel going from Washington to Georgetown heads for
+Chesapeake Bay, passes up around the island of filth accumulated by the
+bridge, and sails four miles in ascending two.
+
+Bordering the broad belt of grass and trees which we see sweeping
+gracefully through the heart of the city from the Capitol to the
+President's, where rise the towers of the Smithsonian, the roof of the
+Agricultural Bureau, and all that is built of the Washington Monument,
+there stretched another calamity, which existed some fifty years, which
+was at last extinguished during 1872 at an immense cost to the city,
+which was one of the "improvements" of the past, which once employed the
+public money and energy--we cannot repeat brains--to kill not only the
+town, but the people in it. This was the great pestiferous open sewer
+that stole into a filthy existence under the name of the Washington
+Canal.
+
+But there was a greater misfortune than any of these. Slavery need only
+be mentioned. More of Washington's present defects are attributable to
+it in one way or another than to all else. Yet under this crowning
+calamity, added to the others, the undulating plain before us, which
+appears so sluggish from the height to which we have climbed, has within
+seventy-five years passed from a wilderness into a city of one hundred
+and eleven thousand inhabitants. Although the general government kept
+the breath of life in it during a period when perhaps nothing else could
+have done so, yet such a growth, under all the circumstances, cannot be
+accounted for without recognizing an inherent strength that has never
+been acknowledged by the multitudes who come to "see" Washington. It
+proves that she may have a significance of her own. The visitor should
+remember that New York and Boston are enjoying, and Philadelphia has
+nearly reached, the third century of their lives.
+
+This scene from the heights is a fascinating one for the day-dreamer.
+Everything is in harmony with the past character of the capital.
+Everything is misty, vast, uncertain, grand and ill-defined. One does
+not see clearly the boundaries--the city and country are one. Every
+street we trace in the distance, almost every building, almost every
+foot of ground, has gathered something of tradition from the lives of
+the statesmen, generals, jurists, diplomates who have lived and wrought
+here for three-quarters of a century. The visions that passed before the
+eyes of Washington as he stood on the Observatory Hill there, a
+subaltern under Braddock, contemplating the wilderness about him and
+imagining the future; the pictures that filled the fancy of the
+intractable L'Enfant as he defined the great mall and thought of the
+gardens between the Tuileries and the Chamber of Deputies; Andrew J.
+Downing giving his last days to such an arrangement of the trees and
+grass as would be worthy of the design; President Madison and his
+cabinet, with a useless little army at their heels, flying in despair
+from yonder bloody hillside; Admiral Cockburn derisively riding an old
+mare up Pennsylvania Avenue; the burning Capitol and White House
+lighting up the gloom of that hideous night; Stephen Decatur shot to
+death just round the bend of the Anacostia there; the conflicts by
+tongue and pen that have again and again gone on here till the whole
+country swayed; Gamaliel Bailey silencing a mob at his door; the
+histories that lie buried under the thirty thousand headboards that
+gleam like an army of ghosts among the trees of Arlington; Abraham
+Lincoln gasping his life away in that little Tenth street house; his
+assassin dashing in darkness across the bridge at our feet, over which
+we have just passed, and spurring almost into the shadow of the parapet
+where we stand;--all these things, and a hundred more as tempting to the
+dreamer, come crowding on the mind at every glance. Yet who stops to
+call Washington a romantic city? When the White House, just visible from
+those tree-tops, shall have ceased, as it soon must do, to be the home
+of the chief magistrate, what future magician shall summon down those
+cheerless stairways the ghostly procession of dead Presidents, as our
+first literary necromancer marshaled the shades of royal governors
+across the threshold of the Province House? We turn from all this to
+speak of the practical affairs of to-day which await us in the city,
+with a reluctance that delays our feet as we descend.
+
+A phrase applied, we believe, by Dickens, when writing of the avenues
+here many years ago, and illustrating his remarkable faculty of telling
+the most truth when he exaggerated most, rises so constantly to mind
+when one considers what Washington has been, that we are tempted to make
+it a kind of text. He described the great houseless thoroughfares as
+"beginning nowhere and ending in nothing." That phrase sets old
+Washington before the reader as the literal truth could never do.
+
+But the reader must now remember that old Washington is going--that a
+new Washington has come. The city is no longer disposed to make
+apologies, wait for generosity or beg for patronage. It is disposed--and
+has proved its disposition--to take off its seedy coat and go to work in
+its own way. Its waiting is now only for enlightened judgment from
+others, and its begging is only for justice.
+
+The change of local government in 1871, when Congress gave the District
+of Columbia a legislature and a representative, was the particular event
+from which may be dated such innovations as make necessary a revision of
+the popular opinion. The visitors who come this month, and who have not
+been here since the last inauguration, will have to learn the capital
+anew. While the establishment of the territorial government and the
+organization of its outgrowths--particularly the Board of Public
+Works--mark the new departure by physical changes, all will understand
+that it was the first gun at Charleston, startling the stagnant pool
+here, which set in motion the successive waves that carried the city up
+to this departure. The public affairs of the city became practically
+unmanageable. A joint-stock company could not organize for the most
+trifling business without depending on the slow and uncertain action of
+Congress for a charter. A few active men, who saw that the old order of
+things could be endured no longer, met quietly in 1870 at the house of
+an honored citizen on K street to see what further they could see. They
+continued to meet at each other's homes, lightening their interchange of
+thought for the public by such an extension of hospitality as drew into
+their circle many influential Congressmen, and converted them to the new
+idea that there was something in Washington besides the national
+service. The result was, that the city government was abolished; a
+legislative assembly was created; a governor was appointed by the
+President of the United States; and a delegate was sent to Congress,
+instead of a crowd of lobbyists, to represent the District of Columbia.
+This delegate is always to be a member of the committee on the District,
+Congress has the constitutional right of exclusive legislation, and the
+Assembly cannot impose taxes of any consequence without especial
+authority from the people.
+
+The wisdom of the change was doubted at first by many real friends of
+progress, who thought they saw grave legal complications arising; who
+knew what popular government in a large city, with no restriction of the
+election franchise, might mean; who at times thought of New York with a
+shudder; who knew that as Washington was the centre of everything
+political, it was necessarily the centre of political corruption; that
+her alleys were crowded with ignorant freedmen; that her ward
+politicians were as unscrupulous and skillful as the same class in other
+cities; and who thought it safer to trust the average Congressman than
+the small political trader and his chattels. But Congress sits as a
+perpetual court of appeal on the spot where its members can judge from
+personal knowledge, ready to overrule any act of the Assembly that can
+be shown to be a bad one; and one house of the Assembly, with the
+governor and executive boards, is appointed by the President. The
+election of the larger house and of the delegate to Congress is
+sufficient security to the people, and Washington is to-day in most
+respects the best-governed city of its size in the United States. The
+powers of the little Assembly are very limited: the governor can veto
+its measures; Congress can override them both; the President can veto
+the acts of Congress; two-thirds of Congress can still surmount this
+veto. This complicated system may retard good measures, but it is not
+probable that any very bad one can long survive under it.
+
+The Baron Haussmann here is the Board of Public Works. It is grading,
+filling, paving, planting, fencing, parking, and making the
+thoroughfares what they would never have become by ordinary means. At
+last we see what Washingtonians never saw before--vast public operations
+having a consistent and tangible shape; obeying a purpose that can be
+understood, defined and executed; beginning somewhere and ending in
+something. Within its sphere this Board has despotic power: it would be
+worthless with any less. It dares to strike without fear or favor, and
+hit whoever stands in the way: the way would never be cleared if it did
+not. It makes bitter enemies by its inexorable exactions: the public
+cannot be served except at the expense of the individual. A strong party
+has fought it by injunctions and failed: the same persons will no doubt
+continue to fight, while the Board will no doubt continue to vindicate
+itself and go on with its work. It made some mistakes which wrought
+hardships to individuals who wished it well, but such were the
+difficulties before it at the outset that it might have made greater
+mistakes and still been forgiven. It is to be hoped that it will have
+enemies enough to watch it closely, criticise it sharply and hold it to
+a strict accountability; but should it have enough to really interfere
+with its present course, then we shall have to add one more, and a great
+one, to the list of Washington's calamities. The new blood that created
+it is able to sustain it, while the air it has done so much to purify is
+already laden with blessings from the lips of strangers.
+
+In the matter of public improvements an equitable adjustment of
+relations--always heretofore uncertain and unsatisfactory--between the
+District and the general government still remains to be accomplished,
+and at this writing is impatiently awaited by the city. Congress should
+explicitly define for itself a course that can be depended upon, so that
+the city can go ahead and know what it ought to do. The general
+government, promising great things which began nowhere and ended in
+nothing, laid out the city for its own use, and gave more space to
+streets and ornamental grounds than to buildings. The plan was wise and
+good, but did not appear so until the liberal citizens, unable to endure
+the disgrace of such a city as the nation thrust upon them, taxing
+themselves six millions of dollars for street purposes, went generously
+to work, with their own money improved the immense fronts of the
+government property, which pays no taxes, evolved something tangible out
+of the old cloudy-magnificent plan, and gave the country, so far as they
+could, a decent capital.
+
+There is another important matter for adjustment. The city has left
+nothing undone that money and labor could do to make the public schools
+the best in the United States. It is doubtful whether there has ever
+before been seen in any city or State an expenditure for public schools
+so generous, under all the circumstances, as that of Washington within
+the past few years. The best school-houses here are the best the
+Prussian commissioners, who lately came to inspect them, had ever seen.
+A very great number of the pupils educated by the city are the children
+of government servants whose homes are in the States, and who pay no
+considerable taxes here. Every State and Territory has received a
+liberal allotment of public land for school-purposes except the District
+of Columbia, which has probably done more for schools without the
+endowment, considering the time and taxable property at command, than
+any State has ever done with it.
+
+Of course the city has received many benefits from the general
+government, but the considerable ones have been indirect. The excellent
+water-works, for instance, costing about three millions of dollars, were
+built with the nation's money and by army engineers, because the nation
+needed them, and show how entirely identical are the interests of both
+parties. Their respective duties, while they need defining anew, are so
+wedded that there is no room for serious difference. It is really a
+matter for congratulation that the general government held back and did
+not take more of the improvements into its own hands. The city's present
+claims are by so much stronger: the two governments can work in harmony,
+and any efforts that are now made will not be thrown away. Had Congress
+acted sooner we might have had more Washington canals, and Washington
+and Georgetown street-cars, and similar Congressional "improvements,"
+beginning nowhere but in ignorance or selfishness, and ending in nothing
+but nuisances. The improvement of the interiors of the national grounds,
+however, by the general government, is now keeping pace with that of the
+exteriors by the city as nearly as is possible under present
+legislation, and their superintendence has become at last an office of
+some practical consequence to Washington. The general government owns
+about one-half of the property in the District, and during seventy years
+has expended for the improvement of the thoroughfares a little over one
+million of dollars. The city during the same time has expended for the
+same purpose nearly fourteen millions of dollars.
+
+The old Washington idea seems to have consisted in finishing a city
+before it was begun. To use an architectural figure, the capital of the
+column has been well designed and partly carved, but the base is not yet
+laid. Those characteristics which the builders thought would be a sure
+foundation of greatness have proved insufficient in the past and will
+prove so in the future. The infusion of new blood has done wonders
+within ten years, but there is still needed the admixture of another
+current. Wealth and ideality--supposed to be possessed by all who are
+attracted hither--do not raise a man above material wants or fail to
+multiply them. When Washington shall give her utmost attention to
+satisfying the vulgarest common wants of common people, she will have
+taken her first real step toward--anything. She has had enough of fog
+and moonshine. She wants for a proper period the most unmitigated
+materiality--not as an end, of course, but as the first means of making
+something else possible. She will be made our republican Paris, if made
+so at all, by the aid of the shops, the wonderful skilled labor, the
+economical living of poor people, on which rested, as well as on higher
+things, the splendors of the imperial Paris. The average American lady
+goes to that city to buy "things," as well as to visit the Louvre, and
+while the late emperor endeavored to make his capital the social centre
+of the world, he did not scorn to make it a fashionable market and
+foster a Palace of Industry.
+
+That Washington is an admirable place for manufactures is clear to all
+who have sought the facts. Whether she will ever become a manufacturing
+city is a question that must be settled by the citizens themselves.
+Whoever doubts that the growth of skilled labor here will be an
+indispensable condition of the higher growth that is sought fails to
+understand modern civilization, and should not have survived the days
+when things began nowhere and ended in nothing. The old thoroughbred
+Washingtonian will never invest a dollar to build a railroad or a modern
+workshop, of course. He does not know anything about them, and does not
+want to. His idea of business is to get real estate, and "hold on" till
+somebody else makes it valuable. Gentlemen of new Washington, Hercules
+will stand idle till he sees your own shoulders at the wheel. When you
+shall have the faithful, enlightened manual labor of New England, you
+may expect such flowers as Yale and Harvard and the æsthetic fruits they
+enfold. You may be unable to see any intimate connection between such
+labor and such culture, but nevertheless it exists. Old Washington could
+not see it, and now you are compelled to bury old Washington out of
+sight. It is time for Mohammed to start if he wants his mountain.
+
+There are a few business-men in Washington who are as enlightened, as
+liberal, as trustworthy as any in the country; and abundant is their
+reward. There are a few who deal only in good wares, who always sell
+them at a reasonable profit, who believe that any kind of deception is a
+blunder, who manage their establishments with economy, who are aware
+that the more money they permit their customers to make the more they
+will ultimately make themselves,--who, in short, have learned the
+principles of business and have the character to stand by them. But so
+many fall short--often through ignorance--in one or more of these
+respects that the average business character is low. If a lady wishes to
+spend twenty-five dollars in shopping, she can generally travel eighty
+miles--to Baltimore and back--and save enough of that small sum to pay
+her for going, besides being sure of finding what she wants. The
+Washington shopkeepers may really think that they cannot help this. They
+_must_ help it, or consent to be soon shoved aside by those who can.
+Instead of being troubled by the sight of his best customers going as
+far as New York whenever they have anything of consequence to buy, the
+genuine old Washington retailer seems to take a calm satisfaction in
+putting such fastidious buyers to so much inconvenience. Here it is
+rather the exception than the rule for the man of small business to do
+just what he promises to do. He don't know the value of another's time,
+is used to disappointments himself, and somehow or other will manage to
+disarrange your most careful calculations. Unable himself to meet an
+engagement thoroughly and exactly, he seems determined that nobody else
+shall.
+
+But you cease censuring the average business-man when you begin to deal
+with the average Washington mechanic. There are some good ones, but they
+are absorbed by the large and experienced dealers in labor, and are
+beyond the knowledge or reach of ordinary mortals. You want a little
+job done at your house; you call on a "boss;" certainly--it shall be
+done instantly; a workman will be sent in a few minutes; two days
+afterward he comes and "looks at it;" the next day he returns with
+another man and they both look at it; another day passes, and an
+apprentice-boy, with a lame negro to wait on him, comes and makes your
+home hideous by pretending to begin; when they have given your family a
+proper amount of information, and torn things to pieces sufficiently,
+they go away. Two more days elapse, and you go again to the boss; he is
+surprised--he supposed the work had been done, for he had given
+"orders;" at the end of a week perhaps the job that should have consumed
+two hours of honest work is done; then, if you pay the boss no more than
+the work actually cost him, you know that the sum is twice as much as it
+should have cost him. As a generalization this is a true picture of
+Washington labor.
+
+These things are trifles? They are just what determine the permanent
+residence of multitudes of valuable citizens. They are the trifles that
+in the aggregate make the difference between civilization and barbarism.
+For every broken promise or slighted piece of work the city suffers.
+Civilized people like to live smoothly and comfortably. Washington,
+thinking of something besides hotels and boarding-houses, and the people
+of leisure who come once a year to fill them for a few weeks, must
+provide for a permanent population of moderately poor people. The word
+of a merchant or banker is supposed to be as good as his bond; his
+occupation is gone when this ceases to be the case; his standing is
+reported in a business guide-book, and dealers with him act accordingly.
+Cannot some of the methods that enforce integrity in higher branches of
+business be more systematically applied by dealers in manual labor? The
+men who are reforming the city's outward appearance have an opportunity
+of doing something in this direction. A Northern mechanic who reverences
+his conscience, and makes the most of his opportunities to gain
+knowledge and character, cannot emigrate to a better place than
+Washington.
+
+Yet when one looks into the past he thinks that perhaps labor is
+improving as fast as other things here. He is inclined to admire it when
+he remembers how much worse it used to be. John Adams was the first
+occupant of the White House, and this is what his wife said in a private
+letter just after moving into it: "To assist us in this great castle,
+and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one
+single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you
+can obtain. If they put me up bells, and let me have wood enough to keep
+fires, I design to be pleased. But, surrounded with forests, can you
+believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to
+cut and cart it?" Seventy-two years ago the President's wife could get
+nothing but promises toward hanging a servant's bell! Washington was in
+a forest and couldn't furnish wood enough to warm the presidential
+hearthstone! The forests and people of that day are gone, but those
+eternal "promises" remain.
+
+The recent building in Washington has been mostly that of dwellings,
+which the ordinary visitor, following the old routes between the Capitol
+and West End, will hardly notice, although they have covered many acres
+within the past four years. Since the Board of Public Works has
+settled--some would say unsettled--the foundations of things, we may
+expect to see the heavy building for business purposes, which must soon
+take place even if there be no change in the character of business,
+conducted with a little system and uniformity. The streets themselves
+have been made so fine that it will require some moral courage--a thing
+for which Washington is not noted--to disfigure them by the hideous
+jumbles that accorded so well with the old ways. Such splendid
+monstrosities as the Treasury--as a whole, the worst public building in
+the city, although good in parts, so situated that one must go down
+stairs from Pennsylvania Avenue to get into the grand north entrance,
+without proportion, completeness or consistency--it will be impossible
+even for Congress to build.
+
+Both the physical and moral appearance of Washington truly represent the
+civilization of the nation as a whole. Such is, after all, the only
+description that can be given; and so vast and heterogeneous is the
+nation that to many readers this will be no description at all. A farmer
+measures out a half bushel of wheat, "levels" it, and tells you truly
+that the only difference is in quantity between that in the measure and
+that which it came from in the bin: take the architecture, the people,
+the ideas of all these States, shake them together in a half bushel,
+"level" them, and you can truly say you have Washington. Any noteworthy
+character of its own is still lacking. So long as it is nothing more
+than a representative of the whole country, it will in many desirable
+things fall far below a dozen other cities, whose independence has
+enabled them to reach excellences toward which Washington vaguely
+aspires. As the capital it will not be the best and most enlightened,
+but will be the "average" city. As an independent one its destiny is now
+in its own hands, and facilities are thrown at its feet such as no other
+can hope to have. There have been good excuses for its shortcomings in
+the past. There are none now. Two years ago, Washington was a great boy
+who had grown up under the repressive guardianship of his Uncle Samuel;
+he had not been permitted to do anything for himself; he had no money
+except the few pennies which the old gentleman had grudgingly given him
+for menial services. He needed higher culture and better business habits
+than his uncle exhibited: the leading-strings were at last sufficiently
+cut. His guardian, still exercising a good deal of authority, has
+permitted him to go into business for himself; given him the use of the
+greatest library in the United States; surrounded him with specimens of
+architecture invaluable as models or as warnings; opened to him the
+treasures of the Smithsonian, the Coast Survey and a unique medical
+museum; given him the benefit of a fine observatory; placed at his
+disposal magnificent pleasure-grounds; set before him a botanical
+garden; put up for him some good statues and pictures; shown him models
+of all the mechanical inventions of the age; sent to him as associates
+the first statesmen, jurists and captains of the land; and brought to
+his door as guests the polished representatives of all civilized
+countries. What more does the boy want that he may make a man of
+himself? Nothing but a will of his own so to develop his natural
+resources that he can use these things. Will he now refuse to earn the
+necessary money to enjoy them, and insist on living, in shabby-genteel
+ignorance and idleness, exclusively on the pocket-money of the visitors
+to whom his uncle introduces him? If he does, shall we call him a
+gentleman?
+
+                        CHAUNCEY HICKOX.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
+
+
+Forty days in the great desert of the sea--forty nights camped under
+cloud-canopies, with the salt dust of the waves drifting over us.
+Sometimes a Bedouin sail flashed for an hour upon the distant horizon,
+and then faded, and we were alone again; sometimes the west, at sunset,
+looked like a city with towers, and we bore down upon its glorified
+walls, seeking a haven; but a cold gray morning dispelled the illusion,
+and our hearts sank back into the illimitable sea, breathing a long
+prayer for deliverance.
+
+Once a green oasis blossomed before us--a garden in perfect bloom,
+girded about with creaming waves; within its coral cincture pendulous
+boughs trailed in the glassy waters; from its hidden bowers spiced airs
+stole down upon us; above all, the triumphant palm trees clashed their
+melodious branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet from the very gates
+of this paradise a changeful current swept us onward, and the happy isle
+was buried in night and distance.
+
+In many volumes of adventure I had read of sea-perils: I was at last to
+learn the full interpretation of their picturesque horrors. Our little
+craft, the Petrel, had buffeted the boisterous waves for five long
+weeks. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was edible: we feared neither
+famine nor thirst. Moreover, in spite of the continuous gale that swept
+us out of our reckoning, the Petrel was in excellent condition, and, as
+far as we could judge, we had no reason to lose confidence in her. It
+was the gray weather that tried our patience and found us wanting: it
+was the unparalleled pitching of the ninety-ton schooner that
+disheartened and almost dismembered us. And then it was wasting time at
+sea. Why were we not long before at our journey's end? Why were we not
+threading the vales of some savage island, reaping our rich reward of
+ferns and shells and gorgeous butterflies?
+
+The sea rang its monotonous changes--fair weather and foul, days like
+death itself, followed by days full of the revelations of new life, but
+mostly days of deadly dullness, when the sea was as unpoetical as an
+eternity of cold suds and blueing.
+
+I cannot always understand the logical fitness of things, or, rather, I
+am at a loss to know why some things in life are so unfit and illogical.
+Of course, in our darkest hour, when we were gathered in the confines of
+the Petrel's diminutive cabin, it was our duty to sing psalms of hope
+and cheer, but we didn't. It was a time for mutual encouragement: very
+few of us were self-sustaining, and what was to be gained by our
+combining in unanimous despair?
+
+Our weatherbeaten skipper--a thing of clay that seemed utterly incapable
+of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial contortion
+consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw--the skipper sat,
+with barometer in hand, eyeing the fatal finger that pointed to our
+doom: the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table, glad
+of any object to fix our eyes upon, and nervously awaiting a turn in the
+state of affairs, that was then by no means encouraging.
+
+I happened to remember that there were some sealed letters to be read
+from time to time on the passage out, and it occurred to me that one of
+the times had come, perhaps the last and only, wherein I might break the
+remaining seals and receive a sort of parting visit from the fortunate
+friends on shore.
+
+I opened one letter and read these prophetic lines: "Dear child"--she
+was twice my age, and privileged to make a pet of me--"Dear child, I
+have a presentiment that we shall never meet again in the flesh."
+
+That dear girl's intuition came near to being the death of me: I
+shuddered where I sat, overcome with remorse. It was enough that I had
+turned my back on her and sought consolation in the treacherous bosom of
+the ocean--that, having failed to find the spring of immortal life in
+human affection, I had packed up and emigrated, content to fly the ills
+I had in search of change; but that parting shot, below the water-line
+as it were, that was more than I asked for, and something more than I
+could stomach. I returned to watch with the rest of our little company,
+who clung about the table with a pitiful sense of momentary security,
+and an expression of pathetic condolence on every countenance, as though
+each were sitting out the last hours of the others.
+
+Our particular bane that night was a crusty old sea-dog whose memory of
+wrecks and marine disasters of every conceivable nature was as complete
+as an encyclopædia. This "old man of the sea" spun his tempestuous yarn
+with fascinating composure, and the whole company was awed into silence
+with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been
+air-tight--it was as close as possible--yet we heard the shrieking of
+the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves
+rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam
+buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing
+stricken with sudden fear: we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a
+great bubble that was, sooner or later, certain to burst and let us drop
+into its vast, black chasm, where in Cimmerian darkness we should be
+entombed for ever.
+
+The scenic effect, as I then considered, was unnecessarily vivid: as I
+now recall it, it seems to me strictly in keeping and thoroughly
+dramatic. At any rate, you might have told us a dreadful story with
+almost fatal success.
+
+I had still one letter left--one bearing this suggestive legend: "To be
+read in the saddest hour." Now, if there is a sadder hour in all time
+than the hour of hopeless and friendless death, I care not to know of
+it. I broke the seal of my letter, feeling that something charitable and
+cheering would give me strength. A few dried leaves were stored within
+it. The faint fragrance of summer bowers reassured me: somewhere in the
+blank world of waters there was land, and there Nature was kind and
+fruitful: out over the fearful deluge this leaf was borne to me in the
+return of the invisible dove my heart had sent forth in its extremity. A
+song was written therein, perhaps a song of triumph: I could now silence
+the clamorous tongue of our sea-monster, who was glutting us with tales
+of horror, for a jubilee was at hand, and here was the first note of its
+trumpets.
+
+I read:
+
+    Beyond the parting and the meeting
+        I shall be soon:
+    Beyond the farewell and the greeting,
+    Beyond the pulse's fever-beating,
+        I shall be soon.
+
+I paused. A night black with croaking ravens, brooding over a slimy
+hulk, through whose warped timbers the sea oozed--that was the sort of
+picture that arose before me. I looked farther for a crumb of comfort:
+
+    Beyond the gathering and the strewing
+        I shall be soon:
+    Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,
+    Beyond the coming and the going,
+        I shall be soon.
+
+A tide of ice-water seemed rippling up and down my spinal column: the
+marrow congealed within my bones. But I recovered. When a man has supped
+full of horror, and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself
+and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.
+
+Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated Petrel resumed his
+lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the
+barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of
+gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in
+idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove
+to" in the teeth of the gale.
+
+The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man
+who floated about in a waterlogged hulk for three months--who saw all
+his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch
+alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the staunch French brig La
+Perle, bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough weather
+from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a cyclone
+burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon her
+beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts
+were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling
+like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was
+swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into
+the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and
+gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched
+souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and
+despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a
+drop of water remained: then their tongues were loosened, and they
+railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate:
+one man alone was speechless--a Spaniard with a wicked light in his eye,
+and a repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than
+once.
+
+When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost
+miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the
+brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various
+projects for the capture of them: tough as a shark is, they would
+willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same. Somehow,
+though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden
+lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the
+shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and
+divided equally among the crew: some ate a little, and reserved the rest
+for another day; some ate till they were sick, and had little left for
+the next meal. The Spaniard with the evil eye greedily devoured his
+portion, and then grew moody again, refusing to speak with the others,
+who were striving to be cheerful, though it was sad enough work.
+
+When the food was all gone save a few mouthfuls that one meagre eater
+had hoarded to the last, the Spaniard resolved to secure a morsel at the
+risk of his life. It had been a point of honor with the men to observe
+sacredly the right of ownership, and any breach of confidence would have
+been considered unpardonable. At night, when the watch was sleeping, the
+Spaniard cautiously removed the last mouthful of shark hidden in the
+pocket of his mate, but was immediately detected and accused of theft.
+He at once grew desperate, struck at the poor wretch whom he had robbed,
+missed his blow, and fell headlong from the narrow platform in the
+foretop, and was lost in the sea. It was the first scene in the mournful
+tragedy about to be enacted on that limited stage.
+
+There was less disturbance after the disappearance of the Spaniard: the
+spirits of the doomed sailors seemed broken: in fact, the captain was
+the only one whose courage was noteworthy, and it was his indomitable
+will that ultimately saved him.
+
+One by one the minds of the miserable men gave way: they became peevish
+or delirious, and then died horribly. Two, who had been mates for many
+voyages in the seas north and south, vanished mysteriously in the night:
+no one could tell where they went nor in what manner, though they seemed
+to have gone together.
+
+Somehow, these famishing sailors seemed to feel assured that their
+captain would be saved: they were as confident of their own doom, and to
+him they entrusted a thousand messages of love. They would lie around
+him--for few of them had strength to assume a sitting posture--and
+reveal to him the story of their lives. It was most pitiful to hear the
+confessions of these dying men. One said: "I wronged my friend; I was
+unkind to this one or to that one; I deserve the heaviest punishment God
+can inflict upon me;" and then he paused, overcome with emotion. But
+another took up the refrain: "I could have done much good, but I would
+not, and now it is too late." And a third cried out in his despair: "I
+have committed unpardonable sins, and there is no hope for me. Lord
+Jesus, have mercy!" The youngest of these perishing souls was a mere
+lad: he too accused himself bitterly. He began his story at the
+beginning, and continued it from time to time as the spirit of
+revelation moved him: scarcely an incident, however insignificant,
+escaped him in his pitiless retrospect. Oh the keen agony of that boy's
+recital! more cruel than hunger or thirst, and in comparison with which
+physical torture would have seemed merciful and any death a blessing.
+
+While the luckless Perle drifted aimlessly about, driven slowly onward
+by varying winds under a cheerless sky, sickness visited them: some were
+stricken with scurvy; some had lost the use of their limbs and lay
+helpless, moaning and weeping hour after hour; vermin devoured them,
+and when their garments were removed and cleansed in the salt water,
+there was scarcely sunshine enough to dry them before night, and they
+were put on again, damp, stiffened with salt, and shrunken so as to
+cripple the wearers, who were all blistered and covered with boils. The
+nights were bitter cold: sometimes the icy moon looked down upon them;
+sometimes the bosom of an electric cloud burst over them, and they were
+enveloped for a moment in a sheet of flame. Sharks lingered about them,
+waiting to feed upon the unhappy ones who fell into the sea overcome
+with physical exhaustion, or who cast themselves from that dizzy
+scaffold, unable longer to endure the horrors of lingering death. Flocks
+of sea-fowl hovered over them; the hull of the Perle was crusted with
+barnacles; long skeins of sea-grass knotted themselves in her gaping
+seams; myriads of fish darted in and out among the clinging weeds,
+sporting gleefully; schools of porpoises leaped about them, lashing the
+sea into foam; sometimes a whale blew his long breath close under them.
+Everywhere was the stir of jubilant life--everywhere but under the
+tattered awning stretched in the foretop of the Perle.
+
+Days and weeks dragged on. When the captain would waken from his
+sleep--which was not always at night, however, for the nights were
+miserably cold and sleepless--when he wakened he would call the roll:
+perhaps some one made no answer; then he would reach forth and touch the
+speechless body and find it dead. He had not strength now to bury the
+corpses in the sea's sepulchre; he had not strength even to partake of
+the unholy feast of the inanimate flesh: he lay there in the midst of
+pestilence, and at night, under the merciful veil of darkness, the fowls
+of the air gathered about him and bore away their trophy of corruption.
+
+By and by there were but two left of all that suffering crew--the
+captain and the boy--and these two clung together like ghosts, defying
+mortality. They strove to be patient and hopeful: if they could not
+eat, they could drink, for the nights were dewy, and sometimes a mist
+covered them--a mist so dense it seemed almost to drip from the rags
+that poorly sheltered them. A cord was attached to the shrouds, the end
+of it carefully laid in the mouth of a bottle slung in the rigging. Down
+the thin cord slid occasional drops: one by one they stole into the
+bottle, and by morning there was a spoonful of water to moisten those
+parched lips--sweet, crystal drops, more blessed than tears, for _they_
+are salt--more precious than pearls. A thousand prayers of gratitude
+seemed hardly to quiet the souls of the lingering ones for that great
+charity of Heaven.
+
+There came a day when the hearts of God's angels must have bled for the
+suffering ones. The breeze was fresh and fair; the sea tossed gayly its
+foam-crested waves; sea-birds soared in wider circles, and the clouds
+shook out their fleecy folds, through which the sunlight streamed in
+grateful warmth: the two ghosts were talking, as ever, of home, of
+earth, of land. Land--land anywhere, so that it were solid and broad.
+Oh, to pace again a whole league without turning! Oh, to pause in the
+shadow of some living tree!--to drink of some stream whose waters flowed
+continually--flowed, though you drank of them with the awful thirst of
+one who has been denied water for weeks, and weeks, and weeks!--for
+three whole months--an eternity, as it seemed to them!
+
+Then they pictured life as it might be if God permitted them to return
+to earth once more. They would pace K----street at noon, and revisit
+that capital restaurant where many a time they had feasted, though in
+those days they were unknown to one another; they would call for coffee,
+and this dish and that dish, and a whole bill of fare, the thought of
+which made their feverish palates grow moist again. They would meet
+friends whom they had never loved as they now loved them; they would
+reconcile old feuds and forgive everybody everything; they held
+imaginary conversations, and found life very beautiful and greatly to
+be desired; and somehow they would get back to the little _café_ and
+there begin eating again, and with a relish that brought the savory
+tastes and smells vividly before them, and their lips would move and the
+impalpable morsels roll sweetly over their tongues.
+
+It had become a second nature to scour the horizon with jealous eyes:
+never for a moment during their long martyrdom had their covetous sight
+fixed upon a stationary object. But it came at last. Out of a cloud a
+sail burst like a flickering flame. What an age it was a-coming! how it
+budded and blossomed like a glorious white flower, that was transformed
+suddenly into a barque bearing down upon them! Almost within hail it
+stayed its course, the canvas fluttered in the wind; the dark hull
+slowly rose and fell upon the water; figures moved to and fro--men,
+living and breathing men! Then the ghosts staggered to their feet and
+cried to God for mercy. Then they waved their arms, and beat their
+breasts, and lifted up their imploring voices, beseeching deliverance
+out of that horrible bondage. Tears coursed down their hollow cheeks,
+their limbs quaked, their breath failed them: they sank back in despair,
+speechless and forsaken.
+
+Why did they faint in the hour of deliverance when that narrow chasm was
+all that separated them from renewed life? Because the barque spread out
+her great white wings and soared away, hearing not the faint voices,
+seeing not the thin shadows that haunted that drifting wreck. The
+forsaken ones looked out from their eyrie, and watched the lessening
+sail until sight failed them, and then the lad with one wild cry leaped
+toward the speeding barque, and was swallowed up in the sea.
+
+Alone in a wilderness of waters! Alone, without compass or rudder, borne
+on by relentless winds into the lonesome, dreary, shoreless ocean of
+despair, within whose blank and forbidding sphere no voyager ventures;
+across whose desolate waste dawn sends no signal and night brings no
+reprieve; but whose sun is cold, and whose moon is clouded, and whose
+stars withdraw into space, and where the insufferable silence of vacancy
+shall not be broken for all time.
+
+O pitiless Nature! thy irrevocable laws argue rare sacrifice in the
+waste places of God's universe!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Petrel gave a tremendous lurch, that sent two or three of us into
+the lee corners of the cabin; a sea broke over us, bursting in the
+companion-hatch, and half filling our small and insecure retreat; the
+swinging lamp was thrown from its socket and extinguished; we were
+enveloped in pitch-darkness, up to our knees in salt water. There was a
+moment of awful silence: we could not tell whether the light of day
+would ever visit us again; we thought perhaps it wouldn't. But the
+Petrel rose once more upon the watery hilltops and shook herself free of
+the cumbersome deluge; and at that point, when she seemed to be riding
+more easily than usual, some one broke the silence: "Well, did the
+captain of the Perle live to tell the tale?"
+
+Yes, he did. God sent a messenger into the lonesome deep, where the
+miserable man was found insensible, with eyes wide open against the
+sunlight, and lips shrunken apart--a hideous breathing corpse. When he
+was lifted in the arms of the brave fellows who had gone to his rescue,
+he cried "Great God! am I saved?" as though he couldn't believe it when
+it was true: then he fainted, and was nursed through a long delirium,
+and was at last restored to health and home and happiness.
+
+Our cabin-boy managed to fish up the lamp, and after a little we were
+illuminated: the agile swab soon sponged out the cabin, and we resumed
+our tedious watch for dawn and fairer weather.
+
+Somehow, my mind brooded over the solitary wreck that was drifting about
+the sea: I could fancy the rotten timbers of the Perle clinging
+together, by a miracle, until the Ancient Mariner was taken away from
+her, and then, when she was alone again, with nothing whatever in sight
+but blank blue sea and blank blue sky, she lay for an hour or so,
+bearded with shaggy sea-moss and looking about a thousand years old.
+Suddenly it occurred to her that her time had come--that she had
+outlived her usefulness, and might as well go to pieces at once. So she
+yawned in all her timbers, and the sea reached up over her, and laid
+hold of her masts, and seemed to be slowly drawing her down into its
+bosom. There was not an audible sound, and scarcely a ripple upon the
+water, but when the waves had climbed into the foretop, there was a
+clamor of affrighted birds, and a myriad bubbles shot up to the surface,
+where a few waifs floated and whirled about for a moment. It was all
+that marked the spot where the Perle went down to her eternal rest.
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried our skipper, with something almost like a change of
+expression on his mahogany countenance, "the barometer is rising!" and
+sure enough it was. In two hours the Petrel acted like a different craft
+entirely, and by and by came daybreak, and after that the sea went down,
+down, down, into a deep, dead calm, when all the elements seemed to have
+gone to sleep after their furious warfare. Like half-drowned flies we
+crawled out of the close, ill-smelling cabin to dry ourselves in the
+sun: there, on the steaming deck of the schooner, we found new life, and
+in the hope that dawned with it we grew lusty and jovial.
+
+Such a flat, oily sea as it was then! So transparent that we saw great
+fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark
+drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface
+like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish
+darting hither and thither, striped like little one-legged harlequins.
+
+Flat-headed gonies sat high on the water, piping their querulous note
+as they tugged at something edible, a dozen of them entering into the
+domestic difficulty: one after another would desert the cause, run a
+little way over the sea to get a good start, leap heavily into the air,
+sail about for a few minutes, and then drop back on the sea, feet
+foremost, and skate for a yard or two, making a white mark and a
+pleasant sound as it slid over the water.
+
+The exquisite nautilus floated past us, with its gauzy sail set, looking
+like a thin slice out of a soap-bubble; the strange anemone laid its
+pale, sensitive petals on the lips of the wave and panted in ecstasy:
+the Petrel rocked softly, swinging her idle canvas in the sun; we heard
+the click of the anchor-chain in the forecastle, the blessedest
+sea-sound I wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and
+tossed down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned: the man at
+the wheel struck two bells--it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went
+the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the
+fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were
+about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much
+longer. Then came the purplest twilight; and then the sky blossomed all
+over with the biggest, ripest, goldenest stars--such stars as hang like
+fruits in sun-fed orchards; such stars as lay a track of fire in the
+sea; such stars as rise and set over mountains and beyond low green
+capes, like young moons, every one of them; and I conjured up my spells
+of savage enchantment, my blessed islands, my reefs baptized with silver
+spray; I saw the broad fan-leaves of the banana droop in the motionless
+air, and through the tropical night the palms aspired heavenward, while
+I lay dreaming my sea-dream in the cradle of the deep.
+
+                        CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.
+
+
+
+
+HER CHANCE.
+
+
+Mary Trigillgus tucked the money away in her purse. It was a very small
+sum, but it was the utmost that could be spared for the evening outfit:
+she and her mother had talked it all over, and such was the decision.
+
+"Now, Mary," said her mother, "don't get a tarletan, or anything
+exclusively for evening wear: you so seldom go to parties that you can't
+afford such a dress. I would try to get a nice silk. Something that's a
+little out of style by being made up fashionably might answer very
+well."
+
+Mary gave a sigh and turned her face toward the shops, feeling how
+difficult it would be to purchase a fashionable outfit with the scanty
+sum in her purse. And she sighed many another time that afternoon as she
+went from shop to shop. The goods were too expensive for her slender
+purse, or they were poor or old-fashioned. Twilight was settling down on
+the gay streets; window after window was flashing into light, revealing
+misty laces with gay ribbons and silks streaming like banners; the
+lamplighters on every hand were building their walls of flame; and yet
+Mary wandered from store to store, each moment more bewildered and
+undecided as to the best investment for her money.
+
+She approached a brilliant store, passed it with lingering step, then
+paused, turned back, and stood looking down the glittering aisle. The
+large mirror at the farther end seemed scarcely broader than the little
+cracked bureau-glass in her humble room before which she dressed her
+hair in the mornings. The clerks were hurrying to and fro, eager and
+business-like, while fine ladies were coming and going, jostling her as
+she stood just outside the door. Among the hurrying forms her eye sought
+one familiar and loved: not a woman's, I need scarcely say, else why
+does she stand in the shadow there, with her veil half drawn over her
+face, trembling and frightened? Why else does her cheek glow with shame?
+
+Poor Mary! You feel like a guilty thing in thus seeking a man who has
+never declared his love; but let me whisper a word in your ear: True
+love is woman's blue ribbon of honor: without it her nature is the rose
+tree without the rose--the dead egg among the cliffs: quickened by the
+grand passion, it is the eagle soaring to the stars. Your heart is a
+grander thing now than ever before. Next to loving God, the best thing
+for woman is to love a good man. Take the comfort of this thought, and
+leave the humiliation to the heart too hard or too light for loving.
+
+Were I looking into your eyes, my reader, telling my story by word of
+mouth, I can fancy we might hold something like this dialogue: "Whom was
+Mary Trigillgus, this keeper of a small day-school--whom was she seeking
+in this brilliant store? One of the underclerks, perhaps?" "No." "The
+bookkeeper?" "No." "The confidential clerk?" "You must guess again."
+"The junior partner?" "No, it was Christian Van Pelt, the sole
+proprietor of that fine establishment, one of the merchant princes of
+the city." "But what right had Mary Trigillgus, this obscure
+school-teacher, to love this man of fortune? How did she ever come to
+his acquaintance?" And then I should tell you a very long story, and a
+tedious one perhaps, of two Hollanders, close friends, who settled in
+New Amsterdam; of how fortune had prospered the one until Christian Van
+Pelt, his lineal descendant, was among the leaders in the dry-goods
+trade of New York City; of how various disasters had befallen the family
+of the other, until the daughter of the house, and its only lineal
+descendant, Mary Trigillgus's mother, had married an intemperate
+spendthrift, who had at his death left her penniless, though the
+grandchild, Mary Trigillgus, had inherited the small house in which
+mother and daughter found a home.
+
+In the back parlor Mary kept a school for small children: the front
+chamber was let to a quiet man, who went down town at eight and returned
+at five, and whom they seldom saw except when he rapped at the
+sitting-room door on the first day of every month to hand in the three
+five-dollar bills which covered his rent. Besides these sources of
+revenue there were a few day-boarders, who sometimes paid for their
+keeping and sometimes did not.
+
+An intercourse and a show of friendship had all along been maintained
+between the families of these Hollanders; and now Mrs. Van Pelt, the
+young merchant's mother, was to give a large party. Mary Trigillgus had
+been invited, and her mother had insisted on an acceptance of the
+invitation.
+
+"They are quite friendly to you, Mary, and you can't afford to throw
+away such friends," the mother said.
+
+So it was for Christian Van Pelt's broad, square figure that Mary's
+eager eyes were seeking; but in vain they sought: it was nowhere to be
+seen. A choking feeling of disappointment rose in her heart--a
+disappointment very unequal to the occasion, since she had meant nothing
+more than to get a sight of the loved figure and then to go on her way.
+Having satisfied herself that he was not in the store, a yearning desire
+possessed her to enter the place where he every day walked--a place to
+her invested with romance, haunted by his presence--a place to which her
+thoughts often wandered as some stupid child stood by her side in the
+little school-room spelling out his reading-lesson. She had not for
+months entered the store--not since that evening when, in her poor
+parlor, Christian Van Pelt, the rich young merchant, had looked into her
+eyes with a look that thrilled her for many a day, and spoken some
+nothings in tones that set her heart throbbing. Indeed, since that day
+she had avoided passing the store, lest she might seem, even to herself,
+to be seeking him. And yet her poor eyes and heart were ever seeking
+him in the countless throngs that passed up and down the busy streets.
+
+"I'll get my dress from his store," she said mentally. "I shall wear it
+with the greater pleasure that he has handled it. My patronage will be
+to him but as the drop to the ocean," she said with a little bitterness,
+"but it will be a sweet thought to me that I have contributed even one
+drop to the flood of his prosperity."
+
+So she entered Christian Van Pelt's trade-palace, and said, in answer to
+the smart clerk's look of inquiry, "I am looking for a silk that will do
+for the evening and also for the street--something a little out of
+style, perhaps, might answer."
+
+"We have some bargains in such silks--elegant dress-patterns at a third
+of what they cost us in Paris. Step this way;" and Mary found herself
+going back and back through the spacious building, with her image
+advancing to meet her.
+
+In a few seconds the counter was strewn with silks at most enticing
+figures, and the clerk showed them off to such advantage, gathering them
+so dexterously into elegant folds, shifting them so skillfully in the
+brilliant gas-light, persuading the lady, in the mean while, in such a
+clever, lawyer-like way: "These cost us in Paris three times the money I
+am offering them for, and they are but very little _passé_; there is an
+extraordinary demand for them; they are going like wildfire; country
+merchants are ordering them by the score; we sent eighty pieces to
+Chicago, to one house, yesterday, and fifty patterns to Omaha this
+morning; one hundred and ten we last week shipped to the South; the
+whole lot will perhaps be sold by to-morrow," etc.--that poor Mary felt
+like a speculator on the verge of a great chance. So she decided on a
+light-green brocade, and could not gainsay the smooth-tongued clerk as
+he assured her, while tying the bundle, that she had secured a very
+handsome and elegant dress at a great bargain.
+
+The next day Mary and her mother spent in studying and discussing the
+latest fashion-plates, but the elaborate descriptions of expensive
+costumes plunged the girl into another state of bewilderment and slough
+of despond. She heartily regretted having accepted the invitation. She
+began to dread the party as an execution--to shrink from exhibiting
+herself to Christian with the fine ladies and gentlemen who would form
+the company at Mrs. Van Pelt's. However, the dress was cut and made, and
+in this there was a fair degree of success, for necessity had taught
+these women considerable skill in the use of the scissors and needle.
+The dress was trimmed with some handsome old lace that had been in the
+mother's family for years. Mrs. Trigillgus pronounced the dress very
+handsome as she spread it on the bed and stepped off to survey it, and
+even the despondent Mary took heart, and as she surveyed her image in
+the mirror at the conclusion of her toilet for the important evening,
+she felt a degree of complacency toward herself--a feeling of admiration
+even.
+
+"You look like a snowdrop, dear," said the mother fondly; and the
+comparison was not inapt, for the young girl's Saxon complexion and fair
+hair were in pretty contrast with the lace-decked silk of delicate green
+falling about her.
+
+As she had no attendant, she went early to Mrs. Van Pelt's, feeling at
+liberty to be unceremonious; and she thought, with a beating heart, that
+Christian would be her escort home. Mrs. Van Pelt was not in the parlor
+when Mary entered, but Christian received her kindly, though with a
+slight embarrassment that embarrassed her. She tried to keep the
+love-flicker from her eyes and the love-tremor from her voice as she sat
+there alone with the man she loved, trying to reply indifferently to his
+indifferent remarks, and wondering if he could not hear the beating of
+her heart. She was greatly relieved at the entrance of Mrs. Van Pelt.
+When this lady had kissed her guest, she stepped off a few paces and
+looked the girl over.
+
+"Your dress is very becoming, my dear," she said, "but why did you get a
+brocade? Don't you know that brocades are out of style? Nobody wears
+brocades; and they are not trimming with lace at all. I wish you had
+advised with me."
+
+The blood rushed to Mary's face. Though she did not turn her eyes to
+Christian's, she knew that they were looking at her--that he was noting
+her confusion and comprehending its cause. "He knows why I have bought
+this brocade," was her thought, "and he knows that I am humiliated in
+having my poverty held up to his view. Of course Christian knows that I
+am poor, and he must know, as a consequence, that I wear poor clothes. I
+can endure that he should know this in a general way, while I shrink
+from having the details of my poverty revealed to him. I would not wish
+my patched gaiters and darned stockings held up for his inspection."
+
+Mary hesitated a moment before replying to Mrs. Van Pelt's criticism.
+Then, with a feeling that it was better to acknowledge a poverty of
+which both her companions were cognizant than an ignorance of style, she
+said, with a slight kindling of the eye, "I decided on this dress from
+economical considerations, and the lace is some which my mother's
+great-grandmother brought from Holland.--I have reminded them, at least,
+that I had a grandfather," she thought.
+
+As she finished speaking she lifted her eyes to Christian's. She could
+not understand the expression she saw there. But the poor girl's
+satisfaction in her dress was all gone. She was ready to reproach her
+mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if
+it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when
+nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my
+grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at
+least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I
+am the silly moth in the candle."
+
+If these were Mary's thoughts as she sat there with her two friends,
+what must they have become as the regally-dressed ladies, one after
+another, were announced? There were the majestic sweep of velvet, the
+floating of cloudlike gossamer, the flashing diamond, the starry pearl,
+the flaming ruby, the blazing carbuncle. There were marvelous toilets
+where contrast and harmony and picturesqueness--the effect of every
+color and ornament--had been patiently studied as the artist studies
+each shade and line on his canvas. And when the laugh and the jest and
+the wit were sounding all about her, and the intoxicating music came
+sweeping in from the dancing-room, there came over Mary a lost feeling
+amid the strange faces and voices--a bewildered, dizzy feeling, such as
+the semi-conscious opium-eater might have, half real, half dreaming. It
+was all so strange, so separate from her, as though, herself invisible,
+she was watching a festival among a different order of beings. Everybody
+was coming and going, continually varying his pastime, while she sat as
+unobserved as though invisible. Occasionally an eye-glass was leveled at
+her, or some lady accidentally placed beside her superciliously
+inspected the lace and green brocade.
+
+Mrs. Van Pelt found her in the course of the evening, and insisted that
+she should go to the dancing-room and see the dancing. Mary begged to
+remain seated where she was. She dreaded any move that would render her
+more conspicuous, and dreaded especially being recalled to Christian's
+mind. But the hostess insisted, so the wretched girl crept out of her
+retreat, and with a dizzy step traversed the parlors and halls to the
+dancing-rooms. The band was playing a delicious waltz, and graceful
+ladies and elegant gentlemen were moving to its measures. Mary's eyes
+soon discovered Christian waltzing with a young girl in a rose-colored
+silk. She was not a marked beauty, but the face was refined and pretty,
+and was uplifted to Christian's with a look of listening interest. A
+pang of jealousy shot through Mary's heart as she saw this and noted the
+close embrace in which Christian held his partner, with his face bent
+down to hers. Soon they came whirling by.
+
+"There is Christian with Miss Jerome," said Mrs. Van Pelt. "Her father
+is said to be worth four millions."
+
+The next moment Mrs. Van Pelt was called away, and Mary was again left
+to her isolation. With a dread of having Christian see her there,
+old-fashioned and neglected, a stranger to every individual in the
+assemblage of wealth and fashion, she slipped quietly away into the
+library, where some elderly people were playing whist. She would have
+gone home, but she lived in an obscure street some distance away. With a
+sense of suffocation she now remembered that she would have to recall
+herself to Christian's mind, for she must depend upon him to see her
+home. "He has not thought of me once this evening," she said bitterly.
+Soon supper was announced. Gentlemen and ladies began to pair off, not
+one mindful of her. She was hesitating between remaining there in the
+library and going unattended to the refreshment-room, when a
+white-haired gentleman entered from the parlor. He glanced at Mary, and
+was passing on when he paused and looked again. A moment of hesitation
+ensued while the young girl and the old gentleman gazed at each other.
+
+"Miss Trigillgus, I believe?" he said, finally. "My name is Ten Eyck. I
+knew your mother when she was a girl, and I knew her father. Allow me
+the pleasure of escorting you to supper."
+
+Mary took the proffered arm with the feeling of one who unexpectedly
+encounters a friend in a foreign land.
+
+As he reseated her in the library after supper he said, "Present me
+kindly to your mother: if ever I can serve her, I should be glad to do
+so."
+
+At length the party was ended. Every guest had gone except Miss
+Trigillgus.
+
+"I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you to see me home, Mr. Van Pelt,"
+she said to Christian with a burning at her heart.
+
+"Allow me the pleasure, you mean to say," replied Christian with a bow.
+
+This was but a passing pleasantry, and Mary should not have allowed it
+to bring the color to her cheek, and that peculiar, half-disdainful look
+to her eye and lip.
+
+"I fear you haven't had a pleasant evening," said Mrs. Van Pelt as Mary
+took leave of her hostess.
+
+"It was not to be expected that I should, being an entire stranger."
+
+"Well, dear, come and spend a quiet evening with me soon; and give my
+love to your mother."
+
+Mary went up to the dressing-room, and soon reappeared, looking demure
+and nun-like in her white hood and black-and-white plaid shawl. How she
+dreaded the ride home with Christian! and yet for a whole week she had
+been longing for this very thing. The thought of the party had always
+brought the throbbing anticipation of the ride with Christian after the
+party. How near he had seemed then, and ever since the memorable evening
+when they had sat together over that book of engravings! How happy she
+had been then! how hopeful of his love! But now, what a gulf there
+seemed between them! What had she to do with this atmosphere of wealth
+and luxury and fashion where Christian dwelt? He had been pleased to
+amuse himself for a brief space with looking into her eyes, with making
+some silly speeches, which he had straightway forgotten, but which
+she--poor fool!--had laid away in her heart.
+
+Thus she was thinking as Christian handed her into the carriage. She
+wondered what he would talk about. For a time there was a constrained
+and painful silence, and Mary tried to think of something to say, that
+she might hide her aching heart from his merciless gaze. Finally she
+remarked that the streets were quiet, and he that the night was fine;
+and in such commonplaces the ride was passed.
+
+Mary found her mother up, eager to learn her impressions of the first
+large party she had ever attended.
+
+"I am very tired, mother," she said, determined to end the torturing
+inquisition, "and am aching to get to bed. I'll tell you about the party
+to-morrow. Don't call me early: let me have a good sleep."
+
+With a feeling of sickening disgust she laid off the silk and lace and
+flowers which a few hours before had so pleased her. The pale face
+which met her as she stood before her mirror was very unlike the happy,
+expectant face she had seen there in the early evening. Turning from the
+piteous image, she hurriedly put the mean dress away, longing to have
+the sheltering darkness about her. Soon she had laid her head on the
+pillow, where, with eyes staring into the darkness, it throbbed for a
+weary while. "What am I to Christian Van Pelt?" This was the question
+the poor heart argued and re-argued. One sweet delicious evening stood
+over against this last, so full of heartache.
+
+The next morning Mary felt weary with all the world. Her home seemed
+poorer and meaner than ever; the boarders disgusted her with their
+coarseness; teaching was unrelieved drudgery; everything was
+distasteful. To her mother's renewed inquiries about the party she
+replied wearily, "My dress was poor and mean, mother; and had I spent
+our year's income on my toilet, it would have still been poor, compared
+with those I saw last night. For such as I there is nothing in
+fashionable life but heart-burning and humiliation."
+
+A few days after this there came from Mrs. Van Pelt to Miss Trigillgus
+an invitation to tea. She at once longed and dreaded to meet Christian;
+so the invitation was declined on the plea of indisposition. It was
+renewed two evenings, later, and she was obliged to accept it. Mary
+never looked better than on that evening. She wore a blue empress-cloth,
+which heightened the fairness of her complexion and of her bright hair.
+After tea she and Mrs. Van Pelt were looking at some old pictures. They
+were discussing an ambrotype of herself, taken when she was thirteen,
+when a servant announced guests in the parlor.
+
+"You were a pretty child, my dear," said Mrs. Van Pelt, rising to go to
+the parlor, "and you are a handsome woman--a beautiful woman, I may
+say--your beauty ought to be a fortune to you--but you lack style. I
+must take you in hand," she continued, talking all the way to the door.
+"I shall need some amusement after Christian's marriage, to keep me
+from being jealous of his little wife;" and she disappeared through the
+door, little dreaming of the arrow she had sent to the poor heart.
+
+Mary caught her breath, and Christian saw her stagger at the shot. Taken
+by surprise, completely off his guard, he opened his arms and received
+the stricken girl in his bosom, and pressed his lips to hers. But Mary
+had not lost her consciousness. Quickly recovering, she disengaged
+herself and reached a chair. She was more self-possessed than he. He sat
+down beside her, quivering in every fibre.
+
+"Mary! Mary!" he cried in passionate beseechment, "I never meant to win
+your love to betray it. We have both been surprised into a confession of
+our love for each other, and now let me lay open my heart to you. I do
+love you, as you must have seen, for I have not been always able to keep
+the love out of my eyes and voice. You will recall one evening--I know
+you must remember it--when I was near declaring my love and asking you
+to be my wife. I don't know why I did not--why I left my story but half
+told. I sometimes wish that I had declared myself fully, and that we
+were now pledged to each other. But the very next morning I sustained
+heavy losses in my business, and others soon followed, and to-day I am
+threatened with utter ruin. If I cannot raise a hundred thousand dollars
+this week, and as much in another week, I am a bankrupt. And now you
+will understand why in two days I am to marry Miss Jerome."
+
+Mary started again. Was the execution, then, so near? She drew a long
+breath, as though gathering her strength for a hard struggle.
+"Christian," she said in a low tone that trembled with the energy
+underlying it, "my poor Christian, you are bewildered. These troubles
+have shut the light away from your path, and you have lost your way in
+the darkness. If this is true which you have told me, do you not see
+that when you have delivered yourself from this threatened bankruptcy,
+you are yet a bankrupt--a bankrupt in heart and happiness? How can you
+weigh wealth and position against the best good than can ever come to
+either of us? I am not afraid of poverty, for I have known nothing else;
+and surely you do not dread it for yourself. This love is the one good
+thing which God has permitted in my pitiless destiny. Am I unwomanly? If
+I plead for my life, who can blame me? And shall that which is more than
+life go from me without a word? Oh, I cannot smile and look cold as
+though I was not hurt: I am pierced and torn. Yet, Christian, for your
+sake, rather than for mine, I entreat. You would bring desolation into
+both our lives. I might endure it, but how could you bear through the
+years the memory of your deed? You are trampling on your manhood. You
+are giving to this woman's hungry heart a stone: you are buying with a
+lie the holiest thing in her womanhood."
+
+"For four generations my house has withstood every financial storm. The
+honorable name which my ancestors bequeathed to me I will maintain at
+every hazard," Christian replied with gloomy energy.
+
+"And you will marry Miss Jerome?"
+
+"Yes: it is my only hope."
+
+"Then God help you, Christian. Your lot is harder than mine. At the
+worst, my life shall be true: I shall hide no lie in my heart, to fester
+there." Her words, begun in tenderness, ended in a tone of scorn. "And
+now I must ask you to see me home."
+
+She left the room, and soon returned cloaked and hooded, to find
+Christian waiting in overcoat and gloves and with hat in hand. With her
+arm in his they walked in perfect silence through the gay, bustling
+streets, passing God knows how many other spirits as sad as their own.
+When they came to the humble little house which was Mary's home,
+Christian stopped on the step as though he would say something, but Mary
+said "Good-night," and passed into the hall.
+
+We magazine-writers have no chance in the space allotted to a short
+story for a quantitative analysis of emotions and situations, or for
+following the processes by which marked changes come about in the human
+heart. We must content ourselves with informing the reader that certain
+changes or modifications ensued, trusting that he will receive the
+statement without requiring reasons or the _modus operandi_.
+
+For a time it seemed to Mary Trigillgus that the sun would never shine
+for her again, but a certain admixture in her feeling of scorn and
+contempt for Christian prevented her from sinking into a total
+despondency. As she revolved day after day the strange separation of two
+lives which should have flowed on together, there grew in her heart a
+kind of bitterness toward the society which had demanded the separation.
+And then the diffused bitterness gathered, and was concentrated on the
+woman and the man who had robbed her of her happiness. Especially did
+her heart rise against Christian Van Pelt. Gold had won him from her: he
+had made his choice between gold and her love; and then she would chafe
+against the poverty which from her earliest recollection had fettered
+her tastes and aspirations, and at every step had been her humiliation.
+And then she would feel a wild, unreasoning longing to win gold. What a
+triumph to earn gold beyond what his wife had brought him--beyond what
+they would together possess! From the time this thought first occurred
+to her it never left her except for brief intervals. Day after day, hour
+after hour, it recurred to her, until she became possessed with it. It
+was in her dreams by night, and with the day she seized and revolved it,
+until her brain whirled with delirium. A hundred wild schemes and
+projects came and went in scurrying confusion. With hungry eyes she read
+the daily advertisements of "Business Chances," "Partners Wanted," etc.,
+and in answering some of these was led into some strange discoveries and
+adventures.
+
+"I am mad! I am losing my reason! More gold than their millions! I
+cannot even make a living for myself, lunatic!" she would say; and
+straightway in fancy would read in the papers the announcement of a
+fortune being left to Mary Trigillgus--of great and marvelous riches
+coming to her--and would thrill with her triumph over Christian Van
+Pelt. She would even pen these announcements to see how they looked, and
+read them aloud to study their sound.
+
+Mrs. Trigillgus grew alarmed at her daughter's unaccountable moods. A
+physician was summoned, who decided that she was overworked, and advised
+a few months in the country. But Mary refused to leave the city, and
+continued to search for her "chance."
+
+One day she was reading the New York _Tribune_, when her eye caught a
+little paragraph in relation to the eclipse of the sun which was to
+occur on the twentieth of August, and of the preparations that were
+being made in the scientific world for its observance--of the universal
+interest it was exciting, etc. etc.
+
+Mary thought of the amount of smoked glass which would be prepared for
+the day, then of the soiled fingers, then of a remedy for this, and
+then--her chance flashed upon her.
+
+For a time she sat there, with kindled eyes, with throbbing heart and
+brain, revolving and shaping her thought. Then she put on her hat and
+took the omnibus for Mr. Ten Eyck's office.
+
+"Mr. Ten Eyck," she said, after the customary commonplaces, "you once
+said that you would be glad to serve my mother. Are you as willing to
+serve her daughter?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Mr. Ten Eyck, growing a little uneasy; "that is, if
+I can, you understand."
+
+"I have urgent need for money."
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck began to fidget visibly.
+
+"I own a house and lot on Thirty-second street. How much money can you
+lend me on it? It is a house of seven rooms."
+
+"I know the house," answered Mr. Ten Eyck. "Your mother's father left it
+to you. There is no encumbrance on it?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Allow me to suggest, Miss Trigillgus, as your mother's old friend,
+that this step should be well considered before it is decided upon. The
+necessity should be very urgent before you mortgage your home. As your
+mother's old friend, may I inquire how you intend using this money? Do
+not answer me if you have any hesitancy in giving me your confidence."
+
+The old gentleman looked at her with such kindly, fatherly solicitude
+that, after a moment of confused hesitation, she answered: "I will give
+the confidence you invite, Mr. Ten Eyck. I have a plan by which I can
+make a fortune in a few days. I propose to manufacture glasses for the
+great eclipse--say three millions of eclipse-glasses--and distribute
+them throughout the United States and the Canadas."
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck stared at her through his golden-bowed glasses: "What kind
+of glasses? Explain yourself more fully."
+
+"I shall buy up all the common glass in New York and Pittsburg, and in
+other cities perhaps, at the lowest possible figure. Much of the refuse
+glass will answer my purpose. I shall have it cut, three inches by five,
+stain it, put two stained surfaces together, and bind with paper. At ten
+cents apiece the gross proceeds of three millions will be three hundred
+thousand dollars."
+
+"And how will you distribute them?"
+
+"Through the news agents," she answered promptly, "and on the same terms
+at which they push the newspapers. By this great system I shall secure a
+simultaneous distribution throughout the whole country."
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck had laid off his glasses and assumed an attitude of deep
+attention: "Suppose it should rain on eclipse-day?"
+
+"I have thought of that contingency. I should anticipate it by having
+the glasses in the market for two or three days preceding the eclipse.
+To give the glass additional value, I should paste on it a printed slip
+stating the hour when the eclipse will begin, the period of its
+duration, and the moment of total obscuration." Then she started and
+glowed with a sudden revelation that came flashing through her brain.
+"I will make the glasses an advertising medium," she continued eagerly.
+"I will make the advertisements pay all the expenses, and much more. Can
+I not find a man in New York City, or somewhere in the United States,
+who would pay a hundred thousand dollars to have three millions of
+people reading in one moment the merits of his wares or of his remedies!
+And if such a man cannot be found, one who will purchase the exclusive
+right to advertise with me, I'll parcel it out. Yes, I can pay all
+expenses with the advertisements; but I must have some ready money to
+begin with--to initiate the enterprise. Will you lend me the money on my
+house and lot?"
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck resumed his glasses, and sat for a long time staring into a
+pigeon-hole of his desk in profound meditation.
+
+"My dear Miss Trigillgus, allow me, as your mother's old friend, to
+speak plainly to you. You are planning an enterprise of such proportions
+that no woman could go through with it. In the most skillful hands great
+risk would attend it, even with abundance of money to back it; and let
+me assure you that a woman without business education and with cramped
+means could have no chance whatever in the arena of experts. Her defeat
+would be inevitable. I would gladly serve you, Miss Trigillgus, and I
+think, pardon me, that my surest way of doing this is to decline making
+the loan you ask, and to advise you, as your mother's old friend, to
+abandon this scheme."
+
+"I shall consider your advice, Mr. Ten Eyck," said Miss Trigillgus, "and
+I thank you for it, whether I act upon it or not;" and she gave a cold
+bow that contradicted her words.
+
+Mary made many other attempts to raise money, but all were unsuccessful.
+A few mornings after this her advertisement appeared in the _Tribune_,
+calling for a partner with ten thousand dollars to take a half interest
+in an enterprise which was sure to net a quarter of a million within a
+month. It had such an extravagant sound that it was set down as a
+humbug, and few answered it. She had interviews with two young men of
+such suspicious appearance that she did not dare reveal her scheme to
+them. Day after day the card appeared with no satisfactory result; and
+Mary perceived with a kind of frenzy the short time in which her great
+work was to be accomplished growing shorter and shorter. She moved
+cautiously, lest her grand idea should be appropriated, but she left no
+stone unturned for raising the money. Finally, on the ninth of August,
+impatient, anxious, nervous, she had six thousand dollars in hand, and
+only ten days intervened before the day of the eclipse. She went
+immediately to an eminent solicitor of patents, who had influence at
+Washington, and made application for a patent for advertising on
+eclipse-glasses. The solicitor thought there was no doubt but that the
+patent could be secured, so that she might freely proceed with her
+enterprise. She next contracted with a glass-factory for five thousand
+dollars' worth of glass, and engaged one hundred men to cut and stain it
+and put up the eclipse-glasses. Then she made several endeavors to see
+the president of the news agency, and after repeated failures she opened
+a correspondence by letter with him, briefly outlining her plan, and
+asking him to undertake through the news agents the distribution of the
+glasses. The next morning she received in response, through the
+post-office, these lines:
+
+
+"MISS TRIGILLGUS: You have been anticipated in your enterprise. We are
+engaged to distribute eclipse-glasses for another party."
+
+As Mary read the cruel words that ended all her hopes, she fell lifeless
+to the floor, and was thus discovered by her mother.
+
+The following day there came a confirmatory note from the solicitor of
+patents, stating that she had been anticipated also in her application
+for a patent.
+
+From this period Mary's moods became indescribable. From a state of
+unrelieved despondency she issued so merry, in such exhilaration, that
+her mother was glad to welcome back the shadowed mood which soon
+succeeded. The sagacity of physicians, of her most familiar
+acquaintances, of her mother, was all at fault. No one could decide
+whether or not her mind was unhinged, whether or not Mary Trigillgus was
+insane; for it must be remembered that her friends were ignorant of the
+events we have been narrating--her love for Christian Van Pelt, her
+disappointment, her grand scheme, the sacrifice of her home and the
+failure of her enterprise.
+
+The nineteenth of August came, the day preceding the grand event of the
+century. Mary Trigillgus and her mother were lingering at the
+breakfast-table. The girl seemed wild and hawk-like, startling her
+mother with her unnatural merriment, commenting with weird brilliancy
+and grotesqueness and sparkle on the various items as Mrs. Trigillgus
+read them. At length she read a paragraph about the eclipse. "'And we
+would advise every reader,'" she continued, "'to furnish himself with an
+eclipse-glass, which he can procure at any of the news dépôts for the
+sum of ten cents. The glass is nicely finished, and is very perfect for
+the purpose intended. We understand that five millions of these glasses
+have been put into the market, for which the country is indebted to the
+genius and enterprise of our young fellow-citizen, Mr. Christian Van
+Pelt, assisted by Mr. W. V. Ten Eyck.'"
+
+"He has done it! he has again stabbed me!" cried Mary Trigillgus, with
+the maniac's glare in her eyes. "The gold is his--his and hers! Piles of
+gold! and they have cut it out of my heart, dug it out of my brain! I
+have nothing left! Don't you see, mother, I am only an empty shell? Stab
+me here in the heart, where he has stabbed me: it won't hurt. There's
+nothing there! nothing! it's all hollow." There was no longer any doubt
+that Mary Trigillgus's mind was unhinged.
+
+During all that day men and children were crying the eclipse-glasses in
+the street, selling them at every door.
+
+"Hear them! hear them!" the poor maniac would cry. "They are selling
+millions of them! they are piling the gold all about him and her! They
+are to have a palace of gold, and Mary's to have only the ashes. Poor
+Mary! poor Mary! All the good's for them, all the pain's for Mary!" and
+then she would weep herself into a quiet mood of despondency.
+
+The next day, the day of the eclipse, Mary demanded one of the glasses,
+and would not be diverted from her desire. She read the advertisement on
+the eclipse-glass: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher will put out any fire!
+Get one!"
+
+"Mother, get me one: I have a fire here;" and she pressed her hand to
+her brow. She examined the glass again and again, looking it over and
+over, and reading the advertisement aloud: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher
+will put out any fire! Get one!" All day long, at short intervals, she
+was running to the window and looking through the glass at the sun.
+
+And when the grand hour arrived for the wonderful phenomenon, when the
+five million glasses were raised to witness the obscuration, and the
+weird twilight had settled over all nature, this young life too had
+passed into a total eclipse, from which it has never for a moment
+emerged.
+
+The poor lunatic never rages. She is sweet and harmless as a child. She
+makes frequent visits to the glass-factories and to the news-rooms to
+inquire after the progress of her enterprise, and over and over again
+makes her contract to advertise the "Babcock Fire-Extinguisher," and
+comes back with promises to her mother of the boundless riches which are
+to flow in upon them.
+
+As for Christian Van Pelt, his wrong to Mary had been unintentional, as
+he was ignorant of her connection with the eclipse-glass scheme. Though
+Mr. Ten Eyck had been honest in advising Miss Trigillgus to abandon her
+plans, under the persuasion that with her limited means and want of
+business training the result could not fail to be disastrous, he yet saw
+that with capital and energy to push it a grand success might be
+achieved. Having little loose capital, and his time being well occupied,
+he unfolded the scheme to Christian Van Pelt, and together they put the
+enterprise through. Mr. Ten Eyck argued that since Miss Trigillgus had
+abandoned the plan, as he really supposed had been the case, he was not
+wronging her by prosecuting it himself. He was one of that numerous
+class who fail to perceive that _ideas_ have commercial value.
+
+                        S. W. Kellogg.
+
+
+
+
+CUBA.
+
+
+"If," wrote Franklin, "you wish a separation to be always possible, take
+the utmost pains that the colonies shall never be incorporated with the
+mother-country. Do not let them share your liberties. Make use of their
+commerce, regulate their industry, tax them at your will, and spend at
+your caprice the wealth thus drawn from them, which costs you nothing.
+Take care to invest the general in charge of them with despotic power,
+and at the same time give him immunity from all colonial control. If the
+colonists protest, do not listen to them, but reply by charges of high
+treason and rebellion. Say that all such complaints are the invention of
+certain demagogues, and that if one could catch and hang these wretched
+fellows all would go well. If need be, arrest and hang them. By
+continuing such a policy you will infallibly arrive at your goal, and to
+a certainty be in a brief time disembarrassed of your colonies."
+
+The above, wrote an accomplished Spaniard a few years ago, applies as
+exactly to the Spanish colonies to-day as it did to those of England at
+the time of our struggle with her. In fact, the misrule in Cuba has been
+fifty times worse than the worst Anglo-Saxon misrule ever known. The
+island has been used by Spain simply as a gold-mine.[J] So far as those
+toiling in it are concerned, she has displayed an indifference similar
+to that which resulted in the destruction of her West Indian population
+three centuries ago. The Cubans have been taxed without representation,
+shot down if they remonstrated, and mocked by acts of the Cortes,
+granting relief which it was never intended to afford to them, but which
+for a time served in some degree to throw dust in the eyes of Europe.
+
+And thus it came to pass that on the 10th of October, 1868, the Cubans,
+recognizing the truth of the poetic axiom, that
+
+    Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,
+
+and that Spain's difficulty should be Cuba's opportunity, issued a
+Declaration of Independence. The document, dated from Manzanillo, thus
+stated the case: "In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government
+of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries,
+proclaim before the world the cause that impels us to take this step,
+which, though likely to entail considerable disturbance now, will ensure
+future happiness. It is well known that Spain governs this island with
+an iron and blood-stained hand, holding its inhabitants deprived of
+political, civil and religious liberty. Hence the unfortunate Cubans,
+illegally prosecuted, sent into exile and executed in time of peace by
+military commissions. Hence their being prohibited from attending public
+meetings, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of state. Hence
+their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being regarded
+as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are expected to
+keep silent and obey. Hence the never-ending plague of hungry officials
+from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor. Hence the
+restrictions to which public instruction with them is subjected, in
+order to keep them so ignorant as to render them unable to know and
+enforce their rights in any shape or form. Hence the navy and standing
+army kept in and about their country at an enormous expense (paid out of
+taxes levied on Cuba), to make them submit to the terrible yoke
+imposed....
+
+"As we are in danger of losing our property, our lives and our honor
+under further Spanish domination; as we have reached a depth of
+degradation revolting to manhood; as great nations have sprung from
+revolt against a similar disgrace after exhausted pleadings for relief;
+as we despair of justice from Spain through reasoning, and cannot longer
+live deprived of the rights which other people enjoy,--we are
+constrained to appeal to arms, to assert our rights in the battle-field,
+cherishing the hope that our grievances will be a sufficient excuse for
+this last resort to redress them and secure our future welfare."
+
+Ten days later the Cuban insurgent general Cespedes asked our own
+government to recognize the belligerent rights of his party, in a letter
+which detailed the rapid success of the movement. On the 27th of
+December, 1868, Cespedes issued a proclamation of emancipation. In
+January, 1869, it would appear that Spain, herself in a very critical
+condition under a provisional government, thought that a sop must be
+thrown to Cuba, and accordingly the captain-general of Cuba issued one
+of those highflown addresses which come with such readiness from Spanish
+bureaus. Said this gallant and noble-minded governor: "I will brave
+every danger, accept every responsibility, for your welfare. The
+revolution has swept away the Bourbon dynasty, tearing up by the roots a
+plant so poisonous that it putrefied the air we breathe. To the citizen
+shall be returned his rights, to man his dignity." [An admission, by the
+way, that they had been bereft of both.] "You will receive all the
+reforms which you require. Cubans and Spaniards are all brothers. From
+this day Cuba will be considered as a province of Spain. Freedom of the
+press, the right of meeting in public, and representation in the
+national Cortes--the three fundamental principles of true liberty--are
+granted you. Speaking in the name of our mother, Spain, I adjure you to
+forget the past, hope for the future and establish union and
+fraternity."
+
+These very fine words, however, seem to have utterly failed in buttering
+the Cuban parsnips. They were, in truth, calculated to carry about as
+much conviction to the mind of Cubans as Joseph Surface's sentiments
+after the discovery of Lady Teazle behind the screen do to her
+ladyship's husband.
+
+The insurrection saw no abatement. A reinforcement of fifteen hundred
+men came from Spain, and within six weeks of all these blessings being
+promised by the captain-general, freedom of the press was abolished and
+trial by military commission established. On the 3d of March came a
+second reinforcement of a thousand men from Spain.
+
+Meanwhile, Cespedes, the Cuban general, found his only available policy
+to be a sort of guerilla warfare until he could rally a sufficient force
+and collect arms for an encounter with the Spanish army; and on March
+1, 1869, he again addressed our President, asking for the recognition of
+belligerent rights.
+
+Up to this date no civil organization had existed among the insurgents,
+but in April, 1869, representatives from the several anti-Spanish
+districts met at Guaymazo, in the province of Puerto Principe, when
+Cespedes formally resigned his power into the hands of the House of
+Representatives, who thereupon proclaimed him president of the Cuban
+republic, and General Quesada commander of the forces.
+
+During the summer of 1869 the war was carried on with indifferent
+success by the Spaniards, and in June General Dulce, captain-general,
+went home,[K] being, in fact, virtually deposed by the "volunteers," who
+were supposed to support the Spanish interest. These latter are, for the
+most part, a set of worthless men, the scum of Spain and other
+countries, who, with everything to gain and nothing to lose, consented
+to enlist in the service of the Spanish slave-dealing clique in Havana,
+and were furious at what they deemed too great clemency on the part of
+the captain-general.
+
+Dulce was succeeded by De Rodas, who announced "a vigorous policy."
+During the autumn of 1869 no decisive step was taken on either side, but
+the insurgents, careful to prevent the enemy profiting by the
+confiscated property of the Cubans who had been compelled to abandon
+their plantations, set fire to the cane, and hundreds of valuable crops
+were thus destroyed. The year 1870 saw no abatement of the struggle.
+
+Meanwhile, Peru and Chili formally and cordially recognized the
+independence of the insurgents, toward whom still warmer symptoms of
+sympathy from this quarter have been lately evinced, and widespread
+sympathy has also been expressed toward them in the United States; but
+the President in his message of December, 1869, intimated that he did
+not consider the position of the insurgents such as to warrant him in
+recognizing their belligerent rights.
+
+And thus matters have continued till to-day. For more than four years
+Cuba has been the scene of bloodshed, misery and ruin. Notwithstanding
+the strong feeling for Cuba in this country, it would appear that even
+now our cabinet deems it undesirable to recognize belligerent rights on
+the part of the Cubans, but at the same time Mr. Fish's letter to Mr.
+Sickles of the 29th of October last is couched in terms which clearly
+indicate a limit to this forbearance, when he says: "Sustained, as is
+the present ministry, by the large popular vote which has recently
+returned to the Cortes an overwhelming majority in its support, there
+can be no more room to doubt their ability to carry into operation the
+reforms of which they have given promise than there can be justification
+to question the sincerity with which the assurance was given. It seems,
+therefore, to be a fitting occasion to look back upon the relations
+between the United States and Spain, and to mark the progress which may
+have been made in accomplishing those objects in which we have been
+promised her co-operation. It must be acknowledged with regret that
+little or no advance has been made. The tardiness in this respect,
+however, cannot be said to be in any way imputable to a want of
+diligence, zeal or ability in the legation of the United States at
+Madrid. The department is persuaded that no person, however gifted with
+those qualities and faculties, could have better succeeded against the
+apparent apathy or indifference of the Spanish authorities, if, indeed,
+their past omission to do what we have expected should not be ascribable
+to other causes.
+
+"The Spanish government, partly at our instance, passed a law providing
+for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the West India colonies. This
+law, so far as this department is aware, remains unexecuted, and it is
+feared that the recently-issued regulations, professedly for its
+execution, are wholly inadequate to any practical result in favor of
+emancipation, if they be not really in the interest of the slaveholder
+and of the continuance of the institution of slavery."
+
+And after various stringent comments he concludes: "It is hoped that
+you will present the views above set forth, and the present grievances
+of which this government so justly complains, to the government to which
+you are accredited, in a way which, without giving offence, will leave a
+conviction that we are in earnest in the expression of those views, and
+that we expect redress; and that if it should not soon be afforded Spain
+must not be surprised to find, as the inevitable result of the delay, a
+marked change in the feeling and in the temper of the people and of the
+government of the United States. Believing that the present ministry of
+Spain is in a sufficiently confirmed position of power to carry out the
+measures which it announces and the reforms which have been promised,
+and to do justice by the removal of the causes of our well-founded
+complaints, and not doubting the sincerity of the assurances which have
+been given, the United States look confidently for the realization of
+those hopes, which have been encouraged by repeated promises, that all
+causes for estrangement or for the interruption of those friendly
+feelings which are traditional, as they are sincere, on the part of this
+government toward Spain, will be speedily and for ever removed."
+
+The cry is now loudly raised for recognition of belligerent rights, with
+a view to independence and annexation by the United States. But, as we
+have said, the government of this country does not--wisely for American
+interests, in our opinion--appear inclined to hurry toward such a
+course, and we should like to see the experiment first tried of active
+mediation on its part between Spain and Cuba. A meeting of leading
+representatives of both parties of the island under a distinguished
+jurist at Washington might not impossibly assist the solution of the
+difficulty.
+
+Although many Cubans, despairing of reconciliation, are disposed at this
+moment to declare that the time has quite gone by for a compromise, it
+is doubtful whether this be really the case. Cuba and Spain have been
+united for centuries, and notwithstanding fierce animosities have yet
+many common ties. There are, too, not a few prudent men who, whilst
+strongly in favor of abolition, dread the sudden adoption of such a
+course, which would be the inevitable result of an entire break with
+Spain. They see in it nothing but ruin to the majority of whites,
+without corresponding advantage to the blacks. "Let abolition come,"
+they say, "by all means, but not all at once. Look at Jamaica, look at
+your own South! Would it not have really been better for all parties if
+the abolition had been more gradual, or at least attended by such
+conditions as would have ensured less immediate depreciation of
+property?"
+
+We believe that our government could not more effectually serve the
+interests of the Cubans than by a vigorous intercession[L] to secure
+them an independent government on the Anglo-colonial system, accompanied
+by the passage of an act of the Cortes freeing every slave within five
+years; and meantime enforcing rigorously protective measures for the
+enslaved, including payment of wages.
+
+There seems no reason why a legislative system on the plan of the
+Australian colonies of Great Britain should not be attempted. Its
+failure in Jamaica is not sufficient ground against it. In Jamaica there
+were a few grains of whites to bushels of blacks: in Cuba there are some
+seven hundred thousand colored--of whom only four hundred thousand are
+slaves--to about one million four hundred thousand whites.
+
+We can scarcely doubt that the Spanish government will feel constrained
+to hearken to the remonstrances of that of the United States. Spain is
+to-day in all but extent of territory a fourth-rate rather than a
+second-rate power. Her government is the least stable in Europe, except
+possibly that of France. Her exchequer is exhausted. Her credit is
+utterly gone. Assume a war: where is she to get money? There is not a
+people in Europe, save the Dutch and the English, who at this moment
+have anything to lend, and neither Dutch nor English are likely at
+present to send more money to Madrid. Spain has too amply proved herself
+the defaulter _par excellence_ of the world.
+
+Now, therefore, is the time for American mediation; and we sincerely
+hope that Mr. Fish will not let it pass, but will follow up vigorously
+his admirable despatch, and thus secure to Cubans the blessings of a
+free country.
+
+For years Spain has been promising, and not performing. Performance
+seems with her the result only of compulsion; and if this really be so,
+she must be compelled. So far as Cuban affairs are concerned, she has
+had ample indulgence at the hands of ourselves and Great Britain. Every
+reasonable chance has been given her to mend her ways. She has failed to
+avail herself of her opportunities, and cannot complain if she suffer
+accordingly. It is not in the nature of things that this country should
+look calmly for all time on the just struggles of an enthralled and
+trodden-down people dwelling within a few hours of our own mainland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[J] In September, 1872, Senator Benot made a remarkable speech in the
+Cortes in reference to the treatment of Cuba. "It is," he said, "the
+Spanish peninsula alone that is ignorant of events in Cuba. But it is
+not ignorance only of which I complain. From those remote possessions
+comes the blood of the negro converted into gold to pervert the public
+mind."
+
+Referring to the horrid massacre of students in 1871, Senator Benot
+said: "Spain does not rule Cuba: if she did, innocent children would not
+be executed at the instance of the Spanish clique in Havana. Senators,
+you are parents. Suppose that your boys in the professors' absence were
+to run out to play in the adjoining cemetery. Suppose that for this lack
+of reverence a ferocious mob seized your sons, subjected them to a
+court-martial, charged them falsely with the demolition of
+sepulchres--sepulchres whose crystals are untouched even now. Imagine
+them brought before a court-martial and absolved, and then imagine these
+children dragged by the mob, disappointed of their prey, before another
+military council, who under terror condemned eight to death and the
+remainder to the galleys. There were forty-four children, and the kind
+council drew lots to decide which of them should be shot. Two brothers
+were drawn, but even the stony hearts of the so-called judges thought
+that it would be going rather too far to rob one father of his two sons;
+so one was discharged, and another substituted because older than the
+rest. This incredible, unprecedented crime yet goes unpunished."
+
+[K] He died in the following November at Madrid.
+
+[L] "I have, since the beginning of the present session of Congress,
+communicated to the House of Representatives, upon their request, an
+account of the steps which I had taken in the hope of securing to the
+people of Cuba the blessings and the right of independent
+self-government. These efforts failed, but not without an assurance from
+Spain that the good offices of this government might still avail for the
+objects to which they had been addressed. It is stated, on what I
+believe to be good authority, that Cuban bonds have been prepared to a
+large amount, whose payment is made dependent upon the recognition by
+the United States of either Cuban belligerency or independence. The
+object of making their value thus contingent upon the action of this
+government is a subject for serious reflection." (_President Grant's
+message, June, 1870._) Suggestive statements, indicating how powerful
+the interference of our government may be! It would more than aught else
+give the Spanish cabinet strength in inducing the Cortes to endorse it
+in high-handed measures against the moneyed slave-holding, slave-dealing
+clique in Havana, which is the root of all evil there.
+
+
+
+
+PROBATIONER LEONHARD;
+
+OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE ADVANTAGE OF A DEBTOR.
+
+The house to which Spener's steps now turned was the sixth one below
+Loretz's, on the same narrow street facing the stream--the long white
+house with a deep porch in which young men might often be seen smoking.
+Spener had given it the name of "Brethren's House," rather in
+remembrance of the custom still existing in Moravian villages than
+because it was strictly the abode of unmarried men who sought there a
+home. It was the fact that many unmarried men did dwell there, but also
+it was true that the house was the one inn of the place, and at this
+time it was well filled, as Loretz had said to Leonhard when he opened
+for him his hospitable gate.
+
+At the head of the long dining-table Albert Spener took his place, and
+room was made beside him for his guest; and truly it was a company of
+cheerful-hearted workers, on whom no director might look without a
+thrill of satisfaction.
+
+"Stay a month with us as a probationer," said Spener suddenly, bringing
+his eyes to bear upon Leonhard, and there was kindly and powerful
+persuasion in them. "We can make you comfortable at least, and perhaps
+you may be brought to like us. I want to have a school-house built here:
+it is getting to be a necessity. You shall give us something ornamental
+in spite of ourselves, if you insist upon it. And it may be no difficult
+thing to compel me to put up houses on both those sites. But you are
+settled already, I suppose?"
+
+"No," answered Leonhard: "I am much more unsettled than any man of my
+years ought to be. I am so unfortunate as to have two professions."
+
+"Get into debt, and that will straighten you for a while," said Spener,
+laughing heartily. "When I had fairly left my employer and set this
+enterprise afoot, I gave up my sleeping habits. You will be obliged to
+part with something in order to convince yourself that you are in
+earnest. If you give up sleep, you will soon come to decisions."
+
+"I owe enough," said Leonhard.
+
+"I should not have guessed it. You sleep yet, though."
+
+"Because I can't help it. Yes, I sleep."
+
+"Then you will have to part with something of your free will--one of the
+professions, I suppose: you can't follow two very well. It is
+astonishing," Spener continued, not averse to talking about himself just
+now, when he was so much occupied with thoughts which concerned himself
+chiefly--"it is astonishing how different things look from the two sides
+of an action. Do your best, you cannot tell before you have taken a step
+how you will feel after it." On that remark he paused for a moment. Then
+he went on. It was a relief to talk with this young stranger: he had
+this advantage in the talk--it relieved him, and what he said, much or
+little, did not affect in the least the more that was left unsaid. There
+was nobody in Spenersberg to whom he could say as much as he was saying
+to Marten. Any Spenersberger would immediately proceed with the clew to
+the end. "My employer," he continued, "was a very cautious man, and I
+believe he thought me crazy when I told him what I was going to do, and
+asked him to lend me the money. Not a dollar would he lend, and I thank
+him for it. Go to the bank if you can find an endorser: it is best to
+feel that an institution is at your heels, and will be down on you if
+you are not up to time. An avalanche is a thing anybody in his senses
+will keep clear of."
+
+"True," said Leonhard; and Spener went on eating his dinner, without
+suspecting that his talk had entirely appeased his companion's hunger.
+
+The young men spent a part of the afternoon walking about the garden
+alluded to where the willows were under cultivation. A scene of thrift
+and industry of which the eye could not soon tire was presented by these
+products of careful labor in every stage of growth.
+
+At length Spener came to Leonhard and told him that he should be obliged
+to leave him till the next day. "I find that I must go to town this
+afternoon," he said, "but you are to stay until after the festival. That
+is decided. I must talk with you again, and arrange about those
+buildings."
+
+It was easy now for Leonhard to decide that he would stay till after the
+festival--there was reason good why he should--and he promised to do so.
+Spener was so desirous that he should stay that after he had left the
+field he came back to urge it. But when he had looked again at Leonhard,
+he did not urge it in the way he had intended to do: "You must think
+whether it will be worth your while to stay or not. What is the
+profession you spoke about that keeps you unsettled, did you say?"
+
+"Music."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But I am a builder of course--an architect and a builder," said poor
+Leonhard hurriedly.
+
+"I like you," said Spener, drawing Leonhard's arm within his. "If you
+could make up your mind to stay, we might make it your interest to do
+so. As a probationer, you understand. There is a good deal to be done
+here, and I may throw open the farm up there to purchasers. The only
+difficulty is, that our people here might object. But it is quite clear
+to me--quite clear--that a little daylight wouldn't do any of us harm if
+it could be had, you know, by merely cutting away the dead underbrush
+and worthless timber."
+
+He shook hands again with Leonhard, who said, "I will think about what
+you have said: I like the sound of it."
+
+"There will be no end of work here for a skillful man of your business
+if the land is sold in lots. I have had a great many applications. I
+don't know of any such building-sites anywhere. My house will have to
+be over there on the slope, I think--a sort of guard to the valley and
+an assurance to Spenersbergers."
+
+He now went away, looking back and nodding at Leonhard, confident that
+they understood each other.
+
+"There's a man to envy!" thought our explorer; and he felt as if a
+strong staff had been wrenched out of his hand.
+
+But the thoughts with which Albert Spener strode toward the station, a
+mile away, were not enviable thoughts. For a little while he went on
+thinking about Leonhard with great satisfaction, and he made many plans
+based on ground-lines traced for his new acquaintance; but as he went
+his way he passed first Mr. Wenck's small abode, and farther on the
+house where Elise lived, and his indignation was not lessened when he
+thought how trivial was the part he had allowed himself to act in the
+play which might end as a tragedy if Elise should prove obstinate.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+LORETZ ON THE TROMBONE.
+
+Later in the afternoon, toward sunset, Leonhard left the gardens and
+walked slowly down the street, taking cognizance of all things in his
+way. He noticed that Taste had taken Haste in hand in many a place, and
+that already attempts were evident to repair and amend or construct
+anew. What might not be done toward making a paradise of such a place
+under the encouragement of a man like Albert Spener? But a probationer!
+That meant, Say that you will present yourself to Moravian brethren as a
+candidate for admission to their fellowship. He smiled at the thought,
+but when he considered the opportunities of work Spener would put in his
+way, he began to look grave. Of course he must give up his music: it was
+no profession for him, and he saw that it was folly and weakness to
+attempt the service of two masters; and yet he will go back and talk
+with Mrs. Anna about Herrnhut and old Leonhard Marten. Just here comes
+the sound of a trombone cleaving the air.
+
+It startles him, and it startles others also. "Who is gone?" he hears
+one man ask another from his place in the garden; and he understands
+that the trombone has made an announcement to the people of Spenersberg.
+How the notes wind along, a noble stream of solemn sound!
+
+"Who is gone home?" he hears another ask, but again there is no answer.
+
+He sees a group of children stopping in the midst of their play and
+looking at each other with scared faces--one little one suddenly hiding
+its face in its mother's apron, as if in the shrinking shyness and awe
+of apprehension.
+
+As he approaches his destination a ghostlike face and figure startles
+Leonhard: he looks back and sees it is "our little minister, Wenck,"
+whom Spener had pointed out to him in their morning walk. He is hurrying
+down the street, and it is not likely that any one will stop a man
+proceeding at such a rate, with questions.
+
+Loretz stands on his piazza with his trombone in his hand: it is he who
+blows that blast which echoes through Spenersberg, announcing a death.
+
+Doubting what the signal means, Leonhard, with a little hesitation,
+approaches his host and looks for the information he does not ask. Is it
+a calamity that has overtaken the house? One could hardly gather from a
+glance at Mr. Loretz. Evidently the stout little man has been moved by
+some powerful surprise: his eyes are full of agitation; his dress
+betokens it; he has been driven to and fro, distracted, within the hour.
+When he sees Leonhard his excitement exhibits itself in a new form: he
+lifts the trombone to his lips, and taking another key he sounds again;
+it is a note of solemn triumph, so prolonged that it would seem as if
+the desire was that all space should be filled with the echoes thereof.
+
+Leonhard sits down on one of the large wooden chairs in the piazza to
+enjoy the music: then Loretz comes to him and says, "You have heard it?"
+
+"I have heard it?" repeated Leonhard, interrogatively.
+
+"Sister Benigna--"
+
+"What is it, sir?" exclaimed Leonhard, starting to his feet.
+
+"She has gone home."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Leonhard. "Do you mean to say that she is dead?"
+
+"We call it going home," answered Loretz.
+
+"But gone home! When, why, how did she go?"
+
+"It shocks you," said Loretz, finding perhaps not a little satisfaction
+in seeing this stranger so moved. He had himself been so horrified by
+Benigna's silent, unlooked-for departure, and to be shocked and
+horrified by death was so undesirable and so fought against among good
+Moravians, that Leonhard's emotion, and much more than emotion, seemed a
+real solace for the moment. "We don't know how it was," he continued.
+"My daughter was to go to practice the music with her in the hall after
+school, and when she went into the school-room she found Sister Benigna
+sitting at her desk with _The Messiah_ open. But she was gone. We had in
+Doctor Hummel, and he says it was the heart. He has thought, he says,
+for a year or so, that there must be some feeble action of the valves.
+She went to him a twelvemonth since about it, and he told her his
+opinion; but he told her she might live fifty years yet, though she
+_might_ go any day. She never mentioned it to us. But Hummel says when
+he told her she said it was good news. Yet, sir, you never saw a happier
+creature. You saw her last night and this morning. Well, sir, that's a
+fair sample--busy all the time, and happy as happy."
+
+"But are you sure that nothing could be done for her?" exclaimed
+Leonhard, to whom the quiet and calm into which Loretz had talked
+himself was anything but composing.
+
+"Perfectly sure. If you should look at her once you would see. But I
+must go back to my women. Will you make yourself at home within? We
+shall all be back in an hour or so."
+
+Leonhard said he would go to the Brethren's House and spend the night
+there, but Loretz said hastily, "I was afraid you would be thinking of
+that, sir. Stay with us: we want your company. We shall not bring
+Sister Benigna here. If she had--had died here, we should have carried
+her to the corpse-house this evening. It is but a short distance from
+the factory, and she will lie there to-night. And--I have been
+thinking--to-morrow evening we must celebrate our congregation festival
+with her funeral."
+
+"Then if I had not come just when I did," thought Leonhard, "I should
+never have seen Sister Benigna. If the truth could be known, I don't
+believe the woman has known any greater pleasure in a long time than I
+gave her when I made those suggestions last evening. Only twenty-four
+hours, and it might be a year! She ought to have lived until after the
+festival. How she would have enjoyed it! I should like to look at Spener
+when he hears that the woman is actually out of the world. It would be a
+bad job for him if it had happened to be the other one. Jupiter!
+wouldn't I like to know whether it is better to be lamented by the
+community, so far as the community's principles will allow it to lament,
+or to spread devastation all around in the way this little Miss Elise
+couldn't help doing if she should be 'called home,' as they say!
+Musician answers one way, architect the other. Have you the nerve to go
+in and touch that piano, Probationer Marten?"
+
+    Rex tremendæ Majestatis,
+    Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
+    Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
+
+What voice was this which made the house resound, and thrilled the
+hearts of the listeners at the gate as they stood there for a moment in
+the moonlight?
+
+"I left Mr. Marten within," said Loretz to his wife and daughter.
+
+"He is singing the Requiem," said Elise. They waited a moment longer,
+but just then Leonhard stepped over the window-sill, and began pacing
+the piazza with his arms folded on his breast, his head bent. The words
+he sang in fact had electrified him, and the rush of thoughts had driven
+him from the piano.
+
+    Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.
+
+Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the
+event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when
+talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister
+proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening.
+The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had
+evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under
+constraint in the midst of this very select audience.
+
+Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back.
+He went to town this afternoon."
+
+"When will he come?" asked the minister.
+
+"Some time to-morrow--toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven,
+unless he is detained."
+
+"We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I
+think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval.
+He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour
+ourselves."
+
+"Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he
+would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course:
+let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from--from the
+corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in
+the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it
+even as it would have been observed."
+
+The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's
+control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame
+Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be.
+It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little
+children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church
+more than she has? I am sure it is what--what _everybody_ must see is
+the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we
+were all beside ourselves--we didn't know what to think or what to do."
+
+"Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly
+after his wife had concluded her animated speech.
+
+"I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise.
+
+"Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he
+will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if
+we don't, and we can't change that."
+
+So it was decided, and Mr. Wenck went away, having declined the entreaty
+of Mrs. Loretz to fill a seat at their supper-table.
+
+Slowly walking back to his lonely house, which had never seemed so
+lonely, so desolate to him, Mr. Wenck saw little Charles Hummel, who was
+going in the same direction and homeward. He had been looking for
+Charley, for he had heard one of the children say that he was in the
+school-room with the teacher last, and so he took the boy's hand, and
+they walked along together.
+
+"Are you all prepared with your pieces, Charley?" the minister asked.
+
+"Oh yes, sir, but now we shall not sing them."
+
+"And why will you not sing them, my boy?"
+
+"Because there will not be any celebration--will there, sir?"
+
+"Certainly: why should there not?"
+
+"What, sir! to-morrow night, just the same?"
+
+"Do you think that Sister Benigna would approve of our having no
+congregation festival?"
+
+"Why, sir, you know--don't you know? I saw them carrying her from the
+school-room. She--she--"
+
+"Yes, I know all," said the minister: "she is gone home. But then she
+will know about our celebration: oh yes, just the same: it must be that
+she will hear all the sweet voices. It seems far away to us where she
+is: perhaps it has seemed so, but she brings heaven nearer: it is surely
+but a step to the Better Land."
+
+It had appeared almost impossible for Mr. Wenck to speak in Loretz's
+house, but now words came so freely to his lips that he seemed even to
+find comfort in speech.
+
+The boy had now reached his father's house, and would have gone in, but
+the minister with gentle force retained the small hand he held, and
+said, "Let us walk on a little farther, Charley. How beautiful the moon
+is to-night! Were you in the school-room to-day, my boy?"
+
+"I was there this afternoon, sir," said the little lad, awed by the
+sound of his own voice's gentleness--so gently the minister spoke he
+could himself speak in no other way. But he would not have liked the
+boys to hear him, and he looked around as if to see if any one followed,
+and was a little startled when he saw his shadow and the shadow of Mr.
+Wenck following so close.
+
+"When I come to speak to the congregation about her I shall want to tell
+them all about to-day," said Mr. Wenck, "if there is anything it would
+be pleasant for them to know. Do you remember anything she--she said or
+did, Charley?"
+
+The boy thought a moment. "It was just the same as always," said he.
+
+"Did you practice your songs this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes, sir, we practiced them."
+
+"For the last time, and you did not know it!" Would that little lad
+remember, when he came to manhood, this hour and these words? Would he
+from that noonday sun receive a light that could enlighten the mystery
+of this pallid, shadowy hour which filled his little being with such
+awe?
+
+"But she said we sang beautifully," he said, moved by the spirit of
+obedience to stay and answer, and not shake off the hand that held him
+and run home affrighted, and dream of spirits and Mr. Wenck's pale face
+and his strange voice.
+
+"Oh, then you pleased her?"
+
+"She said it was the best singing, sir, she had ever heard, and that she
+was glad we had worked so hard and had been so attentive and patient.
+That was what she said, I remember now," said the little lad with
+spirit: "I thought there was something I forgot. She said when we sang
+our part in the festival all the people would know how hard we had tried
+to learn."
+
+"And when she dismissed you, was there anything more?"
+
+"She--she kissed us: she always did," said the little fellow, bursting
+into sudden crying.
+
+"Oh, Charley," said the minister--and he bent down and kissed the little
+boy, whose face was wet with tears--"we must not cry for her--not any of
+us. And God himself has wiped away _her_ tears."
+
+"And then when I was going out," said Charley, rallying again, "she
+asked me to bring her a pitcher of water from the spring before I went
+home. When I took it in she was reading her music, and she had some
+flowers in a glass. And I filled it with fresh water for her," he said
+proudly. And that was all he had to tell.
+
+"You are a good boy to remember so much," said Mr. Wenck; and now he
+walked back with Charley to the doctor's gate, and kissing him again
+bade him "Good-night."
+
+Long after every light was extinguished in Spenersberg homes, Mr. Wenck
+was walking up and down in front of his own house beneath the trees,
+pacing the grass, a noiseless sentinel. He had no duties now to perform:
+undisturbed his thoughts might wander whither they would. They could not
+wander far--too near was the magnet. The day had begun in a manner which
+he could not but think remarkable: the shadow of approaching calamity
+had disturbed him until the horror appeared. For, accustomed as he had
+been to teach and preach and to think of death as a friend, the
+conductor to a happier world, the enlightener and the life-giver, he
+could not regard the departure of Sister Benigna in such light. The loss
+to the community was almost irreparable, he began by saying to himself,
+but he ended by saying, "Hypocrite! do you mourn the community's loss,
+or your own?"
+
+The tower-clock struck twelve as in his walk he approached the gate to
+his little garden: he hesitated, and then noiselessly opened it. Here
+were various fragrant flowers in blossom, and roses innumerable on the
+well-cared-for bushes, but he passed these, and gathered from the house
+wall a few ivy leaves, and climbing the fence in the rear of his house
+began to ascend the slope that led to the cemetery, that place of the
+people's constant resort. He did not enter it, but stood a long while on
+the peaceful plain, which was filled with moonlight. At last he slowly
+turned away and walked across the wooded knolls and fields until he came
+to the corpse-house, which only yesterday he had garnished with fresh
+boughs. He knew whither he went, and yet when he had come to the door of
+that resting-place the external calm disappeared--the props of
+consolation, the support of faith, gave way. He opened the door,
+entered, closed it behind him, and by the light of the lamp suspended
+from the whitewashed rafters saw Sister Benigna lying on the bier,
+dressed in white garments, with a rose in one white hand.
+
+When he came forth again a cold fog was filling the valley, and morning
+approached. Who will wish to dwell even in imagination on the hours he
+had passed in that silent house, or care to guess the battle which
+perchance had been fought there, or the wild flow of tears which had for
+years been pent, or the groans which could not be uttered, which at last
+had utterance; or how at last the man died there, and the victor, as one
+who had been slain, came forth?
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE MOTHER CONFESSOR.
+
+So the day passed in preparation for Sister Benigna's funeral, as well
+as for the congregation festival.
+
+Mr. Spener had given out yesterday that the workers in the factory
+should have a half holiday, and, in conformity to his orders, at twelve
+o'clock Loretz dismissed the weavers for the day. The various performers
+met in the hall and rehearsed their several parts, and the programme, it
+was decided, should be carried out precisely as Sister Benigna had
+designed.
+
+Leonhard looked on and listened, wondering. Mrs. Loretz, who had only
+to sing in the choruses, had a little time on her hands during the day,
+and was glad that the young man was there to be talked to. True, he was
+busily at work over his drawing, which he wished to have ready to show
+Mr. Spener in the morning, but he was glad to listen, and the talk was
+in itself not uninteresting. Dame Anna had a great deal to say about
+Sister Benigna--not much to tell, really: the facts of her life as they
+were known to Mrs. Loretz were few. Benigna had come six years ago to
+Spenersberg, and had been an active member of the church there since
+that day. What everybody said was true: she had been the Genius of Music
+there, and in the true Moravian spirit had rallied every musical thought
+and all musical skill to the standard of religion. At first there had
+been a good deal of talk about founding a Sisters' House, but that had
+been given up: it was thought that the ends to be accomplished by it
+could be obtained at less cost and with less labor. She had lived in
+their house since the day she came: she was like a daughter to them, and
+a sister and more to Elise.
+
+Then by and by the communicativeness of the good woman, as well as her
+confidence in Leonhard, increasing with her speech, she began to talk
+about Mr. Spener, and to hint his "intentions;" and she ended by telling
+this stranger what was not known outside her own family except to the
+minister. And when she had explained all it became clear to her that she
+must justify the method of proceeding in matrimonial affairs which had
+given to herself a good husband, and had been the means of establishing
+many happy households which she could name.
+
+The only trouble that could possibly arise from the turn affairs had
+taken was a trouble that did look rather threatening, Leonhard thought.
+Spener had consented to abide by the decision of the lot, but now--would
+he?
+
+After she had told all this, Mrs. Loretz asked Leonhard what he thought
+about it. He said he thought it was a hard case: he could feel for Mr.
+Spener. He was afraid that under the circumstances he should not behave
+well.
+
+The good woman nodded her head as if she quite understood the force of
+his remarks, but, though it seemed hard, wasn't it better to be
+disappointed before marriage than after? Undoubtedly, he answered, yet
+he should prefer to feel that in an affair like that he could make his
+own choice, with consent of the lady.
+
+Mrs. Loretz thought to herself he spoke as if he had already chosen for
+himself, and knew what he was talking about; and the cheerful fancies
+which she had entertained last night with regard to the beneficent care
+of Providence in sending Leonhard to Spenersberg disappeared like a
+wreath of mist. She must now mourn the loss of Sister Benigna more
+heavily than before, since she found herself without support on the
+highway of sorrow.
+
+Had an unhappy marriage never come within her knowledge, Leonhard asked,
+which the lot had seemed to sanction?
+
+She had been thinking of that, Mistress Anna acknowledged. There had,
+certainly--she could not deny it. But it was where the parties had not
+seriously tried to make the best of everything.
+
+Was it necessary, then, he asked--even when the lot decided
+favorably--that people should _put up_ with each other, and find it not
+easy to keep back sharp words which would edge their way out into
+hearing in spite of all efforts to keep them back? Must people
+providentially yoked together find themselves called upon, just like
+others, to make sacrifices of temper and taste and opinion all through
+life?
+
+Wasn't that going on everywhere? she asked. Did he know of any people
+anywhere who agreed so well about everything that there was never a
+chance of dispute? And where was there such an abundance of everything
+that there was no occasion for self-sacrifice?
+
+Leonhard laughed at these questions, and Mistress Anna looked wise, but
+she did not laugh. Leonhard might not be the providential substitute for
+a lover providentially removed, but at least he was a pleasant companion
+for a troubled hour. He had thought so much on this subject, possibly
+he had some experimental knowledge. Had he a wife?--Not yet, he said.
+But he would have.--Oh, of course: what would a man do in this world
+without a wife? Perhaps it would not trouble him to think of the one he
+would like to marry if he might.--No, not in the least.--And he would be
+satisfied to decide for himself, and not ask any counsel?--Was he not
+the one who must live with the lady? and was it likely that anybody
+would know as well as himself what he wanted?--Only, she suggested, how
+could he feel certain that he would have what he wanted, after
+all?--What! hadn't a man eyes?--That can be trusted, my dear?--If he
+can't trust his own, will he trust another man's?--But can he feel sure
+that what he wants would be best for him?--Is the best he can imagine
+any too good for a man, if he can get it?
+
+But she has been thinking, How happened it that father should have found
+his very name in the birthday book? She has been thinking of it nearly
+all the morning. When she first set eyes on him--did he know?--she felt
+sure that he belonged to them.
+
+Leonhard did not know about the name. He felt very grateful to her for
+her kindness. He hoped the book had shown him the writing of his
+ancestor, but he did not know. His parents died when he was a little
+boy, and if he had any relatives alive, they were unknown to him. He
+should be glad to believe that the Herrnhuter was his grandfather or
+great-grandfather. But they must not ask him to run the risk of losing
+his chance if there should be a young lady whom he might wish to marry:
+he could not trust any voice in such a matter except hers.
+
+"Loretz and I have had our share of trials," she answered solemnly. "It
+has helped us to bear them, I am sure, dear youth, to think that God had
+brought us together and united us, for the lot decided how it should be.
+There have been times when I knew not how I could have endured what was
+put upon me but for remembering--remembering that in the counsels of a
+better world our marriage was decreed. See, Sister Benigna brought the
+ink home with her this noon! Now write your name in Frederick's book,
+and think whether it would not be best to stay with us."
+
+Leonhard appeared to be intent on his drawings: he bent over his work,
+but in truth his eyes could not see quite distinctly the lines which he
+drew. "I will not forget the book," he said: "as to staying in
+Spenersberg, I am only a probationer wherever I am."
+
+"And who knows how happy you might be among us!" said Dame Anna, who was
+quite clear now on a point somewhat cloudy before. The stranger had
+brought with him some secret sorrow and trouble, poor dear!
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE CONGREGATION FESTIVAL.
+
+As the day passed on, all thoughts were evidently directed toward the
+solemn scenes with which it was to close. It was pleasant to our friend
+to walk along the street toward the end of the afternoon, and look at
+the pretty cottages, each with its garden of flowers in front and its
+vine-encased windows and doors. Now and then he saw at door or window or
+in little garden young girls with flowers in their hands: were they
+weaving them into emblematic devices for the coffin and the grave? This
+little hamlet seemed to be the sanctuary of beautiful thoughts and
+things. Music was loved and served here, and he had never seen so many
+flowers as were crowded into these gardens.
+
+Instead of entering the church at the hour appointed for the funeral, as
+Mrs. Loretz had advised him to do, Leonhard merely ascended the steps
+and looked within on the neat edifice, all the architectural points of
+which could be surveyed at a glance, for there was neither pulpit nor
+altar within, nor pointed window nor arched roof to gaze at, but merely
+a large square room well furnished with benches, and a table and the
+minister's chair; and then descending the steps, he retired to a group
+of trees in the distance, beneath which he sat down to await the
+procession. He had not to wait long. Soon the sound of trombones came
+floating upon, encompassing, filling the air. A slight breeze was
+stirring; the sun was going down; the willow-covered plain was aglow
+with its golden light; among the hills the evening shadows were already
+gathering. Night was only awaiting its swift-coming opportunity.
+
+A small company gathered around the corpse-house, the body was brought
+forth upon the bier, and the procession, which had silently and quickly
+gathered at the signal of the trombones, started on foot for the church.
+
+When all had entered the edifice, Leonhard went in and sat down near the
+door. It was but his third night in Spenersberg, yet he was not among
+strangers, and how his heart was moved by all he saw and heard! An
+influence prevailed in this place which was fast mastering him.
+
+As he sat down and looked upon the faces of the elders, the faces of the
+men and the women--of the people who had toiled, and whose toil had been
+blessed to them--who had suffered, and whose suffering had been
+sanctified to them--his heart was like wax. In the drive and hurry of
+life he had never seen such faces. When he watched the troop of
+children, dressed in white and walking hand in hand, he thought of his
+own lonely childhood, and sighed to think that he had come here too
+late. And the minister, whom Spener had spoken about with patronizing
+contempt--looking at him, Leonhard said to himself, "Here is a man who
+could counsel me. He has fought his fight, and for him there is a crown
+of victory and rejoicing."
+
+The impression he had received when he glanced toward the minister's
+place was deepened as the services went forward, and he saw Mr. Wenck
+stand looking down upon the coffin, and from it toward the people.
+
+The music for the congregation festival was sung. It was all as Benigna
+had arranged it: there was no omission of parts except her own and
+Elise's. Such voices, such trained voices, and such instrumental
+performances, Leonhard said to himself, and could say truly, he had
+never heard. He was dumb with wonder, and because he loved music he wept
+as though he had loved Benigna. It seemed indeed that the mourners--and
+the church was filled with mourners in spite of all the words of
+resignation and immortal hope upon their tongues--were all intent on
+doing honor to the woman whose life among them would never be forgotten.
+
+In accordance with the usual custom--nothing could he omit that would do
+honor to her memory--the minister gave a slight biographical sketch of
+Benigna. He spoke of her childhood, and told the children that there was
+not one of them who had not been born in a happier home and to better
+fortunes than she. She had served music well because she loved it well,
+and they were all witnesses whether she had received any reward for
+faithfulness in that service. She had served her Master well because to
+her His service was the highest freedom, and she found in it the
+greatest joy. They had but to think upon, to look upon, her beautiful
+face if they would know whether she could have chosen another service in
+which she would have found such joy. Did she not appear to them--not
+because she had departed: would she not if she were still among
+them?--the most complete in excellences and virtues of any character
+they had known? Was she not farther on in the perfect life than any one
+of them? And how happy her life in Spenersberg had been! "Surely,
+surely," he concluded, "this heroic example of constancy to duty, of
+struggle against weakness, will not be lost on us! Never, on any
+battle-field of faith, fought a braver soldier. God has given her the
+victory. In a moment, at the close of a day of labor, in her
+school-room, right there in that blessed, that sacred place--just there
+where she would have chosen, with the kisses of her children on her
+face--just there she heard the summons. Can we doubt, O friends! that
+when our day of labor is ended we shall see Sister Benigna again? Not
+if we resolve that with God's help we will prove ourselves worthy of the
+high honor of being called her friends on earth."
+
+The silence which filled the house after the minister sat down was
+broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees
+Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as
+he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls,
+it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of
+mourners, but the ransomed sons and daughters of the New Jerusalem.
+
+After the services at the grave the people assembled in the church again
+to partake of the love-feast. Leonhard still followed. No wonder if he
+walked as in a dream, and at times stood to ask himself where he was,
+and what all this might mean. A month ago, a week ago, he might have
+seen half his acquaintances hid away in darkness, and such feelings not
+have been stirred, such thoughts suggested, as were stirred and
+suggested here. So much human kindness he had never heard in human
+voices or seen in human faces. The fierce grasping at opportunity, the
+wild struggle for place, which his short experience had shown him was
+the world's way of living, made him wonder if it was possible that
+mortals could live so near heaven as these people lived. In that hour
+the sharp strain of life relaxed--his disappointments ceased to torment
+him--he almost forgot that he stood in the attitude of an absconding
+debtor. Around him flowed the isolating, soothing, life-renewing waters.
+He had passed rapids and cataract: could his humbled head receive the
+benediction of the hour? Could he drop his burdens here, and go forward
+on a new path and with a new ambition? What were all the honors of the
+world, its rewards, its pride, compared with the peace and satisfaction
+of this people? Home, work, friendship, holiness--could so much
+content him? All were to be had here. But why might he not find
+the same elsewhere--home, work, friendship, uprightness, honor,
+success--patience to do the work that offered and to wait for the
+ripening of the harvest which should rightfully be his? While the people
+sat at their love-feast, exchanging the grasp of friendship and the kiss
+of peace, these questions waited upon him. Then came thoughts that were
+like answers. He would write to Wilberforce: if Spener had spoken
+seriously he would undertake those buildings; and then he looked around,
+and his imagination transformed this room of the worshiping congregation
+into a temple all beautiful within; and somehow into tint and form the
+character of the Spenersbergers seemed so to enter that over the people
+as well as the house of worship he saw the wings of the Angel of the
+Covenant outspread.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+LEONHARD'S THIRD NIGHT IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.
+
+Loretz invited Mr. Wenck to go home with him after the services: there
+was something he wished to speak about, he said. Mr. Wenck needed no
+urging: he wanted to see Elise one moment alone. But he did not find
+that moment, for while Loretz was talking about the work which should be
+done without delay in the cemetery, and saying that there could be no
+better time to call attention to it than the present, when so many would
+be going to visit Sister Benigna's grave, Spener came in. He had heard
+already all that could be told him with regard to Benigna's death, but
+his surprise had brought him straight to Loretz, and what he said was
+creditable to him, although he had made certain statements to Leonhard
+yesterday concerning Sister Benigna which neither of them would be
+likely to forget. It was perhaps the recollection of them just now which
+made him look at Leonhard and say, "I have been speaking to Mr. Marten
+about a school-building, and he has promised to give me a design for
+one. Shall we not call it Sister Benigna's monument?"
+
+"Sister Benigna's monument should be erected by the people," said the
+minister instantly. "She is in such regard among them all that it would
+be a most beautiful memorial."
+
+"We will consider that," said Spener. He was not very well pleased by
+Wenck's remark, and perhaps there could be no better time than the
+present to express his thought in regard to such assistance as he would
+be likely to receive from Spenersberg in erecting a monument. "I dare
+say the parents would be pleased to contribute their mite, and the
+children also; but no doubt in the end it would be my lookout. And it
+would be my pleasure, certainly, to see that there was no debt on the
+building."
+
+"Then, sir, pray do not call it her monument," said Mr. Wenck.
+
+When Spener had spoken he felt a slight misgiving, as one who should
+look pitifully on the moth which he had crushed. The minister's words
+now amazed him, but he restrained his rising anger. Wenck must have
+something else to say: let him say it then.
+
+"I judged the people by myself," Wenck said. "And that is saying a great
+deal more than I can express. It would be no pleasure, certainly, to see
+that her friends bore the least share in such expenses."
+
+"But, dear Brother Wenck, we are all Sister Benigna's friends," said
+Spener with the expostulation of a master in his voice.
+
+"Could we praise ourselves more highly, sir, than to say we are her
+friends? For myself, I feel that the glory of Spenersberg has passed
+away. I came here, Brother Loretz, to speak to you about her."
+
+Loretz nodded: he was too much surprised by the minister's remarks to
+speak. They all seemed to feel that the only thing asked of them was a
+hearing.
+
+"One week ago," Mr. Wenck continued, "I did not suppose that I could
+speak to you with such freedom as I feel I may use now. If I had said
+then what I now must, I might not have been able to convince anybody
+except of one thing. Perhaps I could not have felt certain about my own
+motives. But now I am above suspicion: I cannot suspect myself. _She_
+will not doubt my secret thought, and you will all bear me witness." The
+minister looked around him as he spoke, and Spener would never point him
+out to man again as yesterday he had called Leonhard's attention to the
+little minister. Leonhard sat uneasily on his chair, doubting whether to
+go or stay, but nobody thought of him, and he felt himself to be in the
+centre of a charmed circle, out of which he could not remove himself.
+Every one was looking at Mr. Wenck, who, pausing a second as if to
+assure himself again that all to whom he would speak were before him,
+went on, his voice becoming more calm and strong, and his whole bearing
+witnessing for him in his speech. "Before I heard of Spenersberg," he
+said--"before it had existence even in the brain of its honored
+founder--my acquaintance with Benigna began."
+
+"Is it possible, Mr. Wenck?" exclaimed Dame Loretz, her voice breaking
+under the weight of her sympathy.
+
+"Yes, and I was hoping that she and I were to spend our lives together.
+Dear Sister Loretz, you understand now why I could not take a wife."
+
+"Why--why is that so, sir?" asked Loretz, doubting, and not very well
+pleased: "that's news, I'm sure."
+
+"It is, I know. And the story would never be told by me but for--for
+your sake, my friends."
+
+"Well, well, but--" said Loretz, afraid to hear what was coming; not
+that he guessed, but because Spener sat there with a face so--so
+inexplicable. Loretz could not make out its meaning when just now he
+glanced that way; and the face was full of meaning. What was passing in
+his mind?
+
+"Let me tell the story, Mr. Loretz. I want you to know it. It will not
+take long. May I not go on?"
+
+"Go on, sir, by all means!" exclaimed Spener. "Say what you have to say,
+and--" His voice sunk: he did not finish the sentence, audibly at least.
+
+But Wenck still waited until Mrs. Loretz said, "Husband, surely you
+would like to know about dear Sister Benigna?"
+
+"Well," said Loretz, reluctant still because of his misgivings, "go on.
+It will be a comfort to you, I dare say, Mr. Wenck, to talk about her
+here."
+
+"It is my duty, sir, to talk about her here, and my privilege. We were
+both toiling in our way to reach the time when our love for each other
+might be spoken and shown to be something short of unreasonable. When
+that time did come we were led to ascertain whether our union would be
+in accordance with the Divine will, in the manner of our fathers, which
+had been adhered to for generations in the village where we lived. We
+found that, according to the lot, our lives must be lived apart. It did
+not appear to me then that we did right to give each other up. But I did
+not attempt to persuade her--or--to assure myself that I had not made a
+mistake when I loved her."
+
+"I believe that," was the comment on this statement which appeared on
+the scornful face of Spener.
+
+"But I have often asked myself whether I should not have performed my
+duty in a better way, a more enlightened way, if I had tried to persuade
+Benigna to a step which has been taken by many of the most devout,
+God-fearing brethren."
+
+"What! what!" exclaimed Loretz, aghast. This was the very thing he had
+feared from some quarter, and now he heard it whence he had least
+expected it to come.
+
+"I told you before you resorted to the lot--and my inmost hope was that
+you would act upon it--that the lot is not now considered among the
+brethren essential in the decision of questions of this kind. Surely you
+have not forgotten."
+
+"You mentioned it," said Spener reluctantly, in most ungenerous
+acknowledgment. "I recollect wishing that you would make a point of it."
+
+"It was impossible," replied the minister. "But now I can speak. If I
+understand you, my friends, there is none of you that feels ready to
+resign his own will in this matter. In your own secret hearts you
+understand there is no submission. With such sacrifice God is not well
+pleased. Do you think He can be? You have but followed a fashion. It is
+a vain oblation. But"--he went on hurriedly, for he did not wish to
+provoke discussion, at least until he had told the brief tale to the
+end--"Benigna and I accepted the decision as final. When I came to
+Spenersberg and found her here, it was a great, an overwhelming
+surprise. Brother Loretz, you know by whose request I came."
+
+"I have always felt proud of having brought you here, Brother Wenck: I
+stand by it yet. You have done the right thing always, so far as I know.
+Surely it was well to bring you here."
+
+"When I found her here I thought I could not stay, but I finally
+accepted that too as a dispensation of the Divine will, thankful, sir,
+thankful that I might have the woman for my friend and co-worker. Has
+she worked with me? Oh, Benigna, thou art still and for ever my
+friend--for ever!--and the thought of thee will be an inspiration to my
+work till my work too is done! But, Mr. Spener, I do not think that this
+trial is set for you and Elise. Brother Loretz, I feel called upon to
+testify that I do not believe that this trial is appointed to Brother
+Spener and Elise. Think of it, and give me your consent, all of you, and
+I will immediately, with devout thanksgiving, in the presence of God,
+join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."
+
+Spener was first to break the silence which bound each amazed soul of
+this little company when Mr. Wenck ceased to speak. His face shone, he
+looked as if he could have embraced "our little minister" then and
+there. He had been, in spite of his pride and prejudice, converted
+wholly into faith in Wenck, but instead of manifesting his conversion at
+once, he strode across the room to Elise's mother. "This is a house of
+mourning," said he, "otherwise I would never consent that Elise's
+marriage should be a private one. I would wish all Spenersberg to see my
+bride: I would like all the people to see our happiness. But let it be
+now, let it be now, Loretz. Elise, let it be now. Surely you see the
+wisdom of it. Such a compliance as ours to a mere custom would be an
+insult to our Father in heaven. Common sense is against it."
+
+His voice was tremulous with emotion: he took Elise's hand. Who could
+stand against him? Her eyes were lifted as to the hills whence help had
+come to them.
+
+Loretz was sadly disconcerted. Spener's instant acceptance of the
+minister's proposal completed the overthrow occasioned by Mr. Wenck's
+astonishing words. How true what he was always saying, that nobody could
+stand against that man!
+
+"Surely, father, surely," said Spener, approaching him, and drawing
+Elise along with him--"surely you cannot fail to feel the force of what
+our good brother has said."
+
+Loretz looked at his wife: it was not merely Albert, the man he revered
+most, but the child--yes, the child of his heart also was arrayed
+against him. How was it with Anna?
+
+"Listen to the minister," said she. "He knows what is right."
+
+"I have spoken in the fear of God," said Mr. Wenck. "I call no man
+master."
+
+Spener looked down at these words: he understood their significance. The
+interview he had returned home intending to ask of Wenck was of a
+different character from this. "I think that no one could suspect you,
+sir, of tampering with another man's destiny or his conscience," he
+said. "I have never understood you till now, and for my misunderstanding
+I humbly ask your pardon." And indeed who that looked at him could
+suppose that this was a moment of proud rejoicing over a success won in
+spite of Church and household?
+
+The minister silently gave him his hand. Spener did himself justice when
+he took the extended palm and held it a moment reverently in his.
+
+"Father, we await your decision," he said to Loretz. He still held
+Elise's hand, and she would not have flown away had he held it less
+firmly.
+
+Leonhard, quite forgotten, just here accidentally touched the piano with
+his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to
+Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz
+looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light
+fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks
+around here know?" he asked.
+
+"About the lot? Who would have told them? I should say no one."
+
+"Then 'twill do them no harm: I am my brother's keeper. Go on. We won't
+make a balk of it this time."
+
+"What, father!" exclaimed Dame Loretz. "How! Now?" It was her turn to
+offer herself as a stumbling-block, but, dear soul! she must always make
+poor work of such endeavor.
+
+"If they are agreed, let it be. Albert Spener never gave his consent out
+and out to the testing; and look at our girl here! The Lord have mercy
+on us! If I can understand, though, it isn't Albert's doing."
+
+"It is wholly Brother Wenck's," said Spener.
+
+"It is Benigna's," said the minister. "Let us therefore celebrate this
+day of sorrow by a concluding special service;" and he drew from his
+pocket the manual from which he had read the burial service over Sister
+Benigna. "We will rejoice together, as she will rejoice if it is given
+her to know what the friends she loved do on the earth. Is it not as if
+she had given her life for her friends?"
+
+When Leonhard took up the interrupted strain of the "Wedding March,"
+bridegroom had saluted bride, and Loretz, by the light of his daughter's
+eyes, had taken one decided step toward conviction that he had consented
+in that hour not to the furtherance of his own will, but the will of
+Heaven.
+
+Have we permitted Miss Elise to figure almost as a mute on this
+momentous occasion? But does the reader think it likely that she had
+much to say? She might perhaps have uttered one word that would have
+proved insurmountable, but Mr. Wenck had spoken as it were with
+Benigna's authority, and so to yield now was the most obvious duty.
+
+The next morning saw Leonhard Marten on his way back to A----. He had
+submitted to Spener his designs for the monument to be erected among the
+living to the memory of Sister Benigna, and for the houses to be built
+on those elected sites; and these all accepted, he had said to himself,
+"I am an architect and a builder as long as I live," though Spener had
+embraced him when he said, "I never heard such music, sir--never--as you
+gave us last night!"
+
+He went away, promising to come back and bring with him a young lady to
+study music of the Spenersbergers, so soon as he should have despatched
+a letter to a friend who was about to travel abroad.
+
+He promised with a young man's audacity, but he performed it all. If
+Marion was not to be abandoned at once and for ever to a false style of
+music and a false way of living, she must be converted, as he had been,
+out of all patience with the foolish falseness of their life. And then
+everything seemed so easy to him, and really was so easy, after he had
+decided that he could write his name down in that birthday book sacred
+to friendship in which Loretz had offered him a place.
+
+And here is explanation ample of the fact that Wilberforce, about to
+travel abroad and in sore need of money, found a thousand dollars
+deposited to his credit when he expected five thousand, and in due time
+received a letter which satisfied him, in spite of its surprise, that
+Leonhard was the best friend he had and the most trustworthy man living,
+and that whoever she might be whom he had taken in holy matrimony for
+his life-companion, he was worthy of her.
+
+CAROLINE CHESEBRO'.
+
+
+
+
+UNSETTLED POINTS OF ETIQUETTE.
+
+     In England the higher the rank the more affable and kind I
+     found them. It is only the little people climbing up who are
+     disagreeable.--SULLY.
+
+
+Not alone of English people can this be said. In "society" all over the
+world it is the same; for everywhere men and women born and bred ladies
+and gentlemen value their reputation as such too highly to risk it by
+any rudeness or uncourteousness. They may upon occasion be frigidly
+polite, but polite they will always be. But customs vary so much that
+some things which would be considered polite in one country would be
+looked upon in another as rude or intrusive. Take, for instance, one
+illustration among many which might be cited. A foreigner sent on a
+diplomatic mission to this country brought with him letters of
+introduction to several members of a large family. Having affairs of
+importance to attend to, he was remiss about delivering these letters on
+this occasion, but on a second visit, having more leisure, he made it a
+point to have himself presented at a ball to every member of the family
+who was present. After the ball he told a lady of the trouble he had
+given himself, and asked her congratulations upon having accomplished so
+much in one evening. She, being upon intimate terms with him, assured
+him that his politeness was not only unnecessary, but would in all
+probability be misunderstood. "According to the customs of our country,"
+said the lady, "you ought to have waited until they asked to be
+presented to you." "How could I do that," he inquired indignantly, "when
+it was my duty to make myself known to them, out of respect for the
+writer of the letters as well as for those to whom she had written?
+Besides, one can never be too civil to ladies and gentlemen." The lady
+replied, "True; only you must first be sure that you are dealing with
+ladies and gentlemen who understand all points of etiquette as you do."
+Before his return to his own country he learned his error by the result,
+for during a stay of some months he never received an invitation from
+any of the family. By following the customs of his own country, instead
+of adopting those of the country he was in, he had subjected himself to
+being looked upon as "a pushing foreigner," who valued their
+acquaintance so highly that he was determined to gain it, even at the
+sacrifice of the customs of good society.
+
+Americans when abroad, unless in an official position, have very little
+opportunity of gaining a knowledge of such requirements of etiquette as
+had influenced this gentleman in making the overtures he had thought
+necessary; nor can we be expected to be acquainted with them. The rules
+of social etiquette are all so well understood and practiced in Europe
+that no opportunity presents itself for the miscomprehensions as to
+one's duties in society which prevail with us. There every detail is
+prescribed by the codes and usages of courts; and one might as well pass
+an acquaintance in the street without the usual salutation as neglect
+any one of these forms. Again to illustrate: A gentleman belonging at
+one time to the English legation in Washington passed a summer at one of
+our fashionable watering-places. His official position would have
+secured him the consideration to which he was entitled, even had he not
+been the general favorite that he was; but the men who left their cards
+from time to time upon him were not always particular in having
+themselves presented the first time they met him afterward at the club
+or at dinners; and looking upon this omission as he had been trained to
+do, it could not but seem to him an intentional rudeness on their part.
+The consequence was, he avoided the watering-place thereafter, and
+sought his summer recreation where there was less pretension at least,
+and where he doubtless became less exacting or more accustomed to such
+trifling breaches of etiquette.
+
+For want of an exact code many points of etiquette are with us left
+open to discussion, and this without reference to foreign ideas. Thus
+the custom of inviting gentlemen to call when a married lady wishes to
+give them the entrée to her house seems to have become an obsolete one
+with a great many. Quite recently a discussion took place as to its
+propriety between several ladies of distinction in this city. One lady
+said that it was the Philadelphia custom for gentlemen to call where
+they wished, without waiting for an invitation, after they had made the
+acquaintance of any lady in the family; and more than one married woman
+asserted that they had never yet asked a gentleman to come to see them;
+while another insisted that gentlemen generally would not venture to
+make a call upon any married lady unless she had invited them, or they
+had first asked her permission. As a difference of opinion exists on
+this point, it would be well if it could be an understood thing that any
+gentleman wishing to make the acquaintance of a lady could, after having
+himself presented to her, leave his card at her house with his address
+upon it. Of course this applies only to comparative strangers, for any
+young man can commit his card to his mother or sister to leave for him
+at a house where either visits, if he wishes to be included in
+invitations. Unless his card is left in this way or in person, how can
+he expect to be remembered? Some years ago, a lady who gave a ball
+during the winter after her return from a residence abroad, omitted to
+send invitations to the young men who, having previously visited at her
+house, had not left their cards at her door since her arrival home,
+preferring to substitute gentlemen who had never been entertained by her
+to inviting those who were so remiss. For this reason she gave
+permission to several young ladies to name gentlemen among their friends
+whom they would like to have invited; and so agreeable to the hostess
+was the selection thus made that she placed permanently upon her
+inviting list the names of those who sufficiently appreciated her
+courtesy to remember afterward the slight duties which their acceptance
+of her hospitality imposed upon them.
+
+Still another illustration will show what unsettled ideas many hold in
+regard to points of etiquette which ought not to admit of any diversity
+of opinion. Ladies sometimes say to each other, after having been in the
+habit of meeting for years without exchanging visits, "I hope you will
+come and see me," and almost as frequently the answer is made, "Oh, you
+must come and see me first." One moment of reflection would prevent a
+lady from making that answer, unless she were much the older of the two,
+when she could with propriety give that as the reason. The lady who
+extends the invitation makes the first advance, and the one who receives
+it should at least say, "I thank you--you are very kind," even if she
+has no intention of availing herself of it. A lady in the fashionable
+circles of our largest metropolis once boasted that she had never made a
+first visit. She was not aware, probably, that in the opinion of those
+conversant with the duties of her position she stamped herself as being
+just as underbred as if she had announced that she did not wait for any
+one to call upon her. No lady surely is of so little importance in the
+circle in which she moves as never to be placed in circumstances where a
+first visit is requisite from her; nor does any one in our land so
+nearly approach the position of a reigning monarch as to decree that
+all, irrespective of age or priority of residence, should make the first
+call upon her.
+
+One of the most reasonable rules of etiquette is that which requires
+prompt replies to invitations. The reason why an invitation to dine or
+to an opera-box should be answered as soon as received is so evident
+that it will not admit of questioning; but many who are punctilious in
+these particulars are remiss in sending promptly their acceptances or
+regrets for parties and balls. Most of those who neglect this duty do so
+from thoughtlessness or carelessness, but there are some who have the
+idea that it increases their importance to delay their reply, or that
+promptness gives evidence of eagerness to accept or to refuse. Others,
+again, are prevented from paying that direct attention to an invitation
+which politeness requires by the inconvenience of sending a special
+messenger with their notes. Where any doubt exists in reference to the
+ability of the person invited to be present at a soirée or ball, an
+acceptance should be sent at once; and if afterward prevented from going
+a short note of explanation or regret should be despatched. It is well
+known that a few words make all the difference between a polite and an
+impolite regret. "Mrs. Gordon regrets that she cannot accept Mrs.
+Sydney's invitation for Tuesday evening," is not only curt, but would be
+considered by many positively rude. The mistake arises, however, more
+frequently from ignorance than from intentional rudeness. "Mrs. Gordon
+regrets extremely that she cannot accept Mrs. Sydney's kind invitation
+for Tuesday evening," is all that is necessary. All answers to
+invitations given in the name of the lady and gentleman of the house are
+generally acknowledged to both in the answer, and the envelope addressed
+to the lady alone.
+
+Some persons are in the habit of sending acceptances to invitations for
+balls even when they know that they are not going; but this is very
+unfair to the hostess, not only because she orders her supper for all
+who accept, but because she may wish to invite others in their places if
+she knows in time that they are not to be present. No house is so large
+but it has a limit to the number of people that can be comfortably
+entertained; and some ladies are compelled by the length of their
+visiting-list to give two or three entertainments in order to include
+all whom they wish to invite. When the invitations are sent out ten days
+in advance, if answered within three days the hostess is enabled to
+select from her other lists such of her friends as she would like to pay
+the compliment of inviting twice, in case the number of regrets which
+she receives will permit her to do so; but delaying the answers or
+accepting with no intention of going puts it out of her power to send
+other invitations.
+
+An invitation once given cannot be recalled, even from the best motives,
+without subjecting the one who recalls it to the charge of being either
+ignorant or regardless of all conventional rules of politeness. Some
+years ago a lady who had been invited with her husband to a musical
+entertainment given at the house of an acquaintance for a mutual friend
+of the inviter and the invited, received, after having accepted the
+invitation, a note requesting her not to come, on the ground that she
+had spoken slanderously of the lady for whom the soirée was to be given.
+Entirely innocent of the charge, she demanded an explanation, which
+resulted in completely exonerating her. The invitation was then
+repeated, but of course, as the withdrawal of it had been intended as a
+punishment, the rudeness was of too flagrant a character to overlook,
+and all visiting between the parties ceased from that day. The rule
+would not apply to a more recent case, where a lady gave a ball, and, in
+endeavoring to avoid a crush and make it agreeable for her guests, left
+out all young men under twenty-one years of age; but finding that she
+had received wrong information concerning the age of one whom she had
+invited, and that this one exception was much commented upon, causing
+her to appear inconsistent, she wrote a note asking permission to recall
+the invitation (having received no answer to it), and expressing her
+regret that she should be made to appear rude where no rudeness was
+intended. In this case the gentleman could, without compromising his
+dignity, have sent a courteous reply, assuring the lady that he
+perfectly understood her motives, and begging her not to give herself
+any uneasiness upon his account in having felt compelled to withdraw the
+invitation. By doing so he would have made the lady his firm friend, and
+had she appreciated his politeness as it would have deserved to be
+appreciated, she would have lost no opportunity of showing her sense of
+it.
+
+There is no better test of ladies and gentlemen than the manner in
+which they receive being left out of a general invitation. They may feel
+ever so keenly the omission, but it should never betray itself in a
+shadow of change either in look or in tone. If the invitation is not a
+general one, why should any one feel hurt by being omitted? No one but
+the entertainer can know all the motives that influence her in her
+selections. And here might be mentioned several reasonable points of
+etiquette which may control her. When a first invitation has not been
+accepted, it is to be supposed that no other will be expected until the
+recipient of the invitation has returned the courtesy in some way, be it
+ever so simple. In cases where previous invitations have been accepted,
+even those who are not in the habit of balancing the exchange of
+hospitalities cannot continue to extend them year after year, however
+much they may wish to do so, when not the slightest disposition is shown
+to make any return. Then, too, many ladies are not willing to overlook
+the omission of leaving cards after their entertainments, and they very
+naturally feel that a distinction should be made between such young men
+as have shown an appreciation of their past courtesies and those who
+have not. And again, a lady may often be deterred from sending
+invitations to those whom she heartily wishes to invite, from her
+dislike of making any advance to persons who are older residents, or
+from a fear of being considered pushing or patronizing. A lady who never
+makes first calls upon those who have lived longer than herself in the
+city where she resides (unless in cases where age or infirmities upon
+the part of those inviting her makes it her province to do so), learned
+just before giving an entertainment that the wife of a gentleman from
+whom she had received assistance in the charitable labors which occupied
+some of her leisure hours was a native of another city; and in writing a
+note upon business to the gentleman she expressed her intention of
+calling upon his wife, explaining why she had not sooner done so. She
+received an immediate reply from the husband, in which, after the
+business had been attended to, he informed her that he and his wife
+selected their own circle of friends, which was quite as large as they
+desired to make it. The lady as promptly sent back a note in answer, in
+which she expressed her regret for the mistake she had made, and thanked
+him for having corrected the impression which she had formed of him as a
+gentleman in her acquaintance with him solely in business relations.
+Such an experience would prevent a sensitive woman from ever placing
+herself in a position to receive such a rudeness again from any one and
+therefore no one whose duty it is to make a first call, and who has not
+made it, should ever feel hurt or offended at not being invited by such
+an acquaintance, no matter how general may have been the invitation.
+
+Ladies who are the most apt to give offence are those who divide their
+lists, giving two parties in the course of the year, instead of the
+grand crush which is more popular. Some feel aggrieved because they are
+not invited to both, fancying that there are reasons why an exception
+should be made in their favor; while others prefer the party for which
+no invitation was sent. Those who send regrets for the first party
+sometimes expect to be invited to the second, but this in no way changes
+the relation between the inviter and the invited. It is the misfortune
+and not the fault of the lady who invites that such regrets are sent;
+and if she is able to repeat her invitations to any upon her first list,
+it will surely be to those who gave such reasons for regretting as
+illness or absence from the city. Certainly the entertainer must desire
+to make both parties equally pleasant, and must select her guests to
+this end; and yet there are those who, when left out, do not hesitate to
+show her by the change in their manner that they consider themselves
+more capable than she is of selecting her guests.
+
+The question is frequently asked whether replies should be sent to
+invitations to wedding and other receptions, and to "at-home" cards. If
+one receives the great compliment of being invited to a marriage
+ceremony (not at church), an acceptance or regret would of course be
+immediately sent, for it is only in the case of the reception following
+that any doubt seems to exist. It is generally understood that no
+answers are expected; but as it is certainly very polite to send a
+regret when one is unable to accept, why is it not equally polite to
+send an acceptance? After receptions it is not considered necessary for
+those who have been present to call, but those who are prevented from
+going call in person as soon as is convenient. Sometimes, as in the case
+of wedding receptions, many are invited for the occasion, friends either
+of the bride or groom, whom the relative who gives the reception has
+never visited, and does not wish to visit in the future. Of course the
+visiting then ends with the call made after the reception; for if the
+cards left at the reception or afterward are not returned by those of
+the host or hostess, no matter how desirous the recipient of the
+civility may be to extend her hospitality in return, she ought not to do
+so unless under corresponding circumstances. Frequently those who are
+prevented from attending wedding-receptions send their cards, and these
+are returned by those of the bride and groom when they make their round
+of visits, except in cases where, after the reception, their cards are
+sent with a new address. Then, of course, those who receive them always
+pay the first visit. The gentleman sends his card alone (when there has
+been no reception) where he wishes to have his wife make the
+acquaintance of his friends whom she has not previously visited; and the
+sooner the call is made under such circumstances the more polite it is
+considered.
+
+The reason why an invitation to an opera-box, like an invitation to
+dine, must be answered immediately is because the number of seats being
+limited it is necessary, when regrets are received, to send out other
+invitations at once, in order that all may be complimented alike by
+receiving them upon the same day. Gentleman not receiving any special
+invitation to a box, who chance to be in the opera-house in a
+dress-suit, often pay visits of ten or fifteen minutes to the box of any
+lady with whom they are well acquainted. If a gentleman wishes to enter
+the box of some chaperone with whom he is not acquainted, he always
+requests some mutual acquaintance in the box to present him to the
+chaperone immediately upon entering. Unless invited by her to remain, he
+is careful not to prolong his visit beyond the time allowed. Young
+ladies are sometimes very thoughtless in urging young gentlemen to stay
+during an entire act, or even longer; but when the party is made up by
+the chaperone, she does not like to see the gentlemen whom she has
+invited incommoded by one whom she has not asked to her box.
+
+The diversity of opinion that exists with us in reference to many points
+of etiquette is unfortunate; for where no fixed rules exist there must
+always be misapprehensions and misunderstandings; rudenesses suspected
+where none are intended, and sometimes resented, to the great perplexity
+of the offender as to the cause of the offence. It is not every one who
+knows how rude a thing people of the old school consider it to make use
+of a lady's house in calling upon a guest staying with her, and leaving
+no card for the hostess. This simple act of courtesy does not
+necessitate a continuance of visiting, inasmuch as the lady only feels
+obliged to return her card through her friend, leaving it to after
+circumstances to decide whether it will be mutually agreeable to make
+the acquaintance. To call upon strangers for whom dinners are given when
+invited to meet them is very polite, but it should not be construed into
+any intended impoliteness in this country if the call is not made; and
+it may even happen that one is unable to be presented to such guests
+where the dinner is large, though one should at least make the attempt.
+Nor is it generally understood how great is the discourtesy of
+permitting any person who has been shown into a house through the
+mistake of a servant when the ladies are engaged, to be shown out again
+without seeing any member of the family. The mistake having occurred,
+if no member of the family is able to make her appearance without
+considerable delay, a message should be sent down with an explanation,
+inquiring if the visitor will wait until one of the ladies can come
+down. The lady who finds herself admitted when out upon a round of calls
+will be without doubt only too glad of the excuse for departure; and
+even if calling upon matters that require an answer, her _savoir faire_
+would prevent her from waiting under such circumstances. Any hesitation
+upon the part of the servant who answers the bell, as to whether the
+ladies are at home or engaged, authorizes the persons calling to leave
+their cards without waiting to ascertain.
+
+The etiquette in regard to bowing is so simple and reasonable that one
+would scarcely suppose it possible that any differences of opinion could
+exist, and yet there are some who think it a breach of politeness if one
+neglect to bow, although meeting half a dozen times on a promenade or in
+driving. Custom has made it necessary to bow only the first time in
+passing: after that exchange of salutations it is very properly not
+expected. The difference between a courteous and a familiar bow should
+be remembered by gentlemen who wish to make a favorable impression. A
+lady dislikes to receive from a man with whom she has but a slight
+acquaintance a bow accompanied by a broad smile, as though he were on
+the most familiar terms with her. It is far better to err on the other
+side, and to give one of those stiff, ungracious bows which some men
+indulge in. Those gentlemen who smile with their eyes instead of their
+mouths give the most charming bows. As for men who bow charmingly at one
+time, and with excessive hauteur at others, according as they feel in a
+good or bad humor, they need never be surprised if the person thus
+treated should cease speaking altogether; nor can any man who does not
+lift, or at least touch, his hat in speaking to a lady expect that she
+will continue her salutations.
+
+The rules to which allusion has been made are all reasonable, but there
+are others which, having only an imaginary foundation in the
+requirements of true politeness, might be disregarded with advantage.
+Such, for example, as that of sending answers to invitations by a
+special messenger. It is equally convenient to employ a man to deliver
+invitations or to send them by post. With the reply it is different.
+Each family receiving an invitation has to send out a servant with the
+answer. This not being always convenient, the reply is frequently
+delayed--sometimes until it is forgotten. But if the foreign custom of
+sending acceptances and regrets by post could be brought into general
+use, how much more sensible it would be! It was the occasion of many
+comments when a few years since some cards, not invitations, were thus
+sent by mistake, the servant posting those which he had forgotten to
+deliver before the wedding had taken place. But it only needs a few
+resolute persons to set the example, and persist in it, to have it as
+generally adopted as it is abroad.
+
+
+
+
+THE HERMIT'S VIGIL.
+
+    Here is the ancient legend I was reading
+      From the black-letter vellum page last night:
+    Its yellow husk holds lessons worth the heeding,
+                        If we unfold it right.
+
+    The tome is musty with dank superstition
+      From which we shrink recoiling, to th' extreme
+    Of an unfaith that with material vision,
+                        Accounts as myth or dream
+
+    Problems too subtle for our clumsy fingers--
+      High truths that stretch beyond our reach as far
+    As o'er the fire-fly in the grass that lingers
+                        Stretches yon quenchless star.
+
+    Give rather back the old hallucinations--
+      The visible spirits--the rapture, terror, grief
+    Of faith so human, than the drear negations
+                        Of dumb, dead unbelief!
+
+    --But will you hear the story?
+                             --In a forest,
+      Girt round by blacken'd tarns, a hermit dwelt:
+    And as one midnight, when the storm raged sorest,
+                        Within his hut he knelt
+
+    In ghostly penance, sounds of fiendish laughter
+      Smote on the tempest's lull with sudden jar,
+    That sent the gibbering echoes shrilling after,
+                        O'er weir and wold afar.
+
+    "Christ ban ye now!"--he cried, the door wide flinging,
+      "Fare ye some whither with perdition's dole?"
+    --"We go"--out from the wrack a shriek came ringing--
+                        "To seize the emperor's soul,
+
+    "Who lies this hour death-smitten." Execration
+      Thereat still fouler filled the sulphurous air:
+    Before the rood the hermit sank:--"Salvation
+                        Grant, Lord! in his despair!"
+
+    And agonizing thus, with lips all ashen,
+      He prayed--till back, with ghastlier rage and roar,
+    The demon rout rushed, strung to fiercer passion,
+                        And crashed his osier door.
+
+    "Speak, fiend!--I do adjure thee!--Came repentance
+      Too late?"--With wrathful curse was answer made:
+    --"Heaped high within the Judgment Scales for sentence,
+                        The emperor's sins were laid;
+
+    "And downward, downward, with a plunge descended
+      _Our_ scale, till we exulted!--when a moan,
+    --'_Save, Christ, O save me!_'--from his lips was rended
+                        Out with his dying groan.
+
+    "Quick in the other scale did Mercy lay it,
+      _Lo! it outweighed his guilt_--"
+          --"Ha,--baffled! braved!"--
+    The hermit cried;--"Hence, fiends! nor dare gainsay it,
+                     _The emperor's soul is saved!_"
+
+                        MARGARET J. PRESTOX.
+
+
+
+
+CHATEAUBRIAND'S DUCKS.
+
+
+François-Auguste de Chateaubriand, the illustrious author of the _Génie
+du Christianisme_, the poet, statesman, diplomatist, soldier, and
+traveler in the Old World and the New, was one of the two or three human
+beings who, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, disputed with
+the emperor Napoleon the attention of Europe. Sprung from an old family
+of the Breton nobility--a race preserving longer perhaps than any other
+in France the traditions of the monarchy--he reluctantly gave in his
+adhesion to the _de facto_ government of Napoleon; but the execution of
+the duc d'Enghien outraged him profoundly, and sending back to Napoleon
+his commission as foreign minister, he abjured him for ever. Napoleon
+probably regretted the fact seriously. "Chateaubriand," said the
+emperor, "has received from Nature the sacred fire: his works attest it.
+His style is that of a prophet, and all that is grand and national
+appertains to his genius."
+
+It would be out of place in the brief sketch here given to trace his
+long and adventurous career. By turns author, minister, ambassador,
+soldier, he saw, like his famous contemporary and associate, Talleyrand,
+revolution after revolution, dynasty after dynasty, Bonapartist,
+Bourbon and Orleanist, pass before him; and having in this long career
+enjoyed or suffered all the splendors and all the woes of life--now at
+the height of wealth and power, now a penniless and homeless
+wanderer--he came at the age of eighty, in 1848, to Paris to die, in
+wellnigh abject poverty.
+
+Among the personal delineations of this celebrated man, the most
+characteristic and entertaining perhaps are those presented by Victor
+Hugo and Alexander Dumas in their respective memoirs. Chateaubriand is
+there shown in undress, and the portrait drawn of him is vivid and
+interesting. Victor Hugo describes him as he appeared in 1819 at his
+fine hôtel in Paris, wealthy, influential and renowned. The author-to-be
+of _Les Misèrables_ was then a mere youth, and his budding glories as an
+ultra-royalist poet conferred upon him the honor of an introduction to
+the great man. Hugo was ushered in, and saw before him, leaning in a
+stately attitude against the mantelpiece, the illustrious individual. M.
+de Chateaubriand, says Hugo, affected the bearing of a soldier: the man
+of the pen remembered the man of the sword. His neck was encircled by a
+black cravat, which hid the collar of his shirt: a black frockcoat,
+buttoned to the top, encased his small, bent body. The fine part about
+him was his head--out of proportion with his figure, but grave and
+noble. The nose was firm and imperious in outline, the eye proud, the
+smile charming; but this smile was a sudden flash, the mouth quickly
+resuming its severe and haughty expression.
+
+"Monsieur Hugo," said Chateaubriand without moving, "I am delighted to
+see you. I have read your verses on La Vendeé and the death of the duc
+de Berri; and there are things in the latter more especially which no
+other poet of this age could have written. My years and experience give
+me, unfortunately, the right to be frank, and I say candidly that there
+are passages which I like less; but what is good in your poems is very
+good."
+
+In the attitude, inflections of voice and intonation of the speaker's
+phrases there was something sovereign, which rather diminished than
+exalted the young writer in his own eyes. Night came and lights were
+brought. The master of the mansion permitted the conversation to
+languish, and Hugo was much relieved when the friend who had introduced
+him rose to go. Chateaubriand, seeing them about to take their leave,
+invited Hugo to come and see him on any day between seven and nine in
+the morning, and the youth gained the street, where he drew a long
+breath.
+
+"Well," said his friend, "I hope you are content?"
+
+"Yes--to be out!"
+
+"How! Why, M. de Chateaubriand was charming! He talked a great deal to
+you. You don't know him: he passes four or five hours sometimes without
+saying a word. If you are not satisfied, you are hard to please."
+
+In response to Chateaubriand's general invitation, Hugo went soon
+afterward, at an early hour of the morning, to repeat his visit. He was
+shown into Chateaubriand's chamber, and found the illustrious personage
+in his shirt-sleeves, with a handkerchief tied around his head, seated
+at a table and looking over some papers. He turned round cordially, and
+said, "Ah! good-day, Monsieur Victor Hugo. I expected you. Sit down.
+Have you been working since I saw you? have you made many verses?"
+
+Hugo replied that he wrote a few every day.
+
+"You are right," said Chateaubriand. "Verses! make verses! 'Tis the
+highest department of literature. You are on higher ground than mine:
+the true writer is the poet. I have made verses, too, and am sorry I did
+not continue to do so, as my verses were worth more than my prose. Do
+you know that I have written a tragedy? I must read you a scene.
+Pilorge! come here: I want you."
+
+An individual with red face, hair and moustaches entered.
+
+"Go and find the manuscript of _Moses_," said Chateaubriand.
+
+Pilorge was Chateaubriand's secretary, and the place was no sinecure.
+Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied
+everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of
+posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling
+notes. The tragedy which Chateaubriand read from with pomp and emphasis
+did not immensely impress Hugo, and the scene was interrupted by the
+entrance of a servant with an enormous vessel full of water for the
+bath. Chateaubriand proceeded to take off his head handkerchief and
+green slippers, and seeing Hugo about to retire, motioned to him to
+remain. He then continued to disrobe without ceremony, took off his gray
+pantaloons, shirt and flannel undershirt, and went into the bath, where
+his servant washed and rubbed him. He then resumed his clothes, brushed
+his teeth, which were beautiful, and of which he evidently took great
+care; and during this process talked with animation.
+
+This morning seems to have been a fortunate exception, as Hugo declares
+that he found Chateaubriand on other occasions a man of freezing
+politeness, stiff, arousing rather respect than sympathy--a genius
+rather than a man. The royal carelessness of his character was shown in
+his financial affairs. He kept always on his mantelpiece piles of
+five-franc pieces, and when his servant brought him begging letters--a
+thing which took place constantly--he took a piece from the pile,
+wrapped it in the letter and sent it out by the servant. Money ran
+through his fingers. When he went to see Charles X. at Prague, and the
+king questioned him in reference to his affairs, his response was, "I am
+as poor as a rat."
+
+"That will not do," said the king. "Come, Chateaubriand, how much would
+make you rich?"
+
+"Sire," was the reply, "you are throwing away your time. If you gave me
+four millions this morning, I should not have a penny this evening."
+
+It must be conceded that there was something imposing in this refusal of
+royal generosity; but the poet seems to have passed through life thus,
+with his head carried superbly aloft, and his "grand air" ready on all
+occasions.
+
+Hugo draws him at fifty, in his fine hôtel at Paris--a celebrity in
+politics and society. Dumas shows him in his old age, poor, self-exiled,
+and wellnigh forgotten by the world in which he had played so great a
+part. The brilliant and eccentric author of _Henry III._ was traveling
+in Switzerland in 1834, and on reaching Lucerne was informed that the
+hotel of The Eagle had the honor of sheltering no less a personage than
+one of his own literary idols--the great, the famous, the imposing M. de
+Chateaubriand. Dumas declares that genius in misfortune was always
+dearer to him than in its hours of greatest splendor, and the statement
+seems to have been honest. He determined to call and pay his respects to
+the great poet. He accordingly repaired to the hotel of The Eagle, asked
+for M. de Chateaubriand, and was informed by the waiter in a
+matter-of-fact voice that M. de Chateaubriand was not then at the hotel,
+as he had "gone to feed his ducks."
+
+At this strange announcement Dumas stared. He suppressed his curiosity,
+nevertheless, left his name and address, and duly received on the next
+morning a polite note from Chateaubriand inviting him to come and
+breakfast with him at ten.
+
+The invitation was gladly accepted, not, however, without a tremor of
+awe on the part of the youthful author. Even in old age, poverty, exile
+and forgotten by the world, Chateaubriand was to him the impersonation
+of grandeur. He trembled at the very thought of approaching this "mighty
+rock upon which the waves of envy had in vain beaten for fifty
+years"--this grand genius whose "immense superiority wellnigh crushed
+him." His demeanor, therefore, he declares, when shown into
+Chateaubriand's presence, must have appeared exceedingly awkward.
+Nevertheless, the cordial courtesy of the exile speedily restored his
+self-possession, and they proceeded to breakfast, conversing meanwhile
+upon political affairs, the news from France, and other topics of
+national interest to the old poet. Dumas represents him as simple,
+cordial, grave, yet unreserved. He was gray, but preserved his imposing
+carriage.
+
+When breakfast was over, and they had conversed for some time upon
+French affairs, Chateaubriand rose and said with great simplicity, "Now
+let us go and feed my ducks."
+
+At these words Dumas looked with surprise at his host, and after
+hesitating an instant essayed to reach a solution of the mystery.
+
+"The waiter informed me yesterday," he said, "that you had gone out for
+that purpose. May I ask if you propose in your retirement to become a
+farmer?"
+
+In reply to this question Chateaubriand said in his tranquil voice, "Why
+not? A man whose life has been, like mine, driven by caprice, adventure,
+revolutions and exile toward the four quarters of the world, would be
+happy, I think, to possess, not a chalet in these mountains--I do not
+like the Alps--but a country-place in Normandy or Brittany. Really, I
+think that this is the resource of my old age."
+
+"Permit me to doubt it," returned Dumas. "You remember Charles V. at
+Yuste. You do not belong to the class of emperors who abdicate or kings
+who are dethroned, but to those princes who die under a canopy, and who
+are buried, like Charlemagne, their feet in their bucklers, swords at
+their sides, crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands."
+
+"Take care!" replied Chateaubriand. "It is long since I have been
+flattered, and it may overcome me. Come and feed my ducks."
+
+The impressible visitor declares that he felt disposed to fall upon his
+knees before this grand and simple human being, but refrained. They went
+to the middle of a bridge thrown across an arm of the lake, and
+Chateaubriand drew from his pocket a piece of bread which he had placed
+there after breakfast. This he began to throw into the lake, when a
+dozen ducks darted forth from a sort of isle formed of reeds, and
+hastened to dispute the repast prepared for them by the hand which had
+written _René, The Genius of Christianity_ and _The Martyrs_. Whilst
+thus engaged, Chateaubriand leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, his
+lips contracted by a smile, but his eyes grave and sad. Gradually his
+movements became mechanical, his face assumed an expression of profound
+melancholy, the shadow of his thoughts passed across his large forehead
+like clouds of heaven; and there were among them recollections of his
+country, his family and his tender friendships, more sorrowful than all
+others. He moved, sighed, and, recalling the presence of his visitor,
+turned round.
+
+"If you regret Paris," said Dumas, "why not return? Nothing exiles
+you--all recalls you."
+
+"What could I do?" said Chateaubriand. "I was at Cauterets when the
+revolution of July took place. I returned to Paris. I saw one throne in
+blood, and another in the mud--lawyers making a constitution--a king
+shaking hands with rag-pickers: that was mortally sad; above all, when a
+man is filled as I am with the great traditions of the monarchy."
+
+"I thought you recognized popular sovereignty?"
+
+"Well, kings should go back from time to time to the source of their
+authority--election; but this time they have cut a branch from the tree,
+a link from the chain. They should have elected Henry V., not Louis
+Philippe."
+
+"A sad wish for the poor child! The Henrys are unfortunate: they have
+been poisoned or assassinated."
+
+"Well," said Chateaubriand, "it is better to die by the poniard than
+from exile: it is quicker, and you suffer less."
+
+"You will not return to France?"
+
+"Possibly, to defend the duchess de Berri if she is tried."
+
+"And if not?"
+
+"Then," said Chateaubriand, throwing bread into the water, "I shall
+continue to feed my ducks."
+
+                        JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
+
+
+
+
+OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
+
+
+BACONS AND BARONETS.
+
+There died in November last a gentleman who, though not remarkable
+himself, was the head and representative of so famous a family and order
+that his death is an event deserving of some notice. This was Sir Henry
+Hickman Bacon, premier baronet of England. This gentleman was not the
+descendant of the great Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, but head of the
+family whence that eminent man, a cadet of the house, sprung.
+
+The origin[M] of this family is lost in the obscurity of centuries. Sir
+Nicholas, an eminent lawyer of England in the reign of Queen Mary,
+succeeded, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, to the lord-keepership of
+the great seal. He married twice, and had a numerous issue, and the
+baronet lately deceased is the direct representative of the
+lord-keeper's eldest son by his first marriage, who was the first person
+created--by James I., on May 22, 1611--a baronet.
+
+And it is not a little remarkable that whilst of the baronetcies since
+created an immense percentage have become extinct, and only some half
+dozen of those created in 1611 remain, the first ever created has
+survived, and bids fair to do so for some time to come. The baronetcy of
+Hobart (earl of Buckinghamshire)--whose ancestral seat of Blickling, in
+Norfolk, passed some time since, with its magnificent collection of
+books, by marriage, into the Scotch family of Ker, and now belongs to
+the marquis of Lothian--and that of Shirley (held by Earl Ferrers), seem
+to be the only baronetcies now extant whose patents bear date the same
+day as that of Bacon.
+
+The others left of the same year are Mordaunt, of which we heard so much
+in a trial in 1870; Gerard, an ancient Lancashire Catholic house; Monson
+(Lord Monson); Musgrave of Edenhall ("the luck of Edenhall" is the
+subject of one of Longfellow's poems); Gresley, Twysden, Temple and
+Houghton. The last became well known a few years ago in this country as
+the largest holder of Confederate bonds.
+
+Francis Bacon, familiarly known as Lord Bacon, though in fact he never
+enjoyed that honor, his titles being Baron Verulam and Viscount St.
+Alban's, was second son of his father's second marriage, his mother
+being one of three sisters, the most eminent blue-stockings of the
+period, daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex.
+
+Another of Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters was Lady Burleigh, who had been
+governess to Edward VI., second wife of the famous lord-treasurer, and
+direct ancestress of the present talented marquis of Salisbury,
+vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, whose sister, Lady Mildred
+Beresford-Hope, wife of the well-known son of the author of
+_Anastasius_, bears the same name (Mildred) as her ancestress. Indeed,
+names are thus frequently transmitted for centuries in English families,
+and often thus serve as links in genealogical research. The Cooke family
+has long been extinct, and their stately seat was pulled down by a
+London alderman in the eighteenth century.
+
+Another sister, Lady Hobby--whose husband resided at Bisham Abbey, a
+fine old place, maintained in admirable repair, near Windsor--was a
+terrible disciplinarian, and there is an ugly story of her having
+whipped a wretched son of hers into his grave, from exasperation at his
+inability to make his "pothooks," when she was teaching him writing,
+without blots. Curiously enough, when, some years ago, improvements were
+being made at the Abbey, a number of copy-books of the style of writing
+common at the period in which Lady Hobby lived were discovered behind
+wainscoting, and all were blotted.
+
+The manor of Gorhambury, the great Bacon's seat, was purchased by his
+father, whose other seat was Redgrave in Suffolk. Gorhambury is near the
+town of St. Alban's, renowned for its abbey, now in course of splendid
+rehabilitation.
+
+Not far from St. Alban's once stood the celebrated Roman city of
+Verulam, called by Tacitus _Verulamium_, which Bacon, deeply imbued with
+Latin learning, appropriately selected for his first title. The plough
+has now for many centuries made furrows over it, and the only vestiges
+remaining are a few detached masses of the wall. Verulam was bounded on
+the south-west by the Roman Watling Street. Gorhambury was built by Sir
+Nicholas, and in the archbishop of Canterbury's library at Lambeth may
+be seen an interesting account of the expenses. It need scarcely be
+added that Queen Elizabeth paid her lord-keeper a visit there. Sir
+Nicholas Bacon left Gorhambury to Mr. Anthony Bacon, the eldest son of
+his second marriage, and he, dying unmarried, left the estate to his
+brother Francis.
+
+Gorhambury now belongs to the earl of Verulam, whose family name is
+Grimston. It was left by the great Bacon to his friend, Sir Thomas
+Meautys, and thence, by a course of intricate successions, came to the
+present proprietor.
+
+Bacon, like so many other famous men, had no children. He died in Lord
+Arundel's house at Highgate in 1626.
+
+Sir Robert Bacon, fifth baronet, sold Redgrave, the family seat in
+Suffolk, to Lord Chief-Justice Holt toward the end of the seventeenth
+century. Holt, who died in London 5th of March, 1710, was buried there,
+and a grand monument to his memory may be seen in the church. It was
+erected by his brother and heir, for, like Bacon, he was childless.
+
+Redgrave Hall, eighty-seven miles from London by the coach-road, is a
+large square mansion. The male line of the Holt family has long been
+extinct, but the present owner of the estate is descended from the great
+lord chief-justice's niece, who married Mr. Wilson, a younger son of an
+ancient Westmoreland family.
+
+But to pass to the origin of the order of baronets. After one of the
+almost chronic Irish insurrections against British rule, James I.
+conceived in 1609 the idea of offering to English and Scotch settlers,
+known to be possessed of capital, a large portion of the forfeited
+estates in Ulster. The supposed necessity of a military force for the
+protection of the colonists suggested to Sir Antony Shirley a project of
+raising money for the king. He proposed the creation of a new honor,
+between those of knight and baron, and that it be conferred by patent at
+a fixed price for the support of the army in Ulster--that it should
+descend to heirs male, and be confined to two hundred gentlemen of three
+descents in actual possession of lands worth one thousand pounds a
+year--a sum equal to five thousand now.[N]
+
+James I. approved of the scheme, as he would have done of any which
+seemed feasible for raising the wind, and the patents were offered at
+the price of ten hundred and ninety-five pounds, the estimated amount of
+the charge of thirty soldiers during three years. The purchasers did not
+prove so numerous as had been expected. In the first six years
+ninety-three patents were sold at £101,835. "It is unnecessary to add,"
+says Doctor Lingard, "that the money never found its way to Ireland" in
+the shape of forces paid for by this process.
+
+There have been three or four creations of baronetesses in their own
+right, but nearly two centuries have elapsed since such a creation.
+James II. made a curious remainder clause in a patent, by creating a
+Dutchman a baronet with remainder to his mother. It has been a mooted
+question whether baronets are not entitled to a coronet, and a certain
+Sir Charles Lamb, who died a few years ago, was so determined to uphold
+their privileges on this score that he had this ensign worked into the
+ornamentation of his entrance gates at Beaufort, near Battle Abbey,
+Sussex; but he met with small encouragement in such notions from his
+brother-baronets. An old English gentleman was wont to declare that more
+of disagreeable eccentricity is to be found amongst members of the
+baronetage than amongst those of any other order of men. He chanced to
+be thrown early in life amongst several eccentric beings of the class,
+and took his ideas accordingly; but it is a fact that a very large
+number of stories about eccentric baronets are in circulation. A marked
+man of the kind was early in the last century an individual who, in
+consequence of his height, was called Long Sir Thomas Robinson. It was
+in allusion to him that the lines were penned:
+
+    Unlike to Robinson shall be my song--
+    It shall be witty, and it sha'n't be long.
+
+This was the man to whom a Russian nobleman displayed the greatest
+anxiety to be introduced, under the impression that he was the real
+identical and unadulterated Robinson Crusoe.
+
+Sir Thomas was a bore of the first magnitude, and an inveterate
+hanger-on about cabinet-ministers and other prominent persons. He was
+constantly worrying Lord Burlington and Lord Burlington's servants by
+his Paul-pry-like presence. On calling at Burlington House, and being
+told that his lordship had gone out, he would desire to be let in to
+look at the clock or to play with a monkey which was kept in the hall,
+and so at length get into his lordship's room. The servants,
+exasperated, preconcerted a scheme to be rid of the nuisance. So, one
+day, as soon as the porter opened the gate and found Sir Thomas
+outside, he said, "His lordship is gone out, the clock has stopped, the
+monkey is dead."[O]
+
+
+MISS NEILSON.
+
+The story of _La Giulietta_ was told, in the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, by Luigi da Porto, a gentleman of Vicenza who had served in the
+army, and to whom it was narrated by one of his archers to beguile a
+solitary night-march. After passing through various translations the
+story was taken by Shakespeare as the groundwork of his wonderful
+tragedy, _Romeo and Juliet_, one of his earliest plays, and one of the
+most varied in passion and sentiment. Schlegel says of it: "It shines
+with the colors of the dawn of morning, but a dawn whose purple clouds
+already announce the thunder of a sultry day."
+
+The stormy acting of the elder Kean in _Richard III._--that epitome of
+ambition and bloodshed--was said to produce the effect of reading
+Shakespeare by flashes of lightning: in _Romeo and Juliet_ the first two
+acts are illumined only by the soft moonlight of love, and we are not
+startled by the lightning of tragedy until it gleams upon the bloody
+blade of Tybalt in the beginning of the third act: then Love and Death
+join hands, and move for a time with equal step across the stage.
+Finally come the poisoning and self-slaughters, and in the
+representation the curtain falls upon a corse-strewn graveyard, where
+Death reigns alone. Sad contrast to the lighted ball-room where the
+lovers first looked into each other's eyes--to the fair garden that lay
+at midnight "all Danaë to the stars"--to the moon-silvered balcony from
+which Juliet leaned in her loveliness as she exchanged with Romeo her
+earliest vows!
+
+Beneath Italian skies girls spring with sudden leap to womanhood, and
+the seed of the tender passion hardly drops into the heart before it
+buds and blooms, a perfect flower. Though the actual lapse of time
+represented in the play occupies only a few days, Juliet in that brief
+period must assume several distinct characters. We see her first the
+coy, heart-whole maiden, the cherished heiress of a patrician house:
+soon the blind bow-boy launches his shaft, and, quick as thought, she is
+passionately, impulsively, enduringly in love; then we see her but a few
+hours a bride, with black sorrow creeping already to darken her
+happiness; her kinsman is slain, Romeo banished, and the coy maiden is
+changed at once to the devoted wife, capable of any sacrifice that will
+enable her to rejoin her husband, then follow the fearful drinking of
+the philter, the miscarriage of the Friar's scheme, and the death of the
+lovers, who seek in the grave that union denied them on earth. What
+varied qualities and acts are clustered here!--simplicity, love, hope,
+fear, courage, despair, suicide. In the whole range of Shakespeare's
+female characters there is none so difficult to portray--none requiring
+such a combination of beauty and talent; and we need not marvel that the
+part of Juliet is rarely attempted, and still more rarely with success.
+
+That Miss Neilson was successful during her recent short engagement at
+the Walnut Street Theatre may be inferred, not alone from the great
+audiences that thronged the theatre night after night--for people will
+often throng to see a very unworthy performance--but from the
+intellectual character of those audiences, and the manifest pleasure
+they derived from seeing the fair English actress.
+
+In every criticism it should be borne in mind that she played under
+great disadvantage. She was unfortunately, with some few exceptions,
+very badly supported. It seems ungracious, therefore, to search for any
+flaw in the performance of such an admirable actress, who has left
+behind her so many charming memories; yet it must be admitted that her
+acting is not always as faultless as her face. In her Juliet there are
+striking inequalities perceptible: sometimes she seems to have just
+grasped perfection, then again she makes one wonder that she does no
+better. In portraying love-scenes she is unsurpassed: she is graceful
+and beautiful, has studied her parts thoroughly, has a sweet,
+penetrating voice, and seems herself to feel the sentiments she would
+convey to others. Her enunciation is remarkably distinct, and she has
+the power of mingling more or less pathos with the tones to express
+sorrow in greater or less degree: in one scene, where she thinks that
+Romeo has been murdered, her cheeks are wet with actual tears. At the
+close of the ball, when she learns that the fascinating young pilgrim is
+a Montague, the hereditary enemy of her house, she gives her first touch
+of pathos to the words--
+
+    My only love sprung from my only hate!
+    Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
+
+But it is a pathos entirely different from that which later tinges her
+sad good-night to her mother and nurse when she has determined to
+counterfeit death:
+
+    Farewell!--God knows when we shall meet again.
+
+Miss Neilson also possesses, in an eminent degree, the power to portray
+that sly humor without malice known as _archness_. In the earlier phases
+of Juliet's career, and throughout the whole impersonation of Rosalind
+in _As You Like It_, this accomplishment stands the actress in good
+stead: she undoubtedly owes to it much of her power to charm. It strikes
+one when she first comes on the stage as Juliet and gently checks the
+garrulous old Nurse, taking up the thread of the discourse--
+
+    And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I
+
+again, in her witty word-fencing with the mock palmer at the ball--
+
+    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
+    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss;
+
+so too in the garden-scene, when she half rebukes herself, and all
+encourages her lover--
+
+                                 O gentle Romeo,
+    If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
+    Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
+    I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
+    So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
+
+And she shows it wonderfully in her coaxing, half-pettish behavior to
+the provoking old woman--talkative and reticent by fits and starts, now
+whining and now laughing--who has been to seek out Romeo, and brought
+back news of him. In _As You Like It_, Rosalind's bright humor ripples
+and laughs like a silver brook through the glades of Ardennes, and
+trickles gently even into the epilogue: in this lively comedy--so much
+lighter and easier than the heavy tragedy we are discussing too--love
+and despair never come to overlay and destroy the arch humor. If there
+be any defect in the performance of the banished princess, it must still
+remain, like Orlando's verses, tacked to some tree in the forest, but,
+unlike those verses, still unseen.
+
+To return to the tragedy--for in the discussion of two plays in which
+the same faculties are exhibited by the same actress it is most
+convenient to pass at times from one play to the other--who that has
+seen Miss Neilson tread the stately _minuet de la cour_ at the ball
+given in the palace of the Capulets will deny her the possession of
+marvelous grace? The long floating robe and abundant train, the
+high-heeled, pointed shoe of the period, instead of embarrassing her,
+seem but to give additional opportunity for displaying elegance of pose
+and gesture. In the garden-scene, when nightingales are whist, bright
+moonlight falls upon the balcony, and lights up the face of Juliet who
+leans there, certainly the fairest flower in that scenic paradise. As
+yet the course of love runs smooth for her: she does not dream of the
+dreadful gulf down which she is about to plunge, and her happy tones
+fall musically upon the air, "smoothing the raven down of darkness till
+it smiles." This happiness continues till her speedy and clandestine
+marriage. Soon after the Nurse comes home, and by her incoherent
+mutterings leads Juliet to suppose that Romeo is slain: then we have the
+first display of grief, but it is a grief so sudden and so violent that
+the blow stuns and almost silences the young wife. She is roused from
+this by learning at last that it is Tybalt who is dead, and that Romeo
+is exiled; which last causes her far greater grief than the loss of her
+cousin. Her sorrow, however, is at once displaced by rage when the Nurse
+speaks against her husband--
+
+    Shame come to Romeo!--
+
+          Blistered be thy tongue,
+    For such a wish! he was not born to shame.
+
+The sorrow and anger here are well enacted, being neither overdone nor
+forced. It is here at least shown that Miss Neilson can, when she
+pleases, express great passions with that suppressed vehemence which
+carries the cultivated spectator away far more than violence of voice
+and gesture. Such suppression, with a view to producing greater effect
+by leaving much to the excited imagination of the beholder, is not
+practiced only by the tactful histrionic artist--it pervades all art. To
+take a single brief example: the greatest sculptors, knowing that the
+chisel could produce form, not color, have shrunk from indicating the
+pupil of the eye in their statues, and left the eyeball smooth, because
+the imagination was more pleased with entire absence of the organ than
+with its imperfect representation. So with ultra-clamorous passion and
+wild melodramatic action on the stage: both are better omitted than
+expressed. These remarks are made here in connection with Miss Neilson's
+first fair displays of passionate sorrow and sorrowful passion:
+presently they may be applied again, less favorably, to her Juliet. In
+her Rosalind, however--to refer to _As You Like It_ once more--she gives
+another fine example of the power of suppressed, suggestive action
+accompanying the expression of hot wrath. When the tyrant duke informs
+her that she is banished from his court, she kneels before him in
+supplication and begs to know the reason of his harsh decree. But the
+instant he intimates that her father is a traitor, and she another as
+his daughter, she springs to her feet, and in an attitude of intense
+defiance, but without a motion of her folded arms, flings back her
+scornful retort:
+
+    So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
+    So was I when your highness banished him:
+    Treason is not inherited, my lord;
+    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
+    What's that to me? my father was no traitor.
+
+Here again is a display of power without distortion or over-acting, such
+as must give the actress fair title to celebrity.
+
+Let us return now to Juliet and her approaching doom. There is a sad
+scene in her chamber at early daybreak, for banished Romeo must leave
+her and haste to Mantua, lest sunrise betray him still lingering in
+Verona. Juliet at first lovingly detains him, then fearfully urges him
+to fly; then as he descends from the balcony would fain recall him, and
+sinks in a swoon when she finds he is really gone. The parents come in
+and announce their determination that she must marry Paris forthwith:
+finding her unwilling to comply, they leave her with fierce threats in
+case she continue disobedient, and even the time-serving, timid old
+Nurse, though aware of her marriage with Romeo, urges her to comply with
+their wishes. Thus left entirely to herself, Juliet determines to die
+rather than prove false to her husband. She hastens to the Friar who
+married them, and he gives her the philter, which she accepts joyfully
+and carries home in her bosom. Up to this point her acting is good,
+because it is natural. Love, grief, stern determination are here
+successively and skillfully developed by Miss Neilson. But in the next
+act, just before she drinks the philter alone in her chamber, she
+oversteps the modesty of nature. In her attempt to express extreme
+terror at the fearful visions that her excited imagination conjures up,
+she loses herself in a wild whirlwind of vociferation, accompanied by
+frantic looks and gestures. All the loud artillery of old melodrama
+seems at once to be unlimbered and brought into action, with so much
+noise and smoke that one can neither hear the signals of the bugle nor
+see the manoeuvring of the guns. Of course, even to this part a
+superior actress like Miss Neilson can impart a certain dignity and
+interest which would be lacking in an inferior performer. She strikes a
+certain horror to the spectator by the very hideousness of her terror
+displayed. It is natural that a young girl about to be laid out alive in
+a tomb should be tormented with fearful imaginings; but then that young
+girl cherishes an all-pervading love for a living husband, whom she
+hopes to rejoin by means of her entombment: she expects that the gates
+of the mausoleum will open to admit her to life, not death, and she is
+urged by fear of a hateful second marriage; therefore it is unlikely--no
+matter what gloomy, blood-stained phantoms she may see--that she should
+shriek out her fears with such appalling clamor as would arouse any
+well-organized household, and thus defeat her prospects of success. As
+Miss Neilson has shown in former instances, a less violent announcement
+of her feelings would be far more forcible and far more natural.
+Besides, the actress has not yet reached the time when she wishes to
+depict her greatest misery: that climax is reached when she wakes in the
+vault and finds not only Tybalt "festering in his shroud," but her
+Romeo, her husband, a bloody corpse at her feet. If ever the
+ungovernable shriek of dying despair be allowable on the stage, it must
+be at such a time, when Juliet falls upon the still warm body. Even the
+effect of such a wild performance at the very climax and end of a
+tragedy may be questioned; but there can be little doubt that the great
+violence exerted before in describing her horrible suspicions merely,
+deprives the actress of power to throw increased stress into her
+performance as the play moves to its close, and she is confronted with a
+far more horrible reality.
+
+As though she feels that her power of melodramatic declamation has been
+weakened, Miss Neilson in the graveyard seems to rely more on
+melodramatic action. And it is very melodramatic. She rises from Romeo's
+body, where she has flung herself, where it would be natural she should
+remain to kill herself, and standing at some distance from the corpse,
+stabs herself openly with a stage dagger, then falling, drags herself
+slowly, accompanied by soft music, back to the body, and there at last
+expires. How much more effective would this part become if more were
+left to the beholder's imagination! Great artists generally avoid open
+stabbing on the stage, as it almost invariably produces the impression
+of trickery. We may see the gleaming blade and the arm descending to
+strike the blow, but it is best not to see the weapon pretending to
+enter the victim's body; and this can always be avoided by proper
+management. When Ristori as Medea murdered her children at the base of
+Saturn's statue, the other actors grouped around and screened the act
+from the view of the audience: when the crowd opened again, the bodies
+were discovered lying on the steps of the pedestal. The death of Juliet,
+instead of bringing tears to all eyes, as Miss Neilson undoubtedly could
+make it do, is thus rendered ineffective by over-acting; and when she
+drags herself six or eight feet along the stage, prostrate and stabbed,
+
+    Oh, 'tis dreadful there to see
+    A lady so richly clad as she,
+    Beautiful, exceedingly!
+
+On the last evening of her engagement Miss Neilson appeared in the _Lady
+of Lyons_, and after the performance recited the following epilogue,
+suggested by Lord Lytton's recent death:
+
+    FAIR LADIES AND GOOD SIRS: Since last this play
+    Was acted on this stage, has passed away
+    Its noble author from the gaze of men,
+    No more, alas! to wield his facile pen.
+    In Knébworth's ancient park, across the sea,
+    Lord Lytton sleeps, but not his witchery.
+    The dramatist, romancer, poet, still
+    Can touch our hearts and captivate our will;
+    For laureled genius has the power to brave
+    Death's fell advance, and lives beyond the grave:
+    Bear witness, this grand audience clustered here.
+    Your plaudits cannot reach dead Lytton's ear,
+    But no more sweet libation can you pour
+    To Lytton's memory, on this distant shore,
+    Than your prolonged applause, which now proclaims,
+    Though the great author's gone, his fame remains.
+
+    M. M.
+
+
+GENERAL LEE CONVULSED.
+
+An old lady who knew General R. E. Lee almost from childhood declared
+that when he was a young man he enjoyed fun and indulged in harmless
+frolics as much as anybody. Later in life, and after his sons became
+stout lads, it is said that he was fond of sleeping with them, in order
+that he might in the morning engage in a regular old-fashioned romp and
+pillow-fight with the boys. During the war, though habitually grave, as
+befitted a commanding officer, he relished an occasional joke very
+highly. When some of his staff mistook a jug of buttermilk that had been
+sent him for "good old apple-jack," and made wry faces in gulping it
+down, he did not attempt to conceal his merriment. So, too, when
+inquiring into the nature of "this new game, 'chuck-a-buck,' I think
+they call it," which had been introduced into his army, there was a sly
+twinkle in his eye that showed how shrewdly he guessed its real purport
+as a gambling game. So, again, it is reported that he appreciated fully
+the "sell" which a wag on his staff palmed off upon a reporter, who
+promptly inserted it in the papers. The reporter wanted to know General
+Lee's hour for dining.
+
+"Six o'clock--exactly at six," was the reply.
+
+"I infer, then, that it is rather a formal meal?"
+
+"Decidedly formal--in fact, I may say it is a rigidly military dinner."
+
+"Military! how military?"
+
+"Well, you see General Lee sits at the head of the table, and Colonel
+Chilton at the foot, and everything is done in red-tape style."
+
+"Red tape at table! I don't understand you. Please explain."
+
+"Certainly. General Lee never carves and never helps--all that is left
+to Colonel Chilton--but General Lee asks the guests what they will have:
+they tell him, then he issues his orders, and Colonel Chilton executes
+them. That's all."
+
+"Go on, go on!" opening his notebook: "give me an example--tell me
+exactly how it is done."
+
+"Suppose, then, that we have beef--we generally have beef. Grace is said
+by the chaplain, then General Lee raps on the table with the handle of
+his knife and says, 'Attention!' Everybody is silent. Every eye is
+turned toward General Lee. He looks at one of us--me, for example--and
+I rise and make a military salute. 'Captain C----, what will you be
+helped to?' says General Lee. I say 'Beef,' make another salute, and sit
+down. General Lee, fixing his eye on Colonel Chilton, says, 'Beef, for
+Captain C----.' My plate is passed, helped, and then Colonel Chilton,
+handing it to the servant, says,
+
+    'Beef for Captain C----,
+    By order of General Lee.
+    R. H. CHILTON, A. A. G.'"
+
+And this absurd story went the round of the Southern papers.
+
+After the war, General Lee rarely smiled, and one may say never laughed
+outright. Yet he was neither sad nor unsociable. But there was that
+about him which made it wellnigh impossible to believe that he could
+ever have given completely away to feelings of mirth and indulged in a
+real fit of cachinnation. Such, however, was the fact, and it occurred
+at a time when, of all others, one would have least expected it--in the
+retreat to Appomattox--and General Henry A. Wise was the occasion of it.
+
+On the second or third day of the retreat, General Wise, who had long
+desired an interview with General Lee, discovered him at a distance, and
+immediately hastened toward him. While he was yet a great way off,
+General Lee, who happened at the time to be alone, turned and began to
+stare in a way that was most unusual with him. As Wise drew nearer the
+stare became intense and mixed with wonderment. A few steps more, and
+still General Lee gazed and gazed wonderingly, as if he had never seen
+Wise in his life. Amazed and puzzled at General Lee's unmistakable
+ignorance of his identity, Wise advanced quite close to him and said
+rather stiffly, "Good-morning, General Lee." It was very early and very
+cool, too--a sharp spring morning.
+
+As he said this, General Lee's intense gaze relaxed, a smile appeared in
+its place, the smile deepened, broadened, and, spreading from feature to
+feature, ended at last in a fit of the most immoderate and
+uncontrollable laughter.
+
+Astounded beyond words, and indignant beyond measure at such a
+reception, it was some time before General Wise could demand an
+explanation. During all this time General Lee laughed as a mature man
+rarely ever laughs.
+
+The explanation, given through tears of laughter not yet dried, was
+simple enough. General Lee had mistaken the general for a Comanche
+Indian. He had lost his hat or cap, a dirty blanket was thrown over his
+shoulders to protect him from the keen morning air, and his face, washed
+in a mud-puddle and hastily wiped, retained a ring of red mud around the
+borders, which made the resemblance to an Indian as exact as well could
+be--all the more so in consequence of Wise's strong features.
+
+Barely sufficient at the time (so incensed was Wise), the explanation
+eventually proved ample, for General Wise now laughs at this incident as
+heartily as any one, and often relates it himself, while it may well be
+doubted whether ever again in life General Lee found either the occasion
+or the disposition to relax his wonted gravity.
+
+
+FUNERALS vs. PARTIES.
+
+A Southern correspondent sends the following incident from real life,
+which illustrates the well-known negro fondness for so-called lugubrious
+festivals:
+
+A lady friend of mine was much beset a few days ago by her cook for
+permission to attend the funeral of some relative. The _res angustæ_
+forbade her leaving just at that time, but, to compensate her for the
+deprivation, her mistress said, "Rose, I really feel very sorry for you,
+but you shall lose nothing by staying at home. I promise that you shall
+go to the first party that is given by any of your friends, and stay all
+night long."
+
+Rose, tossing her head, replied, "Law! Miss Susan, how kin you talk like
+dat? You know I don't set no vally on parties. _Forty parties couldn't
+pay me for de sight of one corp!_" She saw the "corp."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[M] The origin of the name of Bacon is thus explained by Richard
+Verstegan, famous for Saxon lore and historical research:
+
+"Bacon, that is, 'of the beechen tree,' anciently called Bucon; and
+whereas swines' flesh is now called by the name of bacon, it grew only
+at the first unto such as were fatted with Bucon or beech-mast."
+
+It is, as a writer in _Notes and Queries_ points out, a curious
+authentication of this derivation that Collins, in his _Baronetage_,
+mentions that the first man of the name of Bacon of whom there is record
+in the Herald's College, bore for his arms "argent, a beech tree
+proper." Additional confirmation seems afforded by the fact that in
+certain places in England boys call beechen tops "bacons."
+
+[N] "My father," says Thomas Shirley to the king, "being a man of
+excellent and working wit, did find out the device of making baronets,
+which brought to Your Majesty's coffers wellnigh one hundred thousand
+pounds, for which he was promised by the late Lord Salisbury (son of
+Miss Cooke, Bacon's aunt), lord-treasurer, a good recompense, which he
+never had." Ninety-three patents were sold within six years. It was
+promised in the patents that no new title of honor should be created
+between barons and baronets, and that when the number of two hundred had
+been filled up, no more should ever after be added. The first promise
+has been kept.
+
+[O] This recalls a story of the Marquis of L----, Sydney Smith's friend,
+grandfather of the present peer. His lordship's gallantries were
+notorious, though most carefully concealed. On one occasion he went to
+visit a lady with whom he maintained very intimate relations. Not
+choosing to take a groom on such an occasion, he gave his horse to a boy
+in the street to hold. On coming out he looked up and down the street,
+but in vain, and at length had to go home steedless. On reaching L----
+House, the groom, waiting at the door for his return, said, "Shall I go
+for the horse, my lord?" "The horse is dead," was the brief response.
+"Where shall I send for the saddle and bridle, my lord?" "Oh--a--a--h"
+(and then with emphasis), "they're dead too!"
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+As a knowledge of the circumstances under which a work of art is
+composed occasionally gives a clearer insight into certain of its
+peculiarities, so perhaps an analysis of the individual elements which
+go to make up the present Assembly of Versailles may give the reader a
+clue to the reason of some of its legislative measures, as well as to
+its possibilities for the future and its political tendencies. Such an
+analysis is made by the _Rappel_ of Paris in an elaborate article, from
+which we must only cite a few points. The Assembly, then, contains, it
+appears, 2 princes (the princes d'Orléans), 7 dukes, 30 marquises, 52
+counts, 17 viscounts, 18 barons and 97 untitled nobles, or those
+"_n'ayant que la particule_;" which last phrase we may explain to mean
+having the _de_ prefixed to their names, without other titular
+distinction. Next, it contains 163 great landed proprietors, including
+the richest in France; 155 advocates; 48 leading manufacturers; 45
+officers or ex-officers of the army, chiefly of high rank; 35
+magistrates or ex-magistrates; 25 engineers; 23 physicians; 21
+professors; 19 notaries or ex-notaries; 16 wholesale merchants; 14
+officers or ex-officers of the navy; 10 attorneys; 5 bankers; 2
+druggists; 1 bishop; 1 curate; 1 Protestant minister; and 10 others of
+sundry occupations. The difference in composition between this
+republican Assembly and our own Congresses is in some respects
+remarkable; for, independently of the very large and indeed altogether
+disproportionate representation of the nobility or titled classes, we
+observe a very great preponderance of rich land-owners, representing in
+their own persons the agricultural and vine-growing interests. Very
+singular, also, is the small proportion of lawyers, only 155 being
+classed as advocates, and the magistrates and attorneys swelling the
+number only to 200. In an ordinary American Congress at least one-half,
+and usually two-thirds, of the members are or have been lawyers by
+profession. The clerical representation seems to reach a total of three,
+all told, Catholic and Protestant; and as trivial is that of the retail
+traders and mechanics, of whom there are but two or three in all. We may
+add that a full-blooded negro member, M. Pory-Papy, came as deputy from
+Martinique. The standard of intelligence and political experience is
+rather high: it is said, for example, that no less than 33 members have
+been ministers. Altogether, the Assembly may be considered as rather
+fortunately constituted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the session of the medical congress at Lyons one day was set
+apart for the study of alcoholic stimulants. On that occasion the
+physician of Sainte-Anne asylum, Dr. Magnan, comparing the chemical
+action of alcohol and absinthe on man, drew the conclusion that the
+former acts more slowly, gradually provoking delirium and digestive
+derangement, while absinthe rapidly results in epilepsy. Then, producing
+a couple of dogs, he treated one with alcohol and the other with essence
+of absinthe, this latter being the active principle of the absinthe
+liquor which is commonly drunk. The alcoholized brute could not stand
+up, became sleepy and stupid, and, when set on his legs, trembled in an
+inert mass: the other dog experienced at once frightful attacks of
+epilepsy. Analogous effects are produced in mankind. Surely the
+"absinthe duel" which is said to have taken place at Cannes, when both
+the combatants perished after drinking an extraordinary quantity, may be
+strictly denominated a duel with deadly weapons. In the south of France,
+it is said, one person sometimes invites another to partake of absinthe
+by the slang phrase, "Take a shovelful of earth;" as if an American
+bar-room lounger, recognizing with grim humor the deadly quality of his
+liquor, should say, "Come and get measured for your coffin." The French
+expression has certainly, in view of Dr. Magnan's disclosures, a
+melancholy picturesqueness. This subject has to France a national
+importance, since, if the recent report of Dr. Bergeron does not
+exaggerate, the _absintism_ introduced amongst the French army in
+general by the Algerian officers did its part toward producing that
+inertness and lack of vigor which generals often complained of in their
+subordinates during the disastrous invasion of 1870.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard II., in the play of that name, disheartened by his calamities,
+responds to all the encouraging words of his lords and followers with a
+bitter satire on the wretchedness of royalty:
+
+    For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
+    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
+    How some have been depos'd; some slain in war;
+    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd;
+    Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;
+    All murther'd; for within the hollow crown
+    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
+    Keeps Death his court.
+
+The unhappy monarch was destined to furnish in his own tragic fate one
+more illustration of his homily. His words come vividly to mind in
+reviewing the curious catalogue which a European statistician lately
+furnished of the number of sovereigns who have perished by violent
+deaths or been discrowned by disaster. The list, which must perforce be
+incomplete, embraces 2540 emperors or kings, who have ruled over 64
+nations. Of these, 299 were dethroned; 151 were assassinated; 123 died
+in captivity; 108 were formally condemned and executed; 100 were killed
+in battle; 64 abdicated; 62 were poisoned; 25 died the death of martyrs;
+20 committed suicide; and 11 died insane. Even these lists do not
+probably include all the unnatural deaths and dethronements that have
+occurred among the 2540 rulers thus tabulated, for it was often deemed
+politic to conceal the circumstances of a monarch's death, and history
+mentions many such instances in which the cause of death is doubtful; so
+that, for example, the 11 insane and the 20 suicides and the 62 poisoned
+doubtless do not comprise the whole number of deaths which ought to be
+included under those descriptions. Nevertheless, taking these figures as
+they are, they furnish a striking comment on King Richard's melancholy
+words; which, by the way, Richard's own conqueror and successor almost
+paralleled in his lamentations over the anxieties and perils that
+encompass the kingly state. We may add that the death of Napoleon III.
+at Chiselhurst has now, by one more name, increased the number of
+sovereigns dying in exile, while giving the whole subject a fresh
+interest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The authority of Professor Godebski of St. Petersburg is given for the
+extraordinary statement that the Russian authorities in Poland have
+prohibited the contemplated erection of a monument to Chopin in his
+native Warsaw, on the ground that it might become an occasion for a
+political manifestation. M. Godebski was to have executed the statue, a
+plan had been submitted and accepted, musical admirers of Chopin had
+favored the project, Prince Orloff, Princess Czartoryska and many ladies
+of the Polish nobility had contributed the necessary funds, when the
+whole scheme was vetoed by Count von Berg, on the pretext already
+stated. Surely this was pushing caution to extremes, even in Poland. It
+was Chopin's fate to be driven from his country in 1836 by revolutionary
+disorders; but the very composition of the monumental committee, which
+was under the direction of Madame Mouchanoff, an ardent admirer of the
+master, indicated that the enterprise was an artistic, not a political
+one. Chopin, reposing between Bellini and Cherubini in the Père la
+Chaise, his chosen burial-place, has long since passed from the narrow
+confines of his Polish nationality to the worldwide and immortal realm
+of art. In pretending, thirty years after his death, that the genius of
+the artist is of less account than the accident of his birthplace, and
+in reviving against this memorial project the entirely secondary facts
+of the revolutionary epoch (when Chopin's career was not in politics,
+but in art), the Russian authorities are wondrously sensitive, to say
+the least. A chagrined friend of the sculptor has proposed that a piece
+of ground should be bought, a temporary wooden house built on it, the
+statue set up as if in a private courtyard or gallery, and the doors
+then thrown open to the public, while, after some days or months, the
+building could be taken down, leaving the statue substantially on a
+public square. But the prohibition which vetoed the original project
+would of course cover this stratagem also, and besides, it would be
+rather too petty a device to engage in.
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
+
+
+Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. By George Eliot. Vol. II. New
+York: Harper & Brothers.
+
+As a "study of provincial life" _Middlemarch_ appeals to a class of
+readers who might have little taste for the psychological studies in
+which the book abounds, and which give it a much deeper import. Its
+variety, spirit and truth of local color are Hogarthian, while it shows
+a figure, in the heroine, of far higher beauty and belonging to the
+great circle of epic characters. Dorothea, with her loveliness and her
+history of divine blunders, is fit to stand with any queen of song or
+story. This volume begins with the closing scenes in her
+scholar-husband's life. The character is a curious, and, after all, a
+pathetic one. What Philadelphia reader, at least, can pursue the
+narrative of poor Casaubon's misplaced study and ill-judged bequest
+without being reminded of another career of futile scholarship near
+home? Like him, as it will seem to the curious annalist, Richard Rush
+was a student without an audience, and like him a mistaken testator.
+Locking up his mind from the public amidst a company of ideas imbibed in
+the day when his city was the great book-producing city of the country,
+Rush prosecuted his barren researches in a moral prison, saw domestic
+life only through a grating woven from his own prejudices, and died in
+the confidence falsely sustaining him that the inefficiency of a
+lifetime would be amended by the bequests of an impracticable will.
+Rush, too, was wealthy, of influential family, studious, sterile, and
+apt to put off present action in the hope that the grave would one day
+co-operate with his motives; and Rush, like the imagined author of the
+_Key to all Mythologies_, finds the grave a treacherous trustee. The
+heroine of _Middlemarch_, in her action over her husband's testament,
+behaves as every true and lovable woman, obeying the emotions, will
+behave while the world lasts: a flippant, easy, youthful censor has told
+her, in a boudoir in the Via Sistina at Rome, that her husband's labor
+was thrown away because the Germans had taken the lead in historical
+inquiries, and that they laughed at those who groped about in woods
+where they had made good roads. The censor is agreeable, curly, and has
+engaging ways of lying about on hearth-rugs and giving his arm to quaint
+old maids: his criticism is therefore securely effective against all the
+conclusions of a life of dry labor; and so it comes that Dorothea writes
+on her husband's posthumous schedule: "_I could not use it. Do you not
+see now that I could not submit my soul to yours by working hopelessly
+at what I have no belief in?_" That is the way in which schemes of more
+or less erudition will for ever be lost to the world when entrusted to
+those who reason as Nature imperiously teaches them to do, through their
+affinity with blooming cheeks, curled locks and versatile intellects. It
+is inevitable that Dorothea must sink, from her dreams of emulating
+Saint Theresa, to comradeship with the glossy occupant of the
+hearth-rug. George Eliot, as a true artist, sees what is faulty in the
+catastrophe, but she will not unsex her creation. Another of her
+characters, Rosamond, she pursues with a minute, withering, one would
+say vindictive, contempt. It is the beautiful, distinguished young
+creature who marries Lydgate on account of his high connections, and who
+trains him to do up her plaits of hair for her, and allows him to talk
+the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning
+it, "accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then
+miraculously dimpling toward her votary." How such a creature can become
+the cool blighting Nemesis of a hopeful home, ruining it by
+extravagance, and taking credit to herself for every act of calm revolt,
+until her wretched husband, who had meant to be another Vesalius,
+compares her to Boccaccio's basil, that flourished upon the brains of a
+massacred man, the author sees only too plainly, and shows forth in some
+of the most cutting scenes she has ever written. Her "Study of
+Provincial Life," while it reveals her warm poet's love for a lofty
+nature defeated by its conditions, shows still plainer her intimate and
+personal dread of the cold thin nature that kills by its commonplace.
+The last she rewards contemptuously with a carriage in the Park and a
+rich second match: the first she punishes with exquisite Junonine
+tenderness by giving her a little boy in the bride-chamber of the home
+of the clever young politician whom the local editor has called a
+"violent energumen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In laying down the book the reader is conscious of a different feeling
+from that with which he ordinarily parts with a work of fiction which
+has gratified his artistic tastes and furnished him with a high
+intellectual pleasure. Comparing the productions of George Eliot with
+those of other novelists, we are tempted to think of these as trivial
+fond records, which might well be blotted from the tablets of the
+memory, leaving the inscription she has placed there to live alone in
+ineffaceable characters. It is not that they show her to be endowed with
+a larger measure of those gifts which constitute the artist. In each of
+these she has perhaps been equaled or surpassed by one or another of her
+predecessors. As a painter of manners, of all that belongs to the
+surface of life, she is rivaled in fidelity, if not in breadth and
+force, by Fielding, Thackeray and Miss Austen. Her observation is less
+keen than theirs, her portraiture less vivid, her humor less cordial and
+abundant. Her conceptions have not the intensity of Charlotte Bronté's,
+nor her great scenes the dramatic fire of Scott's. In the minor matters
+of invention and plot she sometimes has recourse to shifts that betray
+the deficiencies they are intended to conceal. The quality in which she
+is supreme is one that lies beyond the strict domain of art. It is the
+power of penetrating to the roots of human character and action--a power
+which seems to be something more than insight, but for which sympathy
+would be a still less adequate term, indicating as it does a nature
+harmonious and complete, one in which intellect and feeling are resolved
+into an element that overflows and envelops its object without effort or
+repulsion. In other novelists we admire a subtlety that winds through
+the intricacies of motives, unmasking deceptions, revealing weaknesses
+and flaws but half suspected, or delicacies and beauties but half
+appreciated: George Eliot drops a plummet that sinks straight and
+steadily, through turbid waves and calm under-current, reaching depths
+before unexplored. We can claim no part in her discoveries, however our
+faculties may be exercised in grasping or in testing them. They more
+often correct than confirm our impressions; they make large additions to
+our knowledge; they suggest the necessity of reconstructing our theories
+and placing them on a new and wider base.
+
+
+A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary. By Mary Clemmer Ames. New York:
+Hurd & Houghton.
+
+Alice Cary was a poetess of feeling, tender, prolific, overworked,
+unhealthy, and cooked to desiccation in a New York "elegant residence"
+that was but one enormous stove. Phoebe, working less, was amusing,
+plump, gay and original. Alice, obediently grinding out her sweet
+morning poem for the _Ledger_ before she went to market, died at her
+desk, and then Phoebe died of loneliness. It is a gentle and a
+thoroughly American history. In the eyes of both these Ohio women, New
+York was the market where they could easiest sell their wares, and their
+poems were commodities from which they were determined to derive as
+comfortable an existence as possible. Any strict idea of duty to their
+art, as the responsibility committed to them above all things on earth,
+seems never to have crossed the mind of either sister, though Alice, who
+wrote a great many volumes, would occasionally complain--not, however,
+more feelingly than all sincere authors do--that she knew her labors
+were overtaxing her faculty. They arranged, at their handsome residence
+on Twentieth street, a _salon_ of Sunday evenings, where Mr. Greeley,
+Robert Bonner and Whitelaw Reid used to meet and converse kindly with
+the minor literati, and which were believed to have much of the
+pleasantness and life of French conversaziones. Alice Cary has left a
+profusion of pensive poetry: the following is the most beautiful extract
+she affords:
+
+    The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,
+      And a hundred streams are the same as one;
+    And the maiden dreameth her lovelit dream;
+      And what is it all when all is done?
+    The net of the fisher the burden breaks,
+    And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.
+
+Phoebe, who was reckoned less clever than Alice, excites a great deal
+more sympathy, quietly accepting a position of admiring secondariness,
+and yielding occasional good things in wit or poetry: she was famed
+among her friends as a punster and parodist, and once answered at a
+dinner to a question what wine they used, "Oh, we drink Heidsick, but we
+keep mum." An irresistibly taking and womanly remark of hers, disposing
+in its own way of whole schemes of Calvinistic theology, was her reply
+to the argument for endless punishment: "Well, if God ever sends me into
+such misery, I know He will give me a constitution to bear it." Again,
+as the least laborious of the sisters, her talent had moments of greater
+felicity than that of Alice, and she has left one hymn which has all the
+promise of a lasting favorite. The sacred lyric, "One sweetly solemn
+thought comes to me o'er and o'er," is sung, as it deserves to be,
+wherever Christianity is known, and there is an attested story of its
+having aroused a pair of gamblers in China to repentance and permanent
+reform. It is imprudent to predict a permanent place for even the best
+of Alice Carey's gentle songs; but Phoebe's utterance may very
+possibly be quoted, from her unpretending station as adviser and
+alleviator of every-day life, after her name shall be forgotten and her
+religion shall have become impersonal.
+
+
+
+How I Found Livingstone. By Henry M. Stanley. New York: Scribner,
+Armstrong & Co.
+
+This book, the circumstances of its writing considered, is a literary
+curiosity. It contains seven hundred and twenty pages octavo, and it was
+composed in an incredibly short time, while the stomach of its author
+was digesting a series of stout English dinners, and his attention
+dissipating among speech-makings and speech-listenings, feasts, meetings
+and visits. Only a New York reporter could have achieved the feat. The
+faculty acquired by men of Mr. Stanley's trade, of acting with the
+intense decision and energy of great military captains, and then
+relating the action with the voluble unction of bar-rooms or political
+stumps, is a strange mixed faculty, and is found to perfection in the
+reporters' rooms of the New York _Herald_. The tale has the _Herald's_
+well-known style, and is a correspondent's letter in a state of
+amplification. It is always energetic, often tinged with real heroism
+and romance, and adorned sometimes with an ambition of classical
+allusions that resemble Egyptian jewels worn by a Nubian savage. It has
+not the least self-restraint or good taste, but it sounds fresh, genuine
+and sincere. It brings out with fine distinctness the feudal fidelity of
+a reporter-errant, whose whole soul is dyed with belief in the great
+establishment whose behest he obeys--one of the last refuges in which
+mediæval humility is to be found. As a part of the same habit of mind,
+Mr. Stanley shows a fine, literal, unquestioning championship of the
+object of his quest, Dr. Livingstone; but he seems to admire the doctor,
+after all, rather as an ornamental possession of the New York _Herald_.
+The great traveler's good-nature to Mr. Bennett, as a voluntary
+correspondent and coadjutor by brevet with the journal, disarms and
+enchants him: beginning with a prejudice, he ends by saying, "I grant he
+is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature
+of a living man will allow." In every trait Stanley shows himself
+whole-souled, ignorant of half measures, unscrupulous, cruel on
+occasion, driving, positive, and furnished with a sure instinct of
+success. The book, from its hasty construction, admits many
+inconsistencies, the worst of which is its long tirade against the
+Geographical Society, nullified finally by gracious thanks for their
+medal; but it has the energetic virtue of a book written while memory
+was fresh, and is often truly dramatic and pictorial. It is the
+garrulous appendage of a strange and solid achievement, the feather-end
+of the arrow, which advertises the hit of the steel.
+
+
+The Minnesinger of Germany. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd & Houghton.
+
+Mr. Kroeger appears to have an antiquarian's thoroughness in his
+subject, and he has made it an interesting one to Western readers. But
+he has not succeeded in his translations, partly because he does not
+respect the usage and associations of the English words he rivets
+incompatibly together, and partly because success, even for a more
+poetical translator, is impossible in the premises. The authors of the
+Minnelay, in their elaborate rhyme-caprice, must have remained
+harmonious and lyrical, which is not the case with a version like this:
+
+    I look so Esau-like, perdu,
+    My hair hangs rough and unkempt. Hu!
+    Gentle Summer, where are you?
+    Ah, were the world no more so dhu!
+    Rather than bide in this purlieu,
+    Longer to stay I'll say, Adieu!
+    And go as monk to Toberlu.
+
+Or like this, which Mr. Kroeger, without the fear of _Maud's_ author
+before his eyes, compares to Tennyson:
+
+      Rosy-colored meadows
+    To shadows we see vanish everywhere,
+      Wood-birds' warbling dieth,
+    Sore-trieth them the snow of wintry year.
+      Woe, woe! what red mouth's glow
+      Hovers now o'er the valley?
+      Ah, ah, the hours of woe!
+      Lovers it doth rally
+    No more; yet its caress seems cosy.
+
+These studies of intricate rhymes concealed in and terminating the lines
+are at least as hard for the reader as for the writer; yet we hope Mr.
+Kroeger will not lose his readers before they arrive at the historical
+and critical parts of the work, which are really valuable. The narrative
+of Ulrich von Lichtenstein of the thirteenth century, who sent one of
+his fingers to an exacting lady-love, and paraded through Europe on her
+quests disguised variously as King Arthur, Queen Venus or as a leper, is
+one which makes the maddest deeds of Quixote seem sane, although he was
+a true singer and an admired chevalier of his period. Gottfried von
+Strassburg, whose excellent poem of _Tristan and Isolde_ inspires the
+writer with his least unhappy translation, leads the subject away from
+the mere love-carolers toward the authors of the metrical romances, the
+bards of Germany. It is at this point that he introduces some forcible
+criticisms on Tennyson's poetry of that character, and makes it evident
+that the Laureate might have improved his Idyls by extending his
+readings among the German chanters of Arthurian legend. The following
+seems practical and just: "If Tennyson was determined to make the
+love-passion the chief theme of his work, rather than the religious
+element of the St. Graal, he had at hand in one of his legends that very
+same relation between the sexes which existed between Queen Guinevere
+and Launcelot, and yet deprived in the essential point of all disgusting
+characteristics. It seems strange that the impropriety of making this
+adulterous connection between the king and queen the chief theme of his
+song should not have struck Tennyson when he dedicated his legends to
+the husband of Queen Victoria, even in that dedication drawing
+comparisons: strange that he should have taken no means to hide it, by
+at least bringing the king into some position of interest, whereas he is
+made so little of that he seems a mild, inoffensive, gentle soul, who is
+ready even to shake hands with the seducer of his wife." In this
+connection it will repay the reader to peruse, even if the version has
+not much charm, the long extract from Gottfried's _Tristan_, with an eye
+to the noble and knightly way in which the legend is conceived and taken
+up. Mr. Kroeger, who can give it no grace in translation, is a warm
+partisan in matters of melody and rhythm, appreciating Coleridge and
+Swinburne. Altogether, he is a sincere and useful interpreter between
+our public--rather careless of musty poetry--and the fine old German
+singers.
+
+
+
+
+_Books Received._
+
+
+History of English Literature. By H. A. Taine. Abridged from the
+translation of H. van Laun, by John Fiske, Assistant Librarian of
+Harvard University. New York: Holt & Williams.
+
+The Polytechnic: A Collection of Music for Schools, Classes and Clubs.
+Arranged and Written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J.
+W. Schermerhorn.
+
+The Athenæum: A Collection of Part Songs. Arranged and Written by U. C.
+Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.
+
+Joseph Noirel's Revenge. By Victor Cherbuliez. Translated from the
+French by William F. West, A. M. New York: Holt & Williams.
+
+A New Theory of the Origin of Species. By B. G. Ferris. New Haven,
+Connecticut: C. C. Chatfield & Co.
+
+Johnson's Natural Philosophy. By Frank G. Johnson, A.M., M.D. New York:
+J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.
+
+The Ordeal for Wives. By the author of "Ought We to Visit Her?" New
+York: Sheldon & Co.
+
+The Higher Ministry of Nature. By John Leifchild, A.M. New York: G. P.
+Putnam & Sons.
+
+A Manual of Pottery and Porcelain. By John H. Treadwell. New York: G. P.
+Putnam & Sons.
+
+The Outcast, and Other Poems. By J. W. Watson. Philadelphia: T. B.
+Peterson & Brothers.
+
+The Catholic Family Almanac for 1873. New York: The Catholic Publication
+Society.
+
+Off the Skelligs. By Jean Ingelow. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular
+Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873, by Various
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature
+and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2007 [EBook #22402]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1>
+
+<h4>OF</h4>
+
+<h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2>
+
+<h3>MARCH, 1873.</h3>
+
+<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by J. B.
+<span class="smcap">Lippincott</span> &amp; Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.</p>
+<p class="notes">Transcriber's notes: Minor typos have been corrected. Table of contents has been
+generated for HTML version.</p>
+
+<h2>Contents.</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#THE_ROUMI_IN_KABYLIA"><b>THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_NATIONAL_TRANS-ALLEGHANY_WATER-WAY"><b>THE NATIONAL TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-WAY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#A_PRINCESS_OF_THULE"><b>A PRINCESS OF THULE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#WINTER"><b>WINTER.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#NEW_WASHINGTON"><b>NEW WASHINGTON.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#IN_THE_CRADLE_OF_THE_DEEP"><b>IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#HER_CHANCE"><b>HER CHANCE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CUBA"><b>CUBA.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#PROBATIONER_LEONHARD"><b>PROBATIONER LEONHARD;</b></a><br />
+<a href="#UNSETTLED_POINTS_OF_ETIQUETTE"><b>UNSETTLED POINTS OF ETIQUETTE.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_HERMITS_VIGIL"><b>THE HERMIT'S VIGIL.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHATEAUBRIANDS_DUCKS"><b>CHATEAUBRIAND'S DUCKS.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#OUR_MONTHLY_GOSSIP"><b>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#NOTES"><b>NOTES.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#LITERATURE_OF_THE_DAY"><b>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</b></a><br />
+<a href="#Books_Received"><b>Books Received.</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_ROUMI_IN_KABYLIA" id="THE_ROUMI_IN_KABYLIA"></a>THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 444px;">
+<img src="images/image01.jpg" width="444" height="331" alt="ALGIERS FROM THE SEA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ALGIERS FROM THE SEA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>A fact need not be a fixed fact to be a very positive one; and Kabylia,
+a region to whose outline no geographer could give precision, has long
+existed as the most uncomfortable reality in colonial France.
+Irreconcilable Kabylia, hovering as a sort of thunderous cloudland among
+the peaks of the Atlas Mountains, is respected for a capacity it has of
+rolling out storms of desperate warriors. These troops disgust and
+confound the French by making every hut and house a fortress: like the
+clansmen of Roderick Dhu, they lurk behind the bushes, animating each
+tree or shrub with a preposterous gun charged with a badly-moulded
+bullet. The Kabyle, when excited to battle, goes to his death as
+carelessly as to his breakfast: his saint or marabout has promised him
+an immediate heaven, without the critical formality of a judgment-day.
+He fights with more than feudal faithfulness and with undiverted
+tenacity. He is in his nature unconquerable. So that the French, though
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>they have riddled this thunder-cloud of a Kabylia with their shot,
+seamed it through and through with military roads, and established a
+beautiful <i>fort national</i> right in the middle of it, on the plateau of
+Souk-el-Arba, possess it to-day about as thoroughly as we Americans
+might possess a desirable thunder-storm which should be observed hanging
+over Washington, and which we should annex by means of electrical
+communications transpiercing it in every direction, and a resident
+governor fixed at the centre in a balloon. France has gorged Kabylia,
+with the rest of Algeria, but she has never digested it.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 328px;">
+<img src="images/image02.jpg" width="328" height="500" alt="&quot;IMPREGNABLE KABYLIA.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;IMPREGNABLE KABYLIA.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p><p>A trip through Algeria, such as we now propose, belongs, as a
+pleasure-excursion, only to the present age. In the last it was made
+involuntarily. Only sixty years ago the English spinster or spectacled
+lady's-companion, as she crossed over from the mouth of the Tagus to the
+mouth of the Tiber, or from Marseilles to Naples, looked out for capture
+by "the Algerines" as quite a reasonable eventuality. (Who can forget
+T&ouml;pfer's mad etchings for <i>Bachelor Butterfly</i>, of which this little
+episode forms the incident?) Her respectable mind was filled with
+speculations as to how many servants "a dey's lady" was furnished with,
+and what was the amount of her pin-money. A stout, sound-winded
+Christian gentleman, without vices and kind in fetters, sold much
+cheaper than a lady, being worth thirty pounds, or only about one-tenth
+the value of Uncle Tom.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image03.jpg" width="450" height="245" alt="BOUGIE, AND HILL OF GOURAYA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">BOUGIE, AND HILL OF GOURAYA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The opening up of Algeria to the modern tourist and Murray's guide-books
+is in fact due to the American nation. So late as 1815 the Americans,
+along with the other trading nations, were actually paying to the dey
+his preposterous tribute for exemption from piratical seizure. In this
+year, however, we changed our mind and sent Decatur over. On the 28th of
+June he made his appearance at Algiers, having picked up and disposed of
+some Algerine craft, the frigate Mashouda and the brig Estido. The
+Algerines gave up all discussion with a messenger so positive in his
+manners, and in two days Decatur introduced our consul-general Shaler,
+who attended to the release of American captives and the positive
+stoppage of tribute.</p>
+
+<p>The example was followed by other nations. Lord Exmouth bombarded
+Algiers in 1816, and reduced most of it to ashes. In 1827 the dey opened
+war with France by hitting the French consul with his fan. Charles X.
+retorted upon the fan with thirty thousand troops and a fleet. The fort
+of Algiers was exploded by the last survivor of its garrison, a negro of
+the deserts, who rushed down with a torch into the powder-cellar.
+Algeria collapsed. The dey went to Naples, the janizaries went to
+Turkey, and Algeria became French.</p>
+
+<p>From this time the country became more or less open, according as France
+could keep it quiet, to the inroads of that modern beast of ravin, the
+tourist. The Kabyle calls the tourist <i>Roumi</i> (Christian), a form,
+evidently, of our word Roman, and referable to the times when the bishop
+of Hippo and such as he identified the Christian with the Romanist in
+the Moorish mind.</p>
+
+<p>Modern Algiers, viewed from the sea, wears upon its luminous walls small
+trace of its long history of blood. As we contemplate its mosques and
+houses flashing their white profiles into the sky, it is impossible not
+to muse upon the contrast between its radiant and picturesque<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> aspect
+and its veritable character as the accomplice of every crime and every
+baseness known to the Oriental mind. To see that sunny city basking
+between its green hills, you would hardly think of it as the abode of
+bandits; yet two powerful tribes still exist, now living in huts which
+crown the heights of Boudjareah overlooking the sea, who formerly
+furnished the boldest of the pitiless corsairs. To the iron hooks of the
+Bab (or gate) of Azoun were hung by the loins our Christian brothers who
+would not accept the Koran; at the Bab-el-Oued, the Arab rebels, not
+confounded even in their deaths with the dogs of Christians, were
+beheaded by the yataghan; and in the blue depths we sail over, whose
+foam washes the bases of the temples, hapless women have sunk for ever,
+tied in a leather bag between a cat and a serpent.</p>
+
+<p>The history, in truth, is the history&mdash;always a cruel one&mdash;of an
+overridden nation compelled to bear a part in the wickedness of its
+oppressors. This rubric of blood may be read in many a dismal page.
+Algeria was a slave before England was Christian. The greatest African
+known to the Church, Augustine, has left a pathetic description of the
+conquest of his country by the Vandals in the fifth century: it was
+attended with horrible atrocities, the enemy leaving the slain in
+unburied heaps, so as to drive out the garrisons by pestilence. When
+Spain overthrew the Moors she took the coast-cities of Morocco and
+Algeria. Afterward, when Aruch Barbarossa, the "Friend of the Sea," had
+seized the Algerian strongholds as a prize for the Turks, and his system
+of piracy was devastating the Mediterranean, Spain with other countries
+suffered, and we have a vivid picture of an Algerine bagnio and
+bagnio-keeper from the pen of the illustrious prisoner Cervantes. "Our
+spirits failed" (he writes) "in witnessing the unheard-of cruelties that
+Hassan exercised. Every day were new punishments, accompanied with cries
+of cursing and vengeance. Almost daily a captive was thrown upon the
+hooks, impaled or deprived of sight, and that without any other motive
+than to gratify the thirst of human blood natural to this monster, and
+which inspired even the executioners with horror."</p>
+
+<p>While our fancy traces the figure of the author of <i>Don Quixote</i>, a
+plotting captive, behind the walls of Algiers, the steamer is
+withdrawing, and the view of the city becomes more beautiful at every
+turn of the paddles. We pass through a whole squadron of fishing-boats,
+hovering on their long lateen sails, and seeming like butterflies
+balanced upon the waves, which are blue as the petal of the iris.
+Algiers gradually becomes a mere impression of light. The details have
+been effaced little by little, and melted into a general hue of gold and
+warmth: the windowless houses and the walls extending in terraces
+confuse interchangeably their blank masses. The dark green hills of
+Boudjareah and Mustapha seem to have opened their sombre flanks to
+disclose a marble-quarry: the city, piled up with pale and blocklike
+forms, appears to sink into the mountains again as the boat retires,
+although the picturesque buildings of the Casbah, cropping out upon the
+summit, linger long in sight, like rocks of lime. As we pass Cape
+Matifou we see rising over its shoulder the summits of the Atlas range,
+among whose peaks we hope to be in a fortnight, after passing Bona,
+Philippeville and Constantina.</p>
+
+<p>Sailing along this coast of the Mediterranean resembles an excursion on
+one of the Swiss lakes. Four hours after passing Algiers, in going
+eastwardly toward the port of Philippeville, we come in sight of Dellys,
+a little town of poor appearance, where the hussars of France first
+learned the peculiarities of Kabyle fighting. This warfare was something
+novel. In place of the old gusty sweeps of cavaliers on horseback,
+falling on the French battalions or glancing around them in whirlwinds,
+the soldiers had to extirpate the Kabyles hidden in the houses. It was
+not fighting&mdash;it was ferreting. Each house in Dellys was a fort which
+had to be taken by siege. Each garden concealed behind its palings the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+"flower" of Kabyle chivalry, only to be uprooted by the bayonet. The
+women fought with fury.</p>
+
+<p>We follow our course along these exquisite blue waters, and soon have a
+glimpse, at three miles distance, of an isolated, abrupt cone, trimmed
+at the summit into the proportions of a pyramid. It is the hill of
+Gouraya, an enormous mass of granite which lifts its scarped summit over
+the port of Bougie, called Salda by Strabo. We approach and watch the
+enormous rock seeming to grow taller and taller as we nestle beneath it
+in the beautiful harbor. Bougie lies on a narrow and stony beach in the
+embrace of the mountain, white and coquettish, spreading up the rocky
+wall as far as it can, and looking aloft to the protecting summit two
+thousand feet above it. We abstain from dismounting, but sweep the city
+with field-glasses from the deck of the ship, recollecting that Bougie
+was bombarded in the reign of the Merrie Monarch by Sir Edward Spragg.
+We trace the ravine of Sidi-Touati, which breaks the town in half as it
+splits its way into the sea. Here, in 1836, the French commandant,
+Salomon de Mussis, was treacherously shot while at a friendly conference
+with the sheikh Amzian, the pretext being the murder of a marabout by
+the French sentinels. The incident is worth mentioning, because it
+brought into light some of the nobler traits of Kabyle character. The
+sheikh, for killing a guest with whom he had just taken coffee, was
+reproached by the natives as "the man who murdered with one hand and
+took gifts with the other," and was forced by mere popular contempt from
+his sheikhship, to perish in utter obscurity.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image06.jpg" width="450" height="404" alt="ROMAN RELICS AT PHILIPPEVILLE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ROMAN RELICS AT PHILIPPEVILLE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Putting on steam again, we recede from Bougie, and passing Djigelly,
+with its overpoweringly large barracks and hospital, doubling Cape
+Bougarone and sighting the fishing-village of Stora, we arrive at the
+new port-city of Philippeville. This colony, a plantation of Louis
+Philippe's upon the site of the Roman Russicada, has only thirty-four
+years of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> existence, and contains twenty Frenchmen for every Arab found
+within it. It differs, however, from our American thirty-year-old towns
+in the interesting respect of showing the traces of an older
+civilization. French savants here examine the ruins of the theatre and
+the immense Roman reservoirs in the hillside, and take "squeezes" of
+inscriptions marked upon the antique altar, column or cippus. On an
+ancient pillar was found an amusing grafita, the sketch of some Roman
+schoolboy, showing an <i>aquarius</i> (or water-carrier) loaded with his twin
+buckets. Philippeville, nursed among these glowing African hills, has
+the look of some bad melodramatic joke. Its European houses, streets
+laid out with the surveyor's chain, pompous church, and arcades like a
+Rue de Rivoli in miniature, make a foolish show indeed, in place of the
+walls, white, unwinking and mysterious, which ordinarily enclose the
+Eastern home or protect the Arab's wife behind their blinded windows.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image07.jpg" width="450" height="219" alt="LION-SHAPED ROCK, HARBOR OF BONA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">LION-SHAPED ROCK, HARBOR OF BONA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>If we leave Philippeville in the evening, we find ourselves next morning
+in the handsome roadstead of Bona. This, for the present, will terminate
+our examination of the coast, for, however fond we may be of level
+traveling, we cannot reasonably expect to get over the Atlas Mountains
+by hugging the shore. The harbor of Bona, though broad and beautiful, is
+somewhat dangerous, concealing numbers of rocks which lurk at about the
+surface of the water. Other rocks, standing boldly out at the entrance
+of the port, offer a singular aspect, being sculptured into strange
+forms by the sea. One makes a very good statue of a lion, lying before
+the city as its guard, and looking across the waves for an enemy as the
+foam caresses its monstrous feet.</p>
+
+<p>Dismounting from shipboard, we become landsmen for the remainder of our
+journey, and wave adieu to the steamboat which has brought us as we
+linger a moment on the mole of Bona. This city is named from the ancient
+Hippo, out of whose ruins, a mile to the southward, it was largely
+built. The Arabs call it "the city of jujube trees"&mdash;Beled-el-Huneb. To
+the Roumi (or Christian) traveler the interest of the spot concentrates
+in one historic figure, that of Saint Augustine. In the basilica of
+Hippo, of which the remains are believed to have been identified in some
+recent excavations, the sainted bishop shook the air with his learned
+and penetrating eloquence. Here he exhorted the faithful to defend their
+religious liberty and their lives, uncertain if the Vandal hordes of
+Genseric were not about to sweep away the faith and the language of
+Rome. Here, where the forest of El Edoug spreads a shadow like that of
+memory over the scene of his walks and labors, he brought his grand life
+of expiation to a holy close, praying with his last breath for his
+disciples oppressed by the invaders. We reach the site of Hippo (or
+Hippone) by a Roman bridge, restored to its former solidity by the
+French, over whose arches the bishop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> must have often walked, meditating
+on his youth of profligacy and vain scholarship, and over the abounding
+Divine grace which had saved him for the edification of all futurity.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image08.jpg" width="450" height="374" alt="SHOPKEEPER AT BONA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">SHOPKEEPER AT BONA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Bona has a street named Saint Augustine, but it is, by one of the
+strange paradoxes which history is constantly playing us, owned entirely
+by Jews, and those of one sole family. This fact indicates how the
+thrifty race has prospered since the French occupancy. Formerly
+oppressed and ill-treated, taxed and murdered by the Turks, and only
+permitted to dress in the mournfulest colors, the Jew of Algeria hid
+himself as if life were something he had stolen, and for which he must
+apologize all his days. Now, treated with the same liberality as any
+other colonist, the Jew indulges in every ostentation of dress except as
+to the color of the turban, which, in small towns like Bona, still
+preserves the black hue of former days of oppression. On Saturdays the
+children of Jacob fairly blaze with gold and gay colors. On their
+working days they line the principal streets, eyeing the passers-by with
+a cool, easy indifference, but never losing a chance of business. In
+Algeria this race is generally thought to present a picture of
+arrogance, knavery and rank cowardice not equaled on the face of the
+globe. An English traveler saw an Arab, after maddening himself with
+opium and absinthe, run a-mok among the shopkeepers who lined the
+principal street of Algiers. Selecting the Hebrews, he drove before him
+a throng of twenty, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, who
+allowed themselves to be knocked down with the obedience of ninepins. A
+Frenchman stopped the maniac after he had killed one Jew and wounded
+several, none of them making any effort at defence.</p>
+
+<p>A few narrow streets, bordered with Moorish architecture, contain the
+native industry of Bona. It is about equally divided between the Jews
+and the M'zabites, who, like the Kabyles, are a remnant of the
+stiff-necked old Berber tribe. The M'zabites preserve the pure Arab
+dress&mdash;the haik, or small bornouse without hood, the broad breeches
+coming to the knee, the bare legs, and the turban<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> rolled up into a coil
+of ropes. Thus accoutred, and squatting in the ledges of their small
+booths, the jewelers, blacksmiths and tailors of Bona are found at their
+work.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to Philippeville by land, and remaining as short a time as
+possible in this unedifying city, which is a bad and overheated
+imitation of a French provincial town, we concede only so much to its
+modern character as to hire a fine open carriage in which to proceed
+inland toward Constantina. This city is reached after a calm, meditative
+ride through sunny hills and groves. After so quiet a preparation the
+first view of Constantina is fairly astounding. Encircled by a grand
+curve of mountainous precipices, rises a gigantic rock, washed by a moat
+formed of the roaring cascades of the river Rummel. On the flat top of
+this naked rock, like the Stylites on his pillar, stands Constantina.
+The Arabs used to say that Constantina was a stone in the midst of a
+flood, and that, according to their Prophet, it would require as many
+Franks to raise that stone as it would of ants to lift an egg at the
+bottom of a milk-pot.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image09.jpg" width="450" height="384" alt="CONSTANTINA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">CONSTANTINA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This city, under its old Roman name of Cirta, was one of the principal
+strongholds of Numidia. In 1837 it was one of the most hotly-defended
+strongholds of the Kabyles. The French have renamed, as "Gate of the
+Breach," the old Bab-el-Djedid, where Colonel Lamorici&egrave;re entered at the
+head of his Zouaves. The city had to be conquered in detail, house by
+house. Lamorici&egrave;re himself was wounded: the Kabyles, driven to their
+last extremity, evacuated the Casbah on the summit of the rock, and let
+down their women by ropes into the abyss; the ropes, overweighted by
+these human clusters, broke, piling the bodies and fragments of bodies
+in heaps beneath the precipice, while some of the natives descended the
+steep rock safely with the agility of goats.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the large Algerian cities, Constantina is that which has best
+preserved its primitive signet. In most quarters it remains what it was
+under the Turks. These quarters are still undermined, rather than laid
+out, with close and crooked streets, where the rough white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> houses are
+pierced with narrow windows, closed to the inquisitive eye of the Roumi.
+The roofs are of tile, for the winters on the hills are too severe to
+permit the flat, terraced roofs of Algiers or Bona. These white houses,
+roofed with brown, give a perfectly original aspect to the city as seen
+from any of the neighboring eminences. The plateau of Mansourah is
+connected with the town by a magnificent Roman bridge, two stories in
+height, restored by the French.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;">
+<img src="images/image10.jpg" width="368" height="450" alt="ROMAN BRIDGE AT CONSTANTINA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ROMAN BRIDGE AT CONSTANTINA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>From this bridge, which is three hundred feet high by three hundred and
+fifteen feet in length, and has five arches, you look down into the bed
+of the Rummel, while the vultures and eagles scream around you, and you
+recite the words of the poet El Abdery, who called this river a bracelet
+which encircles an arm. The gorge opens out into a beautiful plain rich
+with pomegranates, figs and orange trees. The sea is forty-eight miles
+away.</p>
+
+<p>The last bey of Constantina, not knowing that he was merely building for
+the occupancy of the French governors who were to come after him,
+decreed himself, some fifty years ago, a stately pleasure-dome, after
+the fashion of Kubla Khan. From the ruins of Constantina, Bona and
+Tunis, Ahmed Bey picked up whatever was most beautiful in the way of
+Roman marbles and carving. With these he built his halls, while the
+Rummel, through caverns measureless to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> man, ran on below. Some
+Frenchman of importance will now-a-days give you the freedom of this
+curious piece of Turkish construction, where, among storks and ibises
+gravely perched on one stilt, you examine the relics of Roman history,
+preserved by its very destroyers, according to the grotesque providence
+that watches over the study of arch&aelig;ology.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 328px;">
+<img src="images/image11.jpg" width="328" height="500" alt="BEY&#39;S PALACE, CONSTANTINA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">BEY&#39;S PALACE, CONSTANTINA.</span>
+</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You are told how Ahmed, wishing to adorn the walls of his gallery or
+loggia with frescoes, of which he had heard, but which he had no artist
+capable of executing, whether Arab, Moor or Jew, applied to a prisoner.
+The man was a French shoemaker, who had never touched a brush: he vainly
+tried to decline the honor, but the bey was inflexible: "You are a vile
+liar: all the Christians can paint. Liberty if you succeed, death if you
+disobey me."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image12.jpg" width="450" height="420" alt="SHAMPOOING THE ROUMI." title="" />
+<span class="caption">SHAMPOOING THE ROUMI.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Extremely nervous was the hand which the painter <i>malgr&eacute; lui</i> applied to
+the unlooked-for task. From the laborious travail of his brain issued at
+length an odd mass of arabesques with which the walls were somehow
+covered. His invention exhausted, he awaited in an agony of fear the
+inspection of his Turkish master. He came, and was enchanted. The
+painter was free, and the bey observed: "The dog wanted to deceive me: I
+knew that all the Christians could paint."</p>
+
+<p>You are amazed to find, in this nest of Islamite savagery and among
+these wild rocks, the uttermost accent of modern French politeness. Your
+presence is a windfall in quarters so retired, and you sit among orange
+plants and straying gazelles, while the military band throws softly out
+against the inaccessible crags the famous tower-scene from the fourth
+act of <i>Il Trovatore</i>. As night draws on, tired of your explorations,
+you seek a Moorish bath.</p>
+
+<p>Let no tourist, experienced only in the effeminate imitations of the
+hummum to be found in New York or London, expect similar considerate
+treatment in Algeria. He will be more likely to receive the attention of
+the M'zabite bather after the fashion narrated in the following
+paragraph, which is a quotation from an English journalist in the land
+of the Kabyles:</p>
+
+<p>"We were told to sit down upon a marble seat in the middle of the hall,
+which we had no sooner done than we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> became sensible of a great increase
+of heat: after this each of us was taken into a closet of milder
+temperature, where, after placing a white cloth on the floor and taking
+off our napkins, they laid us down, leaving us to the further operations
+of two naked, robust negroes. These men, newly brought from the interior
+of Africa, were ignorant of Arabic; so I could not tell them in what way
+I wished to be treated, and they handled me as roughly as if I had been
+a Moor inured to hardship. Kneeling with one knee upon the ground, each
+took me by a leg and began rubbing the soles of my feet with a pumice
+stone. After this operation on my feet, they put their hands into a
+small bag and rubbed me all over with it as hard as they could. The
+distortions of my countenance must have told them what I endured, but
+they rubbed on, smiling at each other, and sometimes giving me an
+encouraging look, indicating by their gestures the good it would do me.
+While they were thus currying me they almost drowned me by throwing warm
+water upon me with large silver vessels, which were in the basin under a
+cock fastened in the wall. When this was over they raised me up, putting
+my head under the cock, by which means the water flowed all over my
+body; and, as if this was not sufficient, my attendants continued plying
+their vessels. Then, having dried me with very fine napkins, they each
+of them very respectfully kissed my hand. I considered this as a sign
+that my torment was over, and was going to dress myself, when one of the
+negroes, grimly smiling, stopped me till the other returned with a kind
+of earth, which they began to rub all over my body without consulting my
+inclination. I was as much surprised to see it take off all the hair as
+I was pained in the operation; for this earth is so quick in its effect
+that it burns the skin if left upon the body. This being finished, I
+went through a second ablution, after which one of them seized me behind
+by the shoulders, and setting his two knees against the lower part of my
+back, made my bones crack, so that for a time I thought they were
+entirely dislocated. Nor was this all, for after whirling me about like
+a top to the right and left, he delivered me to his comrade, who used me
+in the same manner: and then, to my no small satisfaction, opened the
+closet door."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image13.jpg" width="450" height="361" alt="HAMMO-EL-ZOUAOUI." title="" />
+<span class="caption">HAMMO-EL-ZOUAOUI.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This is the true Moorish bath. Meantime, the M'zabite or negro, as he
+dislocates your legs, cracks your spinal column or dances over you on
+his knees, drones forth a kind of native psalmody, which, melting into
+the steamy atmosphere of the place, seems to be the litany of happiness
+and of the pure in heart. Clean in body and soul as you never were
+before, skinned, depilated, dissected, you emerge for a new life of
+ideal perfection, feeling as if you were suddenly relieved of your body.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image14.jpg" width="450" height="301" alt="&quot;BALEK!&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;BALEK!&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>There is held every Friday at Constantina a grand assembly of the
+fire-eating marabouts, the fanatics who have given so much trouble to
+their French rulers. Every revolution among the Kabyles is a religious
+movement, set in motion by the wild enthusiasm of the "saints." The
+religious orders of Kabylia, all of them differing in various degrees
+from Turkish Mohammedanism, are of some half dozen varieties, adapted to
+minds of various cultivation. Some, as that of Sidi-Yusef-Hansali, are
+mild in their rites and of a purely didactic or religious nature. This
+latter sect originated in Constantina, comprises two thousand brothers
+or khouans, and was in 1865 under the authority of Hammo-el-Zouaoui, a
+direct descendant of Yusef-Hansali. An hour passed in the college of
+this order, where the whole formula of worship consists in saying a
+hundred times "God forgive!" then, a hundred other times, "Allah ill'
+Allah: Mohammed ressoul Allah!" may be monotonous, but it is not
+revolutionary. From this tautological brotherhood, through various
+degrees of emotional activity, you arrive at the wild doings of the
+fire-eaters, or followers of Mohammed-ben-Aissa. This Aissa was a native
+of Meknes in Morocco, where he died full of years and piety three
+hundred years ago. His legend states that being originally very poor, he
+attempted to support his family in the truly Oriental manner, not by
+working for them, but by spending his whole time at the mosque in prayer
+for their miraculous sustenance. His inertia and his faith were
+acceptable to Mohammed, who appeared to Aissa's wife with baskets of
+food, and to Aissa with the order to found a sect. The allegory
+expressed by the disgusting actions of the order would seem to be that
+anything is nourishment to the true believer. They therefore exhibit
+themselves as eating red-hot iron, scorpions and prickly cactus. Various
+travelers, some of them cool hands and accurate observers, have seen
+these khouans at their horrible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> feasts without being able to explain
+the imposture. A British soldier, an experienced Indian officer,
+happened to be in Kabylia just before the breaking out of the great
+Sepoy rebellion in India, and was introduced to one of the fire-eating
+orgies by Major Deval at Tizi-ouzou, where our journey into Kabylia is
+to terminate. With his own eyes he saw a khouan, excited by half an
+hour's chanting and beating the tom-tom, drive a sword four inches deep</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 314px;">
+<img src="images/image15.jpg" width="314" height="500" alt="A STREET IN CONSTANTINA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A STREET IN CONSTANTINA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>into his chest by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> hitting it with a tile. The man marched around and
+exhibited it to the congregation as it quivered in his naked body.
+Another seared his face and hands with a large red-hot iron, holding it
+finally with his mouth without other support. Another chewed up an
+entire leaf of a cactus with its dangerous spikes, which sting one's
+hands severely and remain rankling in the flesh. Another filled his
+mouth with live coals from a brazier, and walked around blowing out
+sparks. Another swallowed a living scorpion, a small snake, broken glass
+and nails. The spectator was in the midst of these enthusiasts, being
+touched by them in their antics, yet he could detect no foul play,
+except that he imagined the sword in the first-named experiment to have
+been driven into an old wound or between the skin and the flesh. It was
+to counteract the influence of the fire-eating marabouts that the French
+government sent over Robert Houdin, the ingenious mechanician, but
+though he eclipsed their wonders by tricks of electricity and sleight,
+he has left but a lame explanation of the "juggleries" of the Algerine
+saints.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 285px;">
+<img src="images/image16.jpg" width="285" height="500" alt="THE GREAT MOSQUE, CONSTANTINA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE GREAT MOSQUE, CONSTANTINA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The worst attribute of these khouans is, that after having excited the
+ignorant Kabyles to many a losing war by their magnetism, they remain
+themselves behind the curtain, safe and sarcastic.</p>
+
+<p>In the Moorish quarter of Constantina, where the streets are about five
+feet wide, you sit down to watch the perpetual come-and-go of the
+inhabitants. Taking a cup of fragrant coffee&mdash;which, as the reader
+knows, is in Eastern countries eaten at the same time that it is
+drunk&mdash;you sit on a stone bench of the coffee-house and contemplate
+mules, horses, asses, passengers, buyers, sellers, loungers, Arabs,
+Turks, Kabyles, Jews, Moors and spahis. On every side you hear the cry
+of "Balek! balek!" This means "Look out!" and the word is closely
+followed by the causative fact. The street is unpaved, the horse is
+unshod, the hoofs cannot be heard, and you have hardly time to efface
+yourself against a wall when a cavalier passes by like a careless
+torrent, scattering the white bornouses centrifugally from his pathway
+as he advances. The streets, as we observed, are very narrow. Each has
+its own manufacture. Here are the tailors; here, in this deafening
+alley, are the blacksmiths; farther on are the shoemakers, and you are
+driven mad with wonder at the quantities of slippers made for a people
+which goes eternally barefoot. Springing out of this d&aelig;dal intricacy of
+booths and workshops rise the slender minarets of prayer, of which the
+principal one belongs to a mosque said to be the most beautiful in
+Algeria. The interior of this chief mosque is not deprived of ornament,
+having its columns of pink marble, its elliptical Moorish arches, and
+its tiles of painted fayence set in the walls. In the centre is the
+pulpit, coarsely painted red and blue, where the imaum recites his
+prayers. Three small, lofty windows are filled with carved lacework. The
+floor is spread with carpets for the knees of the rich, with matting for
+the poor. Over all rises the square, crescent-crowned minaret&mdash;no
+<i>belfry</i>, but a steeple where the chimes are rung by the human voice.
+Night and day, from the heights of their slender towers, the muezzins
+toll out their vibrating notes like a bell, inviting the faithful to
+prayers with the often-heard signal: "Allah ill' Allah: Mohammed resoul
+Allah!"</p>
+
+<h4>[TO BE CONTINUED.]</h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_NATIONAL_TRANS-ALLEGHANY_WATER-WAY" id="THE_NATIONAL_TRANS-ALLEGHANY_WATER-WAY"></a>THE NATIONAL TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-WAY.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;">
+<img src="images/image19.jpg" width="387" height="490" alt="VIEW OF NEW RIVER." title="" />
+<span class="caption">VIEW OF NEW RIVER.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The offices of running water have afforded a fertile theme for the poet
+and the philosopher. In the ruder ages of the world the water-ways which
+carve their course over the face of the globe were regarded only in the
+light of natural barriers against hostile invasion; and thus arose the
+historic principle&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lands intersected by a narrow frith<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abhor each other.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But civilization has demonstrated that they subserve a much higher
+purpose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> that the rivers of a country are its great arteries and
+highways of trade, and that they fulfill functions as numerous and
+benign in the political economy as in the physical geography of the
+regions they furrow. In the Old World, the advancing streams of culture,
+science and commerce, and even the migrations of nations, have ebbed and
+flowed along the classic valleys of the Rhine, the Rhone and the Danube;
+and the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile are rich in
+memories of the world's mightiest and most splendid empires. In America
+the fertile watersheds of the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri are
+fast becoming what their antitypes of the great continent have been in
+the past. The outspreading wave of civilization and population has
+already reached westward to the foot of the Rocky Mountains from the
+Gulf of Mexico to Montana and Idaho, while even the basin of the
+Columbia River is rapidly filling up with an active, thriving and busy
+people, who can smile at the poet's vision:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save its own dashings.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The water-courses of a country are not less valuable to it than the
+little Pactolus was to the ancient city of Sardis, through whose streets
+it ran freighted with gold. But these natural highways of human
+intercourse, like most of Nature's provisions, are capable of indefinite
+artificial extension and multiplication. Our finest modern canals are
+scarcely smaller, and certainly capable of more uninterrupted, safe and
+heavy navigation, than many of the rivers which have figured in history,
+and which Pascal so graphically described as "<i>moving roads</i> that carry
+us whither we wish to go."</p>
+
+<p>Such considerations as these have a profound bearing on many of the
+great economic problems of the age, but on none more than upon the grand
+problem which is now agitating the national mind in the United States:
+<i>How to connect its seaboard and central regions by water</i>. A glance at
+the map of the Union shows that its vast interior lies ensconced between
+the two mountain-walls of the Rocky chain on its western side and the
+Appalachian chain on its eastern side. Hemmed in by these barriers is
+the immense expanse of the most prolific, populous and prosperous
+section on the continent, which, taking its name from "the Father of
+Waters," is geographically designated as the <i>Mississippi Valley</i>,
+estimated by Professor J. W. Foster of the Chicago University to contain
+an area of two million four hundred and fifty-five thousand square
+miles, equal to that of all Europe excepting Russia, Norway and Sweden.
+Unlike the inland basin of Asia, in which the vast, mountain-girt Desert
+of Gobi stretches out its seas of sand, stony, sterile and desolate, the
+inland basin of America is its garden-spot and granary. Swept by the
+vapor-bearing winds and rain-distilling clouds from the Gulf of Mexico,
+and blessed with an excellent climate, it contains all the physical
+elements of an empire within itself. Its position makes it the national
+strong-hold, so that with military men it has grown into an adage,
+"Whoever is master of the Mississippi is lord of the continent." It is
+yet but half developed, but no far-seeing mind can form any estimate of
+its future growth and opulence. "With a varied and splendid
+entourage&mdash;an imperial cordon of States&mdash;nothing," says Dr. John W.
+Draper of New York, "can prevent the Mississippi Valley from becoming in
+less than three centuries the centre of human power." The only wall of
+partition that shuts it off from the great marts of the world is formed
+by the chain of the Alleghanies, which stretch along the Atlantic
+seaboard, from south-west to north-east, for twelve hundred miles. This
+natural barrier, with a mean altitude of two thousand feet, is destitute
+of a central axis, and consists, as the two Rogerses, who have most
+fully explored its ridges, showed, of a series of convex and concave
+flexures, "giving them the appearance of so many colossal
+entrenchments." With a broad artificial channel cut through its sunken
+defiles and picturesque gorges, there would at once be opened a gateway
+for the flow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> and reflow of the heavy commerce of the Western World.</p>
+
+<p>In 1781 the practical and philosophic eye of Thomas Jefferson perceived
+the national necessity for a great trans-Alleghany water-line, and early
+in the year 1786, though still tossed on the wave of the Revolution, and
+not yet recovered from the shock of British invasion, the State which
+gave birth to the author of the "Declaration of Independence" declared
+for the enterprise. With all the means and energy at its command it
+pushed forward the work from year to year, and directed it, as Mr.
+Jefferson had proposed, so as to connect the head-waters of the James
+River, flowing from the Alleghany summits to the ocean, with the
+mountain-river known as the Great Kanawha, which rises near the
+fountains of the upper James and descends into the broad bosom of the
+Ohio. Although this undertaking was prosecuted slowly at first, it was
+permanently recognized as one that must go on; in 1832 and 1835 it
+received new impulses; and in 1840 it had reached the piedmont
+districts. In 1847 a powerful impetus was given to the work, and it was
+thenceforth, till 1856, forced rapidly westward up the eastern slopes of
+the Alleghanies, as a complete and working structure, above a point
+three hundred miles from the Atlantic capes, and two hundred miles from
+Richmond, leaving an unfinished gap to the upper or navigable part of
+Kanawha River of a little over one hundred and fifty miles. This
+enormous work was more than half finished at an outlay of $10,436,869&mdash;a
+sum which, during the economic period of its expenditure, went as far as
+nearly twice that amount would go now.</p>
+
+<p>By recent legislation the State of Virginia proposes to turn over the
+entire property of the canal to the United States, on the sole condition
+of its being finished by the government and converted into a national
+water-highway for the good of the common country&mdash;in other words, upon
+the one condition of its <i>nationalization</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes contended that the day of canals has passed, and
+henceforward the railway must take their place. But this notion is
+opposed to the present economic necessities of the world, as well as to
+the provisions of Nature, which evidently point to the utilization of
+the hydraulic systems of the globe. The lavish and prodigal use of the
+coal-deposit of the earth, and the deforesting of vast tracts of soil to
+supply fuel for the locomotive and the stationary engine, have already
+wrought incalculable and almost irremediable evils. The past year has
+seen the prices of all English coals go up at least eighty per cent.,
+and the coal-famine of Great Britain, foreseen some years ago, has
+already threatened to sap the vigor of her industrial systems and
+destroy her manufacturing supremacy, or, at any rate, place her at the
+mercy of the United States for the fuel with which to operate them. The
+denudation of the vast territories of the United States by the axe of
+emigration has already told in a marked degree upon the condition of its
+climate, and greatly affected its meteorology and rainfall; while the
+railroads, which have spread their Briarean arms over the whole country,
+by their immense consumption of wood for cross-ties, sills, fuel,
+snow-sheds, bridges, etc., have wellnigh stripped the land of its
+timber, leaving its bosom exposed to the biting blasts of winter and to
+the fiery blaze of the summer sun.</p>
+
+<p>The problem of more rapid canal navigation is speedily approaching
+solution, and to give up the water-lines of the larger sections would be
+fatal to their commercial development. "The Erie Canal," said a
+distinguished citizen of New York a short time ago, "now conveys
+one-fourth of the whole export of that vast interior region I have
+described (the Mississippi drainage), and as much of it during its six
+months of uninterrupted navigation as all of the trunk railways together
+during the same time." "Every canal-boat," he added, "which comes to
+Albany with an average cargo is more than the average of the New York
+Central Railroad trains. In the busy canal season more than one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> hundred
+and fifty such boats come daily to tide-water, and the New York Central
+Railroad traffic never reaches thirty trains a day." Such a canal
+traffic would make more than twenty miles of uninterrupted
+railroad-cars, which could not, by any possibility, be handled by the
+largest force of railroad employ&eacute;s with expedition or convenience. The
+<i>furore</i> which the steam-engine has excited and so long maintained in
+the mechanical world is decidedly abating. Engineers are everywhere at
+work studying the practicability of employing new forces. The solar
+heat, the wind-power, the water-power of rivers, and even the tidal
+energy of the sea, have been and are now being harnessed to the
+machineries of Europe. These reservoirs of force are kept perennially
+full by the sun and the moon, to whose action they are due, and at a
+future period, when men have prodigally squandered their heritage of
+coal and wood wealth, they will be invoked by the mechanic and
+manufacturer to furnish their chief motive-power. As an economist of the
+force-<i>capital</i> deposited by the sun's influence in the bowels of the
+earth during its carboniferous epoch, and as using, instead of it, the
+force-<i>interest</i> received annually from the sun through the medium of
+rain and wind, the water-way will and must become one of the most
+generally employed engines of the higher civilizations yet to be.</p>
+
+<p>So long as the subject of trans-Alleghany water-communication was viewed
+as one merely affecting individual States, it possessed no national
+interest. But in its present aspect it is of vast moment, both national
+and international. While many overcrowded portions of the Old World are
+often confronted with both the spectre and the reality of gaunt famine,
+and their breadless thousands are looking wistfully to the fresh and
+prolific fields of the New, for relief, there are annually lost to the
+country and the world vast stores of corn, which the Western farmers
+cannot afford to send by railroad to the seaboard for foreign shipment,
+and freely use as a substitute for fuel. This fact is suggestive and
+significant. To understand its import we have only to look at the
+geographical position of the West and the Mississippi Valley, isolated
+in the heart of a continent.</p>
+
+<p>There are three outlets for the commerce of these sections seeking New
+York, the emporium of the New World, and the chief trans-Atlantic
+markets: 1. By the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and thence by
+transhipment to New York and Europe. 2. By the northern lakes to the St.
+Lawrence Valley, or by the former to the Erie Canal. 3. By the costly
+transportation of railroads over the Alleghanies or along the
+lake-shores eastward.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/image26.jpg" width="500" height="171" alt="THE CANAL BASIN AT LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE CANAL BASIN AT LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The first of these routes is of course the longest, both in time and
+distance. It takes the merchandise by an extensive d&eacute;tour, which, from
+the mouth of the Ohio River, <i>vi&acirc;</i> the Gulf, to New York, exceeds three
+thousand miles. Although lying in the powerful current of the Gulf
+Stream, which is a propelling force speeding forward the vessel that
+trusts its warm, blue waters, this route is exposed to the most violent
+cyclonic storms, and navigators shun and evade it during the equinoctial
+or hurricane season. But, barring danger and distance, no country with
+such an outlet to the sea as the Mississippi River affords can be
+considered dependent upon any artificial communication. Notwithstanding
+the objections which exist to this long route (which is both expensive
+and long), its trade is rapidly increasing from the very exigencies of
+the case. The introduction of the barge-system on the great Western
+rivers has greatly facilitated and cheapened transportation. Steam-tugs,
+carrying neither passengers nor freight, are substituted for the
+steamboat. These tugs never stop except to coal and attach the barges,
+already loaded before their arrival at a city, and proceed with great
+despatch. Steaming steadily on, night and day, they make the trip from
+St. Louis to New Orleans almost as quickly as the oft-detained
+steamboat. The distance has been made between these cities by a tug,
+with ten heavily-freighted barges, in six days. The tugs plying on the
+Minnesota River<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> carry with good speed barges containing thirty thousand
+bushels of wheat, and the freight of a single trip would fill more than
+eighty railroad-cars. This transportation is cheap, because the tugs
+require less than one-fourth the expense for running and management
+required by the steamboats. The carriage of grain from Minnesota to New
+Orleans by this method costs no more than the freightage from the same
+point to Chicago by rail. A boatload of wheat from St. Paul, taking the
+river route, is not once handled until it is put aboard ship at the
+Crescent City. The mighty energy of the North-west&mdash;"the Germany of
+America," as it has been well called by Dr. Draper&mdash;has long since
+discovered that the Mississippi is the best existing route to European
+markets. Grain can be shipped by way of St. Louis and New Orleans to New
+York and Europe twenty cents a bushel cheaper than it can be carried by
+the other existing routes. As long ago as 1868 the Illinois Central
+Railroad took hold of the West India and Southern trade through the
+river route, and offered such commercial inducements to Western
+importers that "Havana sends her products by this route to the
+North-west, instead of by New York."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> As the North-west expands and
+multiplies in resources and population, it will be compelled to transact
+its foreign and seaboard commerce through the noble navigable waters of
+the Mississippi, unless it can obtain a short and cheap transportation
+to New York by some trans-Alleghany water-line. In the event of the
+North-western trade being diverted southward along the great natural
+artery of the continent, where no tolls, no tariffs and no transhipments
+are required,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> the loss will fall most heavily upon New York and the
+seaboard marts. The increasing stream of South American commerce, in the
+same event, must inevitably take the short, speedy and entirely
+inexpensive route to the North-west (through the broad and free highway
+of the "Father of Waters"), rather than encounter the delay, danger and
+expense of the Gulf-Stream route to New York, and thence by rail or the
+Lakes to its destination. The longer the present trade-status continues,
+and the mammoth corporations of the railroads force the transportation
+of the North-west, the West and the Mississippi Valley to take the river
+and Gulf route to the sea, the greater and more fixed becomes the
+diversion of this incalculable commerce from the great markets of the
+Middle and Eastern States. So far, therefore, from the far West being at
+the mercy of the East in this matter, the former has the advantage. The
+East, rather than allow the present tendency of the commercial current
+to set well in toward the Gulf, and wear a channel for itself, should
+strain every nerve to keep it steadily moving toward its own maritime
+cities. The great cities of the Atlantic seaboard can better afford to
+construct a water-line over the mountains at their own cost than to run
+the risk of the Mississippi River becoming the commercial avenue for its
+vast valley and drainage, and thus bearing the golden stream away from
+their harbors and streets.</p>
+
+<p>The Utopian idea that Norfolk may become the rival of the great seaports
+and centres of capital, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, is
+without the field of discussion. It is not more possible than that a
+magnetized knife-blade should exert a more powerful attraction than the
+largest lodestone or the mightiest electro-magnet.</p>
+
+<p>The Lake route from the Mississippi Valley to the East was made
+continuous and complete by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. The
+day of the old flat-boats had not then closed, and the application of
+steam to river navigation was still in its infancy. The growth of the
+West&mdash;which has always outstripped its internal improvements&mdash;like an
+immense river long dammed up, bursting the barriers that confined it,
+forced its way toward the sea. Although it was said at first that the
+canal would never pay, "the opening of this work," as the Superintendent
+of the Census says, "was an announcement of a new era in the internal
+grain-trade of the United States. To the pioneer, the agriculturist and
+the merchant the grand avenue developed a new world. From that period do
+we date the rise and progress of the North-west." This splendid
+structure is to-day the great artery of Eastern wealth; and but for the
+fact that for six months in the year, when the vast sea of Western
+commerce would seek an outlet through its banks to the East, it is
+locked by ice, it would be widened into a ship-canal. It lies in the
+very track of the great north-westerly winds, which descend with
+torrential rush and polar cold over the Lakes, and thence through
+Northern New York. Last year, as late as the third of March, when the
+vegetation of the Middle States was beginning to spring forth in vernal
+beauty, the whole of the lower Lake region and Western and Northern New
+York were swept by these Arctic tempests; and this is the climatic rule
+rather than an exceptional case. Even in the season of open water the
+Lakes are exposed to the most violent storms, and within their narrow
+shores hundreds of vessels are annually lost. The mariner overtaken by
+what would be a moderate gale in a broad sea is in imminent peril for
+want of sea-room; and in a snow-storm, however light&mdash;whose winds
+elsewhere he would court to fill his sails and propel his craft&mdash;his
+course is beset with danger and difficulty. For more than half the year
+navigation is suspended by the thickening terrors of the tempest and the
+accumulated obstacles of ice.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> And yet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> with all the obstacles which
+impair the utility of the Lake route while it is in operation, the
+volume of Western produce prefers it, or rather is forced by the
+necessities of the case to employ it. And these necessities will
+continue to increase. With the aid of all the railroads now or to be
+constructed, the rapid expansion of Western commerce has distanced the
+facilities of transport. The iron horse, as has been well said, has
+always stimulated industry and production beyond his power to carry it.
+It was the forcible remark of the English traveler Sir Morton Peto that
+the American railroads from West to East were "choked with traffic." So
+great is the inadequacy of all existing outlets for conveying the more
+than Amazonian streams of trans-Alleghany merchandise that it has long
+since become the interest of every great corporation, as well as of
+every citizen of the country, to open for them new and national
+highways.</p>
+
+<p>From this digression, embracing facts and views which seemed essential
+to an intelligent discussion of the main subject, we pass on to examine
+the Appalachian outlet by which the great Western empire of America may
+find its way to the sea. The bird's-eye view here presented will show
+the Appalachian mountain-chain, and the waters which thread their way
+along its gentle slopes eastward to the Atlantic basin and westward to
+the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. The Alleghanies bear a striking
+geographic resemblance to the Highlands of Scotland, so famed in song
+and story. Like the central Grampian Hills&mdash;those majestic buttresses in
+whose recesses the old Caledonians found secure and impregnable asylums
+from the Roman legions&mdash;except that they are richer in verdure and less
+lofty, they form the grand natural rampart of the American Union. To use
+the words of Lavall&eacute;e, the French military historian and statistician,
+"Mountains play the principal part in military operations: true ramparts
+of states, they interrupt the development of strategic movements, and
+render the greatest efforts necessary for their passage and possession.
+They are the poetical part of the theatre of the art of war." If the day
+ever comes, as come it may, when the kingly powers of the world combine
+to crush the republican institutions of the United States, and swarm the
+harbors and bays of our Atlantic seaboard with their allied navies, the
+defiles of the Alleghanies will prove the Thermopyl&aelig;s of the Union; and
+against their eastern base the surging wave of invasion must be stayed,
+if stayed at all. Like the Scottish peaks,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The grisly champions that guard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The infant rills of Highland Dee,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>or the Spanish wall of the Pyrenean chain, on whose Sierras, in 1808,
+Wellington's blazing lines of Torres Vedras arrested Massena's march,
+the mountains that look out on our Atlantic sea-front must ever be of
+the highest military importance.</p>
+
+<p>To throw across their central ridges a great aqueduct is no mean
+undertaking of merely local significance, but may take rank with the old
+Roman aqueducts, with the magnificent roads constructed by Napoleon over
+the Alps, and with the more modern and now triumphant tunnels through
+Mont Cenis and the Hoosac Mountains, and the rapidly-progressing railway
+over the Andes from Callao to the Amazon Valley.</p>
+
+<p>The broad and national features of the proposed trans-Alleghany
+water-way have so strongly commended themselves to President Grant that
+in his last message he recommends preliminary Congressional action, and
+in a more recent address to a number of distinguished visitors at the
+Executive Mansion he used much stronger and bolder language in assuring
+them that "he hoped Congress would give such encouragement to the
+measure as to secure the completion of the canal." He has in these words
+only repeated the sentiments of his illustrious predecessors, George
+Washington and Thomas Jefferson, in behalf of the value of the work. We
+have already alluded to Mr. Jefferson's early advocacy of a water-line
+by the James and Kanawha Rivers. The first idea of this enterprise seems
+to have been suggested to Washington<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> as early as the year 1753, after
+his celebrated trip from Jamestown to Fort Duquesne as an envoy of
+Governor Dinwiddie. At the close of the Revolutionary war he made an
+arduous and personal exploration of the country for many hundred miles.
+He kept a journal in which were minutely recorded his conversations with
+all intelligent persons he met respecting the facilities for internal
+navigation afforded by the rivers rising in the Alleghany Mountains and
+flowing either east or west. Returning to Mount Vernon October 4, 1784,
+he wrote, as the result of his observations, to the then governor of
+Virginia, the father of William Henry Harrison: "I shall take the
+liberty now, my dear sir, to suggest a matter which would (if I am not
+too short-sighted a politician) mark your administration as an important
+era in the annals of this country. It has been my decided opinion that
+the <i>shortest</i>, <i>easiest</i> and <i>least expensive</i> communication with the
+invaluable and extensive country back of us would be by one or both of
+the rivers of this State which have their sources in the Appalachian
+Mountains." General Washington, on the 26th of August, 1785, became the
+first president of the company authorized by the legislation which he
+had suggested previously to Governor Harrison. It is well known that the
+same views entertained by Washington and Jefferson were held and
+advocated by Mr. Madison, long before the most prescient statesman could
+descry the faintest image of that colossal empire of population, wealth
+and rapid development now lying west of the Alleghanies.</p>
+
+<p>For the great future water-ways which are needed for the Western, the
+North-western and the Mississippi Valley trade there are several routes
+that have been demonstrated to be practicable. One of these is by a
+projected canal to connect the Coosa River with the Alabama River, and
+thence following that stream to the Gulf of Mexico. This, if ever
+carried out, as eventually it is probable will be the case, would avoid
+the bars and dangers of the navigation of the lower Mississippi, and in
+a measure obviate the necessity of the proposed sub-canals in Louisiana
+and other engineering expedients to remove or turn the very serious
+river-obstacles to an outlet south of New Orleans. Another proposal is
+to connect the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, and to run a canal from the
+latter to the Ocmulgee or Savannah River, and thence by the use of slack
+water to reach the harbors of Savannah and Charleston. This scheme has
+been clearly proved to be feasible, although the distance seems
+objectionable. The third (or central) water-line proposed is that so
+long agitated since the beginning of the present century, so often
+surveyed and re-surveyed by the most eminent engineers, and not long
+since by the United States Engineer Corps under the direction of General
+A. A. Humphreys, the chief engineer of the United States army. It is the
+shortest and most direct line, and has the advantage that it is, as we
+have seen, already nearly half completed, from the head of tide-water on
+the James River, above Lexington, to Buchanan, near the summit-level of
+the mountains. The engineers who have reported upon it&mdash;among whom are
+the late Colonel E. Lorraine, Benjamin H. Latrobe, Esq., and other
+eminent engineers&mdash;estimate that the largest sum required for its
+completion to the Kanawha River is $37,364,000, and the length of time
+required four years. "Of this large sum, however," they say, "it can be
+clearly shown that there will be no need of any other advance by
+government than the interest which will accumulate while the work is in
+progress, which, by issuing the bonds every six months, as required,
+will not reach the sum of <i>six million dollars. And this is every cent
+that will ever be required to be advanced</i>. Should the government
+undertake to make the work a fine one, it will of course cost the whole
+amount estimated, but this would be more than made up by its increased
+benefits to the whole country.</p>
+
+<p>"The work when completed, even at a low rate of tolls&mdash;not over about
+half the rate charged on the Erie Canal&mdash;will return the advance, pay
+the interest and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> redeem the principal in less than twenty years.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 442px;">
+<img src="images/image33.jpg" width="442" height="252" alt="BIRD&#39;S-EYE VIEW OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-LINE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">BIRD&#39;S-EYE VIEW OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-LINE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"In considering this question we are not left to mere conjecture. The
+wonderful history of the Erie Canal, and a comparison of the
+circumstances connected with the operations of that great work with
+those under which this enterprise will be inaugurated and accompanied,
+furnish sufficient data for reliable conclusions."</p>
+
+<p>When we consider that the Erie Canal, though frozen up and useless for
+half the year, has not only long since paid for its construction out of
+its tolls, but makes a present of itself to the State, with <i>about
+thirty millions of dollars</i> of net profit, and that it does more than
+five times the business of the great New York Central Railroad,
+transporting annually over five million tons of cargo (which exceeds the
+total foreign commerce of New York City), and yet is "choked" and gorged
+with freight, the close figuring of the engineers does not appear to be
+questionable.</p>
+
+<p>The immense saving in the cost of water-carriage as compared with that
+of railway-transportation is hardly conceived by the public mind. Many
+of the railroads carry produce at very low and reasonable rates, but
+they cannot afford to take it at much if any less than <i>three times the
+amount</i> charged by the canals. It appears from the report of the New
+York State Engineer for 1868 that the average receipts per ton per mile
+on the New York Central Railroad and the Erie Railway was 2.92 cents and
+2.42 cents respectively; while on the New York State canals it was 1
+cent only, tolls included. But a trans-Alleghany canal would, after
+getting fully into operation, be able to transport produce more cheaply
+than the New York canals, which are frozen over about five months of the
+year, and during the very period when the great tide of Western
+freightage and the ingathered crops is pressing most heavily for an
+outlet to the East.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> There are many products of the West and the
+Mississippi Valley that will not bear the cost of transportation to the
+Eastern cities, either by rail, Gulf or Lake route, because they would
+consume <i>in transitu</i> for freight between sixty and seventy per cent. of
+their market value in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.</p>
+
+<p>These views have been ably and earnestly pressed time and again upon
+Congress by Eastern and Western statesmen, merchants and citizens of all
+classes, by the press of all parties, and by the boards of trade and
+commercial conventions. The surveys cover every foot of the proposed
+James River Canal extension to the Ohio Valley, which, by general
+consent, seems to be regarded as the most eligible because it is the
+most direct central route, and because the State of Virginia has most
+munificently offered to remand the half-completed work to the general
+government on the sole condition of its <i>nationalization</i>.</p>
+
+<p>If, as history has always testified, it be true that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">Mountains interposed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make enemies of nations, which had else,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like kindred drops, been mingled into one,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>it would be difficult, as it is unnecessary, even to attempt to form an
+adequate estimate of this great trans-Alleghany highway as a benign and
+powerful agent in the political reconstruction and moral unification of
+the American States.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Buchanan, the proposed route for the extension of the
+James River and Kanawha Canal runs westward to the mouth of Fork Run, a
+small mountain-river, and ascends that stream to the summit-level,
+seventeen hundred feet above tide-water. It then pierces the main range
+of the Alleghanies, passing under Tuckahoe and Katis Mountains by a
+tunnel nearly eight miles long, and emerges into the valley of the
+Greenbrier River on the western mountain-slope. Its water-line pursues
+its course by slack-water navigation down the Greenbrier to New River,
+and down New River to Lyken's Shoals on the Kanawha, eighty-five miles
+above its mouth. The last distance of eighty-five miles will be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+traversed by open navigation, as the Kanawha Valley permits it. Major W.
+B. Craighill of the Engineer Corps, in his able report to General A. A.
+Humphreys on this central water-line, says: "The recent completion of
+the Mont Cenis Tunnel in Europe, and the rapid progress made with the
+Hoosac Tunnel in this country, with the experience gained in these
+works, and the improved facilities daily coming into use for carrying on
+such operations, induce us to approach such an undertaking as the
+Lorraine tunnel not only without apprehension of failure, but with a
+feeling of assured certainty of success. It is no longer an
+extraordinary, but an ordinary, undertaking."</p>
+
+<p>The practical capacity of the water-line when completed will be of
+almost unlimited extent, while the canal proper with its locks will have
+a capacity of from fifteen to twenty millions of tons annually. In the
+fall and early winter, after the harvests are over, and during the very
+season that the highway is most needed, and when the northern routes are
+blocked by ice, this trans-Alleghany water-way will be open.</p>
+
+<p>The local trade in its path would alone justify its construction. It
+will penetrate the finest mineral lands of Virginia and West Virginia,
+which have been so long locked up from the world. The great Kanawha
+coal-fields and iron- and salt-mines are unsurpassed by any now known in
+any part of the globe. In the large demand from England and Europe for
+coal, which is finding expression in the large orders sent to
+Philadelphia and Baltimore for Pennsylvania and Maryland coal,<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> there
+is the best possible evidence that the local trade of the national canal
+would be enormous. So highly thought of is the Kanawha cannel coal that
+it is now shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans,
+and sent thence by sea to New York, where it brings per ton about three
+times the price of anthracite in that market. It is equal to the best
+English and Nova Scotia cannel, while the Kanawha bituminous and splint
+coals are unsurpassed by any others. The veins lie horizontally, and
+vary from three to fifteen feet in thickness, the aggregate thickness of
+the various strata amounting in some localities to forty or fifty feet
+of the solid carbon.</p>
+
+<p>But, great as are the local interests and the trade of the water-line,
+they are entirely lost sight of in the national aspect of the question.</p>
+
+<p>The population now demanding a direct and central highway for its great
+inland commerce, according to the best estimates (those of Poor), cannot
+fall short of fifteen millions, and most probably exceeds that number.
+It is now conclusively established that the centre of gravity of our
+national population has crossed the Appalachian chain. Professor Hilgard
+of the Coast Survey prepared a year ago, at the request of the Hon. J.
+A. Garfield of Ohio, a series of calculations to ascertain this centre
+of gravity by the four last censuses. Supposing a plane of the exact
+shape and size of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, loaded with
+the actual population, he determined the points on which it would
+balance. In the recently-published words<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> of Mr. Garfield we give the
+following results of Professor Hilgard's calculations: By this process
+he found that in 1840 the centre of gravity of the population was at a
+point in Virginia near the eastern foot of the Appalachian chain, and
+near the parallel of 39&deg; N. latitude. In 1850 this centre had moved
+westward fifty-seven miles across the mountains, to a point nearly south
+of Parkersburg, Virginia. In 1860 it had moved westward eighty-two
+miles, to a point nearly south of Chillicothe, Ohio. In 1870 it had
+reached a point near Wilmington, Clinton county, Ohio, about forty-five
+miles north-east of Cincinnati. In no case had it widely departed from
+the thirty-ninth parallel. If the same rate be maintained during the
+next three decades, which I doubt, it will fall in the neighborhood of
+Bloomington, Indiana, by 1900. Professor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> Hilgard also found that a line
+drawn from Lake Erie, at the north-eastern corner of Ohio, to Pensacola
+in Florida, would divide the population of the United States, as it
+stood in 1870, into two equal parts. This line is nearly parallel to the
+line of the Atlantic coast. From these calculations it will appear that
+both the "centre of gravity" and the line that divides the population in
+half are more than one hundred and fifty miles west of the Appalachian
+chain.</p>
+
+<p>If these computations be correct, Poor's figures are too low by two or
+three millions at least. But, apart from the demand for an
+inter-continental canal by the population on the west of the Appalachian
+chain, the seaboard States and cities east of the Appalachians are, as
+we have already shown, as profoundly interested in such a national cheap
+thoroughfare as is the former section. Careful estimates have shown that
+the surplus produce<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> of the trans-Alleghany sections and the
+Mississippi Valley cannot be less than twenty-five million tons; and
+this would immediately seek an outlet through the Virginia water-line
+to the sea. The saving that would result to the West and to the whole
+country would be enormous; and at a very moderate calculation the amount
+would be an average of two dollars per ton on the river route, <i>vi&acirc;</i> New
+Orleans, and ten dollars per ton over the railroad routes. The
+completion of a comparatively short canal of eighty miles, to cover the
+gap from Buchanan to the upper Kanawha, would without the shadow of
+exaggeration save the West forty millions of dollars a year; and the
+central water-line would yield an interest of ten to fifteen per cent.
+on the capital invested, while opening a continuous water-road from
+Liverpool to Omaha, running nearly due west, fifty-nine hundred miles in
+length! By reducing the freights on the other present thoroughfares
+through the influence of wholesome competition, it would perhaps at once
+lessen the cost of inland transportation by nearly one hundred millions
+of dollars annually!</p>
+
+<p>These considerations, and the added fact that for many years the
+chambers of commerce of the great Western cities, the many commercial
+conventions that have met, and the legislatures of the States bordering
+on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, have earnestly and unanimously
+memorialized Congress in behalf of the completion of this great
+inter-continental highway, fully establish the <i>national</i> character of
+the measure now pending in the national councils.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Thompson B. Maury</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> New York <i>Times</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> From the 3d to the 6th of March, last year, the thermometer
+at Rochester was several degrees <i>below zero</i>; at Troy, New York, on the
+5th it stood at -14&deg; (<i>below zero</i>); at Ogdensburg, New York, at -32&deg;
+(<i>below zero</i>); at Watertown, New York, -34&deg; (<i>below zero</i>)! These
+intense colds recur as late as April.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> The average of twenty years shows that the James River and
+Kanawha Canal was closed annually by ice only fifteen days; the longest
+period in any one year was fifty-six days.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> A single English order for Cumberland coal, to be shipped
+by a Baltimore dealer last December, was for three hundred thousand
+tons.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> New York <i>Nation</i>, December 19, 1872.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> Last year's grain-yield in the Mississippi Valley was one
+billion and thirty-six millions of bushels. In many parts of the West,
+for want of transportation, corn is now sold for as little as eighteen
+and twenty cents per bushel, and the husks are worth, for fuel, nearly
+as much as the grain. One of the great newspapers of the West, the
+Chicago <i>Inter-Ocean</i> (January 8th) in discussing editorially "The
+Reason Farming does not Pay" in that country, forcibly says: "A charge
+of thirty cents per bushel for the carriage of corn, when the freight
+should be only fifteen cents, absorbs <i>one-half the value of the crop</i>;
+and this process, repeated from year to year during the whole period of
+a decade, exhausts what would otherwise become the surplus of the
+farmer, and finally impoverishes the entire agricultural community."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="A_PRINCESS_OF_THULE" id="A_PRINCESS_OF_THULE"></a>A PRINCESS OF THULE.</h2>
+
+<h3>BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."</h3>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<h4>"LOCHABER NO MORE."</h4>
+
+<p>On a small headland of the distant island of Lewis an old man stood
+looking out on a desolate waste of rain-beaten sea. It was a wild and a
+wet day. From out of the louring south-west fierce gusts of wind were
+driving up volumes and flying rags of clouds, and sweeping onward at the
+same time the gathering waves that fell hissing and thundering on the
+shore. Far as the eye could reach the sea and the air and the sky seemed
+to be one indistinguishable mass of whirling and hurrying vapor, as if
+beyond this point there were no more land, but only wind and water, and
+the confused and awful voices of their strife.</p>
+
+<p>The short, thick-set, powerfully-built man who stood on this solitary
+point paid little attention to the rain that ran off the peak of his
+sailor's cap or to the gusts of wind that blew about his bushy gray
+beard. He was still following, with an eye accustomed to pick out
+objects far at sea, one speck of purple that was now fading into the
+gray mist of the rain; and the longer he looked the less it became,
+until the mingled sea and sky showed only the smoke that the great
+steamer left in its wake. As he stood there, motionless and regardless
+of everything around him, did he cling to the fancy that he could still
+trace out the path of the vanished ship? A little while before it had
+passed almost close to him. He had watched it steam out of Stornoway
+harbor. As the sound of the engines came nearer and the big boat went
+by, so that he could have almost called to it, there was no sign of
+emotion on the hard and stern face, except, perhaps, that the lips were
+held firm and a sort of frown appeared over the eyes. He saw a tiny
+white handkerchief being waved to him from the deck of the vessel; and
+he said, almost as though he were addressing some one there, "My good
+little girl!"</p>
+
+<p>But in the midst of that roaring of the sea and the wind how could any
+such message be delivered? And already the steamer was away from the
+land, standing out to the lonely plain of waters, and the sound of the
+engines had ceased, and the figures on the deck had grown faint and
+visionary. But still there was that one speck of white visible; and the
+man knew that a pair of eyes that had many a time looked into his
+own&mdash;as if with a faith that such intercommunion could never be
+broken&mdash;were now trying, through overflowing and blinding tears, to send
+him a last look of farewell.</p>
+
+<p>The gray mists of the rain gathered within their folds the big vessel
+and all the beating hearts it contained, and the fluttering of that
+little token disappeared with it. All that remained was the sea,
+whitened by the rushing of the wind and the thunder of waves on the
+beach. The man, who had been gazing so long down into the south-east,
+turned his face landward, and set out to walk over a tract of wet grass
+and sand toward a road that ran near by. There was a large wagonette of
+varnished oak and a pair of small, powerful horses waiting for him
+there; and having dismissed the boy who had been in charge, he took the
+reins and got up. But even yet the fascination of the sea and of that
+sad farewell was upon him, and he turned once more, as if, now that
+sight could yield him no further tidings, he would send her one more
+word of good-bye. "My poor little Sheila!" That was all he said; and
+then he turned to the horses and sent them on, with his head down to
+escape the rain, and a look on his face like that of a dead man.</p>
+
+<p>As he drove through the town of Stornoway the children playing within
+the shelter of the cottage doors called to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> each other in a whisper, and
+said, "That is the King of Borva."</p>
+
+<p>But the elderly people said to each other, with a shake of the head, "It
+iss a bad day, this day, for Mr. Mackenzie, that he will be going home
+to an empty house. And it will be a ferry bad thing for the poor folk of
+Borva, and they will know a great difference, now that Miss Sheila iss
+gone away, and there iss nobody&mdash;not anybody at all&mdash;left in the island
+to tek the side o' the poor folk."</p>
+
+<p>He looked neither to the right nor to the left, though he was known to
+many of the people, as he drove away from the town into the heart of the
+lonely and desolate land. The wind had so far died down, and the rain
+had considerably lessened, but the gloom of the sky was deepened by the
+drawing on of the afternoon, and lay heavily over the deary wastes of
+moor and hill. What a wild and dismal country was this which lay before
+and all around him, now that the last traces of human occupation were
+passed! There was not a cottage, not a stone wall, not a fence, to break
+the monotony of the long undulations of moorland, which in the distance
+rose into a series of hills that were black under the darkened sky. Down
+from those mountains, ages ago, glaciers had slowly crept to eat out
+hollows in the plains below; and now in those hollows were lonely lakes,
+with not a tree to break the line of their melancholy shores. Everywhere
+around were the traces of the glacier-drift&mdash;great gray boulders of
+gneiss fixed fast into the black peat-moss or set amid the browns and
+greens of the heather. The only sound to be heard in this wilderness of
+rock and morass was the rushing of various streams, rain-swollen and
+turbid, that plunged down their narrow channels to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The rain now ceased altogether, but the mountains in the far south had
+grown still darker, and to the fisherman passing by the coast it must
+have seemed as though the black peaks were holding converse with the
+louring clouds, and that the silent moorland beneath was waiting for the
+first roll of the thunder. The man who was driving along this lonely
+route sometimes cast a glance down toward this threatening of a storm,
+but he paid little heed to it. The reins lay loose on the backs of the
+horses, and at their own pace they followed, hour after hour, the rising
+and falling road that led through the moorland and past the gloomy
+lakes. He may have recalled mechanically the names of those stretches of
+water&mdash;the Lake of the Sheiling, the Lake of the Oars, the Lake of the
+Fine Sand, and so forth&mdash;to measure the distance he had traversed; but
+he seemed to pay little attention to the objects around him, and it was
+with a glance of something like surprise that he suddenly found himself
+overlooking that great sea-loch on the western side of the island in
+which was his home.</p>
+
+<p>He drove down the hill to the solitary little inn of Garra-na-hina. At
+the door, muffled up in a warm woolen plaid, stood a young girl,
+fair-haired, blue-eyed, and diffident in look.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Mackenzie," she said, with that peculiar and pleasant intonation
+that marks the speech of the Hebridean who has been taught English in
+the schools, "it wass Miss Sheila wrote to me to Suainabost, and she
+said I might come down from Suainabost and see if I can be of any help
+to you in the house."</p>
+
+<p>The girl was crying, although the blue eyes looked bravely through the
+tears as if to disprove the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, my good lass," he said, putting his hand gently on her head, "and
+it wass Sheila wrote to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, and I hef come down from Suainabost."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a lonely house you will be going to," he said absently.</p>
+
+<p>"But Miss Sheila said I wass&mdash;I wass to&mdash;" But here the young girl
+failed in her effort to explain that Miss Sheila had asked her to go
+down to make the house less lonely. The elderly man in the wagonette
+seemed scarcely to notice that she was crying: he bade her come up
+beside him; and when he had got her into the wagonette he left some
+message with the innkeeper, who had come to the door, and drove off
+again.</p>
+
+<p>They drove along the high land that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> overlooks a portion of Loch Roag,
+with its wonderful network of islands and straits, and then they stopped
+on the lofty plateau of Callernish, where there was a man waiting to
+take the wagonette and horses.</p>
+
+<p>"And you would be seeing Miss Sheila away, sir?" said the man; "and it
+wass Duncan Macdonald will say that she will not come back no more to
+Borva."</p>
+
+<p>The old man with the big gray beard only frowned and passed on. He and
+the girl made their way down the side of the rocky hill to the shore,
+and here there was an open boat awaiting them. When they approached, a
+man considerably over six feet in height, keen-faced, gray-eyed,
+straight-limbed and sinewy in frame, jumped into the big and rough boat
+and began to get ready for their departure. There was just enough wind
+to catch the brown mainsail, and the King of Borva took the tiller, his
+henchman sitting down by the mast. And no sooner had they left the shore
+and stood out toward one of the channels of this arm of the sea, than
+the tall, spare keeper began to talk of that which made his master's eye
+grow dark. "Ah, well," he said, in the plaintive drawling of his race,
+"and it iss an empty house you will be going to, Mr. Mackenzie; and it
+iss a bad thing for us all that Miss Sheila hass gone away; and it iss
+many's ta time she will hef been wis me in this very boat&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; you, Duncan Macdonald!" cried Mackenzie, in an
+access of fury, "what will you talk of like that? It iss every man,
+woman and child on the island will talk of nothing but Sheila! I will
+drive my foot through the bottom of the boat if you do not hold your
+peace!"</p>
+
+<p>The tall gillie patiently waited until his master had exhausted his
+passion, and then he said, as if nothing had occurred, "And it will not
+do much good, Mr. Mackenzie, to tek ta name o' God in vain; and there
+will be ferry much more of that now since Miss Sheila iss gone away, and
+there will be much more of trinking in ta island, and it will be a great
+difference, mirover. And she will be so far away that no one will see
+her no more&mdash;far away beyond ta Sound of Sleat, and far away beyond
+Oban, as I hef heard people say. And what will she do in London, when
+she has no boat at all, and she will never go out to ta fishing? And I
+will hear people say that you will walk a whole day and never come to ta
+sea, and what will Miss Sheila do for that? And she will tame no more o'
+ta wild-ducks' young things, and she will find out no more o' ta nests
+in the rocks, and she will hef no more horns when the deer is killed,
+and she will go out no more to see ta cattle swim across Loch Roag when
+they go to ta sheilings. It will be all different, all different, now;
+and she will never see us no more. And it iss as bad as if you wass a
+poor man, Mr. Mackenzie, and had to let your sons and your daughters go
+away to America, and never come back no more. And she ta only one in
+your house! And it wass the son o' Mr. Macintyre of Sutherland he would
+hef married her, and come to live on ta island, and not hef Miss Sheila
+go away among strangers that doesna ken her family, and will put no
+store by her, no more than if she wass a fisherman's lass. It wass Miss
+Sheila herself had a sore heart tis morning when she went away; and she
+turned and she looked at Borva as the boat came away, and I said, Tis
+iss the last time Miss Sheila will be in her boat, and she will not come
+no more again to Borva."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mackenzie heard not one word or syllable of all this. The dead,
+passionless look had fallen over the powerful features, and the deep-set
+eyes were gazing, not on the actual Loch Roag before them, but on the
+stormy sea that lies between Lewis and Skye, and on a vessel
+disappearing in the midst of the rain. It was by a sort of instinct that
+he guided this open boat through the channels, which were now getting
+broader as they neared the sea, and the tall and grave-faced keeper
+might have kept up his garrulous talk for hours without attracting a
+look or a word.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the dusk of the evening, and wild and strange indeed was the
+scene around the solitary boat as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> slowly moved along. Large
+islands&mdash;so large that any one of them might have been mistaken for the
+mainland&mdash;lay over the dark waters of the sea, remote, untenanted and
+silent. There were no white cottages along these rocky shores; only a
+succession of rugged cliffs and sandy bays, but half mirrored in the
+sombre water below. Down in the south the mighty shoulders and peaks of
+Suainabhal and its sister mountains were still darker than the darkening
+sky; and when at length the boat had got well out from the network of
+islands and fronted the broad waters of the Atlantic, the great plain of
+the western sea seemed already to have drawn around it the solemn mantle
+of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you go to Borvabost, Mr. Mackenzie, or will we run her into your
+own house?" asked Duncan&mdash;Borvabost being the name of the chief village
+on the island.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not go on to Borvabost," said the old man peevishly. "Will they
+not have plenty to talk about at Borvabost?"</p>
+
+<p>"And it iss no harm tat ta folk will speak of Miss Sheila," said the
+gillie with some show of resentment: "it iss no harm tey will be sorry
+she is gone away&mdash;no harm at all, for it wass many things tey had to
+thank Miss Sheila for; and now it will be all ferry different&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Duncan Macdonald, to hold your peace!" said the old man,
+with a savage glare of the deep-set eyes; and then Duncan relapsed into
+a sulky silence and the boat held on its way.</p>
+
+<p>In the gathering twilight a long gray curve of sand became visible, and
+into the bay thus indicated Mackenzie turned his small craft. This
+indentation of the island seemed as blank of human occupation as the
+various points and bays they had passed, but as they neared the shore a
+house came into sight, about half-way up the slope rising from the sea
+to the pasture-land above. There was a small stone pier jutting out at
+one portion of the bay, where a mass of rocks was imbedded in the white
+sand; and here at length the boat was run in, and Mackenzie helped the
+young girl ashore.</p>
+
+<p>The two of them, leaving the gillie to moor the little vessel that had
+brought them from Callernish, went silently toward the shore, and up the
+narrow road leading to the house. It was a square, two-storied
+substantial building of stone, but the stone had been liberally oiled to
+keep out the wet, and the blackness thus produced had not a very
+cheerful look. Then, on this particular evening the scant bushes
+surrounding the house hung limp and dark in the rain, and amid the
+prevailing hues of purple, blue-green and blue the bit of scarlet coping
+running round the black house was wholly ineffective in relieving the
+general impression of dreariness and desolation.</p>
+
+<p>The King of Borva walked into a large room, which was but partially lit
+by two candles on the table and by the blaze of a mass of peats in the
+stone fireplace, and threw himself into a big easy-chair. Then he
+suddenly seemed to recollect his companion, who was timidly standing
+near the door, with her shawl still round her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Mairi," he said, "go and ask them to give you some dry clothes. Your
+box it will not be here for half an hour yet." Then he turned to the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"But you yourself, Mr. Mackenzie, you will be ferry wet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind me, my lass: go and get yourself dried."</p>
+
+<p>"But it wass Miss Sheila," began the girl diffidently&mdash;"it wass Miss
+Sheila asked me&mdash;she asked me to look after you, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With that he rose abruptly, and advanced to her and caught her by the
+wrist. He spoke quite quietly to her, but the girl's eyes, looking up at
+the stern face, were a trifle frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a ferry good little girl, Mairi," he said slowly, "and you will
+mind what I say to you. You will do what you like in the house, you will
+take Sheila's place as much as you like, but you will mind this&mdash;not to
+mention her name, not once. Now go away, Mairi, and find Scarlett
+Macdonald, and she will give you some dry clothes; and you will tell her
+to send Duncan down to Borvabost, and bring up John the Piper and
+Alister-nan-Each, and the lads of the <i>Nighean dubh</i>, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> they are not
+gone home to Habost yet. But it iss John the Piper must come directly."</p>
+
+<p>The girl went away to seek counsel of Scarlett Macdonald, Duncan's wife,
+and Mr. Mackenzie proceeded to walk up and down the big and half-lit
+chamber. Then he went to a cupboard, and put out on the table a number
+of tumblers and glasses, with two or three odd-looking bottles of
+Norwegian make, consisting of four semicircular tubes of glass meeting
+at top and bottom, leaving the centre of the vessel thus formed open. He
+stirred up the blazing peats in the fireplace. He brought down from a
+shelf a box filled with coarse tobacco, and put it on the table. But he
+was evidently growing impatient, and at last he put on his cap again and
+went out into the night.</p>
+
+<p>The air blew cold in from the sea, and whistled through the bushes that
+Sheila had trained about the porch. There was no rain now, but a great
+and heavy darkness brooded overhead, and in the silence he could hear
+the breaking of the waves along the hard coast. But what was this other
+sound he heard, wild and strange in the stillness of the night&mdash;a shrill
+and plaintive cry that the distance softened until it almost seemed to
+be the calling of a human voice? Surely those were words that he heard,
+or was it only that the old, sad air spoke to him?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That was the message that came to him out of the darkness, and it seemed
+to him as if the sea and the night and the sky were wailing over the
+loss of his Sheila. He walked away from the house and up the hill
+behind. Led by the sound of the pipes, that grew louder and more
+unearthly as he approached, he found himself at length on a bit of high
+table-land overlooking the sea, where Sheila had had a rude bench of
+iron and wood fixed into the rock. On this bench sat a little old man,
+humpbacked and bent, and with long white hair falling down to his
+shoulders. He was playing the pipes&mdash;not wildly and fiercely, as if he
+were at a drinking-bout of the lads come home from the Caithness
+fishing, nor yet gayly and proudly, as if he were marching at the head
+of a bridal-procession, but slowly, mournfully, monotonously, as though
+he were having the pipes talk to him.</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie touched him on the shoulder, and the old man started. "Is it
+you, Mr. Mackenzie?" he said in Gaelic. "It is a great fright you have
+given me."</p>
+
+<p>"Come down to the house, John. The lads from Habost and Alister, and
+some more will be coming; and you will get a ferry good dram, John, to
+put wind in the pipes."</p>
+
+<p>"It is no dram I am thinking of, Mr. Mackenzie," said the old man. "And
+you will have plenty of company without me. But I will come down to the
+house, Mr. Mackenzie&mdash;oh yes, I will come down to the house&mdash;but <i>in a
+little while</i> I will come to the house."</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie turned from him with a petulant exclamation, and went along
+and down the hill rapidly, as he could hear voices in the darkness. He
+had just got into the house when his visitors arrived. The door of the
+room was opened, and there appeared some six or eight tall and stalwart
+men, mostly with profuse brown beards and weatherbeaten faces, who
+advanced into the chamber with some show of shyness. Mackenzie offered
+them a rough and hearty welcome, and as soon as their eyes had got
+accustomed to the light bade them help themselves to the whisky on the
+table. With a certain solemnity each poured out a glass and drank
+"<i>Shlainte!</i>" to his host as if it were some funeral rite. But when he
+bade them replenish their glasses, and got them seated with their faces
+to the blaze of the peats, then the flood of Gaelic broke loose. Had the
+wise little girl from Suainabost warned these big men? There was not a
+word about Sheila uttered. All their talk was of the reports that had
+come from Caithness, and of the improvements of the small harbor near
+the Butt, and of the black sea-horse that had been seen in Loch
+Suainabhal, and of some more sheep having been found dead on the Pladda
+Isles, shot by the men of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> English smacks. Pipes were lit, the peats
+stirred up anew, another glass or two of whisky drunk, and then, through
+the haze of the smoke, the browned faces of the men could be seen in
+eager controversy, each talking faster than the other, and comparing
+facts and fancies that had been brooded over through solitary nights of
+waiting on the sea. Mackenzie did not sit down with them: he did not
+even join them in their attention to the curious whisky-flasks. He paced
+up and down the opposite side of the room, occasionally being appealed
+to with a story or a question, and showing by his answers that he was
+but vaguely hearing the vociferous talk of his companions. At last he
+said, "Why the teffle does not John the Piper come? Here, you men&mdash;you
+sing a song, quick! None of your funeral songs, but a good brisk one of
+trinking and fighting."</p>
+
+<p>But were not nearly all their songs&mdash;like those of all dwellers on a
+rocky and dangerous coast&mdash;of a sad and sombre hue, telling of maidens
+whose lovers were drowned, and of wives bidding farewell to husbands
+they were never to see again? Slow and mournful are the songs that the
+northern fishermen sing as they set out in the evening, with the
+creaking of their long oars keeping time to the music, until they get
+out beyond the shore to hoist the red mainsail and catch the breeze
+blowing over from the regions of the sunset. Not one of these Habost
+fishermen could sing a brisk song, but the nearest approach to it was a
+ballad in praise of a dark-haired girl, which they, owning the <i>Nighean
+dubh</i>, were bound to know. And so one young fellow began to sing, "Mo
+Nighean dubh d'fhas boidheach dubh, mo Nighean dubh na treig mi,"<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> in
+a slow and doleful fashion, and the others joined in the chorus with a
+like solemnity. In order to keep time, four of the men followed the
+common custom of taking a pocket handkerchief (in this case an immense
+piece of brilliant red silk, which was evidently the pride of its owner)
+and holding it by the four corners, letting it slowly rise and fall as
+they sang. The other three men laid hold of a bit of rope, which they
+used for the same purpose. "Mo Nighean dubh," unlike most of the Gaelic
+songs, has but a few verses; and as soon as they were finished the young
+fellow, who seemed pleased with his performances, started another
+ballad. Perhaps he had forgotten his host's injunction, perhaps he knew
+no merrier song, but at any rate he began to sing the "Lament of
+Monaltrie." It was one of Sheila's songs. She had sung it the night
+before in this very room, and her father had listened to her describing
+the fate of young Monaltrie as if she had been foretelling her own, and
+scarcely dared to ask himself if ever again he should hear the voice
+that he loved so well. He could not listen to the song. He abruptly left
+the room, and went out once more into the cool night-air and the
+darkness. But even here he was not allowed to forget the sorrow he had
+been vainly endeavoring to banish, for in the far distance the pipes
+still played the melancholy wail of Lochaber.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lochaber no more! Lochaber no more!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;that was the only solace brought him by the winds from the sea; and
+there were tears running down the hard gray face as he said to himself,
+in a broken voice, "Sheila, my little girl, why did you go away from
+Borva?"</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE FAIR-HAIRED STRANGER.</h4>
+
+<p>"Why, you must be in love with her yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"I in love with her? Sheila and I are too old friends for that!"</p>
+
+<p>The speakers were two young men seated in the stern of the steamer
+Clansman as she ploughed her way across the blue and rushing waters of
+the Minch. One of them was a tall young fellow of three-and-twenty, with
+fair hair and light blue eyes, whose delicate and mobile features were
+handsome enough in their way, and gave evidence of a nature at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> once
+sensitive, nervous and impulsive. He was clad in light gray from head to
+heel&mdash;a color that suited his fair complexion and yellow hair; and he
+lounged about the white deck in the glare of the sunlight, steadying
+himself from time to time as an unusually big wave carried the Clansman
+aloft for a second or two, and then sent her staggering and groaning
+into a hissing trough of foam. Now and again he would pause in front of
+his companion, and talk in a rapid, playful, and even eloquent fashion
+for a minute or two; and then, apparently a trifle annoyed by the slow
+and patient attention which greeted his oratorical efforts, would start
+off once more on his unsteady journey up and down the white planks.</p>
+
+<p>The other was a man of thirty-eight, of middle height, sallow complexion
+and generally insignificant appearance. His hair was becoming
+prematurely gray. He rarely spoke. He was dressed in a suit of rough
+blue cloth, and indeed looked somewhat like a pilot who had gone ashore,
+taken to study and never recovered himself. A stranger would have
+noticed the tall and fair young man who walked up and down the gleaming
+deck, evidently enjoying the brisk breeze that blew about his yellow
+hair, and the sunlight that touched his pale and fine face or sparkled
+on his teeth when he laughed, but would have paid little attention to
+the smaller, brown-faced, gray-haired man, who lay back on the bench
+with his two hands clasped round his knee, and with his eyes fixed on
+the southern heavens, while he murmured to himself the lines of some
+ridiculous old Devonshire ballad or replied in monosyllables to the
+rapid and eager talk of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>Both men were good sailors, and they had need to be, for although the
+sky above them was as blue and clear as the heart of a sapphire, and
+although the sunlight shone on the decks and the rigging, a strong
+north-easter had been blowing all the morning, and there was a
+considerable sea on. The far blue plain was whitened with the tumbling
+crests of the waves, that shone and sparkled in the sun, and ever and
+anon a volume of water would strike the Clansman's bow, rise high in
+the air with the shock, and fall in heavy showers over the forward
+decks. Sometimes, too, a wave caught her broadside, and sent a handful
+of spray over the two or three passengers who were safe in the stern;
+but the decks here remained silvery and white, for the sun and wind
+speedily dried up the traces of the sea-showers.</p>
+
+<p>At length the taller of the young men came and sat down by his
+companion: "How far to Stornoway yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"An hour."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, what a distance! All day yesterday getting up from Oban to
+Skye, all last night churning our way up to Loch Gair, all to-day
+crossing to this outlandish island, that seems as far away as
+Iceland;&mdash;and for what?"</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you remember the moonlight last night as we sailed by the
+Cuchullins? And the sunrise this morning as we lay in Loch Gair? Were
+not these worth coming for?"</p>
+
+<p>"But that was not what you came for, my dear friend. No. You came to
+carry off this wonderful Miss Sheila of yours, and of course you wanted
+somebody to look on; and here I am, ready to carry the ladder and the
+dark lantern and the marriage-license. I will saddle your steeds for you
+and row you over lakes, and generally do anything to help you in so
+romantic an enterprise."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very kind of you, Lavender," said the other with a smile, "but
+such adventures are not for old fogies like me. They are the exclusive
+right of young fellows like you, who are tall and well-favored, have
+plenty of money and good spirits, and have a way with you that all the
+world admires. Of course the bride will tread a measure with you. Of
+course all the bridesmaids would like to see you marry her. Of course
+she will taste the cup you offer her. Then a word in her ear, and away
+you go as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and as if the
+bridegroom was a despicable creature merely because God had only given
+him five feet six inches. But you couldn't have a Lochinvar five feet
+six."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The younger man blushed like a girl and laughed a little, and was
+evidently greatly pleased. Nay, in the height of his generosity he began
+to protest. He would not have his friend imagine that women cared only
+for stature and good looks. There were other qualities. He himself had
+observed the most singular conquests made by men who were not
+good-looking, but who had a certain fascination about them. His own
+experience of women was considerable, and he was quite certain that the
+best women, now&mdash;the sort of women whom a man would respect&mdash;the women
+who had brains&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And so forth and so forth. The other listened quite gravely to these
+well-meant, kindly, blundering explanations, and only one who watched
+his face narrowly could have detected in the brown eyes a sort of amused
+consciousness of the intentions of the amiable and ingenuous youth.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really mean to tell me, Ingram," continued Lavender in his rapid
+and impetuous way&mdash;"do you mean to tell me that you are not in love with
+this Highland princess? For ages back you have talked of nothing but
+Sheila. How many an hour have I spent in clubs, up the river, down at
+the coast, everywhere, listening to your stories of Sheila, and your
+praises of Sheila, and your descriptions of Sheila! It was always
+Sheila, and again Sheila, and still again Sheila. But, do you know,
+either you exaggerated or I failed to understand your descriptions; for
+the Sheila I came to construct out of your talk is a most incongruous
+and incomprehensible creature. First, Sheila knows about stone and lime
+and building; and then I suppose her to be a practical young woman, who
+is a sort of overseer to her father. But Sheila, again, is romantic and
+mysterious, and believes in visions and dreams; and then I take her to
+be an affected school-miss. But then Sheila can throw a fly and play her
+sixteen-pounder, and Sheila can adventure upon the lochs in an open
+boat, managing the sail herself; and then I find her to be a tom-boy.
+But, again, Sheila is shy and rarely speaks, but looks unutterable
+things with her soft and magnificent eyes; and what does that mean but
+that she is an ordinary young lady, who has not been in society, and who
+is a little interesting, if a little stupid, while she is unmarried, and
+who after marriage calmly and complacently sinks into the dull domestic
+hind, whose only thought is of butchers' bills and perambulators?"</p>
+
+<p>This was a fairly long speech, but it was no longer than many which
+Frank Lavender was accustomed to utter when in the vein for talking. His
+friend and companion did not pay much heed. His hands were still clasped
+round his knee, his head leaning back, and all the answer he made was to
+repeat, apparently to himself, these not very pertinent lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In Ockington, in Devonsheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My vather he lived vor many a yeer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I his son with him did dwell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To tend his sheep: 'twas doleful well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Diddle-diddle!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for a man who has to knock
+about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to
+everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person,
+and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him
+in his own house&mdash;that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment
+that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage&mdash;but a
+man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife."</p>
+
+<p>Another pause.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It happened on a zartin day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Four-score o' the sheep they rinned astray:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Says vather to I, 'Jack, rin arter 'm, du!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sez I to vather, 'I'm darned if I du!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Diddle-diddle!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Now you are the sort of a man, I should think, who would never get
+careless about your wife. You would always believe about her what you
+believed at first; and I dare say you would live very happily in your
+own house if she was a decent sort of woman. But you would have to go
+out into society sometimes; and the very fact that you had not got
+careless&mdash;as many men would, leaving their wives to produce any sort of
+impression they might&mdash;would make you vexed that the world could not
+off-hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> value your wife as you fancy she ought to be valued. Don't you
+see?"</p>
+
+<p>This was the answer:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Purvoket much at my rude tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A dish o' brath at me he vlung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which so incensed me to wrath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I up an' knack un instantly to arth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Diddle-diddle!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"As for your Princess Sheila, I firmly believe you have some romantic
+notion of marrying her and taking her up to London with you. If you
+seriously intend such a thing, I shall not argue with you. I shall
+praise her by the hour together, for I may have to depend on Mrs. Edward
+Ingram for my admission to your house. But if you only have the fancy as
+a fancy, consider what the result would be. You say she has never been
+to a school; that she has never had the companionship of a girl of her
+own age; that she has never read a newspaper; that she has never been
+out of this island; and that almost her sole society has been that of
+her mother, who educated her and tended her, and left her as ignorant of
+the real world as if she had lived all her life in a lighthouse.
+Goodness gracious! what a figure such a girl would cut in South
+Kensington!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow," said Ingram at last, "don't be absurd. You will soon
+see what are the relations between Sheila Mackenzie and me, and you will
+be satisfied. I marry her? Do you think I would take the child to London
+to show her its extravagance and shallow society, and break her heart
+with thinking of the sea, and of the rude islanders she knew, and of
+their hard and bitter struggle for life? No. I should not like to see my
+wild Highland doe shut up in one of your southern parks among your tame
+fallow-deer. She would look at them askance. She would separate herself
+from them; and by and by she would make one wild effort to escape, and
+kill herself. That is not the fate in store for our good little Sheila;
+so you need not make yourself unhappy about her or me.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Now all ye young men, of every persuasion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never quarl wi' your vather upon any occasion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For instead of being better, you'll vind you'll be wuss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he'll kick you out o' doors, without a varden in your puss!<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Diddle-diddle!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Talking of Devonshire, how is that young American lady you met at
+Torquay in the spring?"</p>
+
+<p>"There, now, is the sort of woman a man would be safe in marrying!"</p>
+
+<p>"And how?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, you know," said Frank Lavender. "I mean the sort of woman who
+would do you credit&mdash;hold her own in society, and that sort of thing.
+You must meet her some day. I tell you, Ingram, you will be delighted
+and charmed with her manners and her grace, and the clever things she
+says; at least, everybody else is."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem to care much for brilliant women," remarked the other,
+rather disappointed that his companion showed so little interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I like brilliant women very well. A clever woman is always a
+pleasanter companion than a clever man. But you were talking of the
+choice of a wife; and pertness in a girl, although it may be amusing at
+the time, may become something else by and by. Indeed, I shouldn't
+advise a young man to marry an epigrammatist, for you see her shrewdness
+and smartness are generally the result of experiences in which <i>he</i> has
+had no share."</p>
+
+<p>"There may be something in that," said Lavender carelessly; "but of
+course, you know, with a widow it is different; and Mrs. Lorraine never
+does go in for the <i>ing&eacute;nue</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The pale blue cloud that had for some time been lying faintly along the
+horizon now came nearer and more near, until they could pick out
+something like the configuration of the island, its bays and
+promontories and mountains. The day seemed to become warmer as they got
+out of the driving wind of the Channel, and the heavy roll of the sea
+had so far subsided. Through comparatively calm water the great Clansman
+drove her way, until, on getting near the land and under shelter of the
+peninsula of Eye, the voyagers found themselves on a beautiful blue
+plain, with the spacious harbor of Stornoway opening out before them.
+There, on the one side, lay a white and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> cleanly town, with its shops
+and quays and shipping. Above the bay in front stood a great gray
+castle, surrounded by pleasure-grounds and terraces and gardens; while
+on the southern side the harbor was overlooked by a semicircle of hills,
+planted with every variety of tree. The white houses, the blue bay and
+the large gray building set amid green terraces and overlooked by wooded
+hills, formed a bright and lively little picture on this fresh and
+brilliant forenoon; and young Lavender, who had a quick eye for
+compositions which he was always about to undertake, but which never
+appeared on canvas, declared enthusiastically that he would spend a day
+or two in Stornoway on his return from Borva, and take home with him
+some sketch of the place.</p>
+
+<p>"And is Miss Sheila on the quay yonder?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely," said Ingram. "It is a long drive across the island, and I
+suppose she would remain at home to look after our dinner in the
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>"What? The wonderful Princess Sheila look after our dinner! Has she
+visions among the pots and pans, and does she look unutterable things
+when she is peeling potatoes?"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram laughed: "There will be a pretty alteration in your tune in a
+couple of days. You are sure to fall in love with her, and sigh
+desperately for a week or two. You always do when you meet a woman
+anywhere. But it won't hurt you much, and she won't know anything about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I should rather like to fall in love with her, to see how furiously
+jealous you would become. However, here we are."</p>
+
+<p>"And there is Mackenzie&mdash;the man with the big gray beard and the peaked
+cap&mdash;and he is talking to the chamberlain of the island."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he get up on his wagonette for, instead of coming on board to
+meet you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is one of his little tricks," said Ingram with a good-humored
+smile. "He means to receive us in state, and impress you, a stranger,
+with his dignity. The good old fellow has a hundred harmless ways like
+that, and you must humor him. He has been accustomed to be treated <i>en
+roi</i>, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the papa of the mysterious princess is not perfect?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I ought to tell you now that Mackenzie's oddest notion is that
+he has a wonderful skill in managing men, and in concealing the manner
+of his doing it. I tell you this that you mayn't laugh and hurt him when
+he is attempting something that he considers particularly crafty, and
+that a child could see through."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the aim of it all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"He does not do a little bet occasionally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear! no. He is the best and honestest fellow in the world, but it
+pleases him to fancy that he is profoundly astute, and that other people
+don't see the artfulness with which he reaches some little result that
+is not of the least consequence to anybody."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," remarked Mr. Lavender with a coolness and a shrewdness
+that rather surprised his companion, "that it would not be difficult to
+get the King of Borva to assume the honors of a papa-in-law."</p>
+
+<p>The steamer was moored at last: the crowd of fishermen and loungers drew
+near to meet their friends who had come up from Glasgow&mdash;for there are
+few strangers, as a rule, arriving at Stornoway to whet the curiosity of
+the islanders&mdash;and the tall gillie who had been standing by Mackenzie's
+horses came on board to get the luggage of the young men.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Duncan," said the elder of them, "and how are you, and how is Mr.
+Mackenzie, and how is Miss Sheila? You have not brought her with you, I
+see."</p>
+
+<p>"But Miss Sheila is ferry well, whatever, Mr. Ingram, and it is a great
+day, this day, for her, tat you will be coming to the Lewis; and it wass
+tis morning she wass up at ta break o' day, and up ta hills to get some
+bits o' green things for ta rooms you will hef, Mr. Ingram.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> Ay, it iss
+a great day, tis day, for Miss Sheila."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, they all rave about Sheila up in this quarter!" said Lavender,
+giving Duncan a fishing-rod and a bag he had brought from the cabin. "I
+suppose in a week's time I shall begin to rave about her too. Look
+sharp, Ingram, and let us have audience of His Majesty."</p>
+
+<p>The King of Borva fixed his eye on young Lavender, and scanned him
+narrowly as he was being introduced. His welcome of Ingram had been most
+gracious and friendly, but he received his companion with something of a
+severe politeness. He requested him to take a seat beside him, so that
+he might see the country as they went across to Borva; and Lavender
+having done so, Ingram and Duncan got into the body of the wagonette,
+and the party drove off.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the clean and bright little town, Mackenzie suddenly
+pulled up his horses in front of a small shop, in the window of which
+some cheap bits of jewelry were visible. The man came out, and Mr.
+Mackenzie explained with some care and precision that he wanted a silver
+brooch of a particular sort. While the jeweler had returned to seek the
+article in question, Frank Lavender was gazing around him in some wonder
+at the appearance of so much civilization on this remote and
+rarely-visited island. There were no haggard savages, unkempt and
+scantily clad, coming forth from their dens in the rocks to stare wildly
+at the strangers. On the contrary, there was a prevailing air of comfort
+and "bienness" about the people and their houses. He saw handsome girls
+with coal-black hair and fresh complexions, who wore short and thick
+blue petticoats, with a scarlet tartan shawl wrapped round their bosom
+and fastened at the waist; stalwart, thick-set men, in loose blue jacket
+and trowsers and scarlet cap, many of them with bushy red beards; and
+women of extraordinary breadth of shoulder, who carried enormous loads
+in a creel strapped on their back, while they employed their hands in
+contentedly knitting stockings as they passed along. But what was the
+purpose of these mighty loads of fish-bones they carried&mdash;burdens that
+would have appalled a railway porter of the South?</p>
+
+<p>"You will see, sir," observed the King of Borva in reply to Lavender's
+question, "there is not much of the phosphates in the grass of this
+island; and the cows they are mad to get the fish-bones to lick, and it
+iss many of them you cannot milk unless you put the bones before them."</p>
+
+<p>"But why do the lazy fellows lounging about there let the women carry
+those enormous loads?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mackenzie stared: "Lazy fellows! They hef harder work than any you
+will know of in your country; and besides the fishing they will do the
+ploughing and much of the farm-work. And iss the women to do none at
+all? That iss the nonsense that my daughter talks; but she has got it
+out of books, and what do they know how the poor people hef to live?"</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the jeweler returned with some half dozen brooches
+displayed on a plate, and shining with all the brilliancy of cairngorm
+stones, polished silver and variously-colored pebbles.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, John Mackintyre, this is a gentleman from London," said Mackenzie,
+regarding the jeweler sternly, "and he will know all apout such fine
+things, and you will not put a big price on them."</p>
+
+<p>It was now Lavender's turn to stare, but he good-naturedly accepted the
+duties of referee, and eventually a brooch was selected and paid for,
+the price being six shillings. Then they drove on again.</p>
+
+<p>"Sheila will know nothing of this&mdash;it will be a great surprise for her,"
+said Mackenzie, almost to himself, as he opened the white box and saw
+the glaring piece of jewelry lying on the white cotton.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, sir!" cried Frank Lavender, "you don't mean to say you
+bought that brooch for your daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" said the King of Borva in great surprise.</p>
+
+<p>The young man perceived his mistake,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> grew considerably confused, and
+only said, "Well, I should have thought that&mdash;that some small piece of
+gold jewelry, now, would be better suited for a young lady."</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie smiled shrewdly: "I had something to go on. It wass Sheila
+herself was in Stornoway three weeks ago, and she wass wanting to buy a
+brooch for a young girl who has come down to us from Suainabost and is
+very useful in the kitchen, and it wass a brooch just like this one she
+gave to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to a kitchen-maid," said the young man meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"But Mairi is Sheila's cousin," said Mackenzie with continued surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Lavender does not understand Highland ways yet, Mr. Mackenzie," said
+Ingram from behind. "You know we in the South have different fashions.
+Our servants are nearly always strangers to us&mdash;not relations and
+companions."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hef peen in London myself," said Mackenzie in somewhat of an
+injured tone; and then he added with a touch of self-satisfaction, "and
+I hef been in Paris, too."</p>
+
+<p>"And Miss Sheila, has she been in London?" asked Lavender, feigning
+ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"She has never been out of the Lewis."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you think the education of a young lady should include some
+little experience of traveling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sheila, she will be educated quite enough; and is she going to London
+or Paris without me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You might take her."</p>
+
+<p>"I have too much to do on the island now, and Sheila has much to do. I
+do not think she will ever see any of those places, and she will not be
+much the worse."</p>
+
+<p>Two young men off for their holidays, a brilliant day shining all around
+them, the sweet air of the sea and the moorland blowing about
+them,&mdash;this little party that now drove away from Stornoway ought to
+have been in the best of spirits. And indeed the young fellow who sat
+beside Mackenzie was bent on pleasing his host by praising everything he
+saw. He praised the gallant little horses that whirled them past the
+plantations and out into the open country. He praised the rich black
+peat that was visible in long lines and heaps, where the townspeople
+were slowly eating into the moorland. Then all these traces of
+occupation were left behind, and the travelers were alone in the
+untenanted heart of the island, where the only sounds audible were the
+humming of insects in the sunlight and the falling of the streams. Away
+in the south the mountains were of a silvery and transparent blue.
+Nearer at hand the rich reds and browns of the moorland softened into a
+tender and beautiful green on nearing the margins of the lakes; and
+these stretches of water were now as fair and bright as the sky above
+them, and were scarcely ruffled by the moorfowl moving out from the
+green rushes. Still nearer at hand great masses of white rock lay
+embedded in the soft soil; and what could have harmonized better with
+the rough and silver-gray surface than the patches of rose-red
+bell-heather that grew up in their clefts or hung over their summits?
+The various and beautiful colors around seemed to tingle with light and
+warmth as the clear sun shone on them and the keen mountain-air blew
+over them; and the King of Borva was so far thawed by the enthusiasm of
+his companions that he regarded the far country with a pleased smile, as
+if the enchanted land belonged to him, and as if the wonderful colors
+and the exhilarating air and the sweet perfumes were of his own
+creation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mackenzie did not know much about tints and hues, but he believed
+what he heard; and it was perhaps, after all, not very surprising that a
+gentleman from London, who had skill of pictures and other delicate
+matters, should find strange marvels in a common stretch of moor, with a
+few lakes here and there, and some lines of mountain only good for
+sheilings. It was not for him to check the raptures of his guest. He
+began to be friendly with the young man, and could not help regarding
+him as a more cheerful companion than his neighbor Ingram, who would sit
+by your side for an hour at a time without breaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> the monotony of the
+horses' tramp with a single remark. He had formed a poor opinion of
+Lavender's physique from the first glimpse he had of his white fingers
+and girl-like complexion; but surely a man who had such a vast amount of
+good spirits and such a rapidity of utterance must have something
+corresponding to these qualities in substantial bone and muscle. There
+was something pleasing and ingenuous too about this flow of talk. Men
+who had arrived at years of wisdom, and knew how to study and use their
+fellows, were not to be led into these betrayals of their secret
+opinions; but for a young man&mdash;what could be more pleasing than to see
+him lay open his soul to the observant eye of a master of men? Mackenzie
+began to take a great fancy to young Lavender.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Lavender, with a fine color mantling in his cheeks as the
+wind caught them on a higher portion of the road, "I had heard of Lewis
+as a most bleak and desolate island, flat moorland and lake, without a
+hill to be seen. And everywhere I see hills, and yonder are great
+mountains which I hope to get nearer before we leave."</p>
+
+<p>"We have mountains in this island," remarked Mackenzie slowly as he kept
+his eye on his companion&mdash;"we have mountains in this island sixteen
+thousand feet high."</p>
+
+<p>Lavender looked sufficiently astonished, and the old man was pleased. He
+paused for a moment or two, and said, "But this iss the way of it: you
+will see that the middle of the mountains it has all been washed away by
+the weather, and you will only have the sides now dipping one way and
+the other at each side o' the island. But it iss a very clever man in
+Stornoway will tell me that you can make out what wass the height o' the
+mountain, by watching the dipping of the rocks on each side; and it iss
+an older country, this island, than any you will know of; and there were
+the mountains sixteen thousand feet high long before all this country
+and all Scotland and England wass covered with ice."</p>
+
+<p>The young man was very desirous to show his interest in this matter, but
+did not know very well how. At last he ventured to ask whether there
+were any fossils in the blocks of gneiss that were scattered over the
+moorland.</p>
+
+<p>"Fossils?" said Mackenzie. "Oh, I will not care much about such small
+things. If you will ask Sheila, she will tell you all about it, and
+about the small things she finds growing on the hills. That iss not of
+much consequence to me; but I will tell you what is the best thing the
+island grows: it is good girls and strong men&mdash;men that can go to the
+fishing, and come back to plough the fields and cut the peat and build
+the houses, and leave the women to look after the fields and the gardens
+when they go back again to the fisheries. But it is the old people&mdash;they
+are ferry cunning, and they will not put their money in the bank at
+Stornoway, but will hide it away about the house, and then they will
+come to Sheila and ask for money to put a pane of glass in their house.
+And she has promised that to every one who will make a window in the
+wall of their house; and she is very simple with them, and does not
+understand the old people that tell lies. But when I hear of it, I say
+nothing to Sheila&mdash;she will know nothing about it&mdash;but I hef a watch put
+upon the people; and it wass only yesterday I will take back two
+shillings she gave to an old woman of Borvabost that told many lies.
+What does a young thing know of these old people? She will know nothing
+at all, and it iss better for some one else to look after them, but not
+to speak one word of it to her."</p>
+
+<p>"It must require great astuteness to manage a primitive people like
+that," said young Lavender with an air of conviction; and the old man
+eagerly and proudly assented, and went on to tell of the manifold
+diplomatic arts he used in reigning over his small kingdom, and how his
+subjects lived in blissful ignorance that this controlling power was
+being exercised.</p>
+
+<p>They were startled by an exclamation from Ingram, who called to
+Mackenzie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> to pull up the horses just as they were passing over a small
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Look there, Lavender! did you ever see salmon jumping like that? Look
+at the size of them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it iss nothing," said Mackenzie, driving on again. "Where you will
+see the salmon, it is in the narrows of Loch Roag, where they come into
+the rivers, and the tide is low. Then you will see them jumping; and if
+the water wass too low for a long time, they will die in hundreds and
+hundreds."</p>
+
+<p>"But what makes them jump before they get into the rivers?"</p>
+
+<p>Old Mackenzie smiled a crafty smile, as if he had found out all the ways
+and the secrets of the salmon: "They will jump to look about them&mdash;that
+iss all."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think a salmon can see where he is going?"</p>
+
+<p>"And maybe you will explain this to me, then," said the king with a
+compassionate air: "how iss it the salmon will try to jump over some
+stones in the river, and he will see he cannot go over them; but does he
+fall straight down on the stones and kill himself? Neffer&mdash;no, neffer.
+He will get back to the pool he left by turning in the air: that is what
+I hef seen hundreds of times myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they must be able to fly as well as see in the air."</p>
+
+<p>"You may say about it what you will please, but that is what I
+know&mdash;that is what I know ferry well myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And I should think there were not many people in the country who knew
+more about salmon than you," said Frank Lavender. "And I hear, too, that
+your daughter is a great fisher."</p>
+
+<p>But this was a blunder. The old man frowned: "Who will tell you such
+nonsense? Sheila has gone out many times with Duncan, and he will put a
+rod in her hands: yes, and she will have caught a fish or two, but it
+iss not a story to tell. My daughter she will have plenty to do about
+the house, without any of such nonsense. You will expect to find us all
+savages, with such stories of nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure not," said Lavender warmly. "I have been very much struck
+with the civilization of the island, so far as I have seen it; and I
+can assure you I have always heard of Miss Sheila as a singularly
+accomplished young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Mackenzie somewhat mollified, "Sheila has been well brought
+up: she is not a fisherman's lass, running about wild and catching the
+salmon. I cannot listen to such nonsense, and it iss Duncan will tell
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I can assure you, no. I have never spoken to Duncan. The fact is,
+Ingram mentioned that your daughter had caught a salmon or two&mdash;as a
+tribute to her skill, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know it wass Duncan," said Mackenzie, with a deeper frown coming
+over his face. "I will hef some means taken to stop Duncan from talking
+such nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>The young man, knowing nothing as yet of the child-like obedience paid
+to the King of Borva by his islanders, thought to himself, "Well, you
+are a very strong and self-willed old gentleman, but if I were you I
+should not meddle much with that tall keeper with the eagle beak and the
+gray eyes. I should not like to be a stag, and know that that fellow was
+watching me somewhere with a rifle in his hands."</p>
+
+<p>At length they came upon the brow of the hill overlooking
+Garra-na-hina<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a> and the panorama of the western lochs and mountains.
+Down there on the side of the hill was the small inn, with its little
+patch of garden; then a few moist meadows leading over to the estuary of
+the Black River; and beyond that an illimitable prospect of heathy
+undulations rising into the mighty peaks of Cracabhal, Mealasabhal and
+Suainabhal. Then on the right, leading away out to the as yet invisible
+Atlantic, lay the blue plain of Loch Roag, with a margin of yellow
+seaweed along its shores, where the rocks revealed themselves at low
+water, and with a multitude of large, variegated and verdant islands
+which hid from sight the still greater Borva beyond.</p>
+
+<p>They stopped to have a glass of whisky at Garra-na-hina, and Mackenzie
+got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> down from the wagonette and went into the inn.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is a Highland loch!" said Lavender, turning to his companion
+from the South. "It is an enchanted sea: you could fancy yourself in the
+Pacific, if only there were some palm trees on the shores of the
+islands. No wonder you took for an Eve any sort of woman you met in such
+a paradise!"</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to be thinking a good deal about that young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who would not wish to make the acquaintance of a pretty girl,
+especially when you have plenty of time on your hands, and nothing to do
+but pay her little attentions, you know, and so forth, as being the
+daughter of your host?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no particular answer to such an incoherent question, but
+Ingram did not seem so well pleased as he had been with the prospect of
+introducing his friend to the young Highland girl whose praises he had
+been reciting for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>However, they drank their whisky, drove on to Callernish, and here
+paused for a minute or two to show the stranger a series of large
+so-called Druidical stones which occupy a small station overlooking the
+loch. Could anything have been more impressive than the sight of these
+solitary gray pillars placed on this bit of table-land high over the
+sea, and telling of a race that vanished ages ago, and left the
+surrounding plains and hills and shores a wild and untenanted solitude?
+But, somehow Lavender did not care to remain among those voiceless
+monuments of a forgotten past. He said he would come and sketch them
+some other day. He praised the picture all around, and then came back to
+the stretch of ruffled blue water lying at the base of the hill. "Where
+was Mr. Mackenzie's boat?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>They left the high plain, with its <i>Tuir-sachan</i>,<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a> or Stones of
+Mourning, and descended to the side of the loch. In a few moments,
+Duncan, who had been disposing of the horses and the wagonette,
+overtook them, got ready the boat, and presently they were cutting
+asunder the bright blue plain of summer waves.</p>
+
+<p>At last they were nearing the King of Borva's home, and Ingram began to
+study the appearance of the neighboring shores, as if he would pick out
+some feature of the island he remembered. The white foam hissed down the
+side of the open boat. The sun burned hot on the brown sail. Far away
+over the shining plain the salmon were leaping into the air, catching a
+quick glint of silver on their scales before they splashed again into
+the water. Half a dozen sea-pyes, with their beautiful black and white
+plumage and scarlet beaks and feet, flew screaming out from the rocks
+and swept in rapid circles above the boat. A long flight of solan geese
+could just be seen slowly sailing along the western horizon. As the
+small craft got out toward the sea the breeze freshened slightly, and
+she lay over somewhat as the brine-laden winds caught her and tingled on
+the cheeks of her passengers from the softer South. Finally, as the
+great channel widened out, and the various smaller islands disappeared
+behind, Ingram touched his companion on the shoulder, looked over to a
+long and low line of rock and hill, and said, "Borva!"</p>
+
+<p>And this was Borva!&mdash;nothing visible but an indefinite extent of rocky
+shore, with here and there a bay of white sand, and over that a
+table-land of green pasture, apparently uninhabited.</p>
+
+<p>"There are not many people on the island," said Lavender, who seemed
+rather disappointed with the look of the place.</p>
+
+<p>"There are three hundred," said Mackenzie with the air of one who had
+experienced the difficulties of ruling over three hundred islanders.</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely spoken when his attention was called by Duncan to some
+object that the gillie had been regarding for some minutes back.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it iss Miss Sheila," said Duncan.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of flush of expectation passed over Lavender's face, and he
+sprang to his feet. Ingram laughed. Did the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> foolish youth fancy he
+could see half as far as this gray-eyed, eagle-faced man, who had now
+sunk into his accustomed seat by the mast? There was nothing visible to
+ordinary eyes but a speck of a boat, with a single sail up, which was
+apparently, in the distance, running in for Borva.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, ay," said Mackenzie in a vexed way, "it is Sheila, true enough;
+and what will she do out in the boat at this time, when she wass to be
+at home to receive the gentlemen that hef come all the way from London?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Mackenzie," said Lavender, "I should be sorry to think that
+our coming had interfered in any way whatever with your daughter's
+amusements."</p>
+
+<p>"Amusements!" said the old man with a look of surprise. "It iss not
+amusements she will go for: that is no amusements for her. It is for
+some teffle of a purpose she will go, when it iss the house that is the
+proper place for her, with friends coming from so great a journey."</p>
+
+<p>Presently it became clear that a race between the two boats was
+inevitable, both of them making for the same point. Mackenzie would take
+no notice of such a thing, but there was a grave smile on Duncan's face,
+and something like a look of pride in his keen eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"There iss no one, not one," he said, almost to himself, "will take her
+in better than Miss Sheila&mdash;not one in ta island. And it wass me tat
+learnt her every bit o' ta steering about Borva."</p>
+
+<p>The strangers could now make out that in the other boat there were two
+girls&mdash;one seated in the stern, the other by the mast. Ingram took out
+his handkerchief and waved it: a similar token of recognition was
+floated out from the other vessel. But Mackenzie's boat presently had
+the better of the wind, and slowly drew on ahead, until, when her
+passengers landed on the rude stone quay, they found the other and
+smaller craft still some little distance off.</p>
+
+<p>Lavender paid little attention to his luggage. He let Duncan do with it
+what he liked. He was watching the small boat coming in, and getting a
+little impatient, and perhaps a little nervous, in waiting for a
+glimpse of the young lady in the stern. He could vaguely make out that
+she had an abundance of dark hair looped up; that she wore a small straw
+hat with a short white feather in it; and that, for the rest, she seemed
+to be habited entirely in some rough and close-fitting costume of dark
+blue. Or was there a glimmer of a band of rose-red round her neck?</p>
+
+<p>The small boat was cleverly run alongside the jetty: Duncan caught her
+bow and held her fast, and Miss Sheila, with a heavy string of lythe in
+her right hand, stepped, laughing and blushing, on to the quay. Ingram
+was there. She dropped the fish on the stones and took his two hands in
+hers, and without uttering a word looked a glad welcome into his face.
+It was a face capable of saying unwritten things&mdash;fine and delicate in
+form, and yet full of an abundance of health and good spirits that shone
+in the deep gray-blue eyes. Lavender's first emotion was one of surprise
+that he should have heard this handsome, well-knit and proud-featured
+girl called "little Sheila," and spoken of in a pretty and caressing
+way. He thought there was something almost majestic in her figure, in
+the poising of her head and the outline of her face. But presently he
+began to perceive some singular suggestions of sensitiveness and
+meekness in the low, sweet brow, in the short and exquisitely-curved
+upper lip, and in the look of the tender blue eyes, which had long black
+eyelashes to give them a peculiar and indefinable charm. All this he
+noticed hastily and timidly as he heard Ingram, who still held the
+girl's hands in his, saying, "Well, Sheila, and you haven't quite
+forgotten me? And you are grown such a woman now: why, I mustn't call
+you Sheila any more, I think. But let me introduce to you my friend, who
+has come all the way from London to see all the wonderful things of
+Borva."</p>
+
+<p>If there was any embarrassment or blushing during that simple ceremony,
+it was not on the side of the Highland girl, for she frankly shook hands
+with him, and said, "And are you very well?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The second impression which Lavender gathered from her was, that nowhere
+in the world was English pronounced so beautifully as in the island of
+Lewis. The gentle intonation with which she spoke was so tender and
+touching&mdash;the slight dwelling on the <i>e</i> in "very" and "well" seemed to
+have such a sound of sincerity about it, that he could have fancied he
+had been a friend of hers for a lifetime. And if she said "ferry" for
+"very," what then? It was the most beautiful English he had ever heard.</p>
+
+<p>The party now moved off toward the shore, above the long white curve of
+which Mackenzie's house was visible. The old man himself led the way,
+and had, by his silence, apparently not quite forgiven his daughter for
+having been absent from home when his guests arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Sheila," said Ingram, "tell me all about yourself: what have you
+been doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"This morning?" said the girl, walking beside him with her hand laid on
+his arm, and with the happiest look on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"This morning, to begin with. Did you catch those fish yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, there was no time for that. And it was Mairi and I saw a boat
+coming in, and it was going to Mevaig, but we overtook it, and got some
+of the fish, and we thought we should be back before you came. However,
+it is no matter, since you are here. And you have been very well? And
+did you see any difference in Stornoway when you came over?"</p>
+
+<p>Lavender began to think that Styornoway sounded ever so much more
+pleasant than mere Stornoway.</p>
+
+<p>"We had not a minute to wait in Stornoway. But tell me, Sheila, all
+about Borva and yourself: that is better than Stornoway. How are your
+schools getting on? And have you bribed or frightened all the children
+into giving up Gaelic yet? How is John the Piper? and does the Free
+Church minister still complain of him? And have you caught any more
+wild-ducks and tamed them? And are there any gray geese up at
+Loch-an-Eilean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is too many at once," said Sheila, laughing. "But I am afraid
+your friend will find Borva very lonely and dull. There is not much
+there at all, for all the lads are away at the Caithness fishing. And
+you should have shown him all about Stornoway, and taken him up to the
+castle and the beautiful gardens."</p>
+
+<p>"He has seen all sorts of castles, Sheila, and all sorts of gardens in
+every part of the world. He has seen everything to be seen in the great
+cities and countries that are only names to you. He has traveled in
+France, Italy, Russia, Germany, and seen all the big towns that you hear
+of in history."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I should like to do if I were a man," said Sheila; "and
+many and many a time I wish I had been a man, that I could go to the
+fishing and work in the fields, and then, when I had enough money, go
+away and see other countries and strange people."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you were a man, I should not have come all the way from London
+to see you," said Ingram, patting the hand that lay on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"But if I were a man," said the girl, quite frankly, "I should go up to
+London to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Mackenzie smiled grimly, and said, "Sheila, it is nonsense you will
+talk."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Sheila turned round and said, "Oh, we have forgotten poor
+Mairi. Mairi, why did you not leave the fish for Duncan? They are too
+heavy for you. I will carry them to the house?"</p>
+
+<p>But Lavender sprang forward, and insisted on taking possession of the
+thick cord with its considerable weight of lythe.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my cousin Mairi," said Sheila; and forthwith the young,
+fair-faced, timid-eyed girl shook hands with the gentlemen, and said,
+just as if she had been watching Sheila, "And are you ferry well, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>For the rest of the way up to the house Lavender walked by the side of
+Sheila; and as the string of lythe had formed the introduction to their
+talk, it ran pretty much upon natural history. In about five minutes she
+had told him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> more about sea-birds and fish than ever he knew in his
+life; and she wound up this information by offering to take him out on
+the following morning, that he might himself catch some lythe.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am a wretchedly bad fisherman, Miss Mackenzie," he said. "It is
+some years since I tried to throw a fly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is no need for good fishing when you catch lythe," she said
+earnestly. "You will see Mr. Ingram catch them. It is only a big white
+fly you will need, and a long line, and when the fish takes the fly,
+down he goes&mdash;a great depth. Then when you have got him and he is
+killed, you must cut the sides, as you see that is done, and string him
+to a rope and trail him behind the boat all the way home. If you do not
+do that, it iss no use at all to eat. But if you like the
+salmon-fishing, my papa will teach you that. There is no one," she added
+proudly, "can catch salmon like my papa&mdash;not even Duncan&mdash;and the
+gentlemen who come in the autumn to Stornoway, they are quite surprised
+when my papa goes to fish with them."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he is a good shot too," said the young man, amused to notice
+the proud way in which the girl spoke of her father.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he can shoot anything. He will shoot a seal if he comes up but for
+one moment above the water; and all the birds&mdash;he will get you all the
+birds if you will wish to take any away with you. We have no deer on the
+island&mdash;it is too small for that&mdash;but in the Lewis and in Harris there
+are many, many thousands of deer, and my papa has many invitations when
+the gentlemen come up in the autumn; and if you look in the game-book of
+the lodges, you will see there is not any one who has shot so many deer
+as my papa&mdash;not any one whatever."</p>
+
+<p>At length they reached the building of dark and rude stone-work, with
+its red coping, its spacious porch and its small enclosure of garden in
+front. Lavender praised the flowers in this enclosure: he guessed they
+were Sheila's particular care; but in truth there was nothing rare or
+delicate among the plants growing in this exposed situation. There were
+a few clusters of large yellow pansies, a calceolaria or two, plenty of
+wallflower, some clove-pinks, and an abundance of sweet-william in all
+manner of colors. But the chief beauty of the small garden was a
+magnificent tree-fuchsia which grew in front of one of the windows, and
+was covered with deep rose-red flowers set amid its small and deep-green
+leaves. For the rest, a bit of honeysuckle was trained up one side of
+the porch, and at the small wooden gate there were two bushes of
+sweetbrier that filled the warm air with fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Just before entering the house the two strangers turned to have a look
+at the spacious landscape lying all around in the perfect calm of a
+summer day. And lo! before them there was but a blinding mass of white
+that glared upon their eyes, and caused them to see the far sea and the
+shores and the hills as but faint shadows appearing through a silvery
+haze. A thin fleece of cloud lay across the sun, but the light was
+nevertheless so intense that the objects near at hand&mdash;a disused boat
+lying bottom upward, an immense anchor of foreign make, and some such
+things&mdash;seemed to be as black as night as they lay on the warm road. But
+when the eye got beyond the house and the garden, and the rough hillside
+leading down to Loch Roag, all the world appeared to be a blaze of calm,
+silent and luminous heat. Suainabhal and its brother mountains were only
+as clouds in the south. Along the western horizon the portion of the
+Atlantic that could be seen lay like a silent lake under a white sky. To
+get any touch of color, they had to turn eastward, and there the
+sunlight faintly fell on the green shores of Borva, on the narrows of
+Loch Roag, and the loose red sail of a solitary smack that was slowly
+coming round a headland. They could hear the sound of the long oars. A
+pale line of shadow lay in the wake of the boat, but otherwise the black
+hull and the red sail seemed to be coming through a plain of molten
+silver. When the young men turned to go into the house the hall seemed a
+cavern of impenetrable darkness, and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> was a flush of crimson light
+dancing before their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>When Ingram had had his room pointed out, Lavender followed him into it
+and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, Ingram," he said, with a singular light of enthusiasm on his
+handsome face, "what a beautiful voice that girl has! I have never heard
+anything so soft and musical in all my life; and then when she smiles
+what perfect teeth she has! And then, you know, there is an appearance,
+a style, a grace about her figure&mdash;But, I say, do you seriously mean to
+tell me you are not in love with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am not," said the other impatiently, as he was busily
+engaged with his portmanteau.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let me give you a word of information," said the younger man, with
+an air of profound shrewdness: "she is in love with you."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram rose with some little touch of vexation on his face: "Look here,
+Lavender: I am going to talk to you seriously. I wish you wouldn't fancy
+that every one is in that condition of simmering love-making you delight
+in. You never were in love, I believe&mdash;I doubt whether you ever will
+be&mdash;but you are always fancying yourself in love, and writing very
+pretty verses about it, and painting very pretty heads. I like the
+verses and the paintings well enough, however they are come by; but
+don't mislead yourself into believing that you know anything whatever of
+a real and serious passion by having engaged in all sorts of imaginative
+and semi-poetical dreams. It is a much more serious thing than that,
+mind you, when it comes to a man. And, for Heaven's sake, don't
+attribute any of that sort of sentimental make-believe to either Sheila
+Mackenzie or myself. We are not romantic folks. We have no imaginative
+gifts whatever, but we are very glad, you know, to be attentive and
+grateful to those who have. The fact is, I don't think it quite fair&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us suppose I am lectured enough" said the other, somewhat stiffly.
+"I suppose I am as good a judge of the character of a woman as most
+other men, although I am no great student, and have no hard and dried
+rules of philosophy at my fingers' ends. Perhaps, however, one may learn
+more by mixing with other people and going out into the world than by
+sitting in a room with a dozen of books, and persuading one's self that
+men and women are to be studied in that fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"Go away, you stupid boy, and unpack your portmanteau, and don't quarrel
+with me," said Ingram, putting out on the table some things he had
+brought for Sheila; "and if you are friendly with Sheila and treat her
+like a human being, instead of trying to put a lot of romance and
+sentiment about her, she will teach you more than you could learn in a
+hundred drawing-rooms in a thousand years."</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<h4>THERE WAS A KING IN THULE.</h4>
+
+<p>He never took that advice. He had already transformed Sheila into a
+heroine during the half hour of their stroll from the beach and around
+the house. Not that he fell in love with her at first sight, or anything
+even approaching to that. He merely made her the central figure of a
+little speculative romance, as he had made many another woman before. Of
+course, in these little fanciful dramas, written along the sky-line, as
+it were, of his life, he invariably pictured himself as the fitting
+companion of the fair creature he saw there. Who but himself could
+understand the sentiment of her eyes, and teach her little love-ways,
+and express unbounded admiration of her? More than one practical young
+woman, indeed, in certain circles of London society, had been informed
+by her friends that Mr. Lavender was dreadfully in love with her; and
+had been much surprised, after this confirmation of her suspicions, that
+he sought no means of bringing the affair to a reasonable and sensible
+issue. He did not even amuse himself by flirting with her, as men would
+willingly do who could not be charged with any serious purpose whatever.
+His devotion was more mysterious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and remote. A rumor would get about
+that Mr. Lavender had finished another of those charming heads in
+pastel, which, at a distance, reminded one of Greuze, and that Lady
+So-and-so, who had bought it forthwith, had declared that it was the
+image of this young lady who was partly puzzled and partly vexed by the
+incomprehensible conduct of her reputed admirer. It was the fashion, in
+these social circles, to buy those heads of Lavender when he chose to
+paint them. He had achieved a great reputation by them. The good people
+liked to have a genius in their own set whom they had discovered, and
+who was only to be appreciated by persons of exceptional taste and
+penetration. Lavender, the uninitiated were assured, was a most
+cultivated and brilliant young man. He had composed some charming songs.
+He had written, from time to time, some quite delightful little poems,
+over which fair eyes had grown full and liquid. Who had not heard of the
+face that he painted for a certain young lady whom every one expected
+him to marry?</p>
+
+<p>The young man escaped a great deal of the ordinary consequences of this
+petting, but not all. He was at bottom really true-hearted, frank and
+generous&mdash;generous even to an extreme&mdash;but he had acquired a habit of
+producing striking impressions which dogged and perverted his every
+action and speech. He disliked losing a few shilling at billiards, but
+he did not mind losing a few pounds: the latter was good for a story.
+Had he possessed any money to invest in shares, he would have been
+irritated by small rises or small falls; but he would have been vain of
+a big rise, and he would have regarded a big fall with equanimity, as
+placing him in a dramatic light. The exaggerations produced by this
+habit of his fostered strange delusions in the minds of people who did
+not know him very well: and sometimes the practical results, in the way
+of expected charities or what not, amazed him. He could not understand
+why people should have made such mistakes, and resented them as an
+injustice.</p>
+
+<p>And as they sat at dinner on this still, brilliant evening in summer, it
+was Sheila's turn to be clothed in the garments of romance. Her father,
+with his great gray beard and heavy brow, became the King of Thule,
+living in this solitary house overlooking the sea, and having memories
+of a dead sweetheart. His daughter, the princess, had the glamour of a
+thousand legends dwelling in her beautiful eyes; and when she walked by
+the shores of the Atlantic, that were now getting yellow under the
+sunset, what strange and unutterable thoughts must appear in the wonder
+of her face! He remembered no more how he had pulled to pieces Ingram's
+praises of Sheila. What had become of the "ordinary young lady, who
+would be a little interesting, if a little stupid, before marriage, and
+after marriage sink into the dull, domestic hind"? There could be no
+doubt that Sheila often sat silent for a considerable time, with her
+eyes fixed on her father's face when he spoke, or turning to look at
+some other speaker. Had Lavender now been asked if this silence had not
+a trifle of dullness in it, he would have replied by asking if there
+were dullness in the stillness and the silence of the sea. He grew to
+regard her calm and thoughtful look as a sort of spell; and if you had
+asked him what Sheila was like, he would have answered by saying that
+there was moonlight in her face.</p>
+
+<p>The room, too, in which this mystic princess sat was strange and
+wonderful. There were no doors visible, for the four walls were
+throughout covered by a paper of foreign manufacture, representing
+spacious Tyrolese landscapes and incidents of the chase. When Lavender
+had first entered this chamber his eye had been shocked by these coarse
+and prominent pictures&mdash;by the green rivers, the blue lakes and the
+snow-peaks that rose above certain ruddy chalets. Here a chamois was
+stumbling down a ravine, and there an operatic peasant, some eight or
+ten inches in actual length, was pointing a gun. The large figures, the
+coarse colors, the impossible scenes&mdash;all this looked, at first sight,
+to be in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> worst possible taste; and Lavender was convinced that
+Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable
+decoration. But somehow, when he turned to the line of ocean that was
+visible from the window, to the lonely shores of the island and the
+monotony of colors showing in the still picture without, he began to
+fancy that there might be a craving up in these latitudes for some
+presentation, however rude and glaring, of the richer and more
+variegated life of the South. The figures and mountains on the walls
+became less prominent. He saw no incongruity in a whole chalet giving
+way, and allowing Duncan, who waited at table, to bring forth from this
+aperture to the kitchen a steaming dish of salmon, while he spoke some
+words in Gaelic to the servants at the other end of the tube. He even
+forgot to be surprised at the appearance of little Mairi, with whom he
+had shaken hands a little while before, coming round the table with
+potatoes. He did not, as a rule, shake hands with servant-maids, but was
+not this fair-haired, wistful-eyed girl some relative, friend or
+companion of Shiela's? and had he not already begun to lose all
+perception of the incongruous or the absurd in the strange pervading
+charm with which Sheila's presence filled the place?</p>
+
+<p>He suddenly found Mackenzie's deep-set eyes fixed upon him, and became
+aware that the old man had been mysteriously announcing to Ingram that
+there were more political movements abroad than people fancied. Sheila
+sat still and listened to her father as he expounded these things, and
+showed that, although at a distance, he could perceive the signs of the
+times. Was it not incumbent, moreover, on a man who had to look after a
+number of poor and simple folks, that he should be on the alert?</p>
+
+<p>"It iss not bekass you will live in London you will know everything,"
+said the King of Borva, with a certain significance in his tone. "There
+iss many things a man does not see at his feet that another man will see
+who is a good way off. The International, now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced furtively at Lavender.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;I hef been told there will be agents going out every day to all
+parts of this country and other countries, and they will hef plenty of
+money to live like gentlemen, and get among the poor people, and fill
+their minds with foolish nonsense about a revolution. Oh yes, I hear
+about it all, and there iss many members of Parliament in it; and it iss
+every day they will get farther and farther, all working hard, though no
+one sees them who does not understand to be on the watch."</p>
+
+<p>Here again the young man received a quiet, scrutinizing glance; and it
+began to dawn upon him, to his infinite astonishment, that Mackenzie
+half suspected him of being an emissary of the International. In the
+case of any other man he would have laughed and paid no heed, but how
+could he permit Sheila's father to regard him with any such suspicion?</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, sir," he said boldly, "that those Internationalists
+are a lot of incorrigible idiots?"</p>
+
+<p>As if a shrewd observer of men and motives were to be deceived by such a
+protest! Mackenzie regarded him with increased suspicion, although he
+endeavored to conceal the fact that he was watching the young man from
+time to time. Lavender saw all the favor he had won during the day
+disappearing, and moodily wondered when he should have a chance of
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner they went outside and sat down on a bench in the garden,
+and the men lit their cigars. It was a cool and pleasant evening. The
+sun had gone down in red fire behind the Atlantic, and there was still
+left a rich glow of crimson in the west, while overhead, in the pale
+yellow of the sky, some filmy clouds of rose-color lay motionless. How
+calm was the sea out there, and the whiter stretch of water coming into
+Loch Roag! The cool air of the twilight was scented with sweetbrier. The
+wash of the ripples along the coast could be heard in the stillness. It
+was a time for lovers to sit by the sea, careless of the future or the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>But why would this old man keep prating of his political prophecies?
+Lavender asked of himself. Sheila had spoken scarcely a word all the
+evening;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> and of what interest could it be to her to listen to theories
+of revolution and the dangers besetting our hot-headed youth? She merely
+stood by the side of her father, with her hand on his shoulder. He
+noticed, however, that she paid particular attention whenever Ingram
+spoke; and he wondered whether she perceived that Ingram was partly
+humoring the old man, at the same time that he was pleasing himself with
+a series of monologues, interrupted only by his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true enough, Mr. Mackenzie," Ingram would say, lying back with
+his two hands clasped round his knee, as usual: "you've got to be
+careful of the opinions that are spread abroad, even in Borva, where not
+much danger is to be expected. But I don't suppose our young men are
+more destructive in their notions than young men always have been. You
+know every young fellow starts in life by knocking down all the beliefs
+he finds before him, and then he spends the rest of his life in setting
+them up again. It is only after some years he gets to know that all the
+wisdom of the world lies in the old commonplaces he once despised. He
+finds that the old familiar ways are the best, and he sinks into being a
+commonplace person, with much satisfaction to himself. My friend
+Lavender, now, is continually charging me with being commonplace. I
+admit the charge. I have drifted back into all the old ways and
+beliefs&mdash;about religion and marriage and patriotism, and what not&mdash;that
+ten years ago I should have treated with ridicule."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose the process continues?" suggested Lavender, with some evidence
+of pique.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose it does," continued Ingram carelessly. "Ten years hence I may
+be proud to become a vestryman, and have the most anxious care about the
+administration of the rates. I shall be looking after the drainage of
+houses and the treatment of paupers and the management of Sunday
+schools&mdash;But all this is an invasion of your province, Sheila," he
+suddenly added, looking up to her.</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed, and said, "Then I have been commonplace from the
+beginning?"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram was about to make all manner of protests and apologies, when
+Mackenzie said, "Sheila, it wass time you will go in-doors, if you have
+nothing about your head. Go in and sing a song to us, and we will listen
+to you; and not a sad song, but a good merry song. These teffles of the
+fishermen, it iss always drownings they will sing about from the morning
+till the night."</p>
+
+<p>Was Sheila about to sing in this clear, strange twilight, while they sat
+there and watched the yellow moon come up behind the southern hills?
+Lavender had heard so much of her singing of those fishermen's ballads
+that he could think of nothing more to add to the enchantment of this
+wonderful night. But he was disappointed. The girl put her hand on her
+father's head, and reminded him that she had had her big greyhound Bras
+imprisoned all the afternoon, that she had to go down to Borvabost with
+a message for some people who were leaving by the boat in the morning,
+and would the gentlemen therefore excuse her not singing to them for
+this one evening?</p>
+
+<p>"But you cannot go away down to Borvabost by yourself, Sheila," said
+Ingram. "It will be dark before you return."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be darker than this all the night through," said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"But I hope you will let us go with you," said Lavender, rather
+anxiously; and she assented with a gracious smile, and went to fetch the
+great deerhound that was her constant companion.</p>
+
+<p>And lo! he found himself walking with a princess in this wonder-land
+through that magic twilight that prevails in northern latitudes.
+Mackenzie and Ingram had gone on in front. The large deerhound, after
+regarding him attentively, had gone to its mistress's side, and remained
+closely there. Lavender could scarcely believe his ears that the girl
+was talking to him lightly and frankly, as though she had known him for
+years, and was telling him of all her troubles with the folks at
+Borvabost, and of those poor people whom she was now going to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> see. No
+sooner did he understand that they were emigrants, and that they were
+going to Glasgow before leaving finally for America, than in quite an
+honest and enthusiastic fashion he began to bewail the sad fate of such
+poor wretches as have to forsake their native land, and to accuse the
+aristocracy of the country of every act of selfishness, and to charge
+the government with a shameful indifference. But Sheila brought him up
+suddenly. In the gentlest fashion she told him what she knew of these
+poor people, and how emigration affected them, and so forth, until he
+was ready to curse the hour in which he had blundered into taking a side
+on a question about which he cared nothing and knew less.</p>
+
+<p>"But some other time," continued Sheila, "I will tell you what we do
+here, and I will show you a great many letters I have from friends of
+mine who have gone to Greenock and to New York and Canada. Oh yes, it is
+very bad for the old people: they never get reconciled to the
+change&mdash;never; but it is very good for the young people, and they are
+glad of it, and are much better off than they were here. You will see
+how proud they are of the better clothes they have, and of good food,
+and of money to put in the bank; and how could they get that in the
+Highlands, where the land is so poor that a small piece is of no use,
+and they have not money to rent the large sheep-farms? It is very bad to
+have people go away&mdash;it is very hand on many of them&mdash;but what can they
+do? The piece of ground that was very good for the one family, that is
+expected to keep the daughters when they marry, and the sons when they
+marry, and then there are five or six families to live on it. And hard
+work&mdash;that will not do much with very bad land and the bad weather we
+have here. The people get downhearted when they have their crops spoiled
+by the long rain, and they cannot get their peats dried; and very often
+the fishing turns out bad, and they have no money at all to carry on the
+farm. But now you will see Borvabost."</p>
+
+<p>Lavender had to confess that this wonderful princess would persist in
+talking in a very matter-of-fact way. All the afternoon, while he was
+weaving a luminous web of imagination around her, she was continually
+cutting it asunder, and stepping forth as an authority on the growing of
+some wretched plants or the means by which rain was to be excluded from
+window-sills. And now, in this strange twilight, when she ought to have
+been singing of the cruelties of the sea or listening to half-forgotten
+legends of mermaids, she was engaged with the petty fortunes of men and
+girls who were pleased to find themselves prospering in the Glasgow
+police-force or educating themselves in a milliner's shop in Edinburgh.
+She did not appear conscious that she was a princess. Indeed, she seemed
+to have no consciousness of herself at all, and was altogether occupied
+in giving him information about practical subjects in which he professed
+a profound interest he certainly did not feel.</p>
+
+<p>But even Sheila, when they had reached the loftiest part of their route,
+and could see beneath them the island and the water surrounding it, was
+struck by the exceeding beauty of the twilight; and as for her
+companion, he remembered it many a time thereafter as if it were a dream
+of the sea. Before them lay the Atlantic&mdash;a pale line of blue, still,
+silent and remote. Overhead, the sky was of a clear, pale gold, with
+heavy masses of violet cloud stretched across from north to south, and
+thickening as they got near to the horizon. Down at their feet, near the
+shore, a dusky line of huts and houses was scarcely visible; and over
+these lay a pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move in the still
+air. Then they saw the bay into which the White Water runs, and they
+could trace the yellow glimmer of the river stretching into the island
+through a level valley of bog and morass. Far away, toward the east, lay
+the bulk of the island&mdash;dark green undulations of moorland and pasture;
+and there, in the darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the
+clear light of the sky, and was gleaming westward like a star. But all
+this was as nothing to the glory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> that began to shine in the south-east,
+where the sky was of a pale violet over the peaks of Mealasabhal and
+Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dome, rose the golden crescent of
+the moon, warm in color, as though it still retained the last rays of
+the sunset. A line of quivering gold fell across Loch Roag, and touched
+the black hull and spars of the boat in which Sheila had been sailing in
+the morning. That bay down there, with its white sands and massive
+rocks, its still expanse of water, and its background of mountain-peaks
+palely colored by the yellow moonlight, seemed really a home for a magic
+princess who was shut off from all the world. But here, in front of
+them, was another sort of sea and another sort of life&mdash;a small
+fishing-village hidden under a cloud of pale peat-smoke, and fronting
+the great waters of the Atlantic itself, which lay under a gloom of
+violet clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Sheila with a smile, "we have not always weather as good as
+this in the island. Will you not sit on the bench over there with Mr.
+Ingram, and wait until my papa and I come up from the village again?"</p>
+
+<p>"May not I go down with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. The dogs would learn you were a stranger, and there would be a
+great deal of noise, and there will be many of the poor people asleep."</p>
+
+<p>So Sheila had her way; and she and her father went down the hillside
+into the gloom of the village, while Lavender went to join his friend
+Ingram, who was sitting on the wooden bench, silently smoking a clay
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I have never seen the like of this," said Lavender in his
+impetuous way: "it is worth going a thousand miles to see. Such colors
+and such clearness! and then the splendid outlines of those mountains,
+and the grand sweep of this loch! This is the sort of thing that drives
+me to despair, and might make one vow never to touch a brush again. And
+Sheila says it will be like this all the night through."</p>
+
+<p>He was unaware that he had spoken of her in a very familiar way, but
+Ingram noticed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Ingram," he said suddenly, "that is the first girl I have ever seen
+whom I should like to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is true. I have never seen any one like her&mdash;so handsome, so
+gentle, and yet so very frank in setting you right. And then she is so
+sensible, you know, and not too proud to have much interest in all sorts
+of common affairs&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was a smile in Ingram's face, and his companion stopped in some
+vexation: "You are not a very sympathetic confidant."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I know the story of old. You have told it me about twenty
+women, and it is always the same. I tell you, you don't know anything at
+all about Sheila Mackenzie yet: perhaps you never may. I suppose you
+will make a heroine of her, and fall in love with her for a fortnight,
+and then go back to London and get cured by listening to the witticisms
+of Mrs. Lorraine."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I didn't mean to offend you. Some day, no doubt, you will love a
+woman for what she is, not for what you fancy her to be; but that is a
+piece of good-fortune that seldom occurs to a youth of your age. To
+marry in a dream, and wake up six months afterward&mdash;that is the fate of
+ingenuous twenty-three. But don't you let Mackenzie hear you talk of
+marrying Sheila, or he'll have some of his fishermen throw you into Loch
+Roag."</p>
+
+<p>"There, now, that <i>is</i> one point I can't understand about her," said
+Lavender eagerly. "How can a girl of her shrewdness and good sense have
+such a belief in that humbugging old idiot of a father of hers, who
+fancies me a political emissary, and plays small tricks to look like
+diplomacy? It is always 'My papa can do this,' and 'My papa can do
+that,' and 'There is no one at all like my papa.' And she is continually
+fondling him, and giving little demonstrations of affection, of which he
+takes no more notice than if he were an Arctic bear."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram looked up with some surprise in his face. "You don't mean to say,
+Lavender," he said slowly, "that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> are already jealous of the girl's
+own father?"</p>
+
+<p>He could not answer, for at this moment Sheila, her father and the big
+greyhound came up the hill. And again it was Lavender's good fortune to
+walk with Sheila across the moorland path they had traversed some little
+time before. And now the moon was still higher in the heavens, and the
+yellow lane of light that crossed the violet waters of Loch Roag
+quivered in a deeper gold. The night-air was scented with the Dutch
+clover growing down by the shore. They could hear the curlew whistling
+and the plover calling amid that monotonous plash of the waves that
+murmured all around the coast. When they returned to the house the
+darker waters of the Atlantic and the purple clouds of the west were
+shut out from sight, and before them there was only the liquid plain of
+Loch Roag, with its pathway of yellow fire, and far away on the other
+side the shoulders and peaks of the southern mountains, that had grown
+gray and clear and sharp in the beautiful twilight. And this was
+Sheila's home.</p>
+
+<h4>[To be continued.]</h4>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> "My black-haired girl, my pretty girl, my black-haired
+girl, don't leave me." <i>Nighean dubh</i> is pronounced <i>Nyean du</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> Literally, <i>Gearaidh-na'h-Aimhne</i>&mdash;"the cutting of the
+river."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> Another name given by the islanders to these stones is
+<i>Fir-bhreige</i>, "false men." Both names, False Men and the Mourners,
+should be of some interest to antiquarians, for they will suit pretty
+nearly any theory.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="WINTER" id="WINTER"></a>WINTER.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The golden sunshine has fled away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clouds o'erhead hang heavy and gray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world is woefully sad to-day;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And I am thinking of you, dear, you.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cold clay hides from the rain and dew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tenderest heart that the world e'er knew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Why should I think of you when the rain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiteth so sharply the window-pane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wild winds round the old house 'plain?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You were so sweet and sunny and bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ever your presence brought life and light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I recall you in storm and night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When snow-shrouds hang on the corpse-cold trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When sharp frosts sting and the north winds freeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What has your mem'ry to do with these?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O fair lost love! O love that is dead!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pleasant days from my life are fled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rosy morns and the sunsets red.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The light has faded from out my life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leaving the clouds and the stormy strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the keen sharp cold that cuts like a knife.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The days and the months, how slow they glide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gray-robed and cold-breathed and frozen-eyed!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The summer died for me when you died.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O world of woe and of want and pain!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O heaven of clouds and storm and rain!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When shall I find my summer again?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lucy H. Hooper</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="NEW_WASHINGTON" id="NEW_WASHINGTON"></a>NEW WASHINGTON.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A stranger visiting the national capital should begin by leaving it. He
+should cross the Anacostia River at the Navy-yard, climb the heights
+behind the village of Uniontown, be careful to find exactly the right
+path, and seat himself on the parapet of old Fort Stanton. His feeling
+of fatigue will be overcome by one of astonishment that the scene should
+contain so much that is beautiful in nature, so much that is exceedingly
+novel if not very good in art, and so much that has the deepest
+historical interest. From the blue hills of Prince George's county in
+Maryland winds the Anacostia, whose waters at his feet float all but the
+very largest vessels of our navy, while but six miles above they float
+nothing larger than a Bladensburg goose. To the left flows the Potomac,
+a mile wide. Between the rivers lies Washington. A vast amphitheatre,
+its green or gray walls cloven only by the two rivers, appears to
+surround the city. "Amphitheatre" is the word, for within the great
+circle, proportioned to it in size and magnificence, dwarfing all other
+objects, stands the veritable arena where our public gladiators and wild
+beasts hold their combats. This of course is the Capitol, whose white
+dome rises like a blossoming lily from the dark expanse below.</p>
+
+<p>Along these summits are the remains of a chain of earthworks that
+completely enveloped the capital. They are all overgrown by verdure, and
+are fast disappearing; but whenever the site of one is relieved against
+the clear sky a grassy embrasure or a bit of rampart may yet be seen
+from a distance. Here stretched</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The watchfires of a hundred circling camps,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>whose light is in the "Battle-Hymn of the Republic," for it was a
+personal view of them, and of these altars built in the evening dews and
+damps, which gave form to the great lyric. Here in a few years, when
+more of the business-men of Washington shall have learned how to do
+business, or when her social development shall have detained the
+cultured and wealthy who now come and go, will be found a circle of
+beautiful villas and nearly all the luxuries of summer life.</p>
+
+<p>Below the high bank opposite, where the Congressional Cemetery skirts
+the city, where some famous men are actually buried, and where Congress
+places cenotaphs that look like long rows of antiquated beehives for all
+who die while members of that body, a line of black dots crosses the
+Anacostia like the corks of a fisherman's seine. They are the piles that
+upheld a bridge in the summer of 1814. On the hills to the right the
+little army of five thousand redcoats made a feint toward this bridge,
+and caused the Americans to burn it. Away to the left, across the
+Potomac, stretches Long Bridge, which was also fired the next night by
+the British and by the fleeing inhabitants of the captured town.</p>
+
+<p>The eight miles of Virginia shore visible from Washington contain really
+but three objects. Two or three dark chimneys and steeples and a few
+misty outlines are all one needs to see of Alexandria, which is six
+miles down the river, and appears about as ancient as its Egyptian
+namesake. Nearer, the monotony is broken by the tower of Fairfax
+Seminary; nearer still, among the oaks of Arlington, by the mansion of
+Custis-Lee, imposing, pillared and cream-colored; or it was the last in
+the days when cream had a color.</p>
+
+<p>Descending from the old fort, the stranger should go at once to
+Georgetown and climb up into the little burying-ground of Holyrood. The
+view thence will give him all that was excluded from the other. He will
+now be prepared to examine Washington in detail, and as this is not a
+guide-book he shall go his way alone. But the "gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> reader" is
+requested to linger an hour longer upon the natural walls and look down
+with me on the dark city.</p>
+
+<p>Below is such a growth of beautiful and strange that we can understand
+it only by remembering that we look down on all the United States. Into
+that problem of squares and circles and triangles wise men from the East
+plunge and see Beacon street; wise men from the West plunge and see
+Poker Flat; and from the highest ground we can find we will try to see
+the whole of Washington. We cannot distinguish a friend's house from an
+enemy's. The lines are mingled and the colors blended by our distance.
+Individuals are lost to sight entirely. What would be such a conflict of
+sounds down there that we should never be certain of what we heard, is
+now so faint a hum that it does not disturb us or affect our speech. We
+have risen into a better atmosphere, and find that some things which
+were ugly have grown good and graceful.</p>
+
+<p>To allude to all the noted and novel things in this complicated scene
+would be to fill a book, and enough pre-Raphaelites are already browsing
+there. Giving due attention to particulars in their places, we must yet
+give effects in sweeping strokes, steering as best we can between the
+Scylla of didactic details and the Charybdis of glittering generalities.</p>
+
+<p>The candid observer wonders not that Washington is so far below what it
+ought to be, but that it exists as a city at all. It has suffered
+calamities that would have extinguished any other place. The vitality
+that could survive them would seem capable of surviving anything. Other
+towns have had to contend against natural disadvantages, but they have
+had the aid of citizens who knew what they wanted, and who used the
+public money and energy and brains for the public good. But here has
+been the novel sight of a city having every natural advantage, yet
+compelled to fight its own citizens for life; to see the public money
+and energy and brains&mdash;what little there were&mdash;used to kill not only the
+town, but the people in it; to support men of weight in the community
+who really did not want it polluted by trade or manufactures or any
+such vulgar things.</p>
+
+<p>The Capitol, which now, like the Irishman's shanty, has the front door
+on the back side, was made to face the east because in that direction
+lay as fine a site as ever a town possessed, and there the city was to
+be built. To the westward the ground was such that men are living who as
+boys waded for reed-birds and caught catfish where now is the centre of
+business. The necessity of transforming this tract in the very beginning
+of trade retarded the general growth incalculably. The owners of the
+good ground didn't want to do anything themselves, and were too greedy
+to let anybody else. The Executive Mansion, a mile to the westward,
+attracted other public buildings about it; the people who had to support
+themselves bought real estate in the swamps; those who lived without
+business of their own followed them of course; and the fine plateau
+prepared by Nature has been touched only so far as improvement has been
+compelled by forces radiating from the other side of the Capitol. The
+life and trade that tend to crystallize around one centre are still much
+dissipated by the policy that ruined Capitol Hill; but as this can no
+longer endanger the general prosperity, it is now more a blessing than a
+calamity. It makes sure and speedy the reclamation of the waste places,
+while the improvement of all the good ones must take place at last. The
+owners of the barren sites which yet break the continuity of blocks in
+good localities can sit still and "hold on" if they please, but they
+must expect to see the "worthless" tracts&mdash;Swampoodle, Murder Bay and
+Hell's Bottom&mdash;fill with life and rise in value faster than their own.</p>
+
+<p>Another calamity, which has grown with the city instead of being
+outgrown, is the changes that have been permitted to take place in the
+Potomac. Long Bridge, instead of being built so as to permit an
+uninterrupted flow of the stream, was composed for a great distance of
+an earthen road&mdash;a dam&mdash;arresting half the water of the river. This
+temporarily benefited the Georgetown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> channel, no doubt, by forcing all
+the water into it. But a marsh is rising in the middle of the stream,
+creeping rapidly up to the Washington wharves, threatening the health of
+the city, and so crippling its commerce that an expensive remedy must be
+speedily applied. There is some difference of opinion as to the
+comparative injuries and benefits arising from the bridge, but the fact
+remains clear that this important river has suffered needless injury to
+a degree that is deplorable. In the past, however, the fault has been as
+much with the city as with Congress. That body cannot improve rivers
+where there is no commerce to be benefited, nor give new facilities to
+towns that do not make the most of what they have. But the gazer from
+Fort Stanton&mdash;glancing beyond the Navy-yard and the shot-battered
+monitors that lie there, across Greenleaf's Point and the Arsenal, made
+tragic by the death of many a British soldier and of the Lincoln-Seward
+assassins half a century later&mdash;overlooking the wharves of Washington
+and dimly descrying the masts at Georgetown, now sees a traffic that has
+earned a consideration it has not received. A few weeks ago we paused in
+an after-dinner walk, down there on the Arsenal boulevard, to watch the
+troubles of a crew and the labors of a tug which were altogether too
+suggestive. A senseless fellow of a captain came sailing up the river
+from a foreign port, his vessel laden with a valuable cargo, and
+attempted a landing at Washington. He knew no better than to suppose
+that the capital of this nation, on one of our finest rivers, possessing
+all its days a navy-yard, would permit itself to be approached by a
+merchantman. He stuck in the mud within a hundred yards of the wharf.
+There he spent three or four days in anxiety and chagrin, and finally
+got a tug to pull him back into navigable water. He swung about, made
+haste down the river and took his vessel to another port, uttering some
+natural oaths, no doubt, and wondering what kind of country he had got
+into. A small vessel going from Washington to Georgetown heads for
+Chesapeake Bay, passes up around the island of filth accumulated by the
+bridge, and sails four miles in ascending two.</p>
+
+<p>Bordering the broad belt of grass and trees which we see sweeping
+gracefully through the heart of the city from the Capitol to the
+President's, where rise the towers of the Smithsonian, the roof of the
+Agricultural Bureau, and all that is built of the Washington Monument,
+there stretched another calamity, which existed some fifty years, which
+was at last extinguished during 1872 at an immense cost to the city,
+which was one of the "improvements" of the past, which once employed the
+public money and energy&mdash;we cannot repeat brains&mdash;to kill not only the
+town, but the people in it. This was the great pestiferous open sewer
+that stole into a filthy existence under the name of the Washington
+Canal.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a greater misfortune than any of these. Slavery need only
+be mentioned. More of Washington's present defects are attributable to
+it in one way or another than to all else. Yet under this crowning
+calamity, added to the others, the undulating plain before us, which
+appears so sluggish from the height to which we have climbed, has within
+seventy-five years passed from a wilderness into a city of one hundred
+and eleven thousand inhabitants. Although the general government kept
+the breath of life in it during a period when perhaps nothing else could
+have done so, yet such a growth, under all the circumstances, cannot be
+accounted for without recognizing an inherent strength that has never
+been acknowledged by the multitudes who come to "see" Washington. It
+proves that she may have a significance of her own. The visitor should
+remember that New York and Boston are enjoying, and Philadelphia has
+nearly reached, the third century of their lives.</p>
+
+<p>This scene from the heights is a fascinating one for the day-dreamer.
+Everything is in harmony with the past character of the capital.
+Everything is misty, vast, uncertain, grand and ill-defined. One does
+not see clearly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> boundaries&mdash;the city and country are one. Every
+street we trace in the distance, almost every building, almost every
+foot of ground, has gathered something of tradition from the lives of
+the statesmen, generals, jurists, diplomates who have lived and wrought
+here for three-quarters of a century. The visions that passed before the
+eyes of Washington as he stood on the Observatory Hill there, a
+subaltern under Braddock, contemplating the wilderness about him and
+imagining the future; the pictures that filled the fancy of the
+intractable L'Enfant as he defined the great mall and thought of the
+gardens between the Tuileries and the Chamber of Deputies; Andrew J.
+Downing giving his last days to such an arrangement of the trees and
+grass as would be worthy of the design; President Madison and his
+cabinet, with a useless little army at their heels, flying in despair
+from yonder bloody hillside; Admiral Cockburn derisively riding an old
+mare up Pennsylvania Avenue; the burning Capitol and White House
+lighting up the gloom of that hideous night; Stephen Decatur shot to
+death just round the bend of the Anacostia there; the conflicts by
+tongue and pen that have again and again gone on here till the whole
+country swayed; Gamaliel Bailey silencing a mob at his door; the
+histories that lie buried under the thirty thousand headboards that
+gleam like an army of ghosts among the trees of Arlington; Abraham
+Lincoln gasping his life away in that little Tenth street house; his
+assassin dashing in darkness across the bridge at our feet, over which
+we have just passed, and spurring almost into the shadow of the parapet
+where we stand;&mdash;all these things, and a hundred more as tempting to the
+dreamer, come crowding on the mind at every glance. Yet who stops to
+call Washington a romantic city? When the White House, just visible from
+those tree-tops, shall have ceased, as it soon must do, to be the home
+of the chief magistrate, what future magician shall summon down those
+cheerless stairways the ghostly procession of dead Presidents, as our
+first literary necromancer marshaled the shades of royal governors
+across the threshold of the Province House? We turn from all this to
+speak of the practical affairs of to-day which await us in the city,
+with a reluctance that delays our feet as we descend.</p>
+
+<p>A phrase applied, we believe, by Dickens, when writing of the avenues
+here many years ago, and illustrating his remarkable faculty of telling
+the most truth when he exaggerated most, rises so constantly to mind
+when one considers what Washington has been, that we are tempted to make
+it a kind of text. He described the great houseless thoroughfares as
+"beginning nowhere and ending in nothing." That phrase sets old
+Washington before the reader as the literal truth could never do.</p>
+
+<p>But the reader must now remember that old Washington is going&mdash;that a
+new Washington has come. The city is no longer disposed to make
+apologies, wait for generosity or beg for patronage. It is disposed&mdash;and
+has proved its disposition&mdash;to take off its seedy coat and go to work in
+its own way. Its waiting is now only for enlightened judgment from
+others, and its begging is only for justice.</p>
+
+<p>The change of local government in 1871, when Congress gave the District
+of Columbia a legislature and a representative, was the particular event
+from which may be dated such innovations as make necessary a revision of
+the popular opinion. The visitors who come this month, and who have not
+been here since the last inauguration, will have to learn the capital
+anew. While the establishment of the territorial government and the
+organization of its outgrowths&mdash;particularly the Board of Public
+Works&mdash;mark the new departure by physical changes, all will understand
+that it was the first gun at Charleston, startling the stagnant pool
+here, which set in motion the successive waves that carried the city up
+to this departure. The public affairs of the city became practically
+unmanageable. A joint-stock company could not organize for the most
+trifling business without depending on the slow and uncertain action of
+Congress for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> charter. A few active men, who saw that the old order of
+things could be endured no longer, met quietly in 1870 at the house of
+an honored citizen on K street to see what further they could see. They
+continued to meet at each other's homes, lightening their interchange of
+thought for the public by such an extension of hospitality as drew into
+their circle many influential Congressmen, and converted them to the new
+idea that there was something in Washington besides the national
+service. The result was, that the city government was abolished; a
+legislative assembly was created; a governor was appointed by the
+President of the United States; and a delegate was sent to Congress,
+instead of a crowd of lobbyists, to represent the District of Columbia.
+This delegate is always to be a member of the committee on the District,
+Congress has the constitutional right of exclusive legislation, and the
+Assembly cannot impose taxes of any consequence without especial
+authority from the people.</p>
+
+<p>The wisdom of the change was doubted at first by many real friends of
+progress, who thought they saw grave legal complications arising; who
+knew what popular government in a large city, with no restriction of the
+election franchise, might mean; who at times thought of New York with a
+shudder; who knew that as Washington was the centre of everything
+political, it was necessarily the centre of political corruption; that
+her alleys were crowded with ignorant freedmen; that her ward
+politicians were as unscrupulous and skillful as the same class in other
+cities; and who thought it safer to trust the average Congressman than
+the small political trader and his chattels. But Congress sits as a
+perpetual court of appeal on the spot where its members can judge from
+personal knowledge, ready to overrule any act of the Assembly that can
+be shown to be a bad one; and one house of the Assembly, with the
+governor and executive boards, is appointed by the President. The
+election of the larger house and of the delegate to Congress is
+sufficient security to the people, and Washington is to-day in most
+respects the best-governed city of its size in the United States. The
+powers of the little Assembly are very limited: the governor can veto
+its measures; Congress can override them both; the President can veto
+the acts of Congress; two-thirds of Congress can still surmount this
+veto. This complicated system may retard good measures, but it is not
+probable that any very bad one can long survive under it.</p>
+
+<p>The Baron Haussmann here is the Board of Public Works. It is grading,
+filling, paving, planting, fencing, parking, and making the
+thoroughfares what they would never have become by ordinary means. At
+last we see what Washingtonians never saw before&mdash;vast public operations
+having a consistent and tangible shape; obeying a purpose that can be
+understood, defined and executed; beginning somewhere and ending in
+something. Within its sphere this Board has despotic power: it would be
+worthless with any less. It dares to strike without fear or favor, and
+hit whoever stands in the way: the way would never be cleared if it did
+not. It makes bitter enemies by its inexorable exactions: the public
+cannot be served except at the expense of the individual. A strong party
+has fought it by injunctions and failed: the same persons will no doubt
+continue to fight, while the Board will no doubt continue to vindicate
+itself and go on with its work. It made some mistakes which wrought
+hardships to individuals who wished it well, but such were the
+difficulties before it at the outset that it might have made greater
+mistakes and still been forgiven. It is to be hoped that it will have
+enemies enough to watch it closely, criticise it sharply and hold it to
+a strict accountability; but should it have enough to really interfere
+with its present course, then we shall have to add one more, and a great
+one, to the list of Washington's calamities. The new blood that created
+it is able to sustain it, while the air it has done so much to purify is
+already laden with blessings from the lips of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of public improvements an equitable adjustment of
+relations&mdash;always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> heretofore uncertain and unsatisfactory&mdash;between the
+District and the general government still remains to be accomplished,
+and at this writing is impatiently awaited by the city. Congress should
+explicitly define for itself a course that can be depended upon, so that
+the city can go ahead and know what it ought to do. The general
+government, promising great things which began nowhere and ended in
+nothing, laid out the city for its own use, and gave more space to
+streets and ornamental grounds than to buildings. The plan was wise and
+good, but did not appear so until the liberal citizens, unable to endure
+the disgrace of such a city as the nation thrust upon them, taxing
+themselves six millions of dollars for street purposes, went generously
+to work, with their own money improved the immense fronts of the
+government property, which pays no taxes, evolved something tangible out
+of the old cloudy-magnificent plan, and gave the country, so far as they
+could, a decent capital.</p>
+
+<p>There is another important matter for adjustment. The city has left
+nothing undone that money and labor could do to make the public schools
+the best in the United States. It is doubtful whether there has ever
+before been seen in any city or State an expenditure for public schools
+so generous, under all the circumstances, as that of Washington within
+the past few years. The best school-houses here are the best the
+Prussian commissioners, who lately came to inspect them, had ever seen.
+A very great number of the pupils educated by the city are the children
+of government servants whose homes are in the States, and who pay no
+considerable taxes here. Every State and Territory has received a
+liberal allotment of public land for school-purposes except the District
+of Columbia, which has probably done more for schools without the
+endowment, considering the time and taxable property at command, than
+any State has ever done with it.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the city has received many benefits from the general
+government, but the considerable ones have been indirect. The excellent
+water-works, for instance, costing about three millions of dollars, were
+built with the nation's money and by army engineers, because the nation
+needed them, and show how entirely identical are the interests of both
+parties. Their respective duties, while they need defining anew, are so
+wedded that there is no room for serious difference. It is really a
+matter for congratulation that the general government held back and did
+not take more of the improvements into its own hands. The city's present
+claims are by so much stronger: the two governments can work in harmony,
+and any efforts that are now made will not be thrown away. Had Congress
+acted sooner we might have had more Washington canals, and Washington
+and Georgetown street-cars, and similar Congressional "improvements,"
+beginning nowhere but in ignorance or selfishness, and ending in nothing
+but nuisances. The improvement of the interiors of the national grounds,
+however, by the general government, is now keeping pace with that of the
+exteriors by the city as nearly as is possible under present
+legislation, and their superintendence has become at last an office of
+some practical consequence to Washington. The general government owns
+about one-half of the property in the District, and during seventy years
+has expended for the improvement of the thoroughfares a little over one
+million of dollars. The city during the same time has expended for the
+same purpose nearly fourteen millions of dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The old Washington idea seems to have consisted in finishing a city
+before it was begun. To use an architectural figure, the capital of the
+column has been well designed and partly carved, but the base is not yet
+laid. Those characteristics which the builders thought would be a sure
+foundation of greatness have proved insufficient in the past and will
+prove so in the future. The infusion of new blood has done wonders
+within ten years, but there is still needed the admixture of another
+current. Wealth and ideality&mdash;supposed to be possessed by all who are
+attracted hither&mdash;do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> raise a man above material wants or fail to
+multiply them. When Washington shall give her utmost attention to
+satisfying the vulgarest common wants of common people, she will have
+taken her first real step toward&mdash;anything. She has had enough of fog
+and moonshine. She wants for a proper period the most unmitigated
+materiality&mdash;not as an end, of course, but as the first means of making
+something else possible. She will be made our republican Paris, if made
+so at all, by the aid of the shops, the wonderful skilled labor, the
+economical living of poor people, on which rested, as well as on higher
+things, the splendors of the imperial Paris. The average American lady
+goes to that city to buy "things," as well as to visit the Louvre, and
+while the late emperor endeavored to make his capital the social centre
+of the world, he did not scorn to make it a fashionable market and
+foster a Palace of Industry.</p>
+
+<p>That Washington is an admirable place for manufactures is clear to all
+who have sought the facts. Whether she will ever become a manufacturing
+city is a question that must be settled by the citizens themselves.
+Whoever doubts that the growth of skilled labor here will be an
+indispensable condition of the higher growth that is sought fails to
+understand modern civilization, and should not have survived the days
+when things began nowhere and ended in nothing. The old thoroughbred
+Washingtonian will never invest a dollar to build a railroad or a modern
+workshop, of course. He does not know anything about them, and does not
+want to. His idea of business is to get real estate, and "hold on" till
+somebody else makes it valuable. Gentlemen of new Washington, Hercules
+will stand idle till he sees your own shoulders at the wheel. When you
+shall have the faithful, enlightened manual labor of New England, you
+may expect such flowers as Yale and Harvard and the &aelig;sthetic fruits they
+enfold. You may be unable to see any intimate connection between such
+labor and such culture, but nevertheless it exists. Old Washington could
+not see it, and now you are compelled to bury old Washington out of
+sight. It is time for Mohammed to start if he wants his mountain.</p>
+
+<p>There are a few business-men in Washington who are as enlightened, as
+liberal, as trustworthy as any in the country; and abundant is their
+reward. There are a few who deal only in good wares, who always sell
+them at a reasonable profit, who believe that any kind of deception is a
+blunder, who manage their establishments with economy, who are aware
+that the more money they permit their customers to make the more they
+will ultimately make themselves,&mdash;who, in short, have learned the
+principles of business and have the character to stand by them. But so
+many fall short&mdash;often through ignorance&mdash;in one or more of these
+respects that the average business character is low. If a lady wishes to
+spend twenty-five dollars in shopping, she can generally travel eighty
+miles&mdash;to Baltimore and back&mdash;and save enough of that small sum to pay
+her for going, besides being sure of finding what she wants. The
+Washington shopkeepers may really think that they cannot help this. They
+<i>must</i> help it, or consent to be soon shoved aside by those who can.
+Instead of being troubled by the sight of his best customers going as
+far as New York whenever they have anything of consequence to buy, the
+genuine old Washington retailer seems to take a calm satisfaction in
+putting such fastidious buyers to so much inconvenience. Here it is
+rather the exception than the rule for the man of small business to do
+just what he promises to do. He don't know the value of another's time,
+is used to disappointments himself, and somehow or other will manage to
+disarrange your most careful calculations. Unable himself to meet an
+engagement thoroughly and exactly, he seems determined that nobody else
+shall.</p>
+
+<p>But you cease censuring the average business-man when you begin to deal
+with the average Washington mechanic. There are some good ones, but they
+are absorbed by the large and experienced dealers in labor, and are
+beyond the knowledge or reach of ordinary mortals.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> You want a little
+job done at your house; you call on a "boss;" certainly&mdash;it shall be
+done instantly; a workman will be sent in a few minutes; two days
+afterward he comes and "looks at it;" the next day he returns with
+another man and they both look at it; another day passes, and an
+apprentice-boy, with a lame negro to wait on him, comes and makes your
+home hideous by pretending to begin; when they have given your family a
+proper amount of information, and torn things to pieces sufficiently,
+they go away. Two more days elapse, and you go again to the boss; he is
+surprised&mdash;he supposed the work had been done, for he had given
+"orders;" at the end of a week perhaps the job that should have consumed
+two hours of honest work is done; then, if you pay the boss no more than
+the work actually cost him, you know that the sum is twice as much as it
+should have cost him. As a generalization this is a true picture of
+Washington labor.</p>
+
+<p>These things are trifles? They are just what determine the permanent
+residence of multitudes of valuable citizens. They are the trifles that
+in the aggregate make the difference between civilization and barbarism.
+For every broken promise or slighted piece of work the city suffers.
+Civilized people like to live smoothly and comfortably. Washington,
+thinking of something besides hotels and boarding-houses, and the people
+of leisure who come once a year to fill them for a few weeks, must
+provide for a permanent population of moderately poor people. The word
+of a merchant or banker is supposed to be as good as his bond; his
+occupation is gone when this ceases to be the case; his standing is
+reported in a business guide-book, and dealers with him act accordingly.
+Cannot some of the methods that enforce integrity in higher branches of
+business be more systematically applied by dealers in manual labor? The
+men who are reforming the city's outward appearance have an opportunity
+of doing something in this direction. A Northern mechanic who reverences
+his conscience, and makes the most of his opportunities to gain
+knowledge and character, cannot emigrate to a better place than
+Washington.</p>
+
+<p>Yet when one looks into the past he thinks that perhaps labor is
+improving as fast as other things here. He is inclined to admire it when
+he remembers how much worse it used to be. John Adams was the first
+occupant of the White House, and this is what his wife said in a private
+letter just after moving into it: "To assist us in this great castle,
+and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one
+single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you
+can obtain. If they put me up bells, and let me have wood enough to keep
+fires, I design to be pleased. But, surrounded with forests, can you
+believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to
+cut and cart it?" Seventy-two years ago the President's wife could get
+nothing but promises toward hanging a servant's bell! Washington was in
+a forest and couldn't furnish wood enough to warm the presidential
+hearthstone! The forests and people of that day are gone, but those
+eternal "promises" remain.</p>
+
+<p>The recent building in Washington has been mostly that of dwellings,
+which the ordinary visitor, following the old routes between the Capitol
+and West End, will hardly notice, although they have covered many acres
+within the past four years. Since the Board of Public Works has
+settled&mdash;some would say unsettled&mdash;the foundations of things, we may
+expect to see the heavy building for business purposes, which must soon
+take place even if there be no change in the character of business,
+conducted with a little system and uniformity. The streets themselves
+have been made so fine that it will require some moral courage&mdash;a thing
+for which Washington is not noted&mdash;to disfigure them by the hideous
+jumbles that accorded so well with the old ways. Such splendid
+monstrosities as the Treasury&mdash;as a whole, the worst public building in
+the city, although good in parts, so situated that one must go down
+stairs from Pennsylvania Avenue to get into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> the grand north entrance,
+without proportion, completeness or consistency&mdash;it will be impossible
+even for Congress to build.</p>
+
+<p>Both the physical and moral appearance of Washington truly represent the
+civilization of the nation as a whole. Such is, after all, the only
+description that can be given; and so vast and heterogeneous is the
+nation that to many readers this will be no description at all. A farmer
+measures out a half bushel of wheat, "levels" it, and tells you truly
+that the only difference is in quantity between that in the measure and
+that which it came from in the bin: take the architecture, the people,
+the ideas of all these States, shake them together in a half bushel,
+"level" them, and you can truly say you have Washington. Any noteworthy
+character of its own is still lacking. So long as it is nothing more
+than a representative of the whole country, it will in many desirable
+things fall far below a dozen other cities, whose independence has
+enabled them to reach excellences toward which Washington vaguely
+aspires. As the capital it will not be the best and most enlightened,
+but will be the "average" city. As an independent one its destiny is now
+in its own hands, and facilities are thrown at its feet such as no other
+can hope to have. There have been good excuses for its shortcomings in
+the past. There are none now. Two years ago, Washington was a great boy
+who had grown up under the repressive guardianship of his Uncle Samuel;
+he had not been permitted to do anything for himself; he had no money
+except the few pennies which the old gentleman had grudgingly given him
+for menial services. He needed higher culture and better business habits
+than his uncle exhibited: the leading-strings were at last sufficiently
+cut. His guardian, still exercising a good deal of authority, has
+permitted him to go into business for himself; given him the use of the
+greatest library in the United States; surrounded him with specimens of
+architecture invaluable as models or as warnings; opened to him the
+treasures of the Smithsonian, the Coast Survey and a unique medical
+museum; given him the benefit of a fine observatory; placed at his
+disposal magnificent pleasure-grounds; set before him a botanical
+garden; put up for him some good statues and pictures; shown him models
+of all the mechanical inventions of the age; sent to him as associates
+the first statesmen, jurists and captains of the land; and brought to
+his door as guests the polished representatives of all civilized
+countries. What more does the boy want that he may make a man of
+himself? Nothing but a will of his own so to develop his natural
+resources that he can use these things. Will he now refuse to earn the
+necessary money to enjoy them, and insist on living, in shabby-genteel
+ignorance and idleness, exclusively on the pocket-money of the visitors
+to whom his uncle introduces him? If he does, shall we call him a
+gentleman?</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chauncey Hickox.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IN_THE_CRADLE_OF_THE_DEEP" id="IN_THE_CRADLE_OF_THE_DEEP"></a>IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Forty days in the great desert of the sea&mdash;forty nights camped under
+cloud-canopies, with the salt dust of the waves drifting over us.
+Sometimes a Bedouin sail flashed for an hour upon the distant horizon,
+and then faded, and we were alone again; sometimes the west, at sunset,
+looked like a city with towers, and we bore down upon its glorified
+walls, seeking a haven; but a cold gray morning dispelled the illusion,
+and our hearts sank back into the illimitable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> sea, breathing a long
+prayer for deliverance.</p>
+
+<p>Once a green oasis blossomed before us&mdash;a garden in perfect bloom,
+girded about with creaming waves; within its coral cincture pendulous
+boughs trailed in the glassy waters; from its hidden bowers spiced airs
+stole down upon us; above all, the triumphant palm trees clashed their
+melodious branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet from the very gates
+of this paradise a changeful current swept us onward, and the happy isle
+was buried in night and distance.</p>
+
+<p>In many volumes of adventure I had read of sea-perils: I was at last to
+learn the full interpretation of their picturesque horrors. Our little
+craft, the Petrel, had buffeted the boisterous waves for five long
+weeks. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was edible: we feared neither
+famine nor thirst. Moreover, in spite of the continuous gale that swept
+us out of our reckoning, the Petrel was in excellent condition, and, as
+far as we could judge, we had no reason to lose confidence in her. It
+was the gray weather that tried our patience and found us wanting: it
+was the unparalleled pitching of the ninety-ton schooner that
+disheartened and almost dismembered us. And then it was wasting time at
+sea. Why were we not long before at our journey's end? Why were we not
+threading the vales of some savage island, reaping our rich reward of
+ferns and shells and gorgeous butterflies?</p>
+
+<p>The sea rang its monotonous changes&mdash;fair weather and foul, days like
+death itself, followed by days full of the revelations of new life, but
+mostly days of deadly dullness, when the sea was as unpoetical as an
+eternity of cold suds and blueing.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot always understand the logical fitness of things, or, rather, I
+am at a loss to know why some things in life are so unfit and illogical.
+Of course, in our darkest hour, when we were gathered in the confines of
+the Petrel's diminutive cabin, it was our duty to sing psalms of hope
+and cheer, but we didn't. It was a time for mutual encouragement: very
+few of us were self-sustaining, and what was to be gained by our
+combining in unanimous despair?</p>
+
+<p>Our weatherbeaten skipper&mdash;a thing of clay that seemed utterly incapable
+of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial contortion
+consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw&mdash;the skipper sat,
+with barometer in hand, eyeing the fatal finger that pointed to our
+doom: the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table, glad
+of any object to fix our eyes upon, and nervously awaiting a turn in the
+state of affairs, that was then by no means encouraging.</p>
+
+<p>I happened to remember that there were some sealed letters to be read
+from time to time on the passage out, and it occurred to me that one of
+the times had come, perhaps the last and only, wherein I might break the
+remaining seals and receive a sort of parting visit from the fortunate
+friends on shore.</p>
+
+<p>I opened one letter and read these prophetic lines: "Dear child"&mdash;she
+was twice my age, and privileged to make a pet of me&mdash;"Dear child, I
+have a presentiment that we shall never meet again in the flesh."</p>
+
+<p>That dear girl's intuition came near to being the death of me: I
+shuddered where I sat, overcome with remorse. It was enough that I had
+turned my back on her and sought consolation in the treacherous bosom of
+the ocean&mdash;that, having failed to find the spring of immortal life in
+human affection, I had packed up and emigrated, content to fly the ills
+I had in search of change; but that parting shot, below the water-line
+as it were, that was more than I asked for, and something more than I
+could stomach. I returned to watch with the rest of our little company,
+who clung about the table with a pitiful sense of momentary security,
+and an expression of pathetic condolence on every countenance, as though
+each were sitting out the last hours of the others.</p>
+
+<p>Our particular bane that night was a crusty old sea-dog whose memory of
+wrecks and marine disasters of every conceivable nature was as complete
+as an encyclop&aelig;dia. This "old man of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> sea" spun his tempestuous yarn
+with fascinating composure, and the whole company was awed into silence
+with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been
+air-tight&mdash;it was as close as possible&mdash;yet we heard the shrieking of
+the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves
+rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam
+buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing
+stricken with sudden fear: we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a
+great bubble that was, sooner or later, certain to burst and let us drop
+into its vast, black chasm, where in Cimmerian darkness we should be
+entombed for ever.</p>
+
+<p>The scenic effect, as I then considered, was unnecessarily vivid: as I
+now recall it, it seems to me strictly in keeping and thoroughly
+dramatic. At any rate, you might have told us a dreadful story with
+almost fatal success.</p>
+
+<p>I had still one letter left&mdash;one bearing this suggestive legend: "To be
+read in the saddest hour." Now, if there is a sadder hour in all time
+than the hour of hopeless and friendless death, I care not to know of
+it. I broke the seal of my letter, feeling that something charitable and
+cheering would give me strength. A few dried leaves were stored within
+it. The faint fragrance of summer bowers reassured me: somewhere in the
+blank world of waters there was land, and there Nature was kind and
+fruitful: out over the fearful deluge this leaf was borne to me in the
+return of the invisible dove my heart had sent forth in its extremity. A
+song was written therein, perhaps a song of triumph: I could now silence
+the clamorous tongue of our sea-monster, who was glutting us with tales
+of horror, for a jubilee was at hand, and here was the first note of its
+trumpets.</p>
+
+<p>I read:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beyond the parting and the meeting<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I shall be soon:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the farewell and the greeting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the pulse's fever-beating,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I shall be soon.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I paused. A night black with croaking ravens, brooding over a slimy
+hulk, through whose warped timbers the sea oozed&mdash;that was the sort of
+picture that arose before me. I looked farther for a crumb of comfort:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beyond the gathering and the strewing<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I shall be soon:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the coming and the going,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I shall be soon.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A tide of ice-water seemed rippling up and down my spinal column: the
+marrow congealed within my bones. But I recovered. When a man has supped
+full of horror, and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself
+and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated Petrel resumed his
+lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the
+barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of
+gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in
+idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove
+to" in the teeth of the gale.</p>
+
+<p>The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man
+who floated about in a waterlogged hulk for three months&mdash;who saw all
+his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch
+alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the staunch French brig La
+Perle, bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough weather
+from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a cyclone
+burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon her
+beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts
+were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling
+like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was
+swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into
+the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and
+gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched
+souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and
+despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> not a
+drop of water remained: then their tongues were loosened, and they
+railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate:
+one man alone was speechless&mdash;a Spaniard with a wicked light in his eye,
+and a repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than
+once.</p>
+
+<p>When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost
+miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the
+brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various
+projects for the capture of them: tough as a shark is, they would
+willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same. Somehow,
+though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden
+lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the
+shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and
+divided equally among the crew: some ate a little, and reserved the rest
+for another day; some ate till they were sick, and had little left for
+the next meal. The Spaniard with the evil eye greedily devoured his
+portion, and then grew moody again, refusing to speak with the others,
+who were striving to be cheerful, though it was sad enough work.</p>
+
+<p>When the food was all gone save a few mouthfuls that one meagre eater
+had hoarded to the last, the Spaniard resolved to secure a morsel at the
+risk of his life. It had been a point of honor with the men to observe
+sacredly the right of ownership, and any breach of confidence would have
+been considered unpardonable. At night, when the watch was sleeping, the
+Spaniard cautiously removed the last mouthful of shark hidden in the
+pocket of his mate, but was immediately detected and accused of theft.
+He at once grew desperate, struck at the poor wretch whom he had robbed,
+missed his blow, and fell headlong from the narrow platform in the
+foretop, and was lost in the sea. It was the first scene in the mournful
+tragedy about to be enacted on that limited stage.</p>
+
+<p>There was less disturbance after the disappearance of the Spaniard: the
+spirits of the doomed sailors seemed broken: in fact, the captain was
+the only one whose courage was noteworthy, and it was his indomitable
+will that ultimately saved him.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the minds of the miserable men gave way: they became peevish
+or delirious, and then died horribly. Two, who had been mates for many
+voyages in the seas north and south, vanished mysteriously in the night:
+no one could tell where they went nor in what manner, though they seemed
+to have gone together.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, these famishing sailors seemed to feel assured that their
+captain would be saved: they were as confident of their own doom, and to
+him they entrusted a thousand messages of love. They would lie around
+him&mdash;for few of them had strength to assume a sitting posture&mdash;and
+reveal to him the story of their lives. It was most pitiful to hear the
+confessions of these dying men. One said: "I wronged my friend; I was
+unkind to this one or to that one; I deserve the heaviest punishment God
+can inflict upon me;" and then he paused, overcome with emotion. But
+another took up the refrain: "I could have done much good, but I would
+not, and now it is too late." And a third cried out in his despair: "I
+have committed unpardonable sins, and there is no hope for me. Lord
+Jesus, have mercy!" The youngest of these perishing souls was a mere
+lad: he too accused himself bitterly. He began his story at the
+beginning, and continued it from time to time as the spirit of
+revelation moved him: scarcely an incident, however insignificant,
+escaped him in his pitiless retrospect. Oh the keen agony of that boy's
+recital! more cruel than hunger or thirst, and in comparison with which
+physical torture would have seemed merciful and any death a blessing.</p>
+
+<p>While the luckless Perle drifted aimlessly about, driven slowly onward
+by varying winds under a cheerless sky, sickness visited them: some were
+stricken with scurvy; some had lost the use of their limbs and lay
+helpless, moaning and weeping hour after hour; vermin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> devoured them,
+and when their garments were removed and cleansed in the salt water,
+there was scarcely sunshine enough to dry them before night, and they
+were put on again, damp, stiffened with salt, and shrunken so as to
+cripple the wearers, who were all blistered and covered with boils. The
+nights were bitter cold: sometimes the icy moon looked down upon them;
+sometimes the bosom of an electric cloud burst over them, and they were
+enveloped for a moment in a sheet of flame. Sharks lingered about them,
+waiting to feed upon the unhappy ones who fell into the sea overcome
+with physical exhaustion, or who cast themselves from that dizzy
+scaffold, unable longer to endure the horrors of lingering death. Flocks
+of sea-fowl hovered over them; the hull of the Perle was crusted with
+barnacles; long skeins of sea-grass knotted themselves in her gaping
+seams; myriads of fish darted in and out among the clinging weeds,
+sporting gleefully; schools of porpoises leaped about them, lashing the
+sea into foam; sometimes a whale blew his long breath close under them.
+Everywhere was the stir of jubilant life&mdash;everywhere but under the
+tattered awning stretched in the foretop of the Perle.</p>
+
+<p>Days and weeks dragged on. When the captain would waken from his
+sleep&mdash;which was not always at night, however, for the nights were
+miserably cold and sleepless&mdash;when he wakened he would call the roll:
+perhaps some one made no answer; then he would reach forth and touch the
+speechless body and find it dead. He had not strength now to bury the
+corpses in the sea's sepulchre; he had not strength even to partake of
+the unholy feast of the inanimate flesh: he lay there in the midst of
+pestilence, and at night, under the merciful veil of darkness, the fowls
+of the air gathered about him and bore away their trophy of corruption.</p>
+
+<p>By and by there were but two left of all that suffering crew&mdash;the
+captain and the boy&mdash;and these two clung together like ghosts, defying
+mortality. They strove to be patient and hopeful: if they could not
+eat, they could drink, for the nights were dewy, and sometimes a mist
+covered them&mdash;a mist so dense it seemed almost to drip from the rags
+that poorly sheltered them. A cord was attached to the shrouds, the end
+of it carefully laid in the mouth of a bottle slung in the rigging. Down
+the thin cord slid occasional drops: one by one they stole into the
+bottle, and by morning there was a spoonful of water to moisten those
+parched lips&mdash;sweet, crystal drops, more blessed than tears, for <i>they</i>
+are salt&mdash;more precious than pearls. A thousand prayers of gratitude
+seemed hardly to quiet the souls of the lingering ones for that great
+charity of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>There came a day when the hearts of God's angels must have bled for the
+suffering ones. The breeze was fresh and fair; the sea tossed gayly its
+foam-crested waves; sea-birds soared in wider circles, and the clouds
+shook out their fleecy folds, through which the sunlight streamed in
+grateful warmth: the two ghosts were talking, as ever, of home, of
+earth, of land. Land&mdash;land anywhere, so that it were solid and broad.
+Oh, to pace again a whole league without turning! Oh, to pause in the
+shadow of some living tree!&mdash;to drink of some stream whose waters flowed
+continually&mdash;flowed, though you drank of them with the awful thirst of
+one who has been denied water for weeks, and weeks, and weeks!&mdash;for
+three whole months&mdash;an eternity, as it seemed to them!</p>
+
+<p>Then they pictured life as it might be if God permitted them to return
+to earth once more. They would pace K&mdash;&mdash;street at noon, and revisit
+that capital restaurant where many a time they had feasted, though in
+those days they were unknown to one another; they would call for coffee,
+and this dish and that dish, and a whole bill of fare, the thought of
+which made their feverish palates grow moist again. They would meet
+friends whom they had never loved as they now loved them; they would
+reconcile old feuds and forgive everybody everything; they held
+imaginary conversations, and found life very beautiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> and greatly to
+be desired; and somehow they would get back to the little <i>caf&eacute;</i> and
+there begin eating again, and with a relish that brought the savory
+tastes and smells vividly before them, and their lips would move and the
+impalpable morsels roll sweetly over their tongues.</p>
+
+<p>It had become a second nature to scour the horizon with jealous eyes:
+never for a moment during their long martyrdom had their covetous sight
+fixed upon a stationary object. But it came at last. Out of a cloud a
+sail burst like a flickering flame. What an age it was a-coming! how it
+budded and blossomed like a glorious white flower, that was transformed
+suddenly into a barque bearing down upon them! Almost within hail it
+stayed its course, the canvas fluttered in the wind; the dark hull
+slowly rose and fell upon the water; figures moved to and fro&mdash;men,
+living and breathing men! Then the ghosts staggered to their feet and
+cried to God for mercy. Then they waved their arms, and beat their
+breasts, and lifted up their imploring voices, beseeching deliverance
+out of that horrible bondage. Tears coursed down their hollow cheeks,
+their limbs quaked, their breath failed them: they sank back in despair,
+speechless and forsaken.</p>
+
+<p>Why did they faint in the hour of deliverance when that narrow chasm was
+all that separated them from renewed life? Because the barque spread out
+her great white wings and soared away, hearing not the faint voices,
+seeing not the thin shadows that haunted that drifting wreck. The
+forsaken ones looked out from their eyrie, and watched the lessening
+sail until sight failed them, and then the lad with one wild cry leaped
+toward the speeding barque, and was swallowed up in the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Alone in a wilderness of waters! Alone, without compass or rudder, borne
+on by relentless winds into the lonesome, dreary, shoreless ocean of
+despair, within whose blank and forbidding sphere no voyager ventures;
+across whose desolate waste dawn sends no signal and night brings no
+reprieve; but whose sun is cold, and whose moon is clouded, and whose
+stars withdraw into space, and where the insufferable silence of vacancy
+shall not be broken for all time.</p>
+
+<p>O pitiless Nature! thy irrevocable laws argue rare sacrifice in the
+waste places of God's universe!...</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Petrel gave a tremendous lurch, that sent two or three of us into
+the lee corners of the cabin; a sea broke over us, bursting in the
+companion-hatch, and half filling our small and insecure retreat; the
+swinging lamp was thrown from its socket and extinguished; we were
+enveloped in pitch-darkness, up to our knees in salt water. There was a
+moment of awful silence: we could not tell whether the light of day
+would ever visit us again; we thought perhaps it wouldn't. But the
+Petrel rose once more upon the watery hilltops and shook herself free of
+the cumbersome deluge; and at that point, when she seemed to be riding
+more easily than usual, some one broke the silence: "Well, did the
+captain of the Perle live to tell the tale?"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he did. God sent a messenger into the lonesome deep, where the
+miserable man was found insensible, with eyes wide open against the
+sunlight, and lips shrunken apart&mdash;a hideous breathing corpse. When he
+was lifted in the arms of the brave fellows who had gone to his rescue,
+he cried "Great God! am I saved?" as though he couldn't believe it when
+it was true: then he fainted, and was nursed through a long delirium,
+and was at last restored to health and home and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Our cabin-boy managed to fish up the lamp, and after a little we were
+illuminated: the agile swab soon sponged out the cabin, and we resumed
+our tedious watch for dawn and fairer weather.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, my mind brooded over the solitary wreck that was drifting about
+the sea: I could fancy the rotten timbers of the Perle clinging
+together, by a miracle, until the Ancient Mariner was taken away from
+her, and then, when she was alone again, with nothing whatever in sight
+but blank blue sea and blank blue sky, she lay for an hour or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> so,
+bearded with shaggy sea-moss and looking about a thousand years old.
+Suddenly it occurred to her that her time had come&mdash;that she had
+outlived her usefulness, and might as well go to pieces at once. So she
+yawned in all her timbers, and the sea reached up over her, and laid
+hold of her masts, and seemed to be slowly drawing her down into its
+bosom. There was not an audible sound, and scarcely a ripple upon the
+water, but when the waves had climbed into the foretop, there was a
+clamor of affrighted birds, and a myriad bubbles shot up to the surface,
+where a few waifs floated and whirled about for a moment. It was all
+that marked the spot where the Perle went down to her eternal rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha!" cried our skipper, with something almost like a change of
+expression on his mahogany countenance, "the barometer is rising!" and
+sure enough it was. In two hours the Petrel acted like a different craft
+entirely, and by and by came daybreak, and after that the sea went down,
+down, down, into a deep, dead calm, when all the elements seemed to have
+gone to sleep after their furious warfare. Like half-drowned flies we
+crawled out of the close, ill-smelling cabin to dry ourselves in the
+sun: there, on the steaming deck of the schooner, we found new life, and
+in the hope that dawned with it we grew lusty and jovial.</p>
+
+<p>Such a flat, oily sea as it was then! So transparent that we saw great
+fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark
+drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface
+like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish
+darting hither and thither, striped like little one-legged harlequins.</p>
+
+<p>Flat-headed gonies sat high on the water, piping their querulous note
+as they tugged at something edible, a dozen of them entering into the
+domestic difficulty: one after another would desert the cause, run a
+little way over the sea to get a good start, leap heavily into the air,
+sail about for a few minutes, and then drop back on the sea, feet
+foremost, and skate for a yard or two, making a white mark and a
+pleasant sound as it slid over the water.</p>
+
+<p>The exquisite nautilus floated past us, with its gauzy sail set, looking
+like a thin slice out of a soap-bubble; the strange anemone laid its
+pale, sensitive petals on the lips of the wave and panted in ecstasy:
+the Petrel rocked softly, swinging her idle canvas in the sun; we heard
+the click of the anchor-chain in the forecastle, the blessedest
+sea-sound I wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and
+tossed down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned: the man at
+the wheel struck two bells&mdash;it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went
+the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the
+fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were
+about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much
+longer. Then came the purplest twilight; and then the sky blossomed all
+over with the biggest, ripest, goldenest stars&mdash;such stars as hang like
+fruits in sun-fed orchards; such stars as lay a track of fire in the
+sea; such stars as rise and set over mountains and beyond low green
+capes, like young moons, every one of them; and I conjured up my spells
+of savage enchantment, my blessed islands, my reefs baptized with silver
+spray; I saw the broad fan-leaves of the banana droop in the motionless
+air, and through the tropical night the palms aspired heavenward, while
+I lay dreaming my sea-dream in the cradle of the deep.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Charles Warren Stoddard</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="HER_CHANCE" id="HER_CHANCE"></a>HER CHANCE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mary Trigillgus tucked the money away in her purse. It was a very small
+sum, but it was the utmost that could be spared for the evening outfit:
+she and her mother had talked it all over, and such was the decision.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mary," said her mother, "don't get a tarletan, or anything
+exclusively for evening wear: you so seldom go to parties that you can't
+afford such a dress. I would try to get a nice silk. Something that's a
+little out of style by being made up fashionably might answer very
+well."</p>
+
+<p>Mary gave a sigh and turned her face toward the shops, feeling how
+difficult it would be to purchase a fashionable outfit with the scanty
+sum in her purse. And she sighed many another time that afternoon as she
+went from shop to shop. The goods were too expensive for her slender
+purse, or they were poor or old-fashioned. Twilight was settling down on
+the gay streets; window after window was flashing into light, revealing
+misty laces with gay ribbons and silks streaming like banners; the
+lamplighters on every hand were building their walls of flame; and yet
+Mary wandered from store to store, each moment more bewildered and
+undecided as to the best investment for her money.</p>
+
+<p>She approached a brilliant store, passed it with lingering step, then
+paused, turned back, and stood looking down the glittering aisle. The
+large mirror at the farther end seemed scarcely broader than the little
+cracked bureau-glass in her humble room before which she dressed her
+hair in the mornings. The clerks were hurrying to and fro, eager and
+business-like, while fine ladies were coming and going, jostling her as
+she stood just outside the door. Among the hurrying forms her eye sought
+one familiar and loved: not a woman's, I need scarcely say, else why
+does she stand in the shadow there, with her veil half drawn over her
+face, trembling and frightened? Why else does her cheek glow with shame?</p>
+
+<p>Poor Mary! You feel like a guilty thing in thus seeking a man who has
+never declared his love; but let me whisper a word in your ear: True
+love is woman's blue ribbon of honor: without it her nature is the rose
+tree without the rose&mdash;the dead egg among the cliffs: quickened by the
+grand passion, it is the eagle soaring to the stars. Your heart is a
+grander thing now than ever before. Next to loving God, the best thing
+for woman is to love a good man. Take the comfort of this thought, and
+leave the humiliation to the heart too hard or too light for loving.</p>
+
+<p>Were I looking into your eyes, my reader, telling my story by word of
+mouth, I can fancy we might hold something like this dialogue: "Whom was
+Mary Trigillgus, this keeper of a small day-school&mdash;whom was she seeking
+in this brilliant store? One of the underclerks, perhaps?" "No." "The
+bookkeeper?" "No." "The confidential clerk?" "You must guess again."
+"The junior partner?" "No, it was Christian Van Pelt, the sole
+proprietor of that fine establishment, one of the merchant princes of
+the city." "But what right had Mary Trigillgus, this obscure
+school-teacher, to love this man of fortune? How did she ever come to
+his acquaintance?" And then I should tell you a very long story, and a
+tedious one perhaps, of two Hollanders, close friends, who settled in
+New Amsterdam; of how fortune had prospered the one until Christian Van
+Pelt, his lineal descendant, was among the leaders in the dry-goods
+trade of New York City; of how various disasters had befallen the family
+of the other, until the daughter of the house, and its only lineal
+descendant, Mary Trigillgus's mother, had married an intemperate
+spendthrift, who had at his death left her penniless, though the
+grandchild, Mary Trigillgus, had inherited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> the small house in which
+mother and daughter found a home.</p>
+
+<p>In the back parlor Mary kept a school for small children: the front
+chamber was let to a quiet man, who went down town at eight and returned
+at five, and whom they seldom saw except when he rapped at the
+sitting-room door on the first day of every month to hand in the three
+five-dollar bills which covered his rent. Besides these sources of
+revenue there were a few day-boarders, who sometimes paid for their
+keeping and sometimes did not.</p>
+
+<p>An intercourse and a show of friendship had all along been maintained
+between the families of these Hollanders; and now Mrs. Van Pelt, the
+young merchant's mother, was to give a large party. Mary Trigillgus had
+been invited, and her mother had insisted on an acceptance of the
+invitation.</p>
+
+<p>"They are quite friendly to you, Mary, and you can't afford to throw
+away such friends," the mother said.</p>
+
+<p>So it was for Christian Van Pelt's broad, square figure that Mary's
+eager eyes were seeking; but in vain they sought: it was nowhere to be
+seen. A choking feeling of disappointment rose in her heart&mdash;a
+disappointment very unequal to the occasion, since she had meant nothing
+more than to get a sight of the loved figure and then to go on her way.
+Having satisfied herself that he was not in the store, a yearning desire
+possessed her to enter the place where he every day walked&mdash;a place to
+her invested with romance, haunted by his presence&mdash;a place to which her
+thoughts often wandered as some stupid child stood by her side in the
+little school-room spelling out his reading-lesson. She had not for
+months entered the store&mdash;not since that evening when, in her poor
+parlor, Christian Van Pelt, the rich young merchant, had looked into her
+eyes with a look that thrilled her for many a day, and spoken some
+nothings in tones that set her heart throbbing. Indeed, since that day
+she had avoided passing the store, lest she might seem, even to herself,
+to be seeking him. And yet her poor eyes and heart were ever seeking
+him in the countless throngs that passed up and down the busy streets.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get my dress from his store," she said mentally. "I shall wear it
+with the greater pleasure that he has handled it. My patronage will be
+to him but as the drop to the ocean," she said with a little bitterness,
+"but it will be a sweet thought to me that I have contributed even one
+drop to the flood of his prosperity."</p>
+
+<p>So she entered Christian Van Pelt's trade-palace, and said, in answer to
+the smart clerk's look of inquiry, "I am looking for a silk that will do
+for the evening and also for the street&mdash;something a little out of
+style, perhaps, might answer."</p>
+
+<p>"We have some bargains in such silks&mdash;elegant dress-patterns at a third
+of what they cost us in Paris. Step this way;" and Mary found herself
+going back and back through the spacious building, with her image
+advancing to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>In a few seconds the counter was strewn with silks at most enticing
+figures, and the clerk showed them off to such advantage, gathering them
+so dexterously into elegant folds, shifting them so skillfully in the
+brilliant gas-light, persuading the lady, in the mean while, in such a
+clever, lawyer-like way: "These cost us in Paris three times the money I
+am offering them for, and they are but very little <i>pass&eacute;</i>; there is an
+extraordinary demand for them; they are going like wildfire; country
+merchants are ordering them by the score; we sent eighty pieces to
+Chicago, to one house, yesterday, and fifty patterns to Omaha this
+morning; one hundred and ten we last week shipped to the South; the
+whole lot will perhaps be sold by to-morrow," etc.&mdash;that poor Mary felt
+like a speculator on the verge of a great chance. So she decided on a
+light-green brocade, and could not gainsay the smooth-tongued clerk as
+he assured her, while tying the bundle, that she had secured a very
+handsome and elegant dress at a great bargain.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Mary and her mother spent in studying and discussing the
+latest fashion-plates, but the elaborate descriptions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> of expensive
+costumes plunged the girl into another state of bewilderment and slough
+of despond. She heartily regretted having accepted the invitation. She
+began to dread the party as an execution&mdash;to shrink from exhibiting
+herself to Christian with the fine ladies and gentlemen who would form
+the company at Mrs. Van Pelt's. However, the dress was cut and made, and
+in this there was a fair degree of success, for necessity had taught
+these women considerable skill in the use of the scissors and needle.
+The dress was trimmed with some handsome old lace that had been in the
+mother's family for years. Mrs. Trigillgus pronounced the dress very
+handsome as she spread it on the bed and stepped off to survey it, and
+even the despondent Mary took heart, and as she surveyed her image in
+the mirror at the conclusion of her toilet for the important evening,
+she felt a degree of complacency toward herself&mdash;a feeling of admiration
+even.</p>
+
+<p>"You look like a snowdrop, dear," said the mother fondly; and the
+comparison was not inapt, for the young girl's Saxon complexion and fair
+hair were in pretty contrast with the lace-decked silk of delicate green
+falling about her.</p>
+
+<p>As she had no attendant, she went early to Mrs. Van Pelt's, feeling at
+liberty to be unceremonious; and she thought, with a beating heart, that
+Christian would be her escort home. Mrs. Van Pelt was not in the parlor
+when Mary entered, but Christian received her kindly, though with a
+slight embarrassment that embarrassed her. She tried to keep the
+love-flicker from her eyes and the love-tremor from her voice as she sat
+there alone with the man she loved, trying to reply indifferently to his
+indifferent remarks, and wondering if he could not hear the beating of
+her heart. She was greatly relieved at the entrance of Mrs. Van Pelt.
+When this lady had kissed her guest, she stepped off a few paces and
+looked the girl over.</p>
+
+<p>"Your dress is very becoming, my dear," she said, "but why did you get a
+brocade? Don't you know that brocades are out of style? Nobody wears
+brocades; and they are not trimming with lace at all. I wish you had
+advised with me."</p>
+
+<p>The blood rushed to Mary's face. Though she did not turn her eyes to
+Christian's, she knew that they were looking at her&mdash;that he was noting
+her confusion and comprehending its cause. "He knows why I have bought
+this brocade," was her thought, "and he knows that I am humiliated in
+having my poverty held up to his view. Of course Christian knows that I
+am poor, and he must know, as a consequence, that I wear poor clothes. I
+can endure that he should know this in a general way, while I shrink
+from having the details of my poverty revealed to him. I would not wish
+my patched gaiters and darned stockings held up for his inspection."</p>
+
+<p>Mary hesitated a moment before replying to Mrs. Van Pelt's criticism.
+Then, with a feeling that it was better to acknowledge a poverty of
+which both her companions were cognizant than an ignorance of style, she
+said, with a slight kindling of the eye, "I decided on this dress from
+economical considerations, and the lace is some which my mother's
+great-grandmother brought from Holland.&mdash;I have reminded them, at least,
+that I had a grandfather," she thought.</p>
+
+<p>As she finished speaking she lifted her eyes to Christian's. She could
+not understand the expression she saw there. But the poor girl's
+satisfaction in her dress was all gone. She was ready to reproach her
+mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if
+it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when
+nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my
+grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at
+least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I
+am the silly moth in the candle."</p>
+
+<p>If these were Mary's thoughts as she sat there with her two friends,
+what must they have become as the regally-dressed ladies, one after
+another, were announced?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> There were the majestic sweep of velvet, the
+floating of cloudlike gossamer, the flashing diamond, the starry pearl,
+the flaming ruby, the blazing carbuncle. There were marvelous toilets
+where contrast and harmony and picturesqueness&mdash;the effect of every
+color and ornament&mdash;had been patiently studied as the artist studies
+each shade and line on his canvas. And when the laugh and the jest and
+the wit were sounding all about her, and the intoxicating music came
+sweeping in from the dancing-room, there came over Mary a lost feeling
+amid the strange faces and voices&mdash;a bewildered, dizzy feeling, such as
+the semi-conscious opium-eater might have, half real, half dreaming. It
+was all so strange, so separate from her, as though, herself invisible,
+she was watching a festival among a different order of beings. Everybody
+was coming and going, continually varying his pastime, while she sat as
+unobserved as though invisible. Occasionally an eye-glass was leveled at
+her, or some lady accidentally placed beside her superciliously
+inspected the lace and green brocade.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Van Pelt found her in the course of the evening, and insisted that
+she should go to the dancing-room and see the dancing. Mary begged to
+remain seated where she was. She dreaded any move that would render her
+more conspicuous, and dreaded especially being recalled to Christian's
+mind. But the hostess insisted, so the wretched girl crept out of her
+retreat, and with a dizzy step traversed the parlors and halls to the
+dancing-rooms. The band was playing a delicious waltz, and graceful
+ladies and elegant gentlemen were moving to its measures. Mary's eyes
+soon discovered Christian waltzing with a young girl in a rose-colored
+silk. She was not a marked beauty, but the face was refined and pretty,
+and was uplifted to Christian's with a look of listening interest. A
+pang of jealousy shot through Mary's heart as she saw this and noted the
+close embrace in which Christian held his partner, with his face bent
+down to hers. Soon they came whirling by.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Christian with Miss Jerome," said Mrs. Van Pelt. "Her father
+is said to be worth four millions."</p>
+
+<p>The next moment Mrs. Van Pelt was called away, and Mary was again left
+to her isolation. With a dread of having Christian see her there,
+old-fashioned and neglected, a stranger to every individual in the
+assemblage of wealth and fashion, she slipped quietly away into the
+library, where some elderly people were playing whist. She would have
+gone home, but she lived in an obscure street some distance away. With a
+sense of suffocation she now remembered that she would have to recall
+herself to Christian's mind, for she must depend upon him to see her
+home. "He has not thought of me once this evening," she said bitterly.
+Soon supper was announced. Gentlemen and ladies began to pair off, not
+one mindful of her. She was hesitating between remaining there in the
+library and going unattended to the refreshment-room, when a
+white-haired gentleman entered from the parlor. He glanced at Mary, and
+was passing on when he paused and looked again. A moment of hesitation
+ensued while the young girl and the old gentleman gazed at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Trigillgus, I believe?" he said, finally. "My name is Ten Eyck. I
+knew your mother when she was a girl, and I knew her father. Allow me
+the pleasure of escorting you to supper."</p>
+
+<p>Mary took the proffered arm with the feeling of one who unexpectedly
+encounters a friend in a foreign land.</p>
+
+<p>As he reseated her in the library after supper he said, "Present me
+kindly to your mother: if ever I can serve her, I should be glad to do
+so."</p>
+
+<p>At length the party was ended. Every guest had gone except Miss
+Trigillgus.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you to see me home, Mr. Van Pelt,"
+she said to Christian with a burning at her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me the pleasure, you mean to say," replied Christian with a bow.</p>
+
+<p>This was but a passing pleasantry, and Mary should not have allowed it
+to bring the color to her cheek, and that peculiar, half-disdainful look
+to her eye and lip.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear you haven't had a pleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> evening," said Mrs. Van Pelt as Mary
+took leave of her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"It was not to be expected that I should, being an entire stranger."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear, come and spend a quiet evening with me soon; and give my
+love to your mother."</p>
+
+<p>Mary went up to the dressing-room, and soon reappeared, looking demure
+and nun-like in her white hood and black-and-white plaid shawl. How she
+dreaded the ride home with Christian! and yet for a whole week she had
+been longing for this very thing. The thought of the party had always
+brought the throbbing anticipation of the ride with Christian after the
+party. How near he had seemed then, and ever since the memorable evening
+when they had sat together over that book of engravings! How happy she
+had been then! how hopeful of his love! But now, what a gulf there
+seemed between them! What had she to do with this atmosphere of wealth
+and luxury and fashion where Christian dwelt? He had been pleased to
+amuse himself for a brief space with looking into her eyes, with making
+some silly speeches, which he had straightway forgotten, but which
+she&mdash;poor fool!&mdash;had laid away in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Thus she was thinking as Christian handed her into the carriage. She
+wondered what he would talk about. For a time there was a constrained
+and painful silence, and Mary tried to think of something to say, that
+she might hide her aching heart from his merciless gaze. Finally she
+remarked that the streets were quiet, and he that the night was fine;
+and in such commonplaces the ride was passed.</p>
+
+<p>Mary found her mother up, eager to learn her impressions of the first
+large party she had ever attended.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very tired, mother," she said, determined to end the torturing
+inquisition, "and am aching to get to bed. I'll tell you about the party
+to-morrow. Don't call me early: let me have a good sleep."</p>
+
+<p>With a feeling of sickening disgust she laid off the silk and lace and
+flowers which a few hours before had so pleased her. The pale face
+which met her as she stood before her mirror was very unlike the happy,
+expectant face she had seen there in the early evening. Turning from the
+piteous image, she hurriedly put the mean dress away, longing to have
+the sheltering darkness about her. Soon she had laid her head on the
+pillow, where, with eyes staring into the darkness, it throbbed for a
+weary while. "What am I to Christian Van Pelt?" This was the question
+the poor heart argued and re-argued. One sweet delicious evening stood
+over against this last, so full of heartache.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Mary felt weary with all the world. Her home seemed
+poorer and meaner than ever; the boarders disgusted her with their
+coarseness; teaching was unrelieved drudgery; everything was
+distasteful. To her mother's renewed inquiries about the party she
+replied wearily, "My dress was poor and mean, mother; and had I spent
+our year's income on my toilet, it would have still been poor, compared
+with those I saw last night. For such as I there is nothing in
+fashionable life but heart-burning and humiliation."</p>
+
+<p>A few days after this there came from Mrs. Van Pelt to Miss Trigillgus
+an invitation to tea. She at once longed and dreaded to meet Christian;
+so the invitation was declined on the plea of indisposition. It was
+renewed two evenings, later, and she was obliged to accept it. Mary
+never looked better than on that evening. She wore a blue empress-cloth,
+which heightened the fairness of her complexion and of her bright hair.
+After tea she and Mrs. Van Pelt were looking at some old pictures. They
+were discussing an ambrotype of herself, taken when she was thirteen,
+when a servant announced guests in the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>"You were a pretty child, my dear," said Mrs. Van Pelt, rising to go to
+the parlor, "and you are a handsome woman&mdash;a beautiful woman, I may
+say&mdash;your beauty ought to be a fortune to you&mdash;but you lack style. I
+must take you in hand," she continued, talking all the way to the door.
+"I shall need some amusement after Christian's marriage, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> keep me
+from being jealous of his little wife;" and she disappeared through the
+door, little dreaming of the arrow she had sent to the poor heart.</p>
+
+<p>Mary caught her breath, and Christian saw her stagger at the shot. Taken
+by surprise, completely off his guard, he opened his arms and received
+the stricken girl in his bosom, and pressed his lips to hers. But Mary
+had not lost her consciousness. Quickly recovering, she disengaged
+herself and reached a chair. She was more self-possessed than he. He sat
+down beside her, quivering in every fibre.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary! Mary!" he cried in passionate beseechment, "I never meant to win
+your love to betray it. We have both been surprised into a confession of
+our love for each other, and now let me lay open my heart to you. I do
+love you, as you must have seen, for I have not been always able to keep
+the love out of my eyes and voice. You will recall one evening&mdash;I know
+you must remember it&mdash;when I was near declaring my love and asking you
+to be my wife. I don't know why I did not&mdash;why I left my story but half
+told. I sometimes wish that I had declared myself fully, and that we
+were now pledged to each other. But the very next morning I sustained
+heavy losses in my business, and others soon followed, and to-day I am
+threatened with utter ruin. If I cannot raise a hundred thousand dollars
+this week, and as much in another week, I am a bankrupt. And now you
+will understand why in two days I am to marry Miss Jerome."</p>
+
+<p>Mary started again. Was the execution, then, so near? She drew a long
+breath, as though gathering her strength for a hard struggle.
+"Christian," she said in a low tone that trembled with the energy
+underlying it, "my poor Christian, you are bewildered. These troubles
+have shut the light away from your path, and you have lost your way in
+the darkness. If this is true which you have told me, do you not see
+that when you have delivered yourself from this threatened bankruptcy,
+you are yet a bankrupt&mdash;a bankrupt in heart and happiness? How can you
+weigh wealth and position against the best good than can ever come to
+either of us? I am not afraid of poverty, for I have known nothing else;
+and surely you do not dread it for yourself. This love is the one good
+thing which God has permitted in my pitiless destiny. Am I unwomanly? If
+I plead for my life, who can blame me? And shall that which is more than
+life go from me without a word? Oh, I cannot smile and look cold as
+though I was not hurt: I am pierced and torn. Yet, Christian, for your
+sake, rather than for mine, I entreat. You would bring desolation into
+both our lives. I might endure it, but how could you bear through the
+years the memory of your deed? You are trampling on your manhood. You
+are giving to this woman's hungry heart a stone: you are buying with a
+lie the holiest thing in her womanhood."</p>
+
+<p>"For four generations my house has withstood every financial storm. The
+honorable name which my ancestors bequeathed to me I will maintain at
+every hazard," Christian replied with gloomy energy.</p>
+
+<p>"And you will marry Miss Jerome?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: it is my only hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Then God help you, Christian. Your lot is harder than mine. At the
+worst, my life shall be true: I shall hide no lie in my heart, to fester
+there." Her words, begun in tenderness, ended in a tone of scorn. "And
+now I must ask you to see me home."</p>
+
+<p>She left the room, and soon returned cloaked and hooded, to find
+Christian waiting in overcoat and gloves and with hat in hand. With her
+arm in his they walked in perfect silence through the gay, bustling
+streets, passing God knows how many other spirits as sad as their own.
+When they came to the humble little house which was Mary's home,
+Christian stopped on the step as though he would say something, but Mary
+said "Good-night," and passed into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>We magazine-writers have no chance in the space allotted to a short
+story for a quantitative analysis of emotions and situations, or for
+following the processes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> by which marked changes come about in the human
+heart. We must content ourselves with informing the reader that certain
+changes or modifications ensued, trusting that he will receive the
+statement without requiring reasons or the <i>modus operandi</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For a time it seemed to Mary Trigillgus that the sun would never shine
+for her again, but a certain admixture in her feeling of scorn and
+contempt for Christian prevented her from sinking into a total
+despondency. As she revolved day after day the strange separation of two
+lives which should have flowed on together, there grew in her heart a
+kind of bitterness toward the society which had demanded the separation.
+And then the diffused bitterness gathered, and was concentrated on the
+woman and the man who had robbed her of her happiness. Especially did
+her heart rise against Christian Van Pelt. Gold had won him from her: he
+had made his choice between gold and her love; and then she would chafe
+against the poverty which from her earliest recollection had fettered
+her tastes and aspirations, and at every step had been her humiliation.
+And then she would feel a wild, unreasoning longing to win gold. What a
+triumph to earn gold beyond what his wife had brought him&mdash;beyond what
+they would together possess! From the time this thought first occurred
+to her it never left her except for brief intervals. Day after day, hour
+after hour, it recurred to her, until she became possessed with it. It
+was in her dreams by night, and with the day she seized and revolved it,
+until her brain whirled with delirium. A hundred wild schemes and
+projects came and went in scurrying confusion. With hungry eyes she read
+the daily advertisements of "Business Chances," "Partners Wanted," etc.,
+and in answering some of these was led into some strange discoveries and
+adventures.</p>
+
+<p>"I am mad! I am losing my reason! More gold than their millions! I
+cannot even make a living for myself, lunatic!" she would say; and
+straightway in fancy would read in the papers the announcement of a
+fortune being left to Mary Trigillgus&mdash;of great and marvelous riches
+coming to her&mdash;and would thrill with her triumph over Christian Van
+Pelt. She would even pen these announcements to see how they looked, and
+read them aloud to study their sound.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Trigillgus grew alarmed at her daughter's unaccountable moods. A
+physician was summoned, who decided that she was overworked, and advised
+a few months in the country. But Mary refused to leave the city, and
+continued to search for her "chance."</p>
+
+<p>One day she was reading the New York <i>Tribune</i>, when her eye caught a
+little paragraph in relation to the eclipse of the sun which was to
+occur on the twentieth of August, and of the preparations that were
+being made in the scientific world for its observance&mdash;of the universal
+interest it was exciting, etc. etc.</p>
+
+<p>Mary thought of the amount of smoked glass which would be prepared for
+the day, then of the soiled fingers, then of a remedy for this, and
+then&mdash;her chance flashed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>For a time she sat there, with kindled eyes, with throbbing heart and
+brain, revolving and shaping her thought. Then she put on her hat and
+took the omnibus for Mr. Ten Eyck's office.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ten Eyck," she said, after the customary commonplaces, "you once
+said that you would be glad to serve my mother. Are you as willing to
+serve her daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," replied Mr. Ten Eyck, growing a little uneasy; "that is, if
+I can, you understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I have urgent need for money."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ten Eyck began to fidget visibly.</p>
+
+<p>"I own a house and lot on Thirty-second street. How much money can you
+lend me on it? It is a house of seven rooms."</p>
+
+<p>"I know the house," answered Mr. Ten Eyck. "Your mother's father left it
+to you. There is no encumbrance on it?"</p>
+
+<p>"None."</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me to suggest, Miss Trigillgus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> as your mother's old friend,
+that this step should be well considered before it is decided upon. The
+necessity should be very urgent before you mortgage your home. As your
+mother's old friend, may I inquire how you intend using this money? Do
+not answer me if you have any hesitancy in giving me your confidence."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman looked at her with such kindly, fatherly solicitude
+that, after a moment of confused hesitation, she answered: "I will give
+the confidence you invite, Mr. Ten Eyck. I have a plan by which I can
+make a fortune in a few days. I propose to manufacture glasses for the
+great eclipse&mdash;say three millions of eclipse-glasses&mdash;and distribute
+them throughout the United States and the Canadas."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ten Eyck stared at her through his golden-bowed glasses: "What kind
+of glasses? Explain yourself more fully."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall buy up all the common glass in New York and Pittsburg, and in
+other cities perhaps, at the lowest possible figure. Much of the refuse
+glass will answer my purpose. I shall have it cut, three inches by five,
+stain it, put two stained surfaces together, and bind with paper. At ten
+cents apiece the gross proceeds of three millions will be three hundred
+thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"And how will you distribute them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Through the news agents," she answered promptly, "and on the same terms
+at which they push the newspapers. By this great system I shall secure a
+simultaneous distribution throughout the whole country."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ten Eyck had laid off his glasses and assumed an attitude of deep
+attention: "Suppose it should rain on eclipse-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought of that contingency. I should anticipate it by having
+the glasses in the market for two or three days preceding the eclipse.
+To give the glass additional value, I should paste on it a printed slip
+stating the hour when the eclipse will begin, the period of its
+duration, and the moment of total obscuration." Then she started and
+glowed with a sudden revelation that came flashing through her brain.
+"I will make the glasses an advertising medium," she continued eagerly.
+"I will make the advertisements pay all the expenses, and much more. Can
+I not find a man in New York City, or somewhere in the United States,
+who would pay a hundred thousand dollars to have three millions of
+people reading in one moment the merits of his wares or of his remedies!
+And if such a man cannot be found, one who will purchase the exclusive
+right to advertise with me, I'll parcel it out. Yes, I can pay all
+expenses with the advertisements; but I must have some ready money to
+begin with&mdash;to initiate the enterprise. Will you lend me the money on my
+house and lot?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ten Eyck resumed his glasses, and sat for a long time staring into a
+pigeon-hole of his desk in profound meditation.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Miss Trigillgus, allow me, as your mother's old friend, to
+speak plainly to you. You are planning an enterprise of such proportions
+that no woman could go through with it. In the most skillful hands great
+risk would attend it, even with abundance of money to back it; and let
+me assure you that a woman without business education and with cramped
+means could have no chance whatever in the arena of experts. Her defeat
+would be inevitable. I would gladly serve you, Miss Trigillgus, and I
+think, pardon me, that my surest way of doing this is to decline making
+the loan you ask, and to advise you, as your mother's old friend, to
+abandon this scheme."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall consider your advice, Mr. Ten Eyck," said Miss Trigillgus, "and
+I thank you for it, whether I act upon it or not;" and she gave a cold
+bow that contradicted her words.</p>
+
+<p>Mary made many other attempts to raise money, but all were unsuccessful.
+A few mornings after this her advertisement appeared in the <i>Tribune</i>,
+calling for a partner with ten thousand dollars to take a half interest
+in an enterprise which was sure to net a quarter of a million within a
+month. It had such an extravagant sound that it was set down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> as a
+humbug, and few answered it. She had interviews with two young men of
+such suspicious appearance that she did not dare reveal her scheme to
+them. Day after day the card appeared with no satisfactory result; and
+Mary perceived with a kind of frenzy the short time in which her great
+work was to be accomplished growing shorter and shorter. She moved
+cautiously, lest her grand idea should be appropriated, but she left no
+stone unturned for raising the money. Finally, on the ninth of August,
+impatient, anxious, nervous, she had six thousand dollars in hand, and
+only ten days intervened before the day of the eclipse. She went
+immediately to an eminent solicitor of patents, who had influence at
+Washington, and made application for a patent for advertising on
+eclipse-glasses. The solicitor thought there was no doubt but that the
+patent could be secured, so that she might freely proceed with her
+enterprise. She next contracted with a glass-factory for five thousand
+dollars' worth of glass, and engaged one hundred men to cut and stain it
+and put up the eclipse-glasses. Then she made several endeavors to see
+the president of the news agency, and after repeated failures she opened
+a correspondence by letter with him, briefly outlining her plan, and
+asking him to undertake through the news agents the distribution of the
+glasses. The next morning she received in response, through the
+post-office, these lines:</p>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Miss Trigillgus</span>: You have been anticipated in your enterprise. We are
+engaged to distribute eclipse-glasses for another party."</p>
+
+<p>As Mary read the cruel words that ended all her hopes, she fell lifeless
+to the floor, and was thus discovered by her mother.</p>
+
+<p>The following day there came a confirmatory note from the solicitor of
+patents, stating that she had been anticipated also in her application
+for a patent.</p>
+
+<p>From this period Mary's moods became indescribable. From a state of
+unrelieved despondency she issued so merry, in such exhilaration, that
+her mother was glad to welcome back the shadowed mood which soon
+succeeded. The sagacity of physicians, of her most familiar
+acquaintances, of her mother, was all at fault. No one could decide
+whether or not her mind was unhinged, whether or not Mary Trigillgus was
+insane; for it must be remembered that her friends were ignorant of the
+events we have been narrating&mdash;her love for Christian Van Pelt, her
+disappointment, her grand scheme, the sacrifice of her home and the
+failure of her enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>The nineteenth of August came, the day preceding the grand event of the
+century. Mary Trigillgus and her mother were lingering at the
+breakfast-table. The girl seemed wild and hawk-like, startling her
+mother with her unnatural merriment, commenting with weird brilliancy
+and grotesqueness and sparkle on the various items as Mrs. Trigillgus
+read them. At length she read a paragraph about the eclipse. "'And we
+would advise every reader,'" she continued, "'to furnish himself with an
+eclipse-glass, which he can procure at any of the news d&eacute;p&ocirc;ts for the
+sum of ten cents. The glass is nicely finished, and is very perfect for
+the purpose intended. We understand that five millions of these glasses
+have been put into the market, for which the country is indebted to the
+genius and enterprise of our young fellow-citizen, Mr. Christian Van
+Pelt, assisted by Mr. W. V. Ten Eyck.'"</p>
+
+<p>"He has done it! he has again stabbed me!" cried Mary Trigillgus, with
+the maniac's glare in her eyes. "The gold is his&mdash;his and hers! Piles of
+gold! and they have cut it out of my heart, dug it out of my brain! I
+have nothing left! Don't you see, mother, I am only an empty shell? Stab
+me here in the heart, where he has stabbed me: it won't hurt. There's
+nothing there! nothing! it's all hollow." There was no longer any doubt
+that Mary Trigillgus's mind was unhinged.</p>
+
+<p>During all that day men and children were crying the eclipse-glasses in
+the street, selling them at every door.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear them! hear them!" the poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> maniac would cry. "They are selling
+millions of them! they are piling the gold all about him and her! They
+are to have a palace of gold, and Mary's to have only the ashes. Poor
+Mary! poor Mary! All the good's for them, all the pain's for Mary!" and
+then she would weep herself into a quiet mood of despondency.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the day of the eclipse, Mary demanded one of the glasses,
+and would not be diverted from her desire. She read the advertisement on
+the eclipse-glass: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher will put out any fire!
+Get one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, get me one: I have a fire here;" and she pressed her hand to
+her brow. She examined the glass again and again, looking it over and
+over, and reading the advertisement aloud: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher
+will put out any fire! Get one!" All day long, at short intervals, she
+was running to the window and looking through the glass at the sun.</p>
+
+<p>And when the grand hour arrived for the wonderful phenomenon, when the
+five million glasses were raised to witness the obscuration, and the
+weird twilight had settled over all nature, this young life too had
+passed into a total eclipse, from which it has never for a moment
+emerged.</p>
+
+<p>The poor lunatic never rages. She is sweet and harmless as a child. She
+makes frequent visits to the glass-factories and to the news-rooms to
+inquire after the progress of her enterprise, and over and over again
+makes her contract to advertise the "Babcock Fire-Extinguisher," and
+comes back with promises to her mother of the boundless riches which are
+to flow in upon them.</p>
+
+<p>As for Christian Van Pelt, his wrong to Mary had been unintentional, as
+he was ignorant of her connection with the eclipse-glass scheme. Though
+Mr. Ten Eyck had been honest in advising Miss Trigillgus to abandon her
+plans, under the persuasion that with her limited means and want of
+business training the result could not fail to be disastrous, he yet saw
+that with capital and energy to push it a grand success might be
+achieved. Having little loose capital, and his time being well occupied,
+he unfolded the scheme to Christian Van Pelt, and together they put the
+enterprise through. Mr. Ten Eyck argued that since Miss Trigillgus had
+abandoned the plan, as he really supposed had been the case, he was not
+wronging her by prosecuting it himself. He was one of that numerous
+class who fail to perceive that <i>ideas</i> have commercial value.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">S. W. Kellogg</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CUBA" id="CUBA"></a>CUBA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"If," wrote Franklin, "you wish a separation to be always possible, take
+the utmost pains that the colonies shall never be incorporated with the
+mother-country. Do not let them share your liberties. Make use of their
+commerce, regulate their industry, tax them at your will, and spend at
+your caprice the wealth thus drawn from them, which costs you nothing.
+Take care to invest the general in charge of them with despotic power,
+and at the same time give him immunity from all colonial control. If the
+colonists protest, do not listen to them, but reply by charges of high
+treason and rebellion. Say that all such complaints are the invention of
+certain demagogues, and that if one could catch and hang these wretched
+fellows all would go well. If need be, arrest and hang them. By
+continuing such a policy you will infallibly arrive at your goal, and to
+a certainty be in a brief time disembarrassed of your colonies."</p>
+
+<p>The above, wrote an accomplished Spaniard a few years ago, applies as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+exactly to the Spanish colonies to-day as it did to those of England at
+the time of our struggle with her. In fact, the misrule in Cuba has been
+fifty times worse than the worst Anglo-Saxon misrule ever known. The
+island has been used by Spain simply as a gold-mine.<a name="FNanchor_J_10" id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[J]</a> So far as those
+toiling in it are concerned, she has displayed an indifference similar
+to that which resulted in the destruction of her West Indian population
+three centuries ago. The Cubans have been taxed without representation,
+shot down if they remonstrated, and mocked by acts of the Cortes,
+granting relief which it was never intended to afford to them, but which
+for a time served in some degree to throw dust in the eyes of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it came to pass that on the 10th of October, 1868, the Cubans,
+recognizing the truth of the poetic axiom, that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and that Spain's difficulty should be Cuba's opportunity, issued a
+Declaration of Independence. The document, dated from Manzanillo, thus
+stated the case: "In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government
+of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries,
+proclaim before the world the cause that impels us to take this step,
+which, though likely to entail considerable disturbance now, will ensure
+future happiness. It is well known that Spain governs this island with
+an iron and blood-stained hand, holding its inhabitants deprived of
+political, civil and religious liberty. Hence the unfortunate Cubans,
+illegally prosecuted, sent into exile and executed in time of peace by
+military commissions. Hence their being prohibited from attending public
+meetings, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of state. Hence
+their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being regarded
+as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are expected to
+keep silent and obey. Hence the never-ending plague of hungry officials
+from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor. Hence the
+restrictions to which public instruction with them is subjected, in
+order to keep them so ignorant as to render them unable to know and
+enforce their rights in any shape or form. Hence the navy and standing
+army kept in and about their country at an enormous expense (paid out of
+taxes levied on Cuba), to make them submit to the terrible yoke
+imposed....</p>
+
+<p>"As we are in danger of losing our property, our lives and our honor
+under further Spanish domination; as we have reached a depth of
+degradation revolting to manhood; as great nations have sprung from
+revolt against a similar disgrace after exhausted pleadings for relief;
+as we despair of justice from Spain through reasoning, and cannot longer
+live deprived of the rights which other people enjoy,&mdash;we are
+constrained to appeal to arms, to assert our rights in the battle-field,
+cherishing the hope that our grievances will be a sufficient excuse for
+this last resort to redress them and secure our future welfare."</p>
+
+<p>Ten days later the Cuban insurgent general Cespedes asked our own
+government to recognize the belligerent rights of his party, in a letter
+which detailed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> the rapid success of the movement. On the 27th of
+December, 1868, Cespedes issued a proclamation of emancipation. In
+January, 1869, it would appear that Spain, herself in a very critical
+condition under a provisional government, thought that a sop must be
+thrown to Cuba, and accordingly the captain-general of Cuba issued one
+of those highflown addresses which come with such readiness from Spanish
+bureaus. Said this gallant and noble-minded governor: "I will brave
+every danger, accept every responsibility, for your welfare. The
+revolution has swept away the Bourbon dynasty, tearing up by the roots a
+plant so poisonous that it putrefied the air we breathe. To the citizen
+shall be returned his rights, to man his dignity." [An admission, by the
+way, that they had been bereft of both.] "You will receive all the
+reforms which you require. Cubans and Spaniards are all brothers. From
+this day Cuba will be considered as a province of Spain. Freedom of the
+press, the right of meeting in public, and representation in the
+national Cortes&mdash;the three fundamental principles of true liberty&mdash;are
+granted you. Speaking in the name of our mother, Spain, I adjure you to
+forget the past, hope for the future and establish union and
+fraternity."</p>
+
+<p>These very fine words, however, seem to have utterly failed in buttering
+the Cuban parsnips. They were, in truth, calculated to carry about as
+much conviction to the mind of Cubans as Joseph Surface's sentiments
+after the discovery of Lady Teazle behind the screen do to her
+ladyship's husband.</p>
+
+<p>The insurrection saw no abatement. A reinforcement of fifteen hundred
+men came from Spain, and within six weeks of all these blessings being
+promised by the captain-general, freedom of the press was abolished and
+trial by military commission established. On the 3d of March came a
+second reinforcement of a thousand men from Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Cespedes, the Cuban general, found his only available policy
+to be a sort of guerilla warfare until he could rally a sufficient force
+and collect arms for an encounter with the Spanish army; and on March
+1, 1869, he again addressed our President, asking for the recognition of
+belligerent rights.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this date no civil organization had existed among the insurgents,
+but in April, 1869, representatives from the several anti-Spanish
+districts met at Guaymazo, in the province of Puerto Principe, when
+Cespedes formally resigned his power into the hands of the House of
+Representatives, who thereupon proclaimed him president of the Cuban
+republic, and General Quesada commander of the forces.</p>
+
+<p>During the summer of 1869 the war was carried on with indifferent
+success by the Spaniards, and in June General Dulce, captain-general,
+went home,<a name="FNanchor_K_11" id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[K]</a> being, in fact, virtually deposed by the "volunteers," who
+were supposed to support the Spanish interest. These latter are, for the
+most part, a set of worthless men, the scum of Spain and other
+countries, who, with everything to gain and nothing to lose, consented
+to enlist in the service of the Spanish slave-dealing clique in Havana,
+and were furious at what they deemed too great clemency on the part of
+the captain-general.</p>
+
+<p>Dulce was succeeded by De Rodas, who announced "a vigorous policy."
+During the autumn of 1869 no decisive step was taken on either side, but
+the insurgents, careful to prevent the enemy profiting by the
+confiscated property of the Cubans who had been compelled to abandon
+their plantations, set fire to the cane, and hundreds of valuable crops
+were thus destroyed. The year 1870 saw no abatement of the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Peru and Chili formally and cordially recognized the
+independence of the insurgents, toward whom still warmer symptoms of
+sympathy from this quarter have been lately evinced, and widespread
+sympathy has also been expressed toward them in the United States; but
+the President in his message of December, 1869, intimated that he did
+not consider the position of the insurgents such as to warrant him in
+recognizing their belligerent rights.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And thus matters have continued till to-day. For more than four years
+Cuba has been the scene of bloodshed, misery and ruin. Notwithstanding
+the strong feeling for Cuba in this country, it would appear that even
+now our cabinet deems it undesirable to recognize belligerent rights on
+the part of the Cubans, but at the same time Mr. Fish's letter to Mr.
+Sickles of the 29th of October last is couched in terms which clearly
+indicate a limit to this forbearance, when he says: "Sustained, as is
+the present ministry, by the large popular vote which has recently
+returned to the Cortes an overwhelming majority in its support, there
+can be no more room to doubt their ability to carry into operation the
+reforms of which they have given promise than there can be justification
+to question the sincerity with which the assurance was given. It seems,
+therefore, to be a fitting occasion to look back upon the relations
+between the United States and Spain, and to mark the progress which may
+have been made in accomplishing those objects in which we have been
+promised her co-operation. It must be acknowledged with regret that
+little or no advance has been made. The tardiness in this respect,
+however, cannot be said to be in any way imputable to a want of
+diligence, zeal or ability in the legation of the United States at
+Madrid. The department is persuaded that no person, however gifted with
+those qualities and faculties, could have better succeeded against the
+apparent apathy or indifference of the Spanish authorities, if, indeed,
+their past omission to do what we have expected should not be ascribable
+to other causes.</p>
+
+<p>"The Spanish government, partly at our instance, passed a law providing
+for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the West India colonies. This
+law, so far as this department is aware, remains unexecuted, and it is
+feared that the recently-issued regulations, professedly for its
+execution, are wholly inadequate to any practical result in favor of
+emancipation, if they be not really in the interest of the slaveholder
+and of the continuance of the institution of slavery."</p>
+
+<p>And after various stringent comments he concludes: "It is hoped that
+you will present the views above set forth, and the present grievances
+of which this government so justly complains, to the government to which
+you are accredited, in a way which, without giving offence, will leave a
+conviction that we are in earnest in the expression of those views, and
+that we expect redress; and that if it should not soon be afforded Spain
+must not be surprised to find, as the inevitable result of the delay, a
+marked change in the feeling and in the temper of the people and of the
+government of the United States. Believing that the present ministry of
+Spain is in a sufficiently confirmed position of power to carry out the
+measures which it announces and the reforms which have been promised,
+and to do justice by the removal of the causes of our well-founded
+complaints, and not doubting the sincerity of the assurances which have
+been given, the United States look confidently for the realization of
+those hopes, which have been encouraged by repeated promises, that all
+causes for estrangement or for the interruption of those friendly
+feelings which are traditional, as they are sincere, on the part of this
+government toward Spain, will be speedily and for ever removed."</p>
+
+<p>The cry is now loudly raised for recognition of belligerent rights, with
+a view to independence and annexation by the United States. But, as we
+have said, the government of this country does not&mdash;wisely for American
+interests, in our opinion&mdash;appear inclined to hurry toward such a
+course, and we should like to see the experiment first tried of active
+mediation on its part between Spain and Cuba. A meeting of leading
+representatives of both parties of the island under a distinguished
+jurist at Washington might not impossibly assist the solution of the
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Although many Cubans, despairing of reconciliation, are disposed at this
+moment to declare that the time has quite gone by for a compromise, it
+is doubtful whether this be really the case. Cuba and Spain have been
+united for centuries, and notwithstanding fierce animosities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> have yet
+many common ties. There are, too, not a few prudent men who, whilst
+strongly in favor of abolition, dread the sudden adoption of such a
+course, which would be the inevitable result of an entire break with
+Spain. They see in it nothing but ruin to the majority of whites,
+without corresponding advantage to the blacks. "Let abolition come,"
+they say, "by all means, but not all at once. Look at Jamaica, look at
+your own South! Would it not have really been better for all parties if
+the abolition had been more gradual, or at least attended by such
+conditions as would have ensured less immediate depreciation of
+property?"</p>
+
+<p>We believe that our government could not more effectually serve the
+interests of the Cubans than by a vigorous intercession<a name="FNanchor_L_12" id="FNanchor_L_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_12" class="fnanchor">[L]</a> to secure
+them an independent government on the Anglo-colonial system, accompanied
+by the passage of an act of the Cortes freeing every slave within five
+years; and meantime enforcing rigorously protective measures for the
+enslaved, including payment of wages.</p>
+
+<p>There seems no reason why a legislative system on the plan of the
+Australian colonies of Great Britain should not be attempted. Its
+failure in Jamaica is not sufficient ground against it. In Jamaica there
+were a few grains of whites to bushels of blacks: in Cuba there are some
+seven hundred thousand colored&mdash;of whom only four hundred thousand are
+slaves&mdash;to about one million four hundred thousand whites.</p>
+
+<p>We can scarcely doubt that the Spanish government will feel constrained
+to hearken to the remonstrances of that of the United States. Spain is
+to-day in all but extent of territory a fourth-rate rather than a
+second-rate power. Her government is the least stable in Europe, except
+possibly that of France. Her exchequer is exhausted. Her credit is
+utterly gone. Assume a war: where is she to get money? There is not a
+people in Europe, save the Dutch and the English, who at this moment
+have anything to lend, and neither Dutch nor English are likely at
+present to send more money to Madrid. Spain has too amply proved herself
+the defaulter <i>par excellence</i> of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Now, therefore, is the time for American mediation; and we sincerely
+hope that Mr. Fish will not let it pass, but will follow up vigorously
+his admirable despatch, and thus secure to Cubans the blessings of a
+free country.</p>
+
+<p>For years Spain has been promising, and not performing. Performance
+seems with her the result only of compulsion; and if this really be so,
+she must be compelled. So far as Cuban affairs are concerned, she has
+had ample indulgence at the hands of ourselves and Great Britain. Every
+reasonable chance has been given her to mend her ways. She has failed to
+avail herself of her opportunities, and cannot complain if she suffer
+accordingly. It is not in the nature of things that this country should
+look calmly for all time on the just struggles of an enthralled and
+trodden-down people dwelling within a few hours of our own mainland.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_10" id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> In September, 1872, Senator Benot made a remarkable speech
+in the Cortes in reference to the treatment of Cuba. "It is," he said,
+"the Spanish peninsula alone that is ignorant of events in Cuba. But it
+is not ignorance only of which I complain. From those remote possessions
+comes the blood of the negro converted into gold to pervert the public
+mind."
+</p><p>
+Referring to the horrid massacre of students in 1871, Senator Benot
+said: "Spain does not rule Cuba: if she did, innocent children would not
+be executed at the instance of the Spanish clique in Havana. Senators,
+you are parents. Suppose that your boys in the professors' absence were
+to run out to play in the adjoining cemetery. Suppose that for this lack
+of reverence a ferocious mob seized your sons, subjected them to a
+court-martial, charged them falsely with the demolition of
+sepulchres&mdash;sepulchres whose crystals are untouched even now. Imagine
+them brought before a court-martial and absolved, and then imagine these
+children dragged by the mob, disappointed of their prey, before another
+military council, who under terror condemned eight to death and the
+remainder to the galleys. There were forty-four children, and the kind
+council drew lots to decide which of them should be shot. Two brothers
+were drawn, but even the stony hearts of the so-called judges thought
+that it would be going rather too far to rob one father of his two sons;
+so one was discharged, and another substituted because older than the
+rest. This incredible, unprecedented crime yet goes unpunished."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_11" id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> He died in the following November at Madrid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_L_12" id="Footnote_L_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_12"><span class="label">[L]</span></a> "I have, since the beginning of the present session of
+Congress, communicated to the House of Representatives, upon their
+request, an account of the steps which I had taken in the hope of
+securing to the people of Cuba the blessings and the right of
+independent self-government. These efforts failed, but not without an
+assurance from Spain that the good offices of this government might
+still avail for the objects to which they had been addressed. It is
+stated, on what I believe to be good authority, that Cuban bonds have
+been prepared to a large amount, whose payment is made dependent upon
+the recognition by the United States of either Cuban belligerency or
+independence. The object of making their value thus contingent upon the
+action of this government is a subject for serious reflection."
+(<i>President Grant's message, June, 1870.</i>) Suggestive statements,
+indicating how powerful the interference of our government may be! It
+would more than aught else give the Spanish cabinet strength in inducing
+the Cortes to endorse it in high-handed measures against the moneyed
+slave-holding, slave-dealing clique in Havana, which is the root of all
+evil there.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PROBATIONER_LEONHARD" id="PROBATIONER_LEONHARD"></a>PROBATIONER LEONHARD;</h2>
+
+<h3>OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.</h3>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ADVANTAGE OF A DEBTOR.</h4>
+
+<p>The house to which Spener's steps now turned was the sixth one below
+Loretz's, on the same narrow street facing the stream&mdash;the long white
+house with a deep porch in which young men might often be seen smoking.
+Spener had given it the name of "Brethren's House," rather in
+remembrance of the custom still existing in Moravian villages than
+because it was strictly the abode of unmarried men who sought there a
+home. It was the fact that many unmarried men did dwell there, but also
+it was true that the house was the one inn of the place, and at this
+time it was well filled, as Loretz had said to Leonhard when he opened
+for him his hospitable gate.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the long dining-table Albert Spener took his place, and
+room was made beside him for his guest; and truly it was a company of
+cheerful-hearted workers, on whom no director might look without a
+thrill of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay a month with us as a probationer," said Spener suddenly, bringing
+his eyes to bear upon Leonhard, and there was kindly and powerful
+persuasion in them. "We can make you comfortable at least, and perhaps
+you may be brought to like us. I want to have a school-house built here:
+it is getting to be a necessity. You shall give us something ornamental
+in spite of ourselves, if you insist upon it. And it may be no difficult
+thing to compel me to put up houses on both those sites. But you are
+settled already, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Leonhard: "I am much more unsettled than any man of my
+years ought to be. I am so unfortunate as to have two professions."</p>
+
+<p>"Get into debt, and that will straighten you for a while," said Spener,
+laughing heartily. "When I had fairly left my employer and set this
+enterprise afoot, I gave up my sleeping habits. You will be obliged to
+part with something in order to convince yourself that you are in
+earnest. If you give up sleep, you will soon come to decisions."</p>
+
+<p>"I owe enough," said Leonhard.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not have guessed it. You sleep yet, though."</p>
+
+<p>"Because I can't help it. Yes, I sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will have to part with something of your free will&mdash;one of the
+professions, I suppose: you can't follow two very well. It is
+astonishing," Spener continued, not averse to talking about himself just
+now, when he was so much occupied with thoughts which concerned himself
+chiefly&mdash;"it is astonishing how different things look from the two sides
+of an action. Do your best, you cannot tell before you have taken a step
+how you will feel after it." On that remark he paused for a moment. Then
+he went on. It was a relief to talk with this young stranger: he had
+this advantage in the talk&mdash;it relieved him, and what he said, much or
+little, did not affect in the least the more that was left unsaid. There
+was nobody in Spenersberg to whom he could say as much as he was saying
+to Marten. Any Spenersberger would immediately proceed with the clew to
+the end. "My employer," he continued, "was a very cautious man, and I
+believe he thought me crazy when I told him what I was going to do, and
+asked him to lend me the money. Not a dollar would he lend, and I thank
+him for it. Go to the bank if you can find an endorser: it is best to
+feel that an institution is at your heels, and will be down on you if
+you are not up to time. An avalanche is a thing anybody in his senses
+will keep clear of."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Leonhard; and Spener went on eating his dinner, without
+suspecting that his talk had entirely appeased his companion's hunger.</p>
+
+<p>The young men spent a part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> afternoon walking about the garden
+alluded to where the willows were under cultivation. A scene of thrift
+and industry of which the eye could not soon tire was presented by these
+products of careful labor in every stage of growth.</p>
+
+<p>At length Spener came to Leonhard and told him that he should be obliged
+to leave him till the next day. "I find that I must go to town this
+afternoon," he said, "but you are to stay until after the festival. That
+is decided. I must talk with you again, and arrange about those
+buildings."</p>
+
+<p>It was easy now for Leonhard to decide that he would stay till after the
+festival&mdash;there was reason good why he should&mdash;and he promised to do so.
+Spener was so desirous that he should stay that after he had left the
+field he came back to urge it. But when he had looked again at Leonhard,
+he did not urge it in the way he had intended to do: "You must think
+whether it will be worth your while to stay or not. What is the
+profession you spoke about that keeps you unsettled, did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Music."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I am a builder of course&mdash;an architect and a builder," said poor
+Leonhard hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I like you," said Spener, drawing Leonhard's arm within his. "If you
+could make up your mind to stay, we might make it your interest to do
+so. As a probationer, you understand. There is a good deal to be done
+here, and I may throw open the farm up there to purchasers. The only
+difficulty is, that our people here might object. But it is quite clear
+to me&mdash;quite clear&mdash;that a little daylight wouldn't do any of us harm if
+it could be had, you know, by merely cutting away the dead underbrush
+and worthless timber."</p>
+
+<p>He shook hands again with Leonhard, who said, "I will think about what
+you have said: I like the sound of it."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be no end of work here for a skillful man of your business
+if the land is sold in lots. I have had a great many applications. I
+don't know of any such building-sites anywhere. My house will have to
+be over there on the slope, I think&mdash;a sort of guard to the valley and
+an assurance to Spenersbergers."</p>
+
+<p>He now went away, looking back and nodding at Leonhard, confident that
+they understood each other.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a man to envy!" thought our explorer; and he felt as if a
+strong staff had been wrenched out of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>But the thoughts with which Albert Spener strode toward the station, a
+mile away, were not enviable thoughts. For a little while he went on
+thinking about Leonhard with great satisfaction, and he made many plans
+based on ground-lines traced for his new acquaintance; but as he went
+his way he passed first Mr. Wenck's small abode, and farther on the
+house where Elise lived, and his indignation was not lessened when he
+thought how trivial was the part he had allowed himself to act in the
+play which might end as a tragedy if Elise should prove obstinate.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+
+<h4>LORETZ ON THE TROMBONE.</h4>
+
+<p>Later in the afternoon, toward sunset, Leonhard left the gardens and
+walked slowly down the street, taking cognizance of all things in his
+way. He noticed that Taste had taken Haste in hand in many a place, and
+that already attempts were evident to repair and amend or construct
+anew. What might not be done toward making a paradise of such a place
+under the encouragement of a man like Albert Spener? But a probationer!
+That meant, Say that you will present yourself to Moravian brethren as a
+candidate for admission to their fellowship. He smiled at the thought,
+but when he considered the opportunities of work Spener would put in his
+way, he began to look grave. Of course he must give up his music: it was
+no profession for him, and he saw that it was folly and weakness to
+attempt the service of two masters; and yet he will go back and talk
+with Mrs. Anna about Herrnhut and old Leonhard Marten. Just here comes
+the sound of a trombone cleaving the air.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It startles him, and it startles others also. "Who is gone?" he hears
+one man ask another from his place in the garden; and he understands
+that the trombone has made an announcement to the people of Spenersberg.
+How the notes wind along, a noble stream of solemn sound!</p>
+
+<p>"Who is gone home?" he hears another ask, but again there is no answer.</p>
+
+<p>He sees a group of children stopping in the midst of their play and
+looking at each other with scared faces&mdash;one little one suddenly hiding
+its face in its mother's apron, as if in the shrinking shyness and awe
+of apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>As he approaches his destination a ghostlike face and figure startles
+Leonhard: he looks back and sees it is "our little minister, Wenck,"
+whom Spener had pointed out to him in their morning walk. He is hurrying
+down the street, and it is not likely that any one will stop a man
+proceeding at such a rate, with questions.</p>
+
+<p>Loretz stands on his piazza with his trombone in his hand: it is he who
+blows that blast which echoes through Spenersberg, announcing a death.</p>
+
+<p>Doubting what the signal means, Leonhard, with a little hesitation,
+approaches his host and looks for the information he does not ask. Is it
+a calamity that has overtaken the house? One could hardly gather from a
+glance at Mr. Loretz. Evidently the stout little man has been moved by
+some powerful surprise: his eyes are full of agitation; his dress
+betokens it; he has been driven to and fro, distracted, within the hour.
+When he sees Leonhard his excitement exhibits itself in a new form: he
+lifts the trombone to his lips, and taking another key he sounds again;
+it is a note of solemn triumph, so prolonged that it would seem as if
+the desire was that all space should be filled with the echoes thereof.</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard sits down on one of the large wooden chairs in the piazza to
+enjoy the music: then Loretz comes to him and says, "You have heard it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard it?" repeated Leonhard, interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister Benigna&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, sir?" exclaimed Leonhard, starting to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"She has gone home."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" exclaimed Leonhard. "Do you mean to say that she is dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"We call it going home," answered Loretz.</p>
+
+<p>"But gone home! When, why, how did she go?"</p>
+
+<p>"It shocks you," said Loretz, finding perhaps not a little satisfaction
+in seeing this stranger so moved. He had himself been so horrified by
+Benigna's silent, unlooked-for departure, and to be shocked and
+horrified by death was so undesirable and so fought against among good
+Moravians, that Leonhard's emotion, and much more than emotion, seemed a
+real solace for the moment. "We don't know how it was," he continued.
+"My daughter was to go to practice the music with her in the hall after
+school, and when she went into the school-room she found Sister Benigna
+sitting at her desk with <i>The Messiah</i> open. But she was gone. We had in
+Doctor Hummel, and he says it was the heart. He has thought, he says,
+for a year or so, that there must be some feeble action of the valves.
+She went to him a twelvemonth since about it, and he told her his
+opinion; but he told her she might live fifty years yet, though she
+<i>might</i> go any day. She never mentioned it to us. But Hummel says when
+he told her she said it was good news. Yet, sir, you never saw a happier
+creature. You saw her last night and this morning. Well, sir, that's a
+fair sample&mdash;busy all the time, and happy as happy."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you sure that nothing could be done for her?" exclaimed
+Leonhard, to whom the quiet and calm into which Loretz had talked
+himself was anything but composing.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly sure. If you should look at her once you would see. But I
+must go back to my women. Will you make yourself at home within? We
+shall all be back in an hour or so."</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard said he would go to the Brethren's House and spend the night
+there, but Loretz said hastily, "I was afraid you would be thinking of
+that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> sir. Stay with us: we want your company. We shall not bring
+Sister Benigna here. If she had&mdash;had died here, we should have carried
+her to the corpse-house this evening. It is but a short distance from
+the factory, and she will lie there to-night. And&mdash;I have been
+thinking&mdash;to-morrow evening we must celebrate our congregation festival
+with her funeral."</p>
+
+<p>"Then if I had not come just when I did," thought Leonhard, "I should
+never have seen Sister Benigna. If the truth could be known, I don't
+believe the woman has known any greater pleasure in a long time than I
+gave her when I made those suggestions last evening. Only twenty-four
+hours, and it might be a year! She ought to have lived until after the
+festival. How she would have enjoyed it! I should like to look at Spener
+when he hears that the woman is actually out of the world. It would be a
+bad job for him if it had happened to be the other one. Jupiter!
+wouldn't I like to know whether it is better to be lamented by the
+community, so far as the community's principles will allow it to lament,
+or to spread devastation all around in the way this little Miss Elise
+couldn't help doing if she should be 'called home,' as they say!
+Musician answers one way, architect the other. Have you the nerve to go
+in and touch that piano, Probationer Marten?"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rex tremend&aelig; Majestatis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Qui salvandos salvas gratis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Salva me, Fons Pietatis!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What voice was this which made the house resound, and thrilled the
+hearts of the listeners at the gate as they stood there for a moment in
+the moonlight?</p>
+
+<p>"I left Mr. Marten within," said Loretz to his wife and daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"He is singing the Requiem," said Elise. They waited a moment longer,
+but just then Leonhard stepped over the window-sill, and began pacing
+the piazza with his arms folded on his breast, his head bent. The words
+he sang in fact had electrified him, and the rush of thoughts had driven
+him from the piano.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Salva me, Fons Pietatis!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+
+<h4>PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.</h4>
+
+<p>Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the
+event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when
+talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister
+proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening.
+The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had
+evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under
+constraint in the midst of this very select audience.</p>
+
+<p>Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back.
+He went to town this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"When will he come?" asked the minister.</p>
+
+<p>"Some time to-morrow&mdash;toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven,
+unless he is detained."</p>
+
+<p>"We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I
+think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval.
+He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he
+would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course:
+let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from&mdash;from the
+corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in
+the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it
+even as it would have been observed."</p>
+
+<p>The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's
+control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame
+Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be.
+It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little
+children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church
+more than she has? I am sure it is what&mdash;what <i>everybody</i> must see is
+the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we
+were all beside ourselves&mdash;we didn't know what to think or what to do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly
+after his wife had concluded her animated speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he
+will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if
+we don't, and we can't change that."</p>
+
+<p>So it was decided, and Mr. Wenck went away, having declined the entreaty
+of Mrs. Loretz to fill a seat at their supper-table.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly walking back to his lonely house, which had never seemed so
+lonely, so desolate to him, Mr. Wenck saw little Charles Hummel, who was
+going in the same direction and homeward. He had been looking for
+Charley, for he had heard one of the children say that he was in the
+school-room with the teacher last, and so he took the boy's hand, and
+they walked along together.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you all prepared with your pieces, Charley?" the minister asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, sir, but now we shall not sing them."</p>
+
+<p>"And why will you not sing them, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there will not be any celebration&mdash;will there, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly: why should there not?"</p>
+
+<p>"What, sir! to-morrow night, just the same?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that Sister Benigna would approve of our having no
+congregation festival?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir, you know&mdash;don't you know? I saw them carrying her from the
+school-room. She&mdash;she&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know all," said the minister: "she is gone home. But then she
+will know about our celebration: oh yes, just the same: it must be that
+she will hear all the sweet voices. It seems far away to us where she
+is: perhaps it has seemed so, but she brings heaven nearer: it is surely
+but a step to the Better Land."</p>
+
+<p>It had appeared almost impossible for Mr. Wenck to speak in Loretz's
+house, but now words came so freely to his lips that he seemed even to
+find comfort in speech.</p>
+
+<p>The boy had now reached his father's house, and would have gone in, but
+the minister with gentle force retained the small hand he held, and
+said, "Let us walk on a little farther, Charley. How beautiful the moon
+is to-night! Were you in the school-room to-day, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was there this afternoon, sir," said the little lad, awed by the
+sound of his own voice's gentleness&mdash;so gently the minister spoke he
+could himself speak in no other way. But he would not have liked the
+boys to hear him, and he looked around as if to see if any one followed,
+and was a little startled when he saw his shadow and the shadow of Mr.
+Wenck following so close.</p>
+
+<p>"When I come to speak to the congregation about her I shall want to tell
+them all about to-day," said Mr. Wenck, "if there is anything it would
+be pleasant for them to know. Do you remember anything she&mdash;she said or
+did, Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy thought a moment. "It was just the same as always," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you practice your songs this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, we practiced them."</p>
+
+<p>"For the last time, and you did not know it!" Would that little lad
+remember, when he came to manhood, this hour and these words? Would he
+from that noonday sun receive a light that could enlighten the mystery
+of this pallid, shadowy hour which filled his little being with such
+awe?</p>
+
+<p>"But she said we sang beautifully," he said, moved by the spirit of
+obedience to stay and answer, and not shake off the hand that held him
+and run home affrighted, and dream of spirits and Mr. Wenck's pale face
+and his strange voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then you pleased her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She said it was the best singing, sir, she had ever heard, and that she
+was glad we had worked so hard and had been so attentive and patient.
+That was what she said, I remember now," said the little lad with
+spirit: "I thought there was something I forgot. She said when we sang
+our part in the festival all the people would know how hard we had tried
+to learn."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And when she dismissed you, was there anything more?"</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;she kissed us: she always did," said the little fellow, bursting
+into sudden crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charley," said the minister&mdash;and he bent down and kissed the little
+boy, whose face was wet with tears&mdash;"we must not cry for her&mdash;not any of
+us. And God himself has wiped away <i>her</i> tears."</p>
+
+<p>"And then when I was going out," said Charley, rallying again, "she
+asked me to bring her a pitcher of water from the spring before I went
+home. When I took it in she was reading her music, and she had some
+flowers in a glass. And I filled it with fresh water for her," he said
+proudly. And that was all he had to tell.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a good boy to remember so much," said Mr. Wenck; and now he
+walked back with Charley to the doctor's gate, and kissing him again
+bade him "Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Long after every light was extinguished in Spenersberg homes, Mr. Wenck
+was walking up and down in front of his own house beneath the trees,
+pacing the grass, a noiseless sentinel. He had no duties now to perform:
+undisturbed his thoughts might wander whither they would. They could not
+wander far&mdash;too near was the magnet. The day had begun in a manner which
+he could not but think remarkable: the shadow of approaching calamity
+had disturbed him until the horror appeared. For, accustomed as he had
+been to teach and preach and to think of death as a friend, the
+conductor to a happier world, the enlightener and the life-giver, he
+could not regard the departure of Sister Benigna in such light. The loss
+to the community was almost irreparable, he began by saying to himself,
+but he ended by saying, "Hypocrite! do you mourn the community's loss,
+or your own?"</p>
+
+<p>The tower-clock struck twelve as in his walk he approached the gate to
+his little garden: he hesitated, and then noiselessly opened it. Here
+were various fragrant flowers in blossom, and roses innumerable on the
+well-cared-for bushes, but he passed these, and gathered from the house
+wall a few ivy leaves, and climbing the fence in the rear of his house
+began to ascend the slope that led to the cemetery, that place of the
+people's constant resort. He did not enter it, but stood a long while on
+the peaceful plain, which was filled with moonlight. At last he slowly
+turned away and walked across the wooded knolls and fields until he came
+to the corpse-house, which only yesterday he had garnished with fresh
+boughs. He knew whither he went, and yet when he had come to the door of
+that resting-place the external calm disappeared&mdash;the props of
+consolation, the support of faith, gave way. He opened the door,
+entered, closed it behind him, and by the light of the lamp suspended
+from the whitewashed rafters saw Sister Benigna lying on the bier,
+dressed in white garments, with a rose in one white hand.</p>
+
+<p>When he came forth again a cold fog was filling the valley, and morning
+approached. Who will wish to dwell even in imagination on the hours he
+had passed in that silent house, or care to guess the battle which
+perchance had been fought there, or the wild flow of tears which had for
+years been pent, or the groans which could not be uttered, which at last
+had utterance; or how at last the man died there, and the victor, as one
+who had been slain, came forth?</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE MOTHER CONFESSOR.</h4>
+
+<p>So the day passed in preparation for Sister Benigna's funeral, as well
+as for the congregation festival.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spener had given out yesterday that the workers in the factory
+should have a half holiday, and, in conformity to his orders, at twelve
+o'clock Loretz dismissed the weavers for the day. The various performers
+met in the hall and rehearsed their several parts, and the programme, it
+was decided, should be carried out precisely as Sister Benigna had
+designed.</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard looked on and listened, wondering. Mrs. Loretz, who had only
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> sing in the choruses, had a little time on her hands during the day,
+and was glad that the young man was there to be talked to. True, he was
+busily at work over his drawing, which he wished to have ready to show
+Mr. Spener in the morning, but he was glad to listen, and the talk was
+in itself not uninteresting. Dame Anna had a great deal to say about
+Sister Benigna&mdash;not much to tell, really: the facts of her life as they
+were known to Mrs. Loretz were few. Benigna had come six years ago to
+Spenersberg, and had been an active member of the church there since
+that day. What everybody said was true: she had been the Genius of Music
+there, and in the true Moravian spirit had rallied every musical thought
+and all musical skill to the standard of religion. At first there had
+been a good deal of talk about founding a Sisters' House, but that had
+been given up: it was thought that the ends to be accomplished by it
+could be obtained at less cost and with less labor. She had lived in
+their house since the day she came: she was like a daughter to them, and
+a sister and more to Elise.</p>
+
+<p>Then by and by the communicativeness of the good woman, as well as her
+confidence in Leonhard, increasing with her speech, she began to talk
+about Mr. Spener, and to hint his "intentions;" and she ended by telling
+this stranger what was not known outside her own family except to the
+minister. And when she had explained all it became clear to her that she
+must justify the method of proceeding in matrimonial affairs which had
+given to herself a good husband, and had been the means of establishing
+many happy households which she could name.</p>
+
+<p>The only trouble that could possibly arise from the turn affairs had
+taken was a trouble that did look rather threatening, Leonhard thought.
+Spener had consented to abide by the decision of the lot, but now&mdash;would
+he?</p>
+
+<p>After she had told all this, Mrs. Loretz asked Leonhard what he thought
+about it. He said he thought it was a hard case: he could feel for Mr.
+Spener. He was afraid that under the circumstances he should not behave
+well.</p>
+
+<p>The good woman nodded her head as if she quite understood the force of
+his remarks, but, though it seemed hard, wasn't it better to be
+disappointed before marriage than after? Undoubtedly, he answered, yet
+he should prefer to feel that in an affair like that he could make his
+own choice, with consent of the lady.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Loretz thought to herself he spoke as if he had already chosen for
+himself, and knew what he was talking about; and the cheerful fancies
+which she had entertained last night with regard to the beneficent care
+of Providence in sending Leonhard to Spenersberg disappeared like a
+wreath of mist. She must now mourn the loss of Sister Benigna more
+heavily than before, since she found herself without support on the
+highway of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>Had an unhappy marriage never come within her knowledge, Leonhard asked,
+which the lot had seemed to sanction?</p>
+
+<p>She had been thinking of that, Mistress Anna acknowledged. There had,
+certainly&mdash;she could not deny it. But it was where the parties had not
+seriously tried to make the best of everything.</p>
+
+<p>Was it necessary, then, he asked&mdash;even when the lot decided
+favorably&mdash;that people should <i>put up</i> with each other, and find it not
+easy to keep back sharp words which would edge their way out into
+hearing in spite of all efforts to keep them back? Must people
+providentially yoked together find themselves called upon, just like
+others, to make sacrifices of temper and taste and opinion all through
+life?</p>
+
+<p>Wasn't that going on everywhere? she asked. Did he know of any people
+anywhere who agreed so well about everything that there was never a
+chance of dispute? And where was there such an abundance of everything
+that there was no occasion for self-sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard laughed at these questions, and Mistress Anna looked wise, but
+she did not laugh. Leonhard might not be the providential substitute for
+a lover providentially removed, but at least he was a pleasant companion
+for a troubled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> hour. He had thought so much on this subject, possibly
+he had some experimental knowledge. Had he a wife?&mdash;Not yet, he said.
+But he would have.&mdash;Oh, of course: what would a man do in this world
+without a wife? Perhaps it would not trouble him to think of the one he
+would like to marry if he might.&mdash;No, not in the least.&mdash;And he would be
+satisfied to decide for himself, and not ask any counsel?&mdash;Was he not
+the one who must live with the lady? and was it likely that anybody
+would know as well as himself what he wanted?&mdash;Only, she suggested, how
+could he feel certain that he would have what he wanted, after
+all?&mdash;What! hadn't a man eyes?&mdash;That can be trusted, my dear?&mdash;If he
+can't trust his own, will he trust another man's?&mdash;But can he feel sure
+that what he wants would be best for him?&mdash;Is the best he can imagine
+any too good for a man, if he can get it?</p>
+
+<p>But she has been thinking, How happened it that father should have found
+his very name in the birthday book? She has been thinking of it nearly
+all the morning. When she first set eyes on him&mdash;did he know?&mdash;she felt
+sure that he belonged to them.</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard did not know about the name. He felt very grateful to her for
+her kindness. He hoped the book had shown him the writing of his
+ancestor, but he did not know. His parents died when he was a little
+boy, and if he had any relatives alive, they were unknown to him. He
+should be glad to believe that the Herrnhuter was his grandfather or
+great-grandfather. But they must not ask him to run the risk of losing
+his chance if there should be a young lady whom he might wish to marry:
+he could not trust any voice in such a matter except hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Loretz and I have had our share of trials," she answered solemnly. "It
+has helped us to bear them, I am sure, dear youth, to think that God had
+brought us together and united us, for the lot decided how it should be.
+There have been times when I knew not how I could have endured what was
+put upon me but for remembering&mdash;remembering that in the counsels of a
+better world our marriage was decreed. See, Sister Benigna brought the
+ink home with her this noon! Now write your name in Frederick's book,
+and think whether it would not be best to stay with us."</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard appeared to be intent on his drawings: he bent over his work,
+but in truth his eyes could not see quite distinctly the lines which he
+drew. "I will not forget the book," he said: "as to staying in
+Spenersberg, I am only a probationer wherever I am."</p>
+
+<p>"And who knows how happy you might be among us!" said Dame Anna, who was
+quite clear now on a point somewhat cloudy before. The stranger had
+brought with him some secret sorrow and trouble, poor dear!</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE CONGREGATION FESTIVAL.</h4>
+
+<p>As the day passed on, all thoughts were evidently directed toward the
+solemn scenes with which it was to close. It was pleasant to our friend
+to walk along the street toward the end of the afternoon, and look at
+the pretty cottages, each with its garden of flowers in front and its
+vine-encased windows and doors. Now and then he saw at door or window or
+in little garden young girls with flowers in their hands: were they
+weaving them into emblematic devices for the coffin and the grave? This
+little hamlet seemed to be the sanctuary of beautiful thoughts and
+things. Music was loved and served here, and he had never seen so many
+flowers as were crowded into these gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of entering the church at the hour appointed for the funeral, as
+Mrs. Loretz had advised him to do, Leonhard merely ascended the steps
+and looked within on the neat edifice, all the architectural points of
+which could be surveyed at a glance, for there was neither pulpit nor
+altar within, nor pointed window nor arched roof to gaze at, but merely
+a large square room well furnished with benches, and a table and the
+minister's chair; and then descending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> the steps, he retired to a group
+of trees in the distance, beneath which he sat down to await the
+procession. He had not to wait long. Soon the sound of trombones came
+floating upon, encompassing, filling the air. A slight breeze was
+stirring; the sun was going down; the willow-covered plain was aglow
+with its golden light; among the hills the evening shadows were already
+gathering. Night was only awaiting its swift-coming opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>A small company gathered around the corpse-house, the body was brought
+forth upon the bier, and the procession, which had silently and quickly
+gathered at the signal of the trombones, started on foot for the church.</p>
+
+<p>When all had entered the edifice, Leonhard went in and sat down near the
+door. It was but his third night in Spenersberg, yet he was not among
+strangers, and how his heart was moved by all he saw and heard! An
+influence prevailed in this place which was fast mastering him.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat down and looked upon the faces of the elders, the faces of the
+men and the women&mdash;of the people who had toiled, and whose toil had been
+blessed to them&mdash;who had suffered, and whose suffering had been
+sanctified to them&mdash;his heart was like wax. In the drive and hurry of
+life he had never seen such faces. When he watched the troop of
+children, dressed in white and walking hand in hand, he thought of his
+own lonely childhood, and sighed to think that he had come here too
+late. And the minister, whom Spener had spoken about with patronizing
+contempt&mdash;looking at him, Leonhard said to himself, "Here is a man who
+could counsel me. He has fought his fight, and for him there is a crown
+of victory and rejoicing."</p>
+
+<p>The impression he had received when he glanced toward the minister's
+place was deepened as the services went forward, and he saw Mr. Wenck
+stand looking down upon the coffin, and from it toward the people.</p>
+
+<p>The music for the congregation festival was sung. It was all as Benigna
+had arranged it: there was no omission of parts except her own and
+Elise's. Such voices, such trained voices, and such instrumental
+performances, Leonhard said to himself, and could say truly, he had
+never heard. He was dumb with wonder, and because he loved music he wept
+as though he had loved Benigna. It seemed indeed that the mourners&mdash;and
+the church was filled with mourners in spite of all the words of
+resignation and immortal hope upon their tongues&mdash;were all intent on
+doing honor to the woman whose life among them would never be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with the usual custom&mdash;nothing could he omit that would do
+honor to her memory&mdash;the minister gave a slight biographical sketch of
+Benigna. He spoke of her childhood, and told the children that there was
+not one of them who had not been born in a happier home and to better
+fortunes than she. She had served music well because she loved it well,
+and they were all witnesses whether she had received any reward for
+faithfulness in that service. She had served her Master well because to
+her His service was the highest freedom, and she found in it the
+greatest joy. They had but to think upon, to look upon, her beautiful
+face if they would know whether she could have chosen another service in
+which she would have found such joy. Did she not appear to them&mdash;not
+because she had departed: would she not if she were still among
+them?&mdash;the most complete in excellences and virtues of any character
+they had known? Was she not farther on in the perfect life than any one
+of them? And how happy her life in Spenersberg had been! "Surely,
+surely," he concluded, "this heroic example of constancy to duty, of
+struggle against weakness, will not be lost on us! Never, on any
+battle-field of faith, fought a braver soldier. God has given her the
+victory. In a moment, at the close of a day of labor, in her
+school-room, right there in that blessed, that sacred place&mdash;just there
+where she would have chosen, with the kisses of her children on her
+face&mdash;just there she heard the summons. Can we doubt, O friends! that
+when our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> day of labor is ended we shall see Sister Benigna again? Not
+if we resolve that with God's help we will prove ourselves worthy of the
+high honor of being called her friends on earth."</p>
+
+<p>The silence which filled the house after the minister sat down was
+broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees
+Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as
+he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls,
+it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of
+mourners, but the ransomed sons and daughters of the New Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>After the services at the grave the people assembled in the church again
+to partake of the love-feast. Leonhard still followed. No wonder if he
+walked as in a dream, and at times stood to ask himself where he was,
+and what all this might mean. A month ago, a week ago, he might have
+seen half his acquaintances hid away in darkness, and such feelings not
+have been stirred, such thoughts suggested, as were stirred and
+suggested here. So much human kindness he had never heard in human
+voices or seen in human faces. The fierce grasping at opportunity, the
+wild struggle for place, which his short experience had shown him was
+the world's way of living, made him wonder if it was possible that
+mortals could live so near heaven as these people lived. In that hour
+the sharp strain of life relaxed&mdash;his disappointments ceased to torment
+him&mdash;he almost forgot that he stood in the attitude of an absconding
+debtor. Around him flowed the isolating, soothing, life-renewing waters.
+He had passed rapids and cataract: could his humbled head receive the
+benediction of the hour? Could he drop his burdens here, and go forward
+on a new path and with a new ambition? What were all the honors of the
+world, its rewards, its pride, compared with the peace and satisfaction
+of this people? Home, work, friendship, holiness&mdash;could so much content
+him? All were to be had here. But why might he not find the same
+elsewhere&mdash;home, work, friendship, uprightness, honor,
+success&mdash;patience to do the work that offered and to wait for the
+ripening of the harvest which should rightfully be his? While the people
+sat at their love-feast, exchanging the grasp of friendship and the kiss
+of peace, these questions waited upon him. Then came thoughts that were
+like answers. He would write to Wilberforce: if Spener had spoken
+seriously he would undertake those buildings; and then he looked around,
+and his imagination transformed this room of the worshiping congregation
+into a temple all beautiful within; and somehow into tint and form the
+character of the Spenersbergers seemed so to enter that over the people
+as well as the house of worship he saw the wings of the Angel of the
+Covenant outspread.</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+
+<h4>LEONHARD'S THIRD NIGHT IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.</h4>
+
+<p>Loretz invited Mr. Wenck to go home with him after the services: there
+was something he wished to speak about, he said. Mr. Wenck needed no
+urging: he wanted to see Elise one moment alone. But he did not find
+that moment, for while Loretz was talking about the work which should be
+done without delay in the cemetery, and saying that there could be no
+better time to call attention to it than the present, when so many would
+be going to visit Sister Benigna's grave, Spener came in. He had heard
+already all that could be told him with regard to Benigna's death, but
+his surprise had brought him straight to Loretz, and what he said was
+creditable to him, although he had made certain statements to Leonhard
+yesterday concerning Sister Benigna which neither of them would be
+likely to forget. It was perhaps the recollection of them just now which
+made him look at Leonhard and say, "I have been speaking to Mr. Marten
+about a school-building, and he has promised to give me a design for
+one. Shall we not call it Sister Benigna's monument?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sister Benigna's monument should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> be erected by the people," said the
+minister instantly. "She is in such regard among them all that it would
+be a most beautiful memorial."</p>
+
+<p>"We will consider that," said Spener. He was not very well pleased by
+Wenck's remark, and perhaps there could be no better time than the
+present to express his thought in regard to such assistance as he would
+be likely to receive from Spenersberg in erecting a monument. "I dare
+say the parents would be pleased to contribute their mite, and the
+children also; but no doubt in the end it would be my lookout. And it
+would be my pleasure, certainly, to see that there was no debt on the
+building."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, pray do not call it her monument," said Mr. Wenck.</p>
+
+<p>When Spener had spoken he felt a slight misgiving, as one who should
+look pitifully on the moth which he had crushed. The minister's words
+now amazed him, but he restrained his rising anger. Wenck must have
+something else to say: let him say it then.</p>
+
+<p>"I judged the people by myself," Wenck said. "And that is saying a great
+deal more than I can express. It would be no pleasure, certainly, to see
+that her friends bore the least share in such expenses."</p>
+
+<p>"But, dear Brother Wenck, we are all Sister Benigna's friends," said
+Spener with the expostulation of a master in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Could we praise ourselves more highly, sir, than to say we are her
+friends? For myself, I feel that the glory of Spenersberg has passed
+away. I came here, Brother Loretz, to speak to you about her."</p>
+
+<p>Loretz nodded: he was too much surprised by the minister's remarks to
+speak. They all seemed to feel that the only thing asked of them was a
+hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"One week ago," Mr. Wenck continued, "I did not suppose that I could
+speak to you with such freedom as I feel I may use now. If I had said
+then what I now must, I might not have been able to convince anybody
+except of one thing. Perhaps I could not have felt certain about my own
+motives. But now I am above suspicion: I cannot suspect myself. <i>She</i>
+will not doubt my secret thought, and you will all bear me witness." The
+minister looked around him as he spoke, and Spener would never point him
+out to man again as yesterday he had called Leonhard's attention to the
+little minister. Leonhard sat uneasily on his chair, doubting whether to
+go or stay, but nobody thought of him, and he felt himself to be in the
+centre of a charmed circle, out of which he could not remove himself.
+Every one was looking at Mr. Wenck, who, pausing a second as if to
+assure himself again that all to whom he would speak were before him,
+went on, his voice becoming more calm and strong, and his whole bearing
+witnessing for him in his speech. "Before I heard of Spenersberg," he
+said&mdash;"before it had existence even in the brain of its honored
+founder&mdash;my acquaintance with Benigna began."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible, Mr. Wenck?" exclaimed Dame Loretz, her voice breaking
+under the weight of her sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I was hoping that she and I were to spend our lives together.
+Dear Sister Loretz, you understand now why I could not take a wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why is that so, sir?" asked Loretz, doubting, and not very well
+pleased: "that's news, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"It is, I know. And the story would never be told by me but for&mdash;for
+your sake, my friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, but&mdash;" said Loretz, afraid to hear what was coming; not
+that he guessed, but because Spener sat there with a face so&mdash;so
+inexplicable. Loretz could not make out its meaning when just now he
+glanced that way; and the face was full of meaning. What was passing in
+his mind?</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell the story, Mr. Loretz. I want you to know it. It will not
+take long. May I not go on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, sir, by all means!" exclaimed Spener. "Say what you have to say,
+and&mdash;" His voice sunk: he did not finish the sentence, audibly at least.</p>
+
+<p>But Wenck still waited until Mrs. Loretz said, "Husband, surely you
+would like to know about dear Sister Benigna?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Loretz, reluctant still because of his misgivings, "go on.
+It will be a comfort to you, I dare say, Mr. Wenck, to talk about her
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"It is my duty, sir, to talk about her here, and my privilege. We were
+both toiling in our way to reach the time when our love for each other
+might be spoken and shown to be something short of unreasonable. When
+that time did come we were led to ascertain whether our union would be
+in accordance with the Divine will, in the manner of our fathers, which
+had been adhered to for generations in the village where we lived. We
+found that, according to the lot, our lives must be lived apart. It did
+not appear to me then that we did right to give each other up. But I did
+not attempt to persuade her&mdash;or&mdash;to assure myself that I had not made a
+mistake when I loved her."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that," was the comment on this statement which appeared on
+the scornful face of Spener.</p>
+
+<p>"But I have often asked myself whether I should not have performed my
+duty in a better way, a more enlightened way, if I had tried to persuade
+Benigna to a step which has been taken by many of the most devout,
+God-fearing brethren."</p>
+
+<p>"What! what!" exclaimed Loretz, aghast. This was the very thing he had
+feared from some quarter, and now he heard it whence he had least
+expected it to come.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you before you resorted to the lot&mdash;and my inmost hope was that
+you would act upon it&mdash;that the lot is not now considered among the
+brethren essential in the decision of questions of this kind. Surely you
+have not forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"You mentioned it," said Spener reluctantly, in most ungenerous
+acknowledgment. "I recollect wishing that you would make a point of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It was impossible," replied the minister. "But now I can speak. If I
+understand you, my friends, there is none of you that feels ready to
+resign his own will in this matter. In your own secret hearts you
+understand there is no submission. With such sacrifice God is not well
+pleased. Do you think He can be? You have but followed a fashion. It is
+a vain oblation. But"&mdash;he went on hurriedly, for he did not wish to
+provoke discussion, at least until he had told the brief tale to the
+end&mdash;"Benigna and I accepted the decision as final. When I came to
+Spenersberg and found her here, it was a great, an overwhelming
+surprise. Brother Loretz, you know by whose request I came."</p>
+
+<p>"I have always felt proud of having brought you here, Brother Wenck: I
+stand by it yet. You have done the right thing always, so far as I know.
+Surely it was well to bring you here."</p>
+
+<p>"When I found her here I thought I could not stay, but I finally
+accepted that too as a dispensation of the Divine will, thankful, sir,
+thankful that I might have the woman for my friend and co-worker. Has
+she worked with me? Oh, Benigna, thou art still and for ever my
+friend&mdash;for ever!&mdash;and the thought of thee will be an inspiration to my
+work till my work too is done! But, Mr. Spener, I do not think that this
+trial is set for you and Elise. Brother Loretz, I feel called upon to
+testify that I do not believe that this trial is appointed to Brother
+Spener and Elise. Think of it, and give me your consent, all of you, and
+I will immediately, with devout thanksgiving, in the presence of God,
+join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."</p>
+
+<p>Spener was first to break the silence which bound each amazed soul of
+this little company when Mr. Wenck ceased to speak. His face shone, he
+looked as if he could have embraced "our little minister" then and
+there. He had been, in spite of his pride and prejudice, converted
+wholly into faith in Wenck, but instead of manifesting his conversion at
+once, he strode across the room to Elise's mother. "This is a house of
+mourning," said he, "otherwise I would never consent that Elise's
+marriage should be a private one. I would wish all Spenersberg to see my
+bride: I would like all the people to see our happiness. But let it be
+now, let it be now, Loretz. Elise, let it be now. Surely you see the
+wisdom of it. Such a compliance as ours to a mere custom would be an
+insult to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> our Father in heaven. Common sense is against it."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was tremulous with emotion: he took Elise's hand. Who could
+stand against him? Her eyes were lifted as to the hills whence help had
+come to them.</p>
+
+<p>Loretz was sadly disconcerted. Spener's instant acceptance of the
+minister's proposal completed the overthrow occasioned by Mr. Wenck's
+astonishing words. How true what he was always saying, that nobody could
+stand against that man!</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, father, surely," said Spener, approaching him, and drawing
+Elise along with him&mdash;"surely you cannot fail to feel the force of what
+our good brother has said."</p>
+
+<p>Loretz looked at his wife: it was not merely Albert, the man he revered
+most, but the child&mdash;yes, the child of his heart also was arrayed
+against him. How was it with Anna?</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to the minister," said she. "He knows what is right."</p>
+
+<p>"I have spoken in the fear of God," said Mr. Wenck. "I call no man
+master."</p>
+
+<p>Spener looked down at these words: he understood their significance. The
+interview he had returned home intending to ask of Wenck was of a
+different character from this. "I think that no one could suspect you,
+sir, of tampering with another man's destiny or his conscience," he
+said. "I have never understood you till now, and for my misunderstanding
+I humbly ask your pardon." And indeed who that looked at him could
+suppose that this was a moment of proud rejoicing over a success won in
+spite of Church and household?</p>
+
+<p>The minister silently gave him his hand. Spener did himself justice when
+he took the extended palm and held it a moment reverently in his.</p>
+
+<p>"Father, we await your decision," he said to Loretz. He still held
+Elise's hand, and she would not have flown away had he held it less
+firmly.</p>
+
+<p>Leonhard, quite forgotten, just here accidentally touched the piano with
+his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to
+Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz
+looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light
+fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks
+around here know?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"About the lot? Who would have told them? I should say no one."</p>
+
+<p>"Then 'twill do them no harm: I am my brother's keeper. Go on. We won't
+make a balk of it this time."</p>
+
+<p>"What, father!" exclaimed Dame Loretz. "How! Now?" It was her turn to
+offer herself as a stumbling-block, but, dear soul! she must always make
+poor work of such endeavor.</p>
+
+<p>"If they are agreed, let it be. Albert Spener never gave his consent out
+and out to the testing; and look at our girl here! The Lord have mercy
+on us! If I can understand, though, it isn't Albert's doing."</p>
+
+<p>"It is wholly Brother Wenck's," said Spener.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Benigna's," said the minister. "Let us therefore celebrate this
+day of sorrow by a concluding special service;" and he drew from his
+pocket the manual from which he had read the burial service over Sister
+Benigna. "We will rejoice together, as she will rejoice if it is given
+her to know what the friends she loved do on the earth. Is it not as if
+she had given her life for her friends?"</p>
+
+<p>When Leonhard took up the interrupted strain of the "Wedding March,"
+bridegroom had saluted bride, and Loretz, by the light of his daughter's
+eyes, had taken one decided step toward conviction that he had consented
+in that hour not to the furtherance of his own will, but the will of
+Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Have we permitted Miss Elise to figure almost as a mute on this
+momentous occasion? But does the reader think it likely that she had
+much to say? She might perhaps have uttered one word that would have
+proved insurmountable, but Mr. Wenck had spoken as it were with
+Benigna's authority, and so to yield now was the most obvious duty.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning saw Leonhard Marten on his way back to A&mdash;&mdash;. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+submitted to Spener his designs for the monument to be erected among the
+living to the memory of Sister Benigna, and for the houses to be built
+on those elected sites; and these all accepted, he had said to himself,
+"I am an architect and a builder as long as I live," though Spener had
+embraced him when he said, "I never heard such music, sir&mdash;never&mdash;as you
+gave us last night!"</p>
+
+<p>He went away, promising to come back and bring with him a young lady to
+study music of the Spenersbergers, so soon as he should have despatched
+a letter to a friend who was about to travel abroad.</p>
+
+<p>He promised with a young man's audacity, but he performed it all. If
+Marion was not to be abandoned at once and for ever to a false style of
+music and a false way of living, she must be converted, as he had been,
+out of all patience with the foolish falseness of their life. And then
+everything seemed so easy to him, and really was so easy, after he had
+decided that he could write his name down in that birthday book sacred
+to friendship in which Loretz had offered him a place.</p>
+
+<p>And here is explanation ample of the fact that Wilberforce, about to
+travel abroad and in sore need of money, found a thousand dollars
+deposited to his credit when he expected five thousand, and in due time
+received a letter which satisfied him, in spite of its surprise, that
+Leonhard was the best friend he had and the most trustworthy man living,
+and that whoever she might be whom he had taken in holy matrimony for
+his life-companion, he was worthy of her.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Caroline Chesebro'</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="UNSETTLED_POINTS_OF_ETIQUETTE" id="UNSETTLED_POINTS_OF_ETIQUETTE"></a>UNSETTLED POINTS OF ETIQUETTE.</h2>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>In England the higher the rank the more affable and kind I
+found them. It is only the little people climbing up who are
+disagreeable.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sully.</span></p></div>
+
+
+<p>Not alone of English people can this be said. In "society" all over the
+world it is the same; for everywhere men and women born and bred ladies
+and gentlemen value their reputation as such too highly to risk it by
+any rudeness or uncourteousness. They may upon occasion be frigidly
+polite, but polite they will always be. But customs vary so much that
+some things which would be considered polite in one country would be
+looked upon in another as rude or intrusive. Take, for instance, one
+illustration among many which might be cited. A foreigner sent on a
+diplomatic mission to this country brought with him letters of
+introduction to several members of a large family. Having affairs of
+importance to attend to, he was remiss about delivering these letters on
+this occasion, but on a second visit, having more leisure, he made it a
+point to have himself presented at a ball to every member of the family
+who was present. After the ball he told a lady of the trouble he had
+given himself, and asked her congratulations upon having accomplished so
+much in one evening. She, being upon intimate terms with him, assured
+him that his politeness was not only unnecessary, but would in all
+probability be misunderstood. "According to the customs of our country,"
+said the lady, "you ought to have waited until they asked to be
+presented to you." "How could I do that," he inquired indignantly, "when
+it was my duty to make myself known to them, out of respect for the
+writer of the letters as well as for those to whom she had written?
+Besides, one can never be too civil to ladies and gentlemen." The lady
+replied, "True; only you must first be sure that you are dealing with
+ladies and gentlemen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> who understand all points of etiquette as you do."
+Before his return to his own country he learned his error by the result,
+for during a stay of some months he never received an invitation from
+any of the family. By following the customs of his own country, instead
+of adopting those of the country he was in, he had subjected himself to
+being looked upon as "a pushing foreigner," who valued their
+acquaintance so highly that he was determined to gain it, even at the
+sacrifice of the customs of good society.</p>
+
+<p>Americans when abroad, unless in an official position, have very little
+opportunity of gaining a knowledge of such requirements of etiquette as
+had influenced this gentleman in making the overtures he had thought
+necessary; nor can we be expected to be acquainted with them. The rules
+of social etiquette are all so well understood and practiced in Europe
+that no opportunity presents itself for the miscomprehensions as to
+one's duties in society which prevail with us. There every detail is
+prescribed by the codes and usages of courts; and one might as well pass
+an acquaintance in the street without the usual salutation as neglect
+any one of these forms. Again to illustrate: A gentleman belonging at
+one time to the English legation in Washington passed a summer at one of
+our fashionable watering-places. His official position would have
+secured him the consideration to which he was entitled, even had he not
+been the general favorite that he was; but the men who left their cards
+from time to time upon him were not always particular in having
+themselves presented the first time they met him afterward at the club
+or at dinners; and looking upon this omission as he had been trained to
+do, it could not but seem to him an intentional rudeness on their part.
+The consequence was, he avoided the watering-place thereafter, and
+sought his summer recreation where there was less pretension at least,
+and where he doubtless became less exacting or more accustomed to such
+trifling breaches of etiquette.</p>
+
+<p>For want of an exact code many points of etiquette are with us left
+open to discussion, and this without reference to foreign ideas. Thus
+the custom of inviting gentlemen to call when a married lady wishes to
+give them the entr&eacute;e to her house seems to have become an obsolete one
+with a great many. Quite recently a discussion took place as to its
+propriety between several ladies of distinction in this city. One lady
+said that it was the Philadelphia custom for gentlemen to call where
+they wished, without waiting for an invitation, after they had made the
+acquaintance of any lady in the family; and more than one married woman
+asserted that they had never yet asked a gentleman to come to see them;
+while another insisted that gentlemen generally would not venture to
+make a call upon any married lady unless she had invited them, or they
+had first asked her permission. As a difference of opinion exists on
+this point, it would be well if it could be an understood thing that any
+gentleman wishing to make the acquaintance of a lady could, after having
+himself presented to her, leave his card at her house with his address
+upon it. Of course this applies only to comparative strangers, for any
+young man can commit his card to his mother or sister to leave for him
+at a house where either visits, if he wishes to be included in
+invitations. Unless his card is left in this way or in person, how can
+he expect to be remembered? Some years ago, a lady who gave a ball
+during the winter after her return from a residence abroad, omitted to
+send invitations to the young men who, having previously visited at her
+house, had not left their cards at her door since her arrival home,
+preferring to substitute gentlemen who had never been entertained by her
+to inviting those who were so remiss. For this reason she gave
+permission to several young ladies to name gentlemen among their friends
+whom they would like to have invited; and so agreeable to the hostess
+was the selection thus made that she placed permanently upon her
+inviting list the names of those who sufficiently appreciated her
+courtesy to remember afterward the slight duties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> which their acceptance
+of her hospitality imposed upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Still another illustration will show what unsettled ideas many hold in
+regard to points of etiquette which ought not to admit of any diversity
+of opinion. Ladies sometimes say to each other, after having been in the
+habit of meeting for years without exchanging visits, "I hope you will
+come and see me," and almost as frequently the answer is made, "Oh, you
+must come and see me first." One moment of reflection would prevent a
+lady from making that answer, unless she were much the older of the two,
+when she could with propriety give that as the reason. The lady who
+extends the invitation makes the first advance, and the one who receives
+it should at least say, "I thank you&mdash;you are very kind," even if she
+has no intention of availing herself of it. A lady in the fashionable
+circles of our largest metropolis once boasted that she had never made a
+first visit. She was not aware, probably, that in the opinion of those
+conversant with the duties of her position she stamped herself as being
+just as underbred as if she had announced that she did not wait for any
+one to call upon her. No lady surely is of so little importance in the
+circle in which she moves as never to be placed in circumstances where a
+first visit is requisite from her; nor does any one in our land so
+nearly approach the position of a reigning monarch as to decree that
+all, irrespective of age or priority of residence, should make the first
+call upon her.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most reasonable rules of etiquette is that which requires
+prompt replies to invitations. The reason why an invitation to dine or
+to an opera-box should be answered as soon as received is so evident
+that it will not admit of questioning; but many who are punctilious in
+these particulars are remiss in sending promptly their acceptances or
+regrets for parties and balls. Most of those who neglect this duty do so
+from thoughtlessness or carelessness, but there are some who have the
+idea that it increases their importance to delay their reply, or that
+promptness gives evidence of eagerness to accept or to refuse. Others,
+again, are prevented from paying that direct attention to an invitation
+which politeness requires by the inconvenience of sending a special
+messenger with their notes. Where any doubt exists in reference to the
+ability of the person invited to be present at a soir&eacute;e or ball, an
+acceptance should be sent at once; and if afterward prevented from going
+a short note of explanation or regret should be despatched. It is well
+known that a few words make all the difference between a polite and an
+impolite regret. "Mrs. Gordon regrets that she cannot accept Mrs.
+Sydney's invitation for Tuesday evening," is not only curt, but would be
+considered by many positively rude. The mistake arises, however, more
+frequently from ignorance than from intentional rudeness. "Mrs. Gordon
+regrets extremely that she cannot accept Mrs. Sydney's kind invitation
+for Tuesday evening," is all that is necessary. All answers to
+invitations given in the name of the lady and gentleman of the house are
+generally acknowledged to both in the answer, and the envelope addressed
+to the lady alone.</p>
+
+<p>Some persons are in the habit of sending acceptances to invitations for
+balls even when they know that they are not going; but this is very
+unfair to the hostess, not only because she orders her supper for all
+who accept, but because she may wish to invite others in their places if
+she knows in time that they are not to be present. No house is so large
+but it has a limit to the number of people that can be comfortably
+entertained; and some ladies are compelled by the length of their
+visiting-list to give two or three entertainments in order to include
+all whom they wish to invite. When the invitations are sent out ten days
+in advance, if answered within three days the hostess is enabled to
+select from her other lists such of her friends as she would like to pay
+the compliment of inviting twice, in case the number of regrets which
+she receives will permit her to do so; but delaying the answers or
+accepting with no intention of going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> puts it out of her power to send
+other invitations.</p>
+
+<p>An invitation once given cannot be recalled, even from the best motives,
+without subjecting the one who recalls it to the charge of being either
+ignorant or regardless of all conventional rules of politeness. Some
+years ago a lady who had been invited with her husband to a musical
+entertainment given at the house of an acquaintance for a mutual friend
+of the inviter and the invited, received, after having accepted the
+invitation, a note requesting her not to come, on the ground that she
+had spoken slanderously of the lady for whom the soir&eacute;e was to be given.
+Entirely innocent of the charge, she demanded an explanation, which
+resulted in completely exonerating her. The invitation was then
+repeated, but of course, as the withdrawal of it had been intended as a
+punishment, the rudeness was of too flagrant a character to overlook,
+and all visiting between the parties ceased from that day. The rule
+would not apply to a more recent case, where a lady gave a ball, and, in
+endeavoring to avoid a crush and make it agreeable for her guests, left
+out all young men under twenty-one years of age; but finding that she
+had received wrong information concerning the age of one whom she had
+invited, and that this one exception was much commented upon, causing
+her to appear inconsistent, she wrote a note asking permission to recall
+the invitation (having received no answer to it), and expressing her
+regret that she should be made to appear rude where no rudeness was
+intended. In this case the gentleman could, without compromising his
+dignity, have sent a courteous reply, assuring the lady that he
+perfectly understood her motives, and begging her not to give herself
+any uneasiness upon his account in having felt compelled to withdraw the
+invitation. By doing so he would have made the lady his firm friend, and
+had she appreciated his politeness as it would have deserved to be
+appreciated, she would have lost no opportunity of showing her sense of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>There is no better test of ladies and gentlemen than the manner in
+which they receive being left out of a general invitation. They may feel
+ever so keenly the omission, but it should never betray itself in a
+shadow of change either in look or in tone. If the invitation is not a
+general one, why should any one feel hurt by being omitted? No one but
+the entertainer can know all the motives that influence her in her
+selections. And here might be mentioned several reasonable points of
+etiquette which may control her. When a first invitation has not been
+accepted, it is to be supposed that no other will be expected until the
+recipient of the invitation has returned the courtesy in some way, be it
+ever so simple. In cases where previous invitations have been accepted,
+even those who are not in the habit of balancing the exchange of
+hospitalities cannot continue to extend them year after year, however
+much they may wish to do so, when not the slightest disposition is shown
+to make any return. Then, too, many ladies are not willing to overlook
+the omission of leaving cards after their entertainments, and they very
+naturally feel that a distinction should be made between such young men
+as have shown an appreciation of their past courtesies and those who
+have not. And again, a lady may often be deterred from sending
+invitations to those whom she heartily wishes to invite, from her
+dislike of making any advance to persons who are older residents, or
+from a fear of being considered pushing or patronizing. A lady who never
+makes first calls upon those who have lived longer than herself in the
+city where she resides (unless in cases where age or infirmities upon
+the part of those inviting her makes it her province to do so), learned
+just before giving an entertainment that the wife of a gentleman from
+whom she had received assistance in the charitable labors which occupied
+some of her leisure hours was a native of another city; and in writing a
+note upon business to the gentleman she expressed her intention of
+calling upon his wife, explaining why she had not sooner done so. She
+received an immediate reply from the husband,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> in which, after the
+business had been attended to, he informed her that he and his wife
+selected their own circle of friends, which was quite as large as they
+desired to make it. The lady as promptly sent back a note in answer, in
+which she expressed her regret for the mistake she had made, and thanked
+him for having corrected the impression which she had formed of him as a
+gentleman in her acquaintance with him solely in business relations.
+Such an experience would prevent a sensitive woman from ever placing
+herself in a position to receive such a rudeness again from any one and
+therefore no one whose duty it is to make a first call, and who has not
+made it, should ever feel hurt or offended at not being invited by such
+an acquaintance, no matter how general may have been the invitation.</p>
+
+<p>Ladies who are the most apt to give offence are those who divide their
+lists, giving two parties in the course of the year, instead of the
+grand crush which is more popular. Some feel aggrieved because they are
+not invited to both, fancying that there are reasons why an exception
+should be made in their favor; while others prefer the party for which
+no invitation was sent. Those who send regrets for the first party
+sometimes expect to be invited to the second, but this in no way changes
+the relation between the inviter and the invited. It is the misfortune
+and not the fault of the lady who invites that such regrets are sent;
+and if she is able to repeat her invitations to any upon her first list,
+it will surely be to those who gave such reasons for regretting as
+illness or absence from the city. Certainly the entertainer must desire
+to make both parties equally pleasant, and must select her guests to
+this end; and yet there are those who, when left out, do not hesitate to
+show her by the change in their manner that they consider themselves
+more capable than she is of selecting her guests.</p>
+
+<p>The question is frequently asked whether replies should be sent to
+invitations to wedding and other receptions, and to "at-home" cards. If
+one receives the great compliment of being invited to a marriage
+ceremony (not at church), an acceptance or regret would of course be
+immediately sent, for it is only in the case of the reception following
+that any doubt seems to exist. It is generally understood that no
+answers are expected; but as it is certainly very polite to send a
+regret when one is unable to accept, why is it not equally polite to
+send an acceptance? After receptions it is not considered necessary for
+those who have been present to call, but those who are prevented from
+going call in person as soon as is convenient. Sometimes, as in the case
+of wedding receptions, many are invited for the occasion, friends either
+of the bride or groom, whom the relative who gives the reception has
+never visited, and does not wish to visit in the future. Of course the
+visiting then ends with the call made after the reception; for if the
+cards left at the reception or afterward are not returned by those of
+the host or hostess, no matter how desirous the recipient of the
+civility may be to extend her hospitality in return, she ought not to do
+so unless under corresponding circumstances. Frequently those who are
+prevented from attending wedding-receptions send their cards, and these
+are returned by those of the bride and groom when they make their round
+of visits, except in cases where, after the reception, their cards are
+sent with a new address. Then, of course, those who receive them always
+pay the first visit. The gentleman sends his card alone (when there has
+been no reception) where he wishes to have his wife make the
+acquaintance of his friends whom she has not previously visited; and the
+sooner the call is made under such circumstances the more polite it is
+considered.</p>
+
+<p>The reason why an invitation to an opera-box, like an invitation to
+dine, must be answered immediately is because the number of seats being
+limited it is necessary, when regrets are received, to send out other
+invitations at once, in order that all may be complimented alike by
+receiving them upon the same day. Gentleman not receiving any special
+invitation to a box, who chance to be in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> the opera-house in a
+dress-suit, often pay visits of ten or fifteen minutes to the box of any
+lady with whom they are well acquainted. If a gentleman wishes to enter
+the box of some chaperone with whom he is not acquainted, he always
+requests some mutual acquaintance in the box to present him to the
+chaperone immediately upon entering. Unless invited by her to remain, he
+is careful not to prolong his visit beyond the time allowed. Young
+ladies are sometimes very thoughtless in urging young gentlemen to stay
+during an entire act, or even longer; but when the party is made up by
+the chaperone, she does not like to see the gentlemen whom she has
+invited incommoded by one whom she has not asked to her box.</p>
+
+<p>The diversity of opinion that exists with us in reference to many points
+of etiquette is unfortunate; for where no fixed rules exist there must
+always be misapprehensions and misunderstandings; rudenesses suspected
+where none are intended, and sometimes resented, to the great perplexity
+of the offender as to the cause of the offence. It is not every one who
+knows how rude a thing people of the old school consider it to make use
+of a lady's house in calling upon a guest staying with her, and leaving
+no card for the hostess. This simple act of courtesy does not
+necessitate a continuance of visiting, inasmuch as the lady only feels
+obliged to return her card through her friend, leaving it to after
+circumstances to decide whether it will be mutually agreeable to make
+the acquaintance. To call upon strangers for whom dinners are given when
+invited to meet them is very polite, but it should not be construed into
+any intended impoliteness in this country if the call is not made; and
+it may even happen that one is unable to be presented to such guests
+where the dinner is large, though one should at least make the attempt.
+Nor is it generally understood how great is the discourtesy of
+permitting any person who has been shown into a house through the
+mistake of a servant when the ladies are engaged, to be shown out again
+without seeing any member of the family. The mistake having occurred,
+if no member of the family is able to make her appearance without
+considerable delay, a message should be sent down with an explanation,
+inquiring if the visitor will wait until one of the ladies can come
+down. The lady who finds herself admitted when out upon a round of calls
+will be without doubt only too glad of the excuse for departure; and
+even if calling upon matters that require an answer, her <i>savoir faire</i>
+would prevent her from waiting under such circumstances. Any hesitation
+upon the part of the servant who answers the bell, as to whether the
+ladies are at home or engaged, authorizes the persons calling to leave
+their cards without waiting to ascertain.</p>
+
+<p>The etiquette in regard to bowing is so simple and reasonable that one
+would scarcely suppose it possible that any differences of opinion could
+exist, and yet there are some who think it a breach of politeness if one
+neglect to bow, although meeting half a dozen times on a promenade or in
+driving. Custom has made it necessary to bow only the first time in
+passing: after that exchange of salutations it is very properly not
+expected. The difference between a courteous and a familiar bow should
+be remembered by gentlemen who wish to make a favorable impression. A
+lady dislikes to receive from a man with whom she has but a slight
+acquaintance a bow accompanied by a broad smile, as though he were on
+the most familiar terms with her. It is far better to err on the other
+side, and to give one of those stiff, ungracious bows which some men
+indulge in. Those gentlemen who smile with their eyes instead of their
+mouths give the most charming bows. As for men who bow charmingly at one
+time, and with excessive hauteur at others, according as they feel in a
+good or bad humor, they need never be surprised if the person thus
+treated should cease speaking altogether; nor can any man who does not
+lift, or at least touch, his hat in speaking to a lady expect that she
+will continue her salutations.</p>
+
+<p>The rules to which allusion has been made are all reasonable, but there
+are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> others which, having only an imaginary foundation in the
+requirements of true politeness, might be disregarded with advantage.
+Such, for example, as that of sending answers to invitations by a
+special messenger. It is equally convenient to employ a man to deliver
+invitations or to send them by post. With the reply it is different.
+Each family receiving an invitation has to send out a servant with the
+answer. This not being always convenient, the reply is frequently
+delayed&mdash;sometimes until it is forgotten. But if the foreign custom of
+sending acceptances and regrets by post could be brought into general
+use, how much more sensible it would be! It was the occasion of many
+comments when a few years since some cards, not invitations, were thus
+sent by mistake, the servant posting those which he had forgotten to
+deliver before the wedding had taken place. But it only needs a few
+resolute persons to set the example, and persist in it, to have it as
+generally adopted as it is abroad.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_HERMITS_VIGIL" id="THE_HERMITS_VIGIL"></a>THE HERMIT'S VIGIL.</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Here is the ancient legend I was reading<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the black-letter vellum page last night:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its yellow husk holds lessons worth the heeding,<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">If we unfold it right.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The tome is musty with dank superstition<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From which we shrink recoiling, to th' extreme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of an unfaith that with material vision,<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Accounts as myth or dream<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Problems too subtle for our clumsy fingers&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">High truths that stretch beyond our reach as far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As o'er the fire-fly in the grass that lingers<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Stretches yon quenchless star.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Give rather back the old hallucinations&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The visible spirits&mdash;the rapture, terror, grief<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of faith so human, than the drear negations<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Of dumb, dead unbelief!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;But will you hear the story?<br /></span>
+<span class="i25">&mdash;In a forest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Girt round by blacken'd tarns, a hermit dwelt:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And as one midnight, when the storm raged sorest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Within his hut he knelt<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In ghostly penance, sounds of fiendish laughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Smote on the tempest's lull with sudden jar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sent the gibbering echoes shrilling after,<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">O'er weir and wold afar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Christ ban ye now!"&mdash;he cried, the door wide flinging,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">"Fare ye some whither with perdition's dole?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"We go"&mdash;out from the wrack a shriek came ringing&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">"To seize the emperor's soul,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who lies this hour death-smitten." Execration<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thereat still fouler filled the sulphurous air:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the rood the hermit sank:&mdash;"Salvation<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Grant, Lord! in his despair!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And agonizing thus, with lips all ashen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He prayed&mdash;till back, with ghastlier rage and roar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The demon rout rushed, strung to fiercer passion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">And crashed his osier door.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Speak, fiend!&mdash;I do adjure thee!&mdash;Came repentance<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Too late?"&mdash;With wrathful curse was answer made:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;"Heaped high within the Judgment Scales for sentence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">The emperor's sins were laid;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And downward, downward, with a plunge descended<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Our</i> scale, till we exulted!&mdash;when a moan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;'<i>Save, Christ, O save me!</i>'&mdash;from his lips was rended<br /></span>
+<span class="i20">Out with his dying groan.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quick in the other scale did Mercy lay it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Lo! it outweighed his guilt</i>&mdash;"<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">&mdash;"Ha,&mdash;baffled! braved!"&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hermit cried;&mdash;"Hence, fiends! nor dare gainsay it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i17"><i>The emperor's soul is saved!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Margaret J. Prestox</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHATEAUBRIANDS_DUCKS" id="CHATEAUBRIANDS_DUCKS"></a>CHATEAUBRIAND'S DUCKS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Fran&ccedil;ois-Auguste de Chateaubriand, the illustrious author of the <i>G&eacute;nie
+du Christianisme</i>, the poet, statesman, diplomatist, soldier, and
+traveler in the Old World and the New, was one of the two or three human
+beings who, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, disputed with
+the emperor Napoleon the attention of Europe. Sprung from an old family
+of the Breton nobility&mdash;a race preserving longer perhaps than any other
+in France the traditions of the monarchy&mdash;he reluctantly gave in his
+adhesion to the <i>de facto</i> government of Napoleon; but the execution of
+the duc d'Enghien outraged him profoundly, and sending back to Napoleon
+his commission as foreign minister, he abjured him for ever. Napoleon
+probably regretted the fact seriously. "Chateaubriand," said the
+emperor, "has received from Nature the sacred fire: his works attest it.
+His style is that of a prophet, and all that is grand and national
+appertains to his genius."</p>
+
+<p>It would be out of place in the brief sketch here given to trace his
+long and adventurous career. By turns author, minister, ambassador,
+soldier, he saw, like his famous contemporary and associate, Talleyrand,
+revolution after revolution, dynasty after dynasty, Bonapartist,
+Bourbon and Orleanist, pass before him; and having in this long career
+enjoyed or suffered all the splendors and all the woes of life&mdash;now at
+the height of wealth and power, now a penniless and homeless
+wanderer&mdash;he came at the age of eighty, in 1848, to Paris to die, in
+wellnigh abject poverty.</p>
+
+<p>Among the personal delineations of this celebrated man, the most
+characteristic and entertaining perhaps are those presented by Victor
+Hugo and Alexander Dumas in their respective memoirs. Chateaubriand is
+there shown in undress, and the portrait drawn of him is vivid and
+interesting. Victor Hugo describes him as he appeared in 1819 at his
+fine h&ocirc;tel in Paris, wealthy, influential and renowned. The author-to-be
+of <i>Les Mis&egrave;rables</i> was then a mere youth, and his budding glories as an
+ultra-royalist poet conferred upon him the honor of an introduction to
+the great man. Hugo was ushered in, and saw before him, leaning in a
+stately attitude against the mantelpiece, the illustrious individual. M.
+de Chateaubriand, says Hugo, affected the bearing of a soldier: the man
+of the pen remembered the man of the sword. His neck was encircled by a
+black cravat, which hid the collar of his shirt: a black frockcoat,
+buttoned to the top, encased his small, bent body. The fine part about
+him was his head&mdash;out of proportion with his figure, but grave and
+noble. The nose was firm and imperious in outline, the eye proud, the
+smile charming; but this smile was a sudden flash, the mouth quickly
+resuming its severe and haughty expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Hugo," said Chateaubriand without moving, "I am delighted to
+see you. I have read your verses on La Vende&eacute; and the death of the duc
+de Berri; and there are things in the latter more especially which no
+other poet of this age could have written. My years and experience give
+me, unfortunately, the right to be frank, and I say candidly that there
+are passages which I like less; but what is good in your poems is very
+good."</p>
+
+<p>In the attitude, inflections of voice and intonation of the speaker's
+phrases there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> was something sovereign, which rather diminished than
+exalted the young writer in his own eyes. Night came and lights were
+brought. The master of the mansion permitted the conversation to
+languish, and Hugo was much relieved when the friend who had introduced
+him rose to go. Chateaubriand, seeing them about to take their leave,
+invited Hugo to come and see him on any day between seven and nine in
+the morning, and the youth gained the street, where he drew a long
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said his friend, "I hope you are content?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;to be out!"</p>
+
+<p>"How! Why, M. de Chateaubriand was charming! He talked a great deal to
+you. You don't know him: he passes four or five hours sometimes without
+saying a word. If you are not satisfied, you are hard to please."</p>
+
+<p>In response to Chateaubriand's general invitation, Hugo went soon
+afterward, at an early hour of the morning, to repeat his visit. He was
+shown into Chateaubriand's chamber, and found the illustrious personage
+in his shirt-sleeves, with a handkerchief tied around his head, seated
+at a table and looking over some papers. He turned round cordially, and
+said, "Ah! good-day, Monsieur Victor Hugo. I expected you. Sit down.
+Have you been working since I saw you? have you made many verses?"</p>
+
+<p>Hugo replied that he wrote a few every day.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said Chateaubriand. "Verses! make verses! 'Tis the
+highest department of literature. You are on higher ground than mine:
+the true writer is the poet. I have made verses, too, and am sorry I did
+not continue to do so, as my verses were worth more than my prose. Do
+you know that I have written a tragedy? I must read you a scene.
+Pilorge! come here: I want you."</p>
+
+<p>An individual with red face, hair and moustaches entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and find the manuscript of <i>Moses</i>," said Chateaubriand.</p>
+
+<p>Pilorge was Chateaubriand's secretary, and the place was no sinecure.
+Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied
+everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of
+posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling
+notes. The tragedy which Chateaubriand read from with pomp and emphasis
+did not immensely impress Hugo, and the scene was interrupted by the
+entrance of a servant with an enormous vessel full of water for the
+bath. Chateaubriand proceeded to take off his head handkerchief and
+green slippers, and seeing Hugo about to retire, motioned to him to
+remain. He then continued to disrobe without ceremony, took off his gray
+pantaloons, shirt and flannel undershirt, and went into the bath, where
+his servant washed and rubbed him. He then resumed his clothes, brushed
+his teeth, which were beautiful, and of which he evidently took great
+care; and during this process talked with animation.</p>
+
+<p>This morning seems to have been a fortunate exception, as Hugo declares
+that he found Chateaubriand on other occasions a man of freezing
+politeness, stiff, arousing rather respect than sympathy&mdash;a genius
+rather than a man. The royal carelessness of his character was shown in
+his financial affairs. He kept always on his mantelpiece piles of
+five-franc pieces, and when his servant brought him begging letters&mdash;a
+thing which took place constantly&mdash;he took a piece from the pile,
+wrapped it in the letter and sent it out by the servant. Money ran
+through his fingers. When he went to see Charles X. at Prague, and the
+king questioned him in reference to his affairs, his response was, "I am
+as poor as a rat."</p>
+
+<p>"That will not do," said the king. "Come, Chateaubriand, how much would
+make you rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sire," was the reply, "you are throwing away your time. If you gave me
+four millions this morning, I should not have a penny this evening."</p>
+
+<p>It must be conceded that there was something imposing in this refusal of
+royal generosity; but the poet seems to have passed through life thus,
+with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> head carried superbly aloft, and his "grand air" ready on all
+occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Hugo draws him at fifty, in his fine h&ocirc;tel at Paris&mdash;a celebrity in
+politics and society. Dumas shows him in his old age, poor, self-exiled,
+and wellnigh forgotten by the world in which he had played so great a
+part. The brilliant and eccentric author of <i>Henry III.</i> was traveling
+in Switzerland in 1834, and on reaching Lucerne was informed that the
+hotel of The Eagle had the honor of sheltering no less a personage than
+one of his own literary idols&mdash;the great, the famous, the imposing M. de
+Chateaubriand. Dumas declares that genius in misfortune was always
+dearer to him than in its hours of greatest splendor, and the statement
+seems to have been honest. He determined to call and pay his respects to
+the great poet. He accordingly repaired to the hotel of The Eagle, asked
+for M. de Chateaubriand, and was informed by the waiter in a
+matter-of-fact voice that M. de Chateaubriand was not then at the hotel,
+as he had "gone to feed his ducks."</p>
+
+<p>At this strange announcement Dumas stared. He suppressed his curiosity,
+nevertheless, left his name and address, and duly received on the next
+morning a polite note from Chateaubriand inviting him to come and
+breakfast with him at ten.</p>
+
+<p>The invitation was gladly accepted, not, however, without a tremor of
+awe on the part of the youthful author. Even in old age, poverty, exile
+and forgotten by the world, Chateaubriand was to him the impersonation
+of grandeur. He trembled at the very thought of approaching this "mighty
+rock upon which the waves of envy had in vain beaten for fifty
+years"&mdash;this grand genius whose "immense superiority wellnigh crushed
+him." His demeanor, therefore, he declares, when shown into
+Chateaubriand's presence, must have appeared exceedingly awkward.
+Nevertheless, the cordial courtesy of the exile speedily restored his
+self-possession, and they proceeded to breakfast, conversing meanwhile
+upon political affairs, the news from France, and other topics of
+national interest to the old poet. Dumas represents him as simple,
+cordial, grave, yet unreserved. He was gray, but preserved his imposing
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>When breakfast was over, and they had conversed for some time upon
+French affairs, Chateaubriand rose and said with great simplicity, "Now
+let us go and feed my ducks."</p>
+
+<p>At these words Dumas looked with surprise at his host, and after
+hesitating an instant essayed to reach a solution of the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"The waiter informed me yesterday," he said, "that you had gone out for
+that purpose. May I ask if you propose in your retirement to become a
+farmer?"</p>
+
+<p>In reply to this question Chateaubriand said in his tranquil voice, "Why
+not? A man whose life has been, like mine, driven by caprice, adventure,
+revolutions and exile toward the four quarters of the world, would be
+happy, I think, to possess, not a chalet in these mountains&mdash;I do not
+like the Alps&mdash;but a country-place in Normandy or Brittany. Really, I
+think that this is the resource of my old age."</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me to doubt it," returned Dumas. "You remember Charles V. at
+Yuste. You do not belong to the class of emperors who abdicate or kings
+who are dethroned, but to those princes who die under a canopy, and who
+are buried, like Charlemagne, their feet in their bucklers, swords at
+their sides, crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care!" replied Chateaubriand. "It is long since I have been
+flattered, and it may overcome me. Come and feed my ducks."</p>
+
+<p>The impressible visitor declares that he felt disposed to fall upon his
+knees before this grand and simple human being, but refrained. They went
+to the middle of a bridge thrown across an arm of the lake, and
+Chateaubriand drew from his pocket a piece of bread which he had placed
+there after breakfast. This he began to throw into the lake, when a
+dozen ducks darted forth from a sort of isle formed of reeds, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+hastened to dispute the repast prepared for them by the hand which had
+written <i>Ren&eacute;, The Genius of Christianity</i> and <i>The Martyrs</i>. Whilst
+thus engaged, Chateaubriand leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, his
+lips contracted by a smile, but his eyes grave and sad. Gradually his
+movements became mechanical, his face assumed an expression of profound
+melancholy, the shadow of his thoughts passed across his large forehead
+like clouds of heaven; and there were among them recollections of his
+country, his family and his tender friendships, more sorrowful than all
+others. He moved, sighed, and, recalling the presence of his visitor,
+turned round.</p>
+
+<p>"If you regret Paris," said Dumas, "why not return? Nothing exiles
+you&mdash;all recalls you."</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do?" said Chateaubriand. "I was at Cauterets when the
+revolution of July took place. I returned to Paris. I saw one throne in
+blood, and another in the mud&mdash;lawyers making a constitution&mdash;a king
+shaking hands with rag-pickers: that was mortally sad; above all, when a
+man is filled as I am with the great traditions of the monarchy."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you recognized popular sovereignty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, kings should go back from time to time to the source of their
+authority&mdash;election; but this time they have cut a branch from the tree,
+a link from the chain. They should have elected Henry V., not Louis
+Philippe."</p>
+
+<p>"A sad wish for the poor child! The Henrys are unfortunate: they have
+been poisoned or assassinated."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Chateaubriand, "it is better to die by the poniard than
+from exile: it is quicker, and you suffer less."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not return to France?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly, to defend the duchess de Berri if she is tried."</p>
+
+<p>"And if not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Chateaubriand, throwing bread into the water, "I shall
+continue to feed my ducks."</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John Esten Cooke</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="OUR_MONTHLY_GOSSIP" id="OUR_MONTHLY_GOSSIP"></a>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>BACONS AND BARONETS.</h3>
+
+<p>There died in November last a gentleman who, though not remarkable
+himself, was the head and representative of so famous a family and order
+that his death is an event deserving of some notice. This was Sir Henry
+Hickman Bacon, premier baronet of England. This gentleman was not the
+descendant of the great Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, but head of the
+family whence that eminent man, a cadet of the house, sprung.</p>
+
+<p>The origin<a name="FNanchor_M_13" id="FNanchor_M_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_13" class="fnanchor">[M]</a> of this family is lost in the obscurity of centuries. Sir
+Nicholas, an eminent lawyer of England in the reign of Queen Mary,
+succeeded, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, to the lord-keepership of
+the great seal. He married twice, and had a numerous issue, and the
+baronet lately deceased is the direct representative of the
+lord-keeper's eldest son by his first marriage, who was the first person
+created&mdash;by James I., on May 22, 1611&mdash;a baronet.</p>
+
+<p>And it is not a little remarkable that whilst of the baronetcies since
+created an immense percentage have become extinct, and only some half
+dozen of those created in 1611 remain, the first ever created has
+survived, and bids fair to do so for some time to come. The baronetcy of
+Hobart (earl of Buckinghamshire)&mdash;whose ancestral seat of Blickling, in
+Norfolk, passed some time since, with its magnificent collection of
+books, by marriage, into the Scotch family of Ker, and now belongs to
+the marquis of Lothian&mdash;and that of Shirley (held by Earl Ferrers), seem
+to be the only baronetcies now extant whose patents bear date the same
+day as that of Bacon.</p>
+
+<p>The others left of the same year are Mordaunt, of which we heard so much
+in a trial in 1870; Gerard, an ancient Lancashire Catholic house; Monson
+(Lord Monson); Musgrave of Edenhall ("the luck of Edenhall" is the
+subject of one of Longfellow's poems); Gresley, Twysden, Temple and
+Houghton. The last became well known a few years ago in this country as
+the largest holder of Confederate bonds.</p>
+
+<p>Francis Bacon, familiarly known as Lord Bacon, though in fact he never
+enjoyed that honor, his titles being Baron Verulam and Viscount St.
+Alban's, was second son of his father's second marriage, his mother
+being one of three sisters, the most eminent blue-stockings of the
+period, daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex.</p>
+
+<p>Another of Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters was Lady Burleigh, who had been
+governess to Edward VI., second wife of the famous lord-treasurer, and
+direct ancestress of the present talented marquis of Salisbury,
+vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, whose sister, Lady Mildred
+Beresford-Hope, wife of the well-known son of the author of
+<i>Anastasius</i>, bears the same name (Mildred) as her ancestress. Indeed,
+names are thus frequently transmitted for centuries in English families,
+and often thus serve as links in genealogical research. The Cooke family
+has long been extinct, and their stately seat was pulled down by a
+London alderman in the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Another sister, Lady Hobby&mdash;whose husband resided at Bisham Abbey, a
+fine old place, maintained in admirable repair, near Windsor&mdash;was a
+terrible disciplinarian, and there is an ugly story of her having
+whipped a wretched son of hers into his grave, from exasperation at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> his
+inability to make his "pothooks," when she was teaching him writing,
+without blots. Curiously enough, when, some years ago, improvements were
+being made at the Abbey, a number of copy-books of the style of writing
+common at the period in which Lady Hobby lived were discovered behind
+wainscoting, and all were blotted.</p>
+
+<p>The manor of Gorhambury, the great Bacon's seat, was purchased by his
+father, whose other seat was Redgrave in Suffolk. Gorhambury is near the
+town of St. Alban's, renowned for its abbey, now in course of splendid
+rehabilitation.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from St. Alban's once stood the celebrated Roman city of
+Verulam, called by Tacitus <i>Verulamium</i>, which Bacon, deeply imbued with
+Latin learning, appropriately selected for his first title. The plough
+has now for many centuries made furrows over it, and the only vestiges
+remaining are a few detached masses of the wall. Verulam was bounded on
+the south-west by the Roman Watling Street. Gorhambury was built by Sir
+Nicholas, and in the archbishop of Canterbury's library at Lambeth may
+be seen an interesting account of the expenses. It need scarcely be
+added that Queen Elizabeth paid her lord-keeper a visit there. Sir
+Nicholas Bacon left Gorhambury to Mr. Anthony Bacon, the eldest son of
+his second marriage, and he, dying unmarried, left the estate to his
+brother Francis.</p>
+
+<p>Gorhambury now belongs to the earl of Verulam, whose family name is
+Grimston. It was left by the great Bacon to his friend, Sir Thomas
+Meautys, and thence, by a course of intricate successions, came to the
+present proprietor.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon, like so many other famous men, had no children. He died in Lord
+Arundel's house at Highgate in 1626.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Robert Bacon, fifth baronet, sold Redgrave, the family seat in
+Suffolk, to Lord Chief-Justice Holt toward the end of the seventeenth
+century. Holt, who died in London 5th of March, 1710, was buried there,
+and a grand monument to his memory may be seen in the church. It was
+erected by his brother and heir, for, like Bacon, he was childless.</p>
+
+<p>Redgrave Hall, eighty-seven miles from London by the coach-road, is a
+large square mansion. The male line of the Holt family has long been
+extinct, but the present owner of the estate is descended from the great
+lord chief-justice's niece, who married Mr. Wilson, a younger son of an
+ancient Westmoreland family.</p>
+
+<p>But to pass to the origin of the order of baronets. After one of the
+almost chronic Irish insurrections against British rule, James I.
+conceived in 1609 the idea of offering to English and Scotch settlers,
+known to be possessed of capital, a large portion of the forfeited
+estates in Ulster. The supposed necessity of a military force for the
+protection of the colonists suggested to Sir Antony Shirley a project of
+raising money for the king. He proposed the creation of a new honor,
+between those of knight and baron, and that it be conferred by patent at
+a fixed price for the support of the army in Ulster&mdash;that it should
+descend to heirs male, and be confined to two hundred gentlemen of three
+descents in actual possession of lands worth one thousand pounds a
+year&mdash;a sum equal to five thousand now.<a name="FNanchor_N_14" id="FNanchor_N_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_14" class="fnanchor">[N]</a></p>
+
+<p>James I. approved of the scheme, as he would have done of any which
+seemed feasible for raising the wind, and the patents were offered at
+the price of ten hundred and ninety-five pounds, the estimated amount of
+the charge of thirty soldiers during three years. The purchasers did not
+prove so numerous as had been expected. In the first six years
+ninety-three patents were sold at &pound;101,835. "It is unnecessary to add,"
+says Doctor Lingard, "that the money never found its way to Ireland" in
+the shape of forces paid for by this process.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There have been three or four creations of baronetesses in their own
+right, but nearly two centuries have elapsed since such a creation.
+James II. made a curious remainder clause in a patent, by creating a
+Dutchman a baronet with remainder to his mother. It has been a mooted
+question whether baronets are not entitled to a coronet, and a certain
+Sir Charles Lamb, who died a few years ago, was so determined to uphold
+their privileges on this score that he had this ensign worked into the
+ornamentation of his entrance gates at Beaufort, near Battle Abbey,
+Sussex; but he met with small encouragement in such notions from his
+brother-baronets. An old English gentleman was wont to declare that more
+of disagreeable eccentricity is to be found amongst members of the
+baronetage than amongst those of any other order of men. He chanced to
+be thrown early in life amongst several eccentric beings of the class,
+and took his ideas accordingly; but it is a fact that a very large
+number of stories about eccentric baronets are in circulation. A marked
+man of the kind was early in the last century an individual who, in
+consequence of his height, was called Long Sir Thomas Robinson. It was
+in allusion to him that the lines were penned:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Unlike to Robinson shall be my song&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It shall be witty, and it sha'n't be long.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This was the man to whom a Russian nobleman displayed the greatest
+anxiety to be introduced, under the impression that he was the real
+identical and unadulterated Robinson Crusoe.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas was a bore of the first magnitude, and an inveterate
+hanger-on about cabinet-ministers and other prominent persons. He was
+constantly worrying Lord Burlington and Lord Burlington's servants by
+his Paul-pry-like presence. On calling at Burlington House, and being
+told that his lordship had gone out, he would desire to be let in to
+look at the clock or to play with a monkey which was kept in the hall,
+and so at length get into his lordship's room. The servants,
+exasperated, preconcerted a scheme to be rid of the nuisance. So, one
+day, as soon as the porter opened the gate and found Sir Thomas
+outside, he said, "His lordship is gone out, the clock has stopped, the
+monkey is dead."<a name="FNanchor_O_15" id="FNanchor_O_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_O_15" class="fnanchor">[O]</a></p>
+
+
+<h3>MISS NEILSON.</h3>
+
+<p>The story of <i>La Giulietta</i> was told, in the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, by Luigi da Porto, a gentleman of Vicenza who had served in the
+army, and to whom it was narrated by one of his archers to beguile a
+solitary night-march. After passing through various translations the
+story was taken by Shakespeare as the groundwork of his wonderful
+tragedy, <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, one of his earliest plays, and one of the
+most varied in passion and sentiment. Schlegel says of it: "It shines
+with the colors of the dawn of morning, but a dawn whose purple clouds
+already announce the thunder of a sultry day."</p>
+
+<p>The stormy acting of the elder Kean in <i>Richard III.</i>&mdash;that epitome of
+ambition and bloodshed&mdash;was said to produce the effect of reading
+Shakespeare by flashes of lightning: in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> the first two
+acts are illumined only by the soft moonlight of love, and we are not
+startled by the lightning of tragedy until it gleams upon the bloody
+blade of Tybalt in the beginning of the third act: then Love and Death
+join hands, and move for a time with equal step across the stage.
+Finally come the poisoning and self-slaughters, and in the
+representation the curtain falls upon a corse-strewn graveyard, where
+Death reigns alone. Sad contrast to the lighted ball-room where the
+lovers first looked into each other's eyes&mdash;to the fair garden that lay
+at midnight "all Dana&euml; to the stars"&mdash;to the moon-silvered balcony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> from
+which Juliet leaned in her loveliness as she exchanged with Romeo her
+earliest vows!</p>
+
+<p>Beneath Italian skies girls spring with sudden leap to womanhood, and
+the seed of the tender passion hardly drops into the heart before it
+buds and blooms, a perfect flower. Though the actual lapse of time
+represented in the play occupies only a few days, Juliet in that brief
+period must assume several distinct characters. We see her first the
+coy, heart-whole maiden, the cherished heiress of a patrician house:
+soon the blind bow-boy launches his shaft, and, quick as thought, she is
+passionately, impulsively, enduringly in love; then we see her but a few
+hours a bride, with black sorrow creeping already to darken her
+happiness; her kinsman is slain, Romeo banished, and the coy maiden is
+changed at once to the devoted wife, capable of any sacrifice that will
+enable her to rejoin her husband, then follow the fearful drinking of
+the philter, the miscarriage of the Friar's scheme, and the death of the
+lovers, who seek in the grave that union denied them on earth. What
+varied qualities and acts are clustered here!&mdash;simplicity, love, hope,
+fear, courage, despair, suicide. In the whole range of Shakespeare's
+female characters there is none so difficult to portray&mdash;none requiring
+such a combination of beauty and talent; and we need not marvel that the
+part of Juliet is rarely attempted, and still more rarely with success.</p>
+
+<p>That Miss Neilson was successful during her recent short engagement at
+the Walnut Street Theatre may be inferred, not alone from the great
+audiences that thronged the theatre night after night&mdash;for people will
+often throng to see a very unworthy performance&mdash;but from the
+intellectual character of those audiences, and the manifest pleasure
+they derived from seeing the fair English actress.</p>
+
+<p>In every criticism it should be borne in mind that she played under
+great disadvantage. She was unfortunately, with some few exceptions,
+very badly supported. It seems ungracious, therefore, to search for any
+flaw in the performance of such an admirable actress, who has left
+behind her so many charming memories; yet it must be admitted that her
+acting is not always as faultless as her face. In her Juliet there are
+striking inequalities perceptible: sometimes she seems to have just
+grasped perfection, then again she makes one wonder that she does no
+better. In portraying love-scenes she is unsurpassed: she is graceful
+and beautiful, has studied her parts thoroughly, has a sweet,
+penetrating voice, and seems herself to feel the sentiments she would
+convey to others. Her enunciation is remarkably distinct, and she has
+the power of mingling more or less pathos with the tones to express
+sorrow in greater or less degree: in one scene, where she thinks that
+Romeo has been murdered, her cheeks are wet with actual tears. At the
+close of the ball, when she learns that the fascinating young pilgrim is
+a Montague, the hereditary enemy of her house, she gives her first touch
+of pathos to the words&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">My only love sprung from my only hate!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too early seen unknown, and known too late!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But it is a pathos entirely different from that which later tinges her
+sad good-night to her mother and nurse when she has determined to
+counterfeit death:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Farewell!&mdash;God knows when we shall meet again.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Miss Neilson also possesses, in an eminent degree, the power to portray
+that sly humor without malice known as <i>archness</i>. In the earlier phases
+of Juliet's career, and throughout the whole impersonation of Rosalind
+in <i>As You Like It</i>, this accomplishment stands the actress in good
+stead: she undoubtedly owes to it much of her power to charm. It strikes
+one when she first comes on the stage as Juliet and gently checks the
+garrulous old Nurse, taking up the thread of the discourse&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>again, in her witty word-fencing with the mock palmer at the ball&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>so too in the garden-scene, when she half rebukes herself, and all
+encourages her lover<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i29">O gentle Romeo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And she shows it wonderfully in her coaxing, half-pettish behavior to
+the provoking old woman&mdash;talkative and reticent by fits and starts, now
+whining and now laughing&mdash;who has been to seek out Romeo, and brought
+back news of him. In <i>As You Like It</i>, Rosalind's bright humor ripples
+and laughs like a silver brook through the glades of Ardennes, and
+trickles gently even into the epilogue: in this lively comedy&mdash;so much
+lighter and easier than the heavy tragedy we are discussing too&mdash;love
+and despair never come to overlay and destroy the arch humor. If there
+be any defect in the performance of the banished princess, it must still
+remain, like Orlando's verses, tacked to some tree in the forest, but,
+unlike those verses, still unseen.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the tragedy&mdash;for in the discussion of two plays in which
+the same faculties are exhibited by the same actress it is most
+convenient to pass at times from one play to the other&mdash;who that has
+seen Miss Neilson tread the stately <i>minuet de la cour</i> at the ball
+given in the palace of the Capulets will deny her the possession of
+marvelous grace? The long floating robe and abundant train, the
+high-heeled, pointed shoe of the period, instead of embarrassing her,
+seem but to give additional opportunity for displaying elegance of pose
+and gesture. In the garden-scene, when nightingales are whist, bright
+moonlight falls upon the balcony, and lights up the face of Juliet who
+leans there, certainly the fairest flower in that scenic paradise. As
+yet the course of love runs smooth for her: she does not dream of the
+dreadful gulf down which she is about to plunge, and her happy tones
+fall musically upon the air, "smoothing the raven down of darkness till
+it smiles." This happiness continues till her speedy and clandestine
+marriage. Soon after the Nurse comes home, and by her incoherent
+mutterings leads Juliet to suppose that Romeo is slain: then we have the
+first display of grief, but it is a grief so sudden and so violent that
+the blow stuns and almost silences the young wife. She is roused from
+this by learning at last that it is Tybalt who is dead, and that Romeo
+is exiled; which last causes her far greater grief than the loss of her
+cousin. Her sorrow, however, is at once displaced by rage when the Nurse
+speaks against her husband&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Shame come to Romeo!&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Blistered be thy tongue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For such a wish! he was not born to shame.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The sorrow and anger here are well enacted, being neither overdone nor
+forced. It is here at least shown that Miss Neilson can, when she
+pleases, express great passions with that suppressed vehemence which
+carries the cultivated spectator away far more than violence of voice
+and gesture. Such suppression, with a view to producing greater effect
+by leaving much to the excited imagination of the beholder, is not
+practiced only by the tactful histrionic artist&mdash;it pervades all art. To
+take a single brief example: the greatest sculptors, knowing that the
+chisel could produce form, not color, have shrunk from indicating the
+pupil of the eye in their statues, and left the eyeball smooth, because
+the imagination was more pleased with entire absence of the organ than
+with its imperfect representation. So with ultra-clamorous passion and
+wild melodramatic action on the stage: both are better omitted than
+expressed. These remarks are made here in connection with Miss Neilson's
+first fair displays of passionate sorrow and sorrowful passion:
+presently they may be applied again, less favorably, to her Juliet. In
+her Rosalind, however&mdash;to refer to <i>As You Like It</i> once more&mdash;she gives
+another fine example of the power of suppressed, suggestive action
+accompanying the expression of hot wrath. When the tyrant duke informs
+her that she is banished from his court, she kneels before him in
+supplication and begs to know the reason of his harsh decree. But the
+instant he intimates that her father is a traitor, and she another as
+his daughter, she springs to her feet, and in an attitude of intense
+defiance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> but without a motion of her folded arms, flings back her
+scornful retort:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So was I when your highness took his dukedom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So was I when your highness banished him:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Treason is not inherited, my lord;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or, if we did derive it from our friends,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What's that to me? my father was no traitor.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Here again is a display of power without distortion or over-acting, such
+as must give the actress fair title to celebrity.</p>
+
+<p>Let us return now to Juliet and her approaching doom. There is a sad
+scene in her chamber at early daybreak, for banished Romeo must leave
+her and haste to Mantua, lest sunrise betray him still lingering in
+Verona. Juliet at first lovingly detains him, then fearfully urges him
+to fly; then as he descends from the balcony would fain recall him, and
+sinks in a swoon when she finds he is really gone. The parents come in
+and announce their determination that she must marry Paris forthwith:
+finding her unwilling to comply, they leave her with fierce threats in
+case she continue disobedient, and even the time-serving, timid old
+Nurse, though aware of her marriage with Romeo, urges her to comply with
+their wishes. Thus left entirely to herself, Juliet determines to die
+rather than prove false to her husband. She hastens to the Friar who
+married them, and he gives her the philter, which she accepts joyfully
+and carries home in her bosom. Up to this point her acting is good,
+because it is natural. Love, grief, stern determination are here
+successively and skillfully developed by Miss Neilson. But in the next
+act, just before she drinks the philter alone in her chamber, she
+oversteps the modesty of nature. In her attempt to express extreme
+terror at the fearful visions that her excited imagination conjures up,
+she loses herself in a wild whirlwind of vociferation, accompanied by
+frantic looks and gestures. All the loud artillery of old melodrama
+seems at once to be unlimbered and brought into action, with so much
+noise and smoke that one can neither hear the signals of the bugle nor
+see the man&oelig;uvring of the guns. Of course, even to this part a
+superior actress like Miss Neilson can impart a certain dignity and
+interest which would be lacking in an inferior performer. She strikes a
+certain horror to the spectator by the very hideousness of her terror
+displayed. It is natural that a young girl about to be laid out alive in
+a tomb should be tormented with fearful imaginings; but then that young
+girl cherishes an all-pervading love for a living husband, whom she
+hopes to rejoin by means of her entombment: she expects that the gates
+of the mausoleum will open to admit her to life, not death, and she is
+urged by fear of a hateful second marriage; therefore it is unlikely&mdash;no
+matter what gloomy, blood-stained phantoms she may see&mdash;that she should
+shriek out her fears with such appalling clamor as would arouse any
+well-organized household, and thus defeat her prospects of success. As
+Miss Neilson has shown in former instances, a less violent announcement
+of her feelings would be far more forcible and far more natural.
+Besides, the actress has not yet reached the time when she wishes to
+depict her greatest misery: that climax is reached when she wakes in the
+vault and finds not only Tybalt "festering in his shroud," but her
+Romeo, her husband, a bloody corpse at her feet. If ever the
+ungovernable shriek of dying despair be allowable on the stage, it must
+be at such a time, when Juliet falls upon the still warm body. Even the
+effect of such a wild performance at the very climax and end of a
+tragedy may be questioned; but there can be little doubt that the great
+violence exerted before in describing her horrible suspicions merely,
+deprives the actress of power to throw increased stress into her
+performance as the play moves to its close, and she is confronted with a
+far more horrible reality.</p>
+
+<p>As though she feels that her power of melodramatic declamation has been
+weakened, Miss Neilson in the graveyard seems to rely more on
+melodramatic action. And it is very melodramatic. She rises from Romeo's
+body, where she has flung herself, where it would be natural she should
+remain to kill herself, and standing at some distance from the corpse,
+stabs herself openly with a stage dagger, then falling,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> drags herself
+slowly, accompanied by soft music, back to the body, and there at last
+expires. How much more effective would this part become if more were
+left to the beholder's imagination! Great artists generally avoid open
+stabbing on the stage, as it almost invariably produces the impression
+of trickery. We may see the gleaming blade and the arm descending to
+strike the blow, but it is best not to see the weapon pretending to
+enter the victim's body; and this can always be avoided by proper
+management. When Ristori as Medea murdered her children at the base of
+Saturn's statue, the other actors grouped around and screened the act
+from the view of the audience: when the crowd opened again, the bodies
+were discovered lying on the steps of the pedestal. The death of Juliet,
+instead of bringing tears to all eyes, as Miss Neilson undoubtedly could
+make it do, is thus rendered ineffective by over-acting; and when she
+drags herself six or eight feet along the stage, prostrate and stabbed,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, 'tis dreadful there to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A lady so richly clad as she,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beautiful, exceedingly!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>On the last evening of her engagement Miss Neilson appeared in the <i>Lady
+of Lyons</i>, and after the performance recited the following epilogue,
+suggested by Lord Lytton's recent death:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Fair Ladies and good Sirs</span>: Since last this play<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was acted on this stage, has passed away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its noble author from the gaze of men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more, alas! to wield his facile pen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Kn&eacute;bworth's ancient park, across the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord Lytton sleeps, but not his witchery.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dramatist, romancer, poet, still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can touch our hearts and captivate our will;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For laureled genius has the power to brave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death's fell advance, and lives beyond the grave:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bear witness, this grand audience clustered here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your plaudits cannot reach dead Lytton's ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But no more sweet libation can you pour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To Lytton's memory, on this distant shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than your prolonged applause, which now proclaims,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though the great author's gone, his fame remains.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">M. M.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<h3>GENERAL LEE CONVULSED.</h3>
+
+<p>An old lady who knew General R. E. Lee almost from childhood declared
+that when he was a young man he enjoyed fun and indulged in harmless
+frolics as much as anybody. Later in life, and after his sons became
+stout lads, it is said that he was fond of sleeping with them, in order
+that he might in the morning engage in a regular old-fashioned romp and
+pillow-fight with the boys. During the war, though habitually grave, as
+befitted a commanding officer, he relished an occasional joke very
+highly. When some of his staff mistook a jug of buttermilk that had been
+sent him for "good old apple-jack," and made wry faces in gulping it
+down, he did not attempt to conceal his merriment. So, too, when
+inquiring into the nature of "this new game, 'chuck-a-buck,' I think
+they call it," which had been introduced into his army, there was a sly
+twinkle in his eye that showed how shrewdly he guessed its real purport
+as a gambling game. So, again, it is reported that he appreciated fully
+the "sell" which a wag on his staff palmed off upon a reporter, who
+promptly inserted it in the papers. The reporter wanted to know General
+Lee's hour for dining.</p>
+
+<p>"Six o'clock&mdash;exactly at six," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I infer, then, that it is rather a formal meal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly formal&mdash;in fact, I may say it is a rigidly military dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Military! how military?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see General Lee sits at the head of the table, and Colonel
+Chilton at the foot, and everything is done in red-tape style."</p>
+
+<p>"Red tape at table! I don't understand you. Please explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. General Lee never carves and never helps&mdash;all that is left
+to Colonel Chilton&mdash;but General Lee asks the guests what they will have:
+they tell him, then he issues his orders, and Colonel Chilton executes
+them. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, go on!" opening his notebook: "give me an example&mdash;tell me
+exactly how it is done."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose, then, that we have beef&mdash;we generally have beef. Grace is said
+by the chaplain, then General Lee raps on the table with the handle of
+his knife and says, 'Attention!' Everybody is silent. Every eye is
+turned toward General Lee. He looks at one of us&mdash;me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> for example&mdash;and
+I rise and make a military salute. 'Captain C&mdash;&mdash;, what will you be
+helped to?' says General Lee. I say 'Beef,' make another salute, and sit
+down. General Lee, fixing his eye on Colonel Chilton, says, 'Beef, for
+Captain C&mdash;&mdash;.' My plate is passed, helped, and then Colonel Chilton,
+handing it to the servant, says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Beef for Captain C&mdash;&mdash;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By order of General Lee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">R. H. Chilton</span>, A. A. G.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And this absurd story went the round of the Southern papers.</p>
+
+<p>After the war, General Lee rarely smiled, and one may say never laughed
+outright. Yet he was neither sad nor unsociable. But there was that
+about him which made it wellnigh impossible to believe that he could
+ever have given completely away to feelings of mirth and indulged in a
+real fit of cachinnation. Such, however, was the fact, and it occurred
+at a time when, of all others, one would have least expected it&mdash;in the
+retreat to Appomattox&mdash;and General Henry A. Wise was the occasion of it.</p>
+
+<p>On the second or third day of the retreat, General Wise, who had long
+desired an interview with General Lee, discovered him at a distance, and
+immediately hastened toward him. While he was yet a great way off,
+General Lee, who happened at the time to be alone, turned and began to
+stare in a way that was most unusual with him. As Wise drew nearer the
+stare became intense and mixed with wonderment. A few steps more, and
+still General Lee gazed and gazed wonderingly, as if he had never seen
+Wise in his life. Amazed and puzzled at General Lee's unmistakable
+ignorance of his identity, Wise advanced quite close to him and said
+rather stiffly, "Good-morning, General Lee." It was very early and very
+cool, too&mdash;a sharp spring morning.</p>
+
+<p>As he said this, General Lee's intense gaze relaxed, a smile appeared in
+its place, the smile deepened, broadened, and, spreading from feature to
+feature, ended at last in a fit of the most immoderate and
+uncontrollable laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Astounded beyond words, and indignant beyond measure at such a
+reception, it was some time before General Wise could demand an
+explanation. During all this time General Lee laughed as a mature man
+rarely ever laughs.</p>
+
+<p>The explanation, given through tears of laughter not yet dried, was
+simple enough. General Lee had mistaken the general for a Comanche
+Indian. He had lost his hat or cap, a dirty blanket was thrown over his
+shoulders to protect him from the keen morning air, and his face, washed
+in a mud-puddle and hastily wiped, retained a ring of red mud around the
+borders, which made the resemblance to an Indian as exact as well could
+be&mdash;all the more so in consequence of Wise's strong features.</p>
+
+<p>Barely sufficient at the time (so incensed was Wise), the explanation
+eventually proved ample, for General Wise now laughs at this incident as
+heartily as any one, and often relates it himself, while it may well be
+doubted whether ever again in life General Lee found either the occasion
+or the disposition to relax his wonted gravity.</p>
+
+
+<h3>FUNERALS <span class="smcap">vs.</span> PARTIES.</h3>
+
+<p>A Southern correspondent sends the following incident from real life,
+which illustrates the well-known negro fondness for so-called lugubrious
+festivals:</p>
+
+<p>A lady friend of mine was much beset a few days ago by her cook for
+permission to attend the funeral of some relative. The <i>res angust&aelig;</i>
+forbade her leaving just at that time, but, to compensate her for the
+deprivation, her mistress said, "Rose, I really feel very sorry for you,
+but you shall lose nothing by staying at home. I promise that you shall
+go to the first party that is given by any of your friends, and stay all
+night long."</p>
+
+<p>Rose, tossing her head, replied, "Law! Miss Susan, how kin you talk like
+dat? You know I don't set no vally on parties. <i>Forty parties couldn't
+pay me for de sight of one corp!</i>" She saw the "corp."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M_13" id="Footnote_M_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_13"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> The origin of the name of Bacon is thus explained by
+Richard Verstegan, famous for Saxon lore and historical research:
+</p><p>
+"Bacon, that is, 'of the beechen tree,' anciently called Bucon; and
+whereas swines' flesh is now called by the name of bacon, it grew only
+at the first unto such as were fatted with Bucon or beech-mast."
+</p><p>
+It is, as a writer in <i>Notes and Queries</i> points out, a curious
+authentication of this derivation that Collins, in his <i>Baronetage</i>,
+mentions that the first man of the name of Bacon of whom there is record
+in the Herald's College, bore for his arms "argent, a beech tree
+proper." Additional confirmation seems afforded by the fact that in
+certain places in England boys call beechen tops "bacons."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N_14" id="Footnote_N_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_14"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> "My father," says Thomas Shirley to the king, "being a man
+of excellent and working wit, did find out the device of making
+baronets, which brought to Your Majesty's coffers wellnigh one hundred
+thousand pounds, for which he was promised by the late Lord Salisbury
+(son of Miss Cooke, Bacon's aunt), lord-treasurer, a good recompense,
+which he never had." Ninety-three patents were sold within six years. It
+was promised in the patents that no new title of honor should be created
+between barons and baronets, and that when the number of two hundred had
+been filled up, no more should ever after be added. The first promise
+has been kept.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_O_15" id="Footnote_O_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_O_15"><span class="label">[O]</span></a> This recalls a story of the Marquis of L&mdash;&mdash;, Sydney
+Smith's friend, grandfather of the present peer. His lordship's
+gallantries were notorious, though most carefully concealed. On one
+occasion he went to visit a lady with whom he maintained very intimate
+relations. Not choosing to take a groom on such an occasion, he gave his
+horse to a boy in the street to hold. On coming out he looked up and
+down the street, but in vain, and at length had to go home steedless. On
+reaching L&mdash;&mdash; House, the groom, waiting at the door for his return,
+said, "Shall I go for the horse, my lord?" "The horse is dead," was the
+brief response. "Where shall I send for the saddle and bridle, my lord?"
+"Oh&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;h" (and then with emphasis), "they're dead too!"</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a>NOTES.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As a knowledge of the circumstances under which a work of art is
+composed occasionally gives a clearer insight into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> certain of its
+peculiarities, so perhaps an analysis of the individual elements which
+go to make up the present Assembly of Versailles may give the reader a
+clue to the reason of some of its legislative measures, as well as to
+its possibilities for the future and its political tendencies. Such an
+analysis is made by the <i>Rappel</i> of Paris in an elaborate article, from
+which we must only cite a few points. The Assembly, then, contains, it
+appears, 2 princes (the princes d'Orl&eacute;ans), 7 dukes, 30 marquises, 52
+counts, 17 viscounts, 18 barons and 97 untitled nobles, or those
+"<i>n'ayant que la particule</i>;" which last phrase we may explain to mean
+having the <i>de</i> prefixed to their names, without other titular
+distinction. Next, it contains 163 great landed proprietors, including
+the richest in France; 155 advocates; 48 leading manufacturers; 45
+officers or ex-officers of the army, chiefly of high rank; 35
+magistrates or ex-magistrates; 25 engineers; 23 physicians; 21
+professors; 19 notaries or ex-notaries; 16 wholesale merchants; 14
+officers or ex-officers of the navy; 10 attorneys; 5 bankers; 2
+druggists; 1 bishop; 1 curate; 1 Protestant minister; and 10 others of
+sundry occupations. The difference in composition between this
+republican Assembly and our own Congresses is in some respects
+remarkable; for, independently of the very large and indeed altogether
+disproportionate representation of the nobility or titled classes, we
+observe a very great preponderance of rich land-owners, representing in
+their own persons the agricultural and vine-growing interests. Very
+singular, also, is the small proportion of lawyers, only 155 being
+classed as advocates, and the magistrates and attorneys swelling the
+number only to 200. In an ordinary American Congress at least one-half,
+and usually two-thirds, of the members are or have been lawyers by
+profession. The clerical representation seems to reach a total of three,
+all told, Catholic and Protestant; and as trivial is that of the retail
+traders and mechanics, of whom there are but two or three in all. We may
+add that a full-blooded negro member, M. Pory-Papy, came as deputy from
+Martinique. The standard of intelligence and political experience is
+rather high: it is said, for example, that no less than 33 members have
+been ministers. Altogether, the Assembly may be considered as rather
+fortunately constituted.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>During the session of the medical congress at Lyons one day was set
+apart for the study of alcoholic stimulants. On that occasion the
+physician of Sainte-Anne asylum, Dr. Magnan, comparing the chemical
+action of alcohol and absinthe on man, drew the conclusion that the
+former acts more slowly, gradually provoking delirium and digestive
+derangement, while absinthe rapidly results in epilepsy. Then, producing
+a couple of dogs, he treated one with alcohol and the other with essence
+of absinthe, this latter being the active principle of the absinthe
+liquor which is commonly drunk. The alcoholized brute could not stand
+up, became sleepy and stupid, and, when set on his legs, trembled in an
+inert mass: the other dog experienced at once frightful attacks of
+epilepsy. Analogous effects are produced in mankind. Surely the
+"absinthe duel" which is said to have taken place at Cannes, when both
+the combatants perished after drinking an extraordinary quantity, may be
+strictly denominated a duel with deadly weapons. In the south of France,
+it is said, one person sometimes invites another to partake of absinthe
+by the slang phrase, "Take a shovelful of earth;" as if an American
+bar-room lounger, recognizing with grim humor the deadly quality of his
+liquor, should say, "Come and get measured for your coffin." The French
+expression has certainly, in view of Dr. Magnan's disclosures, a
+melancholy picturesqueness. This subject has to France a national
+importance, since, if the recent report of Dr. Bergeron does not
+exaggerate, the <i>absintism</i> introduced amongst the French army in
+general by the Algerian officers did its part toward producing that
+inertness and lack of vigor which generals often complained of in their
+subordinates during the disastrous invasion of 1870.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Richard II., in the play of that name, disheartened by his calamities,
+responds to all the encouraging words of his lords and followers with a
+bitter satire on the wretchedness of royalty:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tell sad stories of the death of kings:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How some have been depos'd; some slain in war;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All murther'd; for within the hollow crown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That rounds the mortal temples of a king<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keeps Death his court.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The unhappy monarch was destined to furnish in his own tragic fate one
+more illustration of his homily. His words come vividly to mind in
+reviewing the curious catalogue which a European statistician lately
+furnished of the number of sovereigns who have perished by violent
+deaths or been discrowned by disaster. The list, which must perforce be
+incomplete, embraces 2540 emperors or kings, who have ruled over 64
+nations. Of these, 299 were dethroned; 151 were assassinated; 123 died
+in captivity; 108 were formally condemned and executed; 100 were killed
+in battle; 64 abdicated; 62 were poisoned; 25 died the death of martyrs;
+20 committed suicide; and 11 died insane. Even these lists do not
+probably include all the unnatural deaths and dethronements that have
+occurred among the 2540 rulers thus tabulated, for it was often deemed
+politic to conceal the circumstances of a monarch's death, and history
+mentions many such instances in which the cause of death is doubtful; so
+that, for example, the 11 insane and the 20 suicides and the 62 poisoned
+doubtless do not comprise the whole number of deaths which ought to be
+included under those descriptions. Nevertheless, taking these figures as
+they are, they furnish a striking comment on King Richard's melancholy
+words; which, by the way, Richard's own conqueror and successor almost
+paralleled in his lamentations over the anxieties and perils that
+encompass the kingly state. We may add that the death of Napoleon III.
+at Chiselhurst has now, by one more name, increased the number of
+sovereigns dying in exile, while giving the whole subject a fresh
+interest.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The authority of Professor Godebski of St. Petersburg is given for the
+extraordinary statement that the Russian authorities in Poland have
+prohibited the contemplated erection of a monument to Chopin in his
+native Warsaw, on the ground that it might become an occasion for a
+political manifestation. M. Godebski was to have executed the statue, a
+plan had been submitted and accepted, musical admirers of Chopin had
+favored the project, Prince Orloff, Princess Czartoryska and many ladies
+of the Polish nobility had contributed the necessary funds, when the
+whole scheme was vetoed by Count von Berg, on the pretext already
+stated. Surely this was pushing caution to extremes, even in Poland. It
+was Chopin's fate to be driven from his country in 1836 by revolutionary
+disorders; but the very composition of the monumental committee, which
+was under the direction of Madame Mouchanoff, an ardent admirer of the
+master, indicated that the enterprise was an artistic, not a political
+one. Chopin, reposing between Bellini and Cherubini in the P&egrave;re la
+Chaise, his chosen burial-place, has long since passed from the narrow
+confines of his Polish nationality to the worldwide and immortal realm
+of art. In pretending, thirty years after his death, that the genius of
+the artist is of less account than the accident of his birthplace, and
+in reviving against this memorial project the entirely secondary facts
+of the revolutionary epoch (when Chopin's career was not in politics,
+but in art), the Russian authorities are wondrously sensitive, to say
+the least. A chagrined friend of the sculptor has proposed that a piece
+of ground should be bought, a temporary wooden house built on it, the
+statue set up as if in a private courtyard or gallery, and the doors
+then thrown open to the public, while, after some days or months, the
+building could be taken down, leaving the statue substantially on a
+public square. But the prohibition which vetoed the original project
+would of course cover this stratagem also, and besides, it would be
+rather too petty a device to engage in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LITERATURE_OF_THE_DAY" id="LITERATURE_OF_THE_DAY"></a>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. By George Eliot. Vol. II. New
+York: Harper &amp; Brothers.</p>
+
+<p>As a "study of provincial life" <i>Middlemarch</i> appeals to a class of
+readers who might have little taste for the psychological studies in
+which the book abounds, and which give it a much deeper import. Its
+variety, spirit and truth of local color are Hogarthian, while it shows
+a figure, in the heroine, of far higher beauty and belonging to the
+great circle of epic characters. Dorothea, with her loveliness and her
+history of divine blunders, is fit to stand with any queen of song or
+story. This volume begins with the closing scenes in her
+scholar-husband's life. The character is a curious, and, after all, a
+pathetic one. What Philadelphia reader, at least, can pursue the
+narrative of poor Casaubon's misplaced study and ill-judged bequest
+without being reminded of another career of futile scholarship near
+home? Like him, as it will seem to the curious annalist, Richard Rush
+was a student without an audience, and like him a mistaken testator.
+Locking up his mind from the public amidst a company of ideas imbibed in
+the day when his city was the great book-producing city of the country,
+Rush prosecuted his barren researches in a moral prison, saw domestic
+life only through a grating woven from his own prejudices, and died in
+the confidence falsely sustaining him that the inefficiency of a
+lifetime would be amended by the bequests of an impracticable will.
+Rush, too, was wealthy, of influential family, studious, sterile, and
+apt to put off present action in the hope that the grave would one day
+co-operate with his motives; and Rush, like the imagined author of the
+<i>Key to all Mythologies</i>, finds the grave a treacherous trustee. The
+heroine of <i>Middlemarch</i>, in her action over her husband's testament,
+behaves as every true and lovable woman, obeying the emotions, will
+behave while the world lasts: a flippant, easy, youthful censor has told
+her, in a boudoir in the Via Sistina at Rome, that her husband's labor
+was thrown away because the Germans had taken the lead in historical
+inquiries, and that they laughed at those who groped about in woods
+where they had made good roads. The censor is agreeable, curly, and has
+engaging ways of lying about on hearth-rugs and giving his arm to quaint
+old maids: his criticism is therefore securely effective against all the
+conclusions of a life of dry labor; and so it comes that Dorothea writes
+on her husband's posthumous schedule: "<i>I could not use it. Do you not
+see now that I could not submit my soul to yours by working hopelessly
+at what I have no belief in?</i>" That is the way in which schemes of more
+or less erudition will for ever be lost to the world when entrusted to
+those who reason as Nature imperiously teaches them to do, through their
+affinity with blooming cheeks, curled locks and versatile intellects. It
+is inevitable that Dorothea must sink, from her dreams of emulating
+Saint Theresa, to comradeship with the glossy occupant of the
+hearth-rug. George Eliot, as a true artist, sees what is faulty in the
+catastrophe, but she will not unsex her creation. Another of her
+characters, Rosamond, she pursues with a minute, withering, one would
+say vindictive, contempt. It is the beautiful, distinguished young
+creature who marries Lydgate on account of his high connections, and who
+trains him to do up her plaits of hair for her, and allows him to talk
+the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning
+it, "accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then
+miraculously dimpling toward her votary." How such a creature can become
+the cool blighting Nemesis of a hopeful home, ruining it by
+extravagance, and taking credit to herself for every act of calm revolt,
+until her wretched husband, who had meant to be another Vesalius,
+compares her to Boccaccio's basil, that flourished upon the brains of a
+massacred man, the author sees only too plainly, and shows forth in some
+of the most cutting scenes she has ever written. Her "Study of
+Provincial Life," while it reveals her warm poet's love for a lofty
+nature defeated by its conditions, shows still plainer her intimate and
+personal dread of the cold thin nature that kills by its commonplace.
+The last she rewards contemptuously with a carriage in the Park and a
+rich second match: the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> she punishes with exquisite Junonine
+tenderness by giving her a little boy in the bride-chamber of the home
+of the clever young politician whom the local editor has called a
+"violent energumen."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In laying down the book the reader is conscious of a different feeling
+from that with which he ordinarily parts with a work of fiction which
+has gratified his artistic tastes and furnished him with a high
+intellectual pleasure. Comparing the productions of George Eliot with
+those of other novelists, we are tempted to think of these as trivial
+fond records, which might well be blotted from the tablets of the
+memory, leaving the inscription she has placed there to live alone in
+ineffaceable characters. It is not that they show her to be endowed with
+a larger measure of those gifts which constitute the artist. In each of
+these she has perhaps been equaled or surpassed by one or another of her
+predecessors. As a painter of manners, of all that belongs to the
+surface of life, she is rivaled in fidelity, if not in breadth and
+force, by Fielding, Thackeray and Miss Austen. Her observation is less
+keen than theirs, her portraiture less vivid, her humor less cordial and
+abundant. Her conceptions have not the intensity of Charlotte Bront&eacute;'s,
+nor her great scenes the dramatic fire of Scott's. In the minor matters
+of invention and plot she sometimes has recourse to shifts that betray
+the deficiencies they are intended to conceal. The quality in which she
+is supreme is one that lies beyond the strict domain of art. It is the
+power of penetrating to the roots of human character and action&mdash;a power
+which seems to be something more than insight, but for which sympathy
+would be a still less adequate term, indicating as it does a nature
+harmonious and complete, one in which intellect and feeling are resolved
+into an element that overflows and envelops its object without effort or
+repulsion. In other novelists we admire a subtlety that winds through
+the intricacies of motives, unmasking deceptions, revealing weaknesses
+and flaws but half suspected, or delicacies and beauties but half
+appreciated: George Eliot drops a plummet that sinks straight and
+steadily, through turbid waves and calm under-current, reaching depths
+before unexplored. We can claim no part in her discoveries, however our
+faculties may be exercised in grasping or in testing them. They more
+often correct than confirm our impressions; they make large additions to
+our knowledge; they suggest the necessity of reconstructing our theories
+and placing them on a new and wider base.</p>
+
+
+<p><br /><br />A Memorial of Alice and Ph&oelig;be Cary. By Mary Clemmer Ames. New York:
+Hurd &amp; Houghton.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Cary was a poetess of feeling, tender, prolific, overworked,
+unhealthy, and cooked to desiccation in a New York "elegant residence"
+that was but one enormous stove. Ph&oelig;be, working less, was amusing,
+plump, gay and original. Alice, obediently grinding out her sweet
+morning poem for the <i>Ledger</i> before she went to market, died at her
+desk, and then Ph&oelig;be died of loneliness. It is a gentle and a
+thoroughly American history. In the eyes of both these Ohio women, New
+York was the market where they could easiest sell their wares, and their
+poems were commodities from which they were determined to derive as
+comfortable an existence as possible. Any strict idea of duty to their
+art, as the responsibility committed to them above all things on earth,
+seems never to have crossed the mind of either sister, though Alice, who
+wrote a great many volumes, would occasionally complain&mdash;not, however,
+more feelingly than all sincere authors do&mdash;that she knew her labors
+were overtaxing her faculty. They arranged, at their handsome residence
+on Twentieth street, a <i>salon</i> of Sunday evenings, where Mr. Greeley,
+Robert Bonner and Whitelaw Reid used to meet and converse kindly with
+the minor literati, and which were believed to have much of the
+pleasantness and life of French conversaziones. Alice Cary has left a
+profusion of pensive poetry: the following is the most beautiful extract
+she affords:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And a hundred streams are the same as one;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the maiden dreameth her lovelit dream;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And what is it all when all is done?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The net of the fisher the burden breaks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Ph&oelig;be, who was reckoned less clever than Alice, excites a great deal
+more sympathy, quietly accepting a position of admiring secondariness,
+and yielding occasional good things in wit or poetry: she was famed
+among her friends as a punster and parodist, and once answered at a
+dinner to a question what wine they used, "Oh, we drink Heidsick, but we
+keep mum." An irresistibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> taking and womanly remark of hers, disposing
+in its own way of whole schemes of Calvinistic theology, was her reply
+to the argument for endless punishment: "Well, if God ever sends me into
+such misery, I know He will give me a constitution to bear it." Again,
+as the least laborious of the sisters, her talent had moments of greater
+felicity than that of Alice, and she has left one hymn which has all the
+promise of a lasting favorite. The sacred lyric, "One sweetly solemn
+thought comes to me o'er and o'er," is sung, as it deserves to be,
+wherever Christianity is known, and there is an attested story of its
+having aroused a pair of gamblers in China to repentance and permanent
+reform. It is imprudent to predict a permanent place for even the best
+of Alice Carey's gentle songs; but Ph&oelig;be's utterance may very
+possibly be quoted, from her unpretending station as adviser and
+alleviator of every-day life, after her name shall be forgotten and her
+religion shall have become impersonal.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><br /><br />How I Found Livingstone. By Henry M. Stanley. New York: Scribner,
+Armstrong &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>This book, the circumstances of its writing considered, is a literary
+curiosity. It contains seven hundred and twenty pages octavo, and it was
+composed in an incredibly short time, while the stomach of its author
+was digesting a series of stout English dinners, and his attention
+dissipating among speech-makings and speech-listenings, feasts, meetings
+and visits. Only a New York reporter could have achieved the feat. The
+faculty acquired by men of Mr. Stanley's trade, of acting with the
+intense decision and energy of great military captains, and then
+relating the action with the voluble unction of bar-rooms or political
+stumps, is a strange mixed faculty, and is found to perfection in the
+reporters' rooms of the New York <i>Herald</i>. The tale has the <i>Herald's</i>
+well-known style, and is a correspondent's letter in a state of
+amplification. It is always energetic, often tinged with real heroism
+and romance, and adorned sometimes with an ambition of classical
+allusions that resemble Egyptian jewels worn by a Nubian savage. It has
+not the least self-restraint or good taste, but it sounds fresh, genuine
+and sincere. It brings out with fine distinctness the feudal fidelity of
+a reporter-errant, whose whole soul is dyed with belief in the great
+establishment whose behest he obeys&mdash;one of the last refuges in which
+medi&aelig;val humility is to be found. As a part of the same habit of mind,
+Mr. Stanley shows a fine, literal, unquestioning championship of the
+object of his quest, Dr. Livingstone; but he seems to admire the doctor,
+after all, rather as an ornamental possession of the New York <i>Herald</i>.
+The great traveler's good-nature to Mr. Bennett, as a voluntary
+correspondent and coadjutor by brevet with the journal, disarms and
+enchants him: beginning with a prejudice, he ends by saying, "I grant he
+is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature
+of a living man will allow." In every trait Stanley shows himself
+whole-souled, ignorant of half measures, unscrupulous, cruel on
+occasion, driving, positive, and furnished with a sure instinct of
+success. The book, from its hasty construction, admits many
+inconsistencies, the worst of which is its long tirade against the
+Geographical Society, nullified finally by gracious thanks for their
+medal; but it has the energetic virtue of a book written while memory
+was fresh, and is often truly dramatic and pictorial. It is the
+garrulous appendage of a strange and solid achievement, the feather-end
+of the arrow, which advertises the hit of the steel.</p>
+
+
+<p><br /><br />The Minnesinger of Germany. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd &amp; Houghton.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kroeger appears to have an antiquarian's thoroughness in his
+subject, and he has made it an interesting one to Western readers. But
+he has not succeeded in his translations, partly because he does not
+respect the usage and associations of the English words he rivets
+incompatibly together, and partly because success, even for a more
+poetical translator, is impossible in the premises. The authors of the
+Minnelay, in their elaborate rhyme-caprice, must have remained
+harmonious and lyrical, which is not the case with a version like this:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I look so Esau-like, perdu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My hair hangs rough and unkempt. Hu!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gentle Summer, where are you?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, were the world no more so dhu!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rather than bide in this purlieu,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Longer to stay I'll say, Adieu!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And go as monk to Toberlu.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or like this, which Mr. Kroeger, without the fear of <i>Maud's</i> author
+before his eyes, compares to Tennyson:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Rosy-colored meadows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shadows we see vanish everywhere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wood-birds' warbling dieth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sore-trieth them the snow of wintry year.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Woe, woe! what red mouth's glow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hovers now o'er the valley?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ah, ah, the hours of woe!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lovers it doth rally<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more; yet its caress seems cosy.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These studies of intricate rhymes concealed in and terminating the lines
+are at least as hard for the reader as for the writer; yet we hope Mr.
+Kroeger will not lose his readers before they arrive at the historical
+and critical parts of the work, which are really valuable. The narrative
+of Ulrich von Lichtenstein of the thirteenth century, who sent one of
+his fingers to an exacting lady-love, and paraded through Europe on her
+quests disguised variously as King Arthur, Queen Venus or as a leper, is
+one which makes the maddest deeds of Quixote seem sane, although he was
+a true singer and an admired chevalier of his period. Gottfried von
+Strassburg, whose excellent poem of <i>Tristan and Isolde</i> inspires the
+writer with his least unhappy translation, leads the subject away from
+the mere love-carolers toward the authors of the metrical romances, the
+bards of Germany. It is at this point that he introduces some forcible
+criticisms on Tennyson's poetry of that character, and makes it evident
+that the Laureate might have improved his Idyls by extending his
+readings among the German chanters of Arthurian legend. The following
+seems practical and just: "If Tennyson was determined to make the
+love-passion the chief theme of his work, rather than the religious
+element of the St. Graal, he had at hand in one of his legends that very
+same relation between the sexes which existed between Queen Guinevere
+and Launcelot, and yet deprived in the essential point of all disgusting
+characteristics. It seems strange that the impropriety of making this
+adulterous connection between the king and queen the chief theme of his
+song should not have struck Tennyson when he dedicated his legends to
+the husband of Queen Victoria, even in that dedication drawing
+comparisons: strange that he should have taken no means to hide it, by
+at least bringing the king into some position of interest, whereas he is
+made so little of that he seems a mild, inoffensive, gentle soul, who is
+ready even to shake hands with the seducer of his wife." In this
+connection it will repay the reader to peruse, even if the version has
+not much charm, the long extract from Gottfried's <i>Tristan</i>, with an eye
+to the noble and knightly way in which the legend is conceived and taken
+up. Mr. Kroeger, who can give it no grace in translation, is a warm
+partisan in matters of melody and rhythm, appreciating Coleridge and
+Swinburne. Altogether, he is a sincere and useful interpreter between
+our public&mdash;rather careless of musty poetry&mdash;and the fine old German
+singers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Books_Received" id="Books_Received"></a><i>Books Received.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>History of English Literature. By H. A. Taine. Abridged from the
+translation of H. van Laun, by John Fiske, Assistant Librarian of
+Harvard University. New York: Holt &amp; Williams.</p>
+
+<p>The Polytechnic: A Collection of Music for Schools, Classes and Clubs.
+Arranged and Written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J.
+W. Schermerhorn.</p>
+
+<p>The Athen&aelig;um: A Collection of Part Songs. Arranged and Written by U. C.
+Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph Noirel's Revenge. By Victor Cherbuliez. Translated from the
+French by William F. West, A. M. New York: Holt &amp; Williams.</p>
+
+<p>A New Theory of the Origin of Species. By B. G. Ferris. New Haven,
+Connecticut: C. C. Chatfield &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson's Natural Philosophy. By Frank G. Johnson, A.M., M.D. New York:
+J. W. Schermerhorn &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>The Ordeal for Wives. By the author of "Ought We to Visit Her?" New
+York: Sheldon &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>The Higher Ministry of Nature. By John Leifchild, A.M. New York: G. P.
+Putnam &amp; Sons.</p>
+
+<p>A Manual of Pottery and Porcelain. By John H. Treadwell. New York: G. P.
+Putnam &amp; Sons.</p>
+
+<p>The Outcast, and Other Poems. By J. W. Watson. Philadelphia: T. B.
+Peterson &amp; Brothers.</p>
+
+<p>The Catholic Family Almanac for 1873. New York: The Catholic Publication
+Society.</p>
+
+<p>Off the Skelligs. By Jean Ingelow. Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular
+Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,8098 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature
+and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2007 [EBook #22402]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***
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+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci, and the
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+LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
+
+OF
+
+_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._
+
+MARCH, 1873.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by J. B.
+LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of the article.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.
+
+
+[Illustration: ALGIERS FROM THE SEA.]
+
+A fact need not be a fixed fact to be a very positive one; and Kabylia,
+a region to whose outline no geographer could give precision, has long
+existed as the most uncomfortable reality in colonial France.
+Irreconcilable Kabylia, hovering as a sort of thunderous cloudland among
+the peaks of the Atlas Mountains, is respected for a capacity it has of
+rolling out storms of desperate warriors. These troops disgust and
+confound the French by making every hut and house a fortress: like the
+clansmen of Roderick Dhu, they lurk behind the bushes, animating each
+tree or shrub with a preposterous gun charged with a badly-moulded
+bullet. The Kabyle, when excited to battle, goes to his death as
+carelessly as to his breakfast: his saint or marabout has promised him
+an immediate heaven, without the critical formality of a judgment-day.
+He fights with more than feudal faithfulness and with undiverted
+tenacity. He is in his nature unconquerable. So that the French, though
+they have riddled this thunder-cloud of a Kabylia with their shot,
+seamed it through and through with military roads, and established a
+beautiful _fort national_ right in the middle of it, on the plateau of
+Souk-el-Arba, possess it to-day about as thoroughly as we Americans
+might possess a desirable thunder-storm which should be observed hanging
+over Washington, and which we should annex by means of electrical
+communications transpiercing it in every direction, and a resident
+governor fixed at the centre in a balloon. France has gorged Kabylia,
+with the rest of Algeria, but she has never digested it.
+
+[Illustration: "IMPREGNABLE KABYLIA."]
+
+A trip through Algeria, such as we now propose, belongs, as a
+pleasure-excursion, only to the present age. In the last it was made
+involuntarily. Only sixty years ago the English spinster or spectacled
+lady's-companion, as she crossed over from the mouth of the Tagus to the
+mouth of the Tiber, or from Marseilles to Naples, looked out for capture
+by "the Algerines" as quite a reasonable eventuality. (Who can forget
+Toepfer's mad etchings for _Bachelor Butterfly_, of which this little
+episode forms the incident?) Her respectable mind was filled with
+speculations as to how many servants "a dey's lady" was furnished with,
+and what was the amount of her pin-money. A stout, sound-winded
+Christian gentleman, without vices and kind in fetters, sold much
+cheaper than a lady, being worth thirty pounds, or only about one-tenth
+the value of Uncle Tom.
+
+[Illustration: BOUGIE, AND HILL OF GOURAYA.]
+
+The opening up of Algeria to the modern tourist and Murray's guide-books
+is in fact due to the American nation. So late as 1815 the Americans,
+along with the other trading nations, were actually paying to the dey
+his preposterous tribute for exemption from piratical seizure. In this
+year, however, we changed our mind and sent Decatur over. On the 28th of
+June he made his appearance at Algiers, having picked up and disposed of
+some Algerine craft, the frigate Mashouda and the brig Estido. The
+Algerines gave up all discussion with a messenger so positive in his
+manners, and in two days Decatur introduced our consul-general Shaler,
+who attended to the release of American captives and the positive
+stoppage of tribute.
+
+The example was followed by other nations. Lord Exmouth bombarded
+Algiers in 1816, and reduced most of it to ashes. In 1827 the dey opened
+war with France by hitting the French consul with his fan. Charles X.
+retorted upon the fan with thirty thousand troops and a fleet. The fort
+of Algiers was exploded by the last survivor of its garrison, a negro of
+the deserts, who rushed down with a torch into the powder-cellar.
+Algeria collapsed. The dey went to Naples, the janizaries went to
+Turkey, and Algeria became French.
+
+From this time the country became more or less open, according as France
+could keep it quiet, to the inroads of that modern beast of ravin, the
+tourist. The Kabyle calls the tourist _Roumi_ (Christian), a form,
+evidently, of our word Roman, and referable to the times when the bishop
+of Hippo and such as he identified the Christian with the Romanist in
+the Moorish mind.
+
+Modern Algiers, viewed from the sea, wears upon its luminous walls small
+trace of its long history of blood. As we contemplate its mosques and
+houses flashing their white profiles into the sky, it is impossible not
+to muse upon the contrast between its radiant and picturesque aspect
+and its veritable character as the accomplice of every crime and every
+baseness known to the Oriental mind. To see that sunny city basking
+between its green hills, you would hardly think of it as the abode of
+bandits; yet two powerful tribes still exist, now living in huts which
+crown the heights of Boudjareah overlooking the sea, who formerly
+furnished the boldest of the pitiless corsairs. To the iron hooks of the
+Bab (or gate) of Azoun were hung by the loins our Christian brothers who
+would not accept the Koran; at the Bab-el-Oued, the Arab rebels, not
+confounded even in their deaths with the dogs of Christians, were
+beheaded by the yataghan; and in the blue depths we sail over, whose
+foam washes the bases of the temples, hapless women have sunk for ever,
+tied in a leather bag between a cat and a serpent.
+
+The history, in truth, is the history--always a cruel one--of an
+overridden nation compelled to bear a part in the wickedness of its
+oppressors. This rubric of blood may be read in many a dismal page.
+Algeria was a slave before England was Christian. The greatest African
+known to the Church, Augustine, has left a pathetic description of the
+conquest of his country by the Vandals in the fifth century: it was
+attended with horrible atrocities, the enemy leaving the slain in
+unburied heaps, so as to drive out the garrisons by pestilence. When
+Spain overthrew the Moors she took the coast-cities of Morocco and
+Algeria. Afterward, when Aruch Barbarossa, the "Friend of the Sea," had
+seized the Algerian strongholds as a prize for the Turks, and his system
+of piracy was devastating the Mediterranean, Spain with other countries
+suffered, and we have a vivid picture of an Algerine bagnio and
+bagnio-keeper from the pen of the illustrious prisoner Cervantes. "Our
+spirits failed" (he writes) "in witnessing the unheard-of cruelties that
+Hassan exercised. Every day were new punishments, accompanied with cries
+of cursing and vengeance. Almost daily a captive was thrown upon the
+hooks, impaled or deprived of sight, and that without any other motive
+than to gratify the thirst of human blood natural to this monster, and
+which inspired even the executioners with horror."
+
+While our fancy traces the figure of the author of _Don Quixote_, a
+plotting captive, behind the walls of Algiers, the steamer is
+withdrawing, and the view of the city becomes more beautiful at every
+turn of the paddles. We pass through a whole squadron of fishing-boats,
+hovering on their long lateen sails, and seeming like butterflies
+balanced upon the waves, which are blue as the petal of the iris.
+Algiers gradually becomes a mere impression of light. The details have
+been effaced little by little, and melted into a general hue of gold and
+warmth: the windowless houses and the walls extending in terraces
+confuse interchangeably their blank masses. The dark green hills of
+Boudjareah and Mustapha seem to have opened their sombre flanks to
+disclose a marble-quarry: the city, piled up with pale and blocklike
+forms, appears to sink into the mountains again as the boat retires,
+although the picturesque buildings of the Casbah, cropping out upon the
+summit, linger long in sight, like rocks of lime. As we pass Cape
+Matifou we see rising over its shoulder the summits of the Atlas range,
+among whose peaks we hope to be in a fortnight, after passing Bona,
+Philippeville and Constantina.
+
+Sailing along this coast of the Mediterranean resembles an excursion on
+one of the Swiss lakes. Four hours after passing Algiers, in going
+eastwardly toward the port of Philippeville, we come in sight of Dellys,
+a little town of poor appearance, where the hussars of France first
+learned the peculiarities of Kabyle fighting. This warfare was something
+novel. In place of the old gusty sweeps of cavaliers on horseback,
+falling on the French battalions or glancing around them in whirlwinds,
+the soldiers had to extirpate the Kabyles hidden in the houses. It was
+not fighting--it was ferreting. Each house in Dellys was a fort which
+had to be taken by siege. Each garden concealed behind its palings the
+"flower" of Kabyle chivalry, only to be uprooted by the bayonet. The
+women fought with fury.
+
+We follow our course along these exquisite blue waters, and soon have a
+glimpse, at three miles distance, of an isolated, abrupt cone, trimmed
+at the summit into the proportions of a pyramid. It is the hill of
+Gouraya, an enormous mass of granite which lifts its scarped summit over
+the port of Bougie, called Salda by Strabo. We approach and watch the
+enormous rock seeming to grow taller and taller as we nestle beneath it
+in the beautiful harbor. Bougie lies on a narrow and stony beach in the
+embrace of the mountain, white and coquettish, spreading up the rocky
+wall as far as it can, and looking aloft to the protecting summit two
+thousand feet above it. We abstain from dismounting, but sweep the city
+with field-glasses from the deck of the ship, recollecting that Bougie
+was bombarded in the reign of the Merrie Monarch by Sir Edward Spragg.
+We trace the ravine of Sidi-Touati, which breaks the town in half as it
+splits its way into the sea. Here, in 1836, the French commandant,
+Salomon de Mussis, was treacherously shot while at a friendly conference
+with the sheikh Amzian, the pretext being the murder of a marabout by
+the French sentinels. The incident is worth mentioning, because it
+brought into light some of the nobler traits of Kabyle character. The
+sheikh, for killing a guest with whom he had just taken coffee, was
+reproached by the natives as "the man who murdered with one hand and
+took gifts with the other," and was forced by mere popular contempt from
+his sheikhship, to perish in utter obscurity.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN RELICS AT PHILIPPEVILLE.]
+
+Putting on steam again, we recede from Bougie, and passing Djigelly,
+with its overpoweringly large barracks and hospital, doubling Cape
+Bougarone and sighting the fishing-village of Stora, we arrive at the
+new port-city of Philippeville. This colony, a plantation of Louis
+Philippe's upon the site of the Roman Russicada, has only thirty-four
+years of existence, and contains twenty Frenchmen for every Arab found
+within it. It differs, however, from our American thirty-year-old towns
+in the interesting respect of showing the traces of an older
+civilization. French savants here examine the ruins of the theatre and
+the immense Roman reservoirs in the hillside, and take "squeezes" of
+inscriptions marked upon the antique altar, column or cippus. On an
+ancient pillar was found an amusing grafita, the sketch of some Roman
+schoolboy, showing an _aquarius_ (or water-carrier) loaded with his twin
+buckets. Philippeville, nursed among these glowing African hills, has
+the look of some bad melodramatic joke. Its European houses, streets
+laid out with the surveyor's chain, pompous church, and arcades like a
+Rue de Rivoli in miniature, make a foolish show indeed, in place of the
+walls, white, unwinking and mysterious, which ordinarily enclose the
+Eastern home or protect the Arab's wife behind their blinded windows.
+
+[Illustration: LION-SHAPED ROCK, HARBOR OF BONA.]
+
+If we leave Philippeville in the evening, we find ourselves next morning
+in the handsome roadstead of Bona. This, for the present, will terminate
+our examination of the coast, for, however fond we may be of level
+traveling, we cannot reasonably expect to get over the Atlas Mountains
+by hugging the shore. The harbor of Bona, though broad and beautiful, is
+somewhat dangerous, concealing numbers of rocks which lurk at about the
+surface of the water. Other rocks, standing boldly out at the entrance
+of the port, offer a singular aspect, being sculptured into strange
+forms by the sea. One makes a very good statue of a lion, lying before
+the city as its guard, and looking across the waves for an enemy as the
+foam caresses its monstrous feet.
+
+Dismounting from shipboard, we become landsmen for the remainder of our
+journey, and wave adieu to the steamboat which has brought us as we
+linger a moment on the mole of Bona. This city is named from the ancient
+Hippo, out of whose ruins, a mile to the southward, it was largely
+built. The Arabs call it "the city of jujube trees"--Beled-el-Huneb. To
+the Roumi (or Christian) traveler the interest of the spot concentrates
+in one historic figure, that of Saint Augustine. In the basilica of
+Hippo, of which the remains are believed to have been identified in some
+recent excavations, the sainted bishop shook the air with his learned
+and penetrating eloquence. Here he exhorted the faithful to defend their
+religious liberty and their lives, uncertain if the Vandal hordes of
+Genseric were not about to sweep away the faith and the language of
+Rome. Here, where the forest of El Edoug spreads a shadow like that of
+memory over the scene of his walks and labors, he brought his grand life
+of expiation to a holy close, praying with his last breath for his
+disciples oppressed by the invaders. We reach the site of Hippo (or
+Hippone) by a Roman bridge, restored to its former solidity by the
+French, over whose arches the bishop must have often walked, meditating
+on his youth of profligacy and vain scholarship, and over the abounding
+Divine grace which had saved him for the edification of all futurity.
+
+[Illustration: SHOPKEEPER AT BONA.]
+
+Bona has a street named Saint Augustine, but it is, by one of the
+strange paradoxes which history is constantly playing us, owned entirely
+by Jews, and those of one sole family. This fact indicates how the
+thrifty race has prospered since the French occupancy. Formerly
+oppressed and ill-treated, taxed and murdered by the Turks, and only
+permitted to dress in the mournfulest colors, the Jew of Algeria hid
+himself as if life were something he had stolen, and for which he must
+apologize all his days. Now, treated with the same liberality as any
+other colonist, the Jew indulges in every ostentation of dress except as
+to the color of the turban, which, in small towns like Bona, still
+preserves the black hue of former days of oppression. On Saturdays the
+children of Jacob fairly blaze with gold and gay colors. On their
+working days they line the principal streets, eyeing the passers-by with
+a cool, easy indifference, but never losing a chance of business. In
+Algeria this race is generally thought to present a picture of
+arrogance, knavery and rank cowardice not equaled on the face of the
+globe. An English traveler saw an Arab, after maddening himself with
+opium and absinthe, run a-mok among the shopkeepers who lined the
+principal street of Algiers. Selecting the Hebrews, he drove before him
+a throng of twenty, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, who
+allowed themselves to be knocked down with the obedience of ninepins. A
+Frenchman stopped the maniac after he had killed one Jew and wounded
+several, none of them making any effort at defence.
+
+A few narrow streets, bordered with Moorish architecture, contain the
+native industry of Bona. It is about equally divided between the Jews
+and the M'zabites, who, like the Kabyles, are a remnant of the
+stiff-necked old Berber tribe. The M'zabites preserve the pure Arab
+dress--the haik, or small bornouse without hood, the broad breeches
+coming to the knee, the bare legs, and the turban rolled up into a coil
+of ropes. Thus accoutred, and squatting in the ledges of their small
+booths, the jewelers, blacksmiths and tailors of Bona are found at their
+work.
+
+Returning to Philippeville by land, and remaining as short a time as
+possible in this unedifying city, which is a bad and overheated
+imitation of a French provincial town, we concede only so much to its
+modern character as to hire a fine open carriage in which to proceed
+inland toward Constantina. This city is reached after a calm, meditative
+ride through sunny hills and groves. After so quiet a preparation the
+first view of Constantina is fairly astounding. Encircled by a grand
+curve of mountainous precipices, rises a gigantic rock, washed by a moat
+formed of the roaring cascades of the river Rummel. On the flat top of
+this naked rock, like the Stylites on his pillar, stands Constantina.
+The Arabs used to say that Constantina was a stone in the midst of a
+flood, and that, according to their Prophet, it would require as many
+Franks to raise that stone as it would of ants to lift an egg at the
+bottom of a milk-pot.
+
+[Illustration: CONSTANTINA.]
+
+This city, under its old Roman name of Cirta, was one of the principal
+strongholds of Numidia. In 1837 it was one of the most hotly-defended
+strongholds of the Kabyles. The French have renamed, as "Gate of the
+Breach," the old Bab-el-Djedid, where Colonel Lamoriciere entered at the
+head of his Zouaves. The city had to be conquered in detail, house by
+house. Lamoriciere himself was wounded: the Kabyles, driven to their
+last extremity, evacuated the Casbah on the summit of the rock, and let
+down their women by ropes into the abyss; the ropes, overweighted by
+these human clusters, broke, piling the bodies and fragments of bodies
+in heaps beneath the precipice, while some of the natives descended the
+steep rock safely with the agility of goats.
+
+Of all the large Algerian cities, Constantina is that which has best
+preserved its primitive signet. In most quarters it remains what it was
+under the Turks. These quarters are still undermined, rather than laid
+out, with close and crooked streets, where the rough white houses are
+pierced with narrow windows, closed to the inquisitive eye of the Roumi.
+The roofs are of tile, for the winters on the hills are too severe to
+permit the flat, terraced roofs of Algiers or Bona. These white houses,
+roofed with brown, give a perfectly original aspect to the city as seen
+from any of the neighboring eminences. The plateau of Mansourah is
+connected with the town by a magnificent Roman bridge, two stories in
+height, restored by the French.
+
+[Illustration: ROMAN BRIDGE AT CONSTANTINA.]
+
+From this bridge, which is three hundred feet high by three hundred and
+fifteen feet in length, and has five arches, you look down into the bed
+of the Rummel, while the vultures and eagles scream around you, and you
+recite the words of the poet El Abdery, who called this river a bracelet
+which encircles an arm. The gorge opens out into a beautiful plain rich
+with pomegranates, figs and orange trees. The sea is forty-eight miles
+away.
+
+The last bey of Constantina, not knowing that he was merely building for
+the occupancy of the French governors who were to come after him,
+decreed himself, some fifty years ago, a stately pleasure-dome, after
+the fashion of Kubla Khan. From the ruins of Constantina, Bona and
+Tunis, Ahmed Bey picked up whatever was most beautiful in the way of
+Roman marbles and carving. With these he built his halls, while the
+Rummel, through caverns measureless to man, ran on below. Some
+Frenchman of importance will now-a-days give you the freedom of this
+curious piece of Turkish construction, where, among storks and ibises
+gravely perched on one stilt, you examine the relics of Roman history,
+preserved by its very destroyers, according to the grotesque providence
+that watches over the study of archaeology.
+
+[Illustration: BEY'S PALACE, CONSTANTINA.]
+
+You are told how Ahmed, wishing to adorn the walls of his gallery or
+loggia with frescoes, of which he had heard, but which he had no artist
+capable of executing, whether Arab, Moor or Jew, applied to a prisoner.
+The man was a French shoemaker, who had never touched a brush: he vainly
+tried to decline the honor, but the bey was inflexible: "You are a vile
+liar: all the Christians can paint. Liberty if you succeed, death if you
+disobey me."
+
+[Illustration: SHAMPOOING THE ROUMI.]
+
+Extremely nervous was the hand which the painter _malgre lui_ applied to
+the unlooked-for task. From the laborious travail of his brain issued at
+length an odd mass of arabesques with which the walls were somehow
+covered. His invention exhausted, he awaited in an agony of fear the
+inspection of his Turkish master. He came, and was enchanted. The
+painter was free, and the bey observed: "The dog wanted to deceive me: I
+knew that all the Christians could paint."
+
+You are amazed to find, in this nest of Islamite savagery and among
+these wild rocks, the uttermost accent of modern French politeness. Your
+presence is a windfall in quarters so retired, and you sit among orange
+plants and straying gazelles, while the military band throws softly out
+against the inaccessible crags the famous tower-scene from the fourth
+act of _Il Trovatore_. As night draws on, tired of your explorations,
+you seek a Moorish bath.
+
+Let no tourist, experienced only in the effeminate imitations of the
+hummum to be found in New York or London, expect similar considerate
+treatment in Algeria. He will be more likely to receive the attention of
+the M'zabite bather after the fashion narrated in the following
+paragraph, which is a quotation from an English journalist in the land
+of the Kabyles:
+
+"We were told to sit down upon a marble seat in the middle of the hall,
+which we had no sooner done than we became sensible of a great increase
+of heat: after this each of us was taken into a closet of milder
+temperature, where, after placing a white cloth on the floor and taking
+off our napkins, they laid us down, leaving us to the further operations
+of two naked, robust negroes. These men, newly brought from the interior
+of Africa, were ignorant of Arabic; so I could not tell them in what way
+I wished to be treated, and they handled me as roughly as if I had been
+a Moor inured to hardship. Kneeling with one knee upon the ground, each
+took me by a leg and began rubbing the soles of my feet with a pumice
+stone. After this operation on my feet, they put their hands into a
+small bag and rubbed me all over with it as hard as they could. The
+distortions of my countenance must have told them what I endured, but
+they rubbed on, smiling at each other, and sometimes giving me an
+encouraging look, indicating by their gestures the good it would do me.
+While they were thus currying me they almost drowned me by throwing warm
+water upon me with large silver vessels, which were in the basin under a
+cock fastened in the wall. When this was over they raised me up, putting
+my head under the cock, by which means the water flowed all over my
+body; and, as if this was not sufficient, my attendants continued plying
+their vessels. Then, having dried me with very fine napkins, they each
+of them very respectfully kissed my hand. I considered this as a sign
+that my torment was over, and was going to dress myself, when one of the
+negroes, grimly smiling, stopped me till the other returned with a kind
+of earth, which they began to rub all over my body without consulting my
+inclination. I was as much surprised to see it take off all the hair as
+I was pained in the operation; for this earth is so quick in its effect
+that it burns the skin if left upon the body. This being finished, I
+went through a second ablution, after which one of them seized me behind
+by the shoulders, and setting his two knees against the lower part of my
+back, made my bones crack, so that for a time I thought they were
+entirely dislocated. Nor was this all, for after whirling me about like
+a top to the right and left, he delivered me to his comrade, who used me
+in the same manner: and then, to my no small satisfaction, opened the
+closet door."
+
+[Illustration: HAMMO-EL-ZOUAOUI.]
+
+This is the true Moorish bath. Meantime, the M'zabite or negro, as he
+dislocates your legs, cracks your spinal column or dances over you on
+his knees, drones forth a kind of native psalmody, which, melting into
+the steamy atmosphere of the place, seems to be the litany of happiness
+and of the pure in heart. Clean in body and soul as you never were
+before, skinned, depilated, dissected, you emerge for a new life of
+ideal perfection, feeling as if you were suddenly relieved of your body.
+
+[Illustration: "BALEK!"]
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN CONSTANTINA.]
+
+There is held every Friday at Constantina a grand assembly of the
+fire-eating marabouts, the fanatics who have given so much trouble to
+their French rulers. Every revolution among the Kabyles is a religious
+movement, set in motion by the wild enthusiasm of the "saints." The
+religious orders of Kabylia, all of them differing in various degrees
+from Turkish Mohammedanism, are of some half dozen varieties, adapted to
+minds of various cultivation. Some, as that of Sidi-Yusef-Hansali, are
+mild in their rites and of a purely didactic or religious nature. This
+latter sect originated in Constantina, comprises two thousand brothers
+or khouans, and was in 1865 under the authority of Hammo-el-Zouaoui, a
+direct descendant of Yusef-Hansali. An hour passed in the college of
+this order, where the whole formula of worship consists in saying a
+hundred times "God forgive!" then, a hundred other times, "Allah ill'
+Allah: Mohammed ressoul Allah!" may be monotonous, but it is not
+revolutionary. From this tautological brotherhood, through various
+degrees of emotional activity, you arrive at the wild doings of the
+fire-eaters, or followers of Mohammed-ben-Aissa. This Aissa was a native
+of Meknes in Morocco, where he died full of years and piety three
+hundred years ago. His legend states that being originally very poor, he
+attempted to support his family in the truly Oriental manner, not by
+working for them, but by spending his whole time at the mosque in prayer
+for their miraculous sustenance. His inertia and his faith were
+acceptable to Mohammed, who appeared to Aissa's wife with baskets of
+food, and to Aissa with the order to found a sect. The allegory
+expressed by the disgusting actions of the order would seem to be that
+anything is nourishment to the true believer. They therefore exhibit
+themselves as eating red-hot iron, scorpions and prickly cactus. Various
+travelers, some of them cool hands and accurate observers, have seen
+these khouans at their horrible feasts without being able to explain
+the imposture. A British soldier, an experienced Indian officer,
+happened to be in Kabylia just before the breaking out of the great
+Sepoy rebellion in India, and was introduced to one of the fire-eating
+orgies by Major Deval at Tizi-ouzou, where our journey into Kabylia is
+to terminate. With his own eyes he saw a khouan, excited by half an
+hour's chanting and beating the tom-tom, drive a sword four inches deep
+into his chest by hitting it with a tile. The man marched around and
+exhibited it to the congregation as it quivered in his naked body.
+Another seared his face and hands with a large red-hot iron, holding it
+finally with his mouth without other support. Another chewed up an
+entire leaf of a cactus with its dangerous spikes, which sting one's
+hands severely and remain rankling in the flesh. Another filled his
+mouth with live coals from a brazier, and walked around blowing out
+sparks. Another swallowed a living scorpion, a small snake, broken glass
+and nails. The spectator was in the midst of these enthusiasts, being
+touched by them in their antics, yet he could detect no foul play,
+except that he imagined the sword in the first-named experiment to have
+been driven into an old wound or between the skin and the flesh. It was
+to counteract the influence of the fire-eating marabouts that the French
+government sent over Robert Houdin, the ingenious mechanician, but
+though he eclipsed their wonders by tricks of electricity and sleight,
+he has left but a lame explanation of the "juggleries" of the Algerine
+saints.
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT MOSQUE, CONSTANTINA.]
+
+The worst attribute of these khouans is, that after having excited the
+ignorant Kabyles to many a losing war by their magnetism, they remain
+themselves behind the curtain, safe and sarcastic.
+
+In the Moorish quarter of Constantina, where the streets are about five
+feet wide, you sit down to watch the perpetual come-and-go of the
+inhabitants. Taking a cup of fragrant coffee--which, as the reader
+knows, is in Eastern countries eaten at the same time that it is
+drunk--you sit on a stone bench of the coffee-house and contemplate
+mules, horses, asses, passengers, buyers, sellers, loungers, Arabs,
+Turks, Kabyles, Jews, Moors and spahis. On every side you hear the cry
+of "Balek! balek!" This means "Look out!" and the word is closely
+followed by the causative fact. The street is unpaved, the horse is
+unshod, the hoofs cannot be heard, and you have hardly time to efface
+yourself against a wall when a cavalier passes by like a careless
+torrent, scattering the white bornouses centrifugally from his pathway
+as he advances. The streets, as we observed, are very narrow. Each has
+its own manufacture. Here are the tailors; here, in this deafening
+alley, are the blacksmiths; farther on are the shoemakers, and you are
+driven mad with wonder at the quantities of slippers made for a people
+which goes eternally barefoot. Springing out of this daedal intricacy of
+booths and workshops rise the slender minarets of prayer, of which the
+principal one belongs to a mosque said to be the most beautiful in
+Algeria. The interior of this chief mosque is not deprived of ornament,
+having its columns of pink marble, its elliptical Moorish arches, and
+its tiles of painted fayence set in the walls. In the centre is the
+pulpit, coarsely painted red and blue, where the imaum recites his
+prayers. Three small, lofty windows are filled with carved lacework. The
+floor is spread with carpets for the knees of the rich, with matting for
+the poor. Over all rises the square, crescent-crowned minaret--no
+_belfry_, but a steeple where the chimes are rung by the human voice.
+Night and day, from the heights of their slender towers, the muezzins
+toll out their vibrating notes like a bell, inviting the faithful to
+prayers with the often-heard signal: "Allah ill' Allah: Mohammed resoul
+Allah!"
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+THE NATIONAL TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-WAY.
+
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF NEW RIVER.]
+
+The offices of running water have afforded a fertile theme for the poet
+and the philosopher. In the ruder ages of the world the water-ways which
+carve their course over the face of the globe were regarded only in the
+light of natural barriers against hostile invasion; and thus arose the
+historic principle--
+
+    Lands intersected by a narrow frith
+    Abhor each other.
+
+But civilization has demonstrated that they subserve a much higher
+purpose, that the rivers of a country are its great arteries and
+highways of trade, and that they fulfill functions as numerous and
+benign in the political economy as in the physical geography of the
+regions they furrow. In the Old World, the advancing streams of culture,
+science and commerce, and even the migrations of nations, have ebbed and
+flowed along the classic valleys of the Rhine, the Rhone and the Danube;
+and the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile are rich in
+memories of the world's mightiest and most splendid empires. In America
+the fertile watersheds of the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri are
+fast becoming what their antitypes of the great continent have been in
+the past. The outspreading wave of civilization and population has
+already reached westward to the foot of the Rocky Mountains from the
+Gulf of Mexico to Montana and Idaho, while even the basin of the
+Columbia River is rapidly filling up with an active, thriving and busy
+people, who can smile at the poet's vision:
+
+    Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
+    Save its own dashings.
+
+The water-courses of a country are not less valuable to it than the
+little Pactolus was to the ancient city of Sardis, through whose streets
+it ran freighted with gold. But these natural highways of human
+intercourse, like most of Nature's provisions, are capable of indefinite
+artificial extension and multiplication. Our finest modern canals are
+scarcely smaller, and certainly capable of more uninterrupted, safe and
+heavy navigation, than many of the rivers which have figured in history,
+and which Pascal so graphically described as "_moving roads_ that carry
+us whither we wish to go."
+
+Such considerations as these have a profound bearing on many of the
+great economic problems of the age, but on none more than upon the grand
+problem which is now agitating the national mind in the United States:
+_How to connect its seaboard and central regions by water_. A glance at
+the map of the Union shows that its vast interior lies ensconced between
+the two mountain-walls of the Rocky chain on its western side and the
+Appalachian chain on its eastern side. Hemmed in by these barriers is
+the immense expanse of the most prolific, populous and prosperous
+section on the continent, which, taking its name from "the Father of
+Waters," is geographically designated as the _Mississippi Valley_,
+estimated by Professor J. W. Foster of the Chicago University to contain
+an area of two million four hundred and fifty-five thousand square
+miles, equal to that of all Europe excepting Russia, Norway and Sweden.
+Unlike the inland basin of Asia, in which the vast, mountain-girt Desert
+of Gobi stretches out its seas of sand, stony, sterile and desolate, the
+inland basin of America is its garden-spot and granary. Swept by the
+vapor-bearing winds and rain-distilling clouds from the Gulf of Mexico,
+and blessed with an excellent climate, it contains all the physical
+elements of an empire within itself. Its position makes it the national
+strong-hold, so that with military men it has grown into an adage,
+"Whoever is master of the Mississippi is lord of the continent." It is
+yet but half developed, but no far-seeing mind can form any estimate of
+its future growth and opulence. "With a varied and splendid
+entourage--an imperial cordon of States--nothing," says Dr. John W.
+Draper of New York, "can prevent the Mississippi Valley from becoming in
+less than three centuries the centre of human power." The only wall of
+partition that shuts it off from the great marts of the world is formed
+by the chain of the Alleghanies, which stretch along the Atlantic
+seaboard, from south-west to north-east, for twelve hundred miles. This
+natural barrier, with a mean altitude of two thousand feet, is destitute
+of a central axis, and consists, as the two Rogerses, who have most
+fully explored its ridges, showed, of a series of convex and concave
+flexures, "giving them the appearance of so many colossal
+entrenchments." With a broad artificial channel cut through its sunken
+defiles and picturesque gorges, there would at once be opened a gateway
+for the flow and reflow of the heavy commerce of the Western World.
+
+In 1781 the practical and philosophic eye of Thomas Jefferson perceived
+the national necessity for a great trans-Alleghany water-line, and early
+in the year 1786, though still tossed on the wave of the Revolution, and
+not yet recovered from the shock of British invasion, the State which
+gave birth to the author of the "Declaration of Independence" declared
+for the enterprise. With all the means and energy at its command it
+pushed forward the work from year to year, and directed it, as Mr.
+Jefferson had proposed, so as to connect the head-waters of the James
+River, flowing from the Alleghany summits to the ocean, with the
+mountain-river known as the Great Kanawha, which rises near the
+fountains of the upper James and descends into the broad bosom of the
+Ohio. Although this undertaking was prosecuted slowly at first, it was
+permanently recognized as one that must go on; in 1832 and 1835 it
+received new impulses; and in 1840 it had reached the piedmont
+districts. In 1847 a powerful impetus was given to the work, and it was
+thenceforth, till 1856, forced rapidly westward up the eastern slopes of
+the Alleghanies, as a complete and working structure, above a point
+three hundred miles from the Atlantic capes, and two hundred miles from
+Richmond, leaving an unfinished gap to the upper or navigable part of
+Kanawha River of a little over one hundred and fifty miles. This
+enormous work was more than half finished at an outlay of $10,436,869--a
+sum which, during the economic period of its expenditure, went as far as
+nearly twice that amount would go now.
+
+By recent legislation the State of Virginia proposes to turn over the
+entire property of the canal to the United States, on the sole condition
+of its being finished by the government and converted into a national
+water-highway for the good of the common country--in other words, upon
+the one condition of its _nationalization_.
+
+It is sometimes contended that the day of canals has passed, and
+henceforward the railway must take their place. But this notion is
+opposed to the present economic necessities of the world, as well as to
+the provisions of Nature, which evidently point to the utilization of
+the hydraulic systems of the globe. The lavish and prodigal use of the
+coal-deposit of the earth, and the deforesting of vast tracts of soil to
+supply fuel for the locomotive and the stationary engine, have already
+wrought incalculable and almost irremediable evils. The past year has
+seen the prices of all English coals go up at least eighty per cent.,
+and the coal-famine of Great Britain, foreseen some years ago, has
+already threatened to sap the vigor of her industrial systems and
+destroy her manufacturing supremacy, or, at any rate, place her at the
+mercy of the United States for the fuel with which to operate them. The
+denudation of the vast territories of the United States by the axe of
+emigration has already told in a marked degree upon the condition of its
+climate, and greatly affected its meteorology and rainfall; while the
+railroads, which have spread their Briarean arms over the whole country,
+by their immense consumption of wood for cross-ties, sills, fuel,
+snow-sheds, bridges, etc., have wellnigh stripped the land of its
+timber, leaving its bosom exposed to the biting blasts of winter and to
+the fiery blaze of the summer sun.
+
+The problem of more rapid canal navigation is speedily approaching
+solution, and to give up the water-lines of the larger sections would be
+fatal to their commercial development. "The Erie Canal," said a
+distinguished citizen of New York a short time ago, "now conveys
+one-fourth of the whole export of that vast interior region I have
+described (the Mississippi drainage), and as much of it during its six
+months of uninterrupted navigation as all of the trunk railways together
+during the same time." "Every canal-boat," he added, "which comes to
+Albany with an average cargo is more than the average of the New York
+Central Railroad trains. In the busy canal season more than one hundred
+and fifty such boats come daily to tide-water, and the New York Central
+Railroad traffic never reaches thirty trains a day." Such a canal
+traffic would make more than twenty miles of uninterrupted
+railroad-cars, which could not, by any possibility, be handled by the
+largest force of railroad employes with expedition or convenience. The
+_furore_ which the steam-engine has excited and so long maintained in
+the mechanical world is decidedly abating. Engineers are everywhere at
+work studying the practicability of employing new forces. The solar
+heat, the wind-power, the water-power of rivers, and even the tidal
+energy of the sea, have been and are now being harnessed to the
+machineries of Europe. These reservoirs of force are kept perennially
+full by the sun and the moon, to whose action they are due, and at a
+future period, when men have prodigally squandered their heritage of
+coal and wood wealth, they will be invoked by the mechanic and
+manufacturer to furnish their chief motive-power. As an economist of the
+force-_capital_ deposited by the sun's influence in the bowels of the
+earth during its carboniferous epoch, and as using, instead of it, the
+force-_interest_ received annually from the sun through the medium of
+rain and wind, the water-way will and must become one of the most
+generally employed engines of the higher civilizations yet to be.
+
+So long as the subject of trans-Alleghany water-communication was viewed
+as one merely affecting individual States, it possessed no national
+interest. But in its present aspect it is of vast moment, both national
+and international. While many overcrowded portions of the Old World are
+often confronted with both the spectre and the reality of gaunt famine,
+and their breadless thousands are looking wistfully to the fresh and
+prolific fields of the New, for relief, there are annually lost to the
+country and the world vast stores of corn, which the Western farmers
+cannot afford to send by railroad to the seaboard for foreign shipment,
+and freely use as a substitute for fuel. This fact is suggestive and
+significant. To understand its import we have only to look at the
+geographical position of the West and the Mississippi Valley, isolated
+in the heart of a continent.
+
+There are three outlets for the commerce of these sections seeking New
+York, the emporium of the New World, and the chief trans-Atlantic
+markets: 1. By the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and thence by
+transhipment to New York and Europe. 2. By the northern lakes to the St.
+Lawrence Valley, or by the former to the Erie Canal. 3. By the costly
+transportation of railroads over the Alleghanies or along the
+lake-shores eastward.
+
+[Illustration: THE CANAL BASIN AT LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA.]
+
+The first of these routes is of course the longest, both in time and
+distance. It takes the merchandise by an extensive detour, which, from
+the mouth of the Ohio River, _via_ the Gulf, to New York, exceeds three
+thousand miles. Although lying in the powerful current of the Gulf
+Stream, which is a propelling force speeding forward the vessel that
+trusts its warm, blue waters, this route is exposed to the most violent
+cyclonic storms, and navigators shun and evade it during the equinoctial
+or hurricane season. But, barring danger and distance, no country with
+such an outlet to the sea as the Mississippi River affords can be
+considered dependent upon any artificial communication. Notwithstanding
+the objections which exist to this long route (which is both expensive
+and long), its trade is rapidly increasing from the very exigencies of
+the case. The introduction of the barge-system on the great Western
+rivers has greatly facilitated and cheapened transportation. Steam-tugs,
+carrying neither passengers nor freight, are substituted for the
+steamboat. These tugs never stop except to coal and attach the barges,
+already loaded before their arrival at a city, and proceed with great
+despatch. Steaming steadily on, night and day, they make the trip from
+St. Louis to New Orleans almost as quickly as the oft-detained
+steamboat. The distance has been made between these cities by a tug,
+with ten heavily-freighted barges, in six days. The tugs plying on the
+Minnesota River carry with good speed barges containing thirty thousand
+bushels of wheat, and the freight of a single trip would fill more than
+eighty railroad-cars. This transportation is cheap, because the tugs
+require less than one-fourth the expense for running and management
+required by the steamboats. The carriage of grain from Minnesota to New
+Orleans by this method costs no more than the freightage from the same
+point to Chicago by rail. A boatload of wheat from St. Paul, taking the
+river route, is not once handled until it is put aboard ship at the
+Crescent City. The mighty energy of the North-west--"the Germany of
+America," as it has been well called by Dr. Draper--has long since
+discovered that the Mississippi is the best existing route to European
+markets. Grain can be shipped by way of St. Louis and New Orleans to New
+York and Europe twenty cents a bushel cheaper than it can be carried by
+the other existing routes. As long ago as 1868 the Illinois Central
+Railroad took hold of the West India and Southern trade through the
+river route, and offered such commercial inducements to Western
+importers that "Havana sends her products by this route to the
+North-west, instead of by New York."[A] As the North-west expands and
+multiplies in resources and population, it will be compelled to transact
+its foreign and seaboard commerce through the noble navigable waters of
+the Mississippi, unless it can obtain a short and cheap transportation
+to New York by some trans-Alleghany water-line. In the event of the
+North-western trade being diverted southward along the great natural
+artery of the continent, where no tolls, no tariffs and no transhipments
+are required, the loss will fall most heavily upon New York and the
+seaboard marts. The increasing stream of South American commerce, in the
+same event, must inevitably take the short, speedy and entirely
+inexpensive route to the North-west (through the broad and free highway
+of the "Father of Waters"), rather than encounter the delay, danger and
+expense of the Gulf-Stream route to New York, and thence by rail or the
+Lakes to its destination. The longer the present trade-status continues,
+and the mammoth corporations of the railroads force the transportation
+of the North-west, the West and the Mississippi Valley to take the river
+and Gulf route to the sea, the greater and more fixed becomes the
+diversion of this incalculable commerce from the great markets of the
+Middle and Eastern States. So far, therefore, from the far West being at
+the mercy of the East in this matter, the former has the advantage. The
+East, rather than allow the present tendency of the commercial current
+to set well in toward the Gulf, and wear a channel for itself, should
+strain every nerve to keep it steadily moving toward its own maritime
+cities. The great cities of the Atlantic seaboard can better afford to
+construct a water-line over the mountains at their own cost than to run
+the risk of the Mississippi River becoming the commercial avenue for its
+vast valley and drainage, and thus bearing the golden stream away from
+their harbors and streets.
+
+The Utopian idea that Norfolk may become the rival of the great seaports
+and centres of capital, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, is
+without the field of discussion. It is not more possible than that a
+magnetized knife-blade should exert a more powerful attraction than the
+largest lodestone or the mightiest electro-magnet.
+
+The Lake route from the Mississippi Valley to the East was made
+continuous and complete by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. The
+day of the old flat-boats had not then closed, and the application of
+steam to river navigation was still in its infancy. The growth of the
+West--which has always outstripped its internal improvements--like an
+immense river long dammed up, bursting the barriers that confined it,
+forced its way toward the sea. Although it was said at first that the
+canal would never pay, "the opening of this work," as the Superintendent
+of the Census says, "was an announcement of a new era in the internal
+grain-trade of the United States. To the pioneer, the agriculturist and
+the merchant the grand avenue developed a new world. From that period do
+we date the rise and progress of the North-west." This splendid
+structure is to-day the great artery of Eastern wealth; and but for the
+fact that for six months in the year, when the vast sea of Western
+commerce would seek an outlet through its banks to the East, it is
+locked by ice, it would be widened into a ship-canal. It lies in the
+very track of the great north-westerly winds, which descend with
+torrential rush and polar cold over the Lakes, and thence through
+Northern New York. Last year, as late as the third of March, when the
+vegetation of the Middle States was beginning to spring forth in vernal
+beauty, the whole of the lower Lake region and Western and Northern New
+York were swept by these Arctic tempests; and this is the climatic rule
+rather than an exceptional case. Even in the season of open water the
+Lakes are exposed to the most violent storms, and within their narrow
+shores hundreds of vessels are annually lost. The mariner overtaken by
+what would be a moderate gale in a broad sea is in imminent peril for
+want of sea-room; and in a snow-storm, however light--whose winds
+elsewhere he would court to fill his sails and propel his craft--his
+course is beset with danger and difficulty. For more than half the year
+navigation is suspended by the thickening terrors of the tempest and the
+accumulated obstacles of ice.[B] And yet, with all the obstacles which
+impair the utility of the Lake route while it is in operation, the
+volume of Western produce prefers it, or rather is forced by the
+necessities of the case to employ it. And these necessities will
+continue to increase. With the aid of all the railroads now or to be
+constructed, the rapid expansion of Western commerce has distanced the
+facilities of transport. The iron horse, as has been well said, has
+always stimulated industry and production beyond his power to carry it.
+It was the forcible remark of the English traveler Sir Morton Peto that
+the American railroads from West to East were "choked with traffic." So
+great is the inadequacy of all existing outlets for conveying the more
+than Amazonian streams of trans-Alleghany merchandise that it has long
+since become the interest of every great corporation, as well as of
+every citizen of the country, to open for them new and national
+highways.
+
+From this digression, embracing facts and views which seemed essential
+to an intelligent discussion of the main subject, we pass on to examine
+the Appalachian outlet by which the great Western empire of America may
+find its way to the sea. The bird's-eye view here presented will show
+the Appalachian mountain-chain, and the waters which thread their way
+along its gentle slopes eastward to the Atlantic basin and westward to
+the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. The Alleghanies bear a striking
+geographic resemblance to the Highlands of Scotland, so famed in song
+and story. Like the central Grampian Hills--those majestic buttresses in
+whose recesses the old Caledonians found secure and impregnable asylums
+from the Roman legions--except that they are richer in verdure and less
+lofty, they form the grand natural rampart of the American Union. To use
+the words of Lavallee, the French military historian and statistician,
+"Mountains play the principal part in military operations: true ramparts
+of states, they interrupt the development of strategic movements, and
+render the greatest efforts necessary for their passage and possession.
+They are the poetical part of the theatre of the art of war." If the day
+ever comes, as come it may, when the kingly powers of the world combine
+to crush the republican institutions of the United States, and swarm the
+harbors and bays of our Atlantic seaboard with their allied navies, the
+defiles of the Alleghanies will prove the Thermopylaes of the Union; and
+against their eastern base the surging wave of invasion must be stayed,
+if stayed at all. Like the Scottish peaks,
+
+    The grisly champions that guard
+    The infant rills of Highland Dee,
+
+or the Spanish wall of the Pyrenean chain, on whose Sierras, in 1808,
+Wellington's blazing lines of Torres Vedras arrested Massena's march,
+the mountains that look out on our Atlantic sea-front must ever be of
+the highest military importance.
+
+To throw across their central ridges a great aqueduct is no mean
+undertaking of merely local significance, but may take rank with the old
+Roman aqueducts, with the magnificent roads constructed by Napoleon over
+the Alps, and with the more modern and now triumphant tunnels through
+Mont Cenis and the Hoosac Mountains, and the rapidly-progressing railway
+over the Andes from Callao to the Amazon Valley.
+
+The broad and national features of the proposed trans-Alleghany
+water-way have so strongly commended themselves to President Grant that
+in his last message he recommends preliminary Congressional action, and
+in a more recent address to a number of distinguished visitors at the
+Executive Mansion he used much stronger and bolder language in assuring
+them that "he hoped Congress would give such encouragement to the
+measure as to secure the completion of the canal." He has in these words
+only repeated the sentiments of his illustrious predecessors, George
+Washington and Thomas Jefferson, in behalf of the value of the work. We
+have already alluded to Mr. Jefferson's early advocacy of a water-line
+by the James and Kanawha Rivers. The first idea of this enterprise seems
+to have been suggested to Washington as early as the year 1753, after
+his celebrated trip from Jamestown to Fort Duquesne as an envoy of
+Governor Dinwiddie. At the close of the Revolutionary war he made an
+arduous and personal exploration of the country for many hundred miles.
+He kept a journal in which were minutely recorded his conversations with
+all intelligent persons he met respecting the facilities for internal
+navigation afforded by the rivers rising in the Alleghany Mountains and
+flowing either east or west. Returning to Mount Vernon October 4, 1784,
+he wrote, as the result of his observations, to the then governor of
+Virginia, the father of William Henry Harrison: "I shall take the
+liberty now, my dear sir, to suggest a matter which would (if I am not
+too short-sighted a politician) mark your administration as an important
+era in the annals of this country. It has been my decided opinion that
+the _shortest_, _easiest_ and _least expensive_ communication with the
+invaluable and extensive country back of us would be by one or both of
+the rivers of this State which have their sources in the Appalachian
+Mountains." General Washington, on the 26th of August, 1785, became the
+first president of the company authorized by the legislation which he
+had suggested previously to Governor Harrison. It is well known that the
+same views entertained by Washington and Jefferson were held and
+advocated by Mr. Madison, long before the most prescient statesman could
+descry the faintest image of that colossal empire of population, wealth
+and rapid development now lying west of the Alleghanies.
+
+For the great future water-ways which are needed for the Western, the
+North-western and the Mississippi Valley trade there are several routes
+that have been demonstrated to be practicable. One of these is by a
+projected canal to connect the Coosa River with the Alabama River, and
+thence following that stream to the Gulf of Mexico. This, if ever
+carried out, as eventually it is probable will be the case, would avoid
+the bars and dangers of the navigation of the lower Mississippi, and in
+a measure obviate the necessity of the proposed sub-canals in Louisiana
+and other engineering expedients to remove or turn the very serious
+river-obstacles to an outlet south of New Orleans. Another proposal is
+to connect the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, and to run a canal from the
+latter to the Ocmulgee or Savannah River, and thence by the use of slack
+water to reach the harbors of Savannah and Charleston. This scheme has
+been clearly proved to be feasible, although the distance seems
+objectionable. The third (or central) water-line proposed is that so
+long agitated since the beginning of the present century, so often
+surveyed and re-surveyed by the most eminent engineers, and not long
+since by the United States Engineer Corps under the direction of General
+A. A. Humphreys, the chief engineer of the United States army. It is the
+shortest and most direct line, and has the advantage that it is, as we
+have seen, already nearly half completed, from the head of tide-water on
+the James River, above Lexington, to Buchanan, near the summit-level of
+the mountains. The engineers who have reported upon it--among whom are
+the late Colonel E. Lorraine, Benjamin H. Latrobe, Esq., and other
+eminent engineers--estimate that the largest sum required for its
+completion to the Kanawha River is $37,364,000, and the length of time
+required four years. "Of this large sum, however," they say, "it can be
+clearly shown that there will be no need of any other advance by
+government than the interest which will accumulate while the work is in
+progress, which, by issuing the bonds every six months, as required,
+will not reach the sum of _six million dollars. And this is every cent
+that will ever be required to be advanced_. Should the government
+undertake to make the work a fine one, it will of course cost the whole
+amount estimated, but this would be more than made up by its increased
+benefits to the whole country.
+
+"The work when completed, even at a low rate of tolls--not over about
+half the rate charged on the Erie Canal--will return the advance, pay
+the interest and redeem the principal in less than twenty years.
+
+[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY WATER-LINE.]
+
+"In considering this question we are not left to mere conjecture. The
+wonderful history of the Erie Canal, and a comparison of the
+circumstances connected with the operations of that great work with
+those under which this enterprise will be inaugurated and accompanied,
+furnish sufficient data for reliable conclusions."
+
+When we consider that the Erie Canal, though frozen up and useless for
+half the year, has not only long since paid for its construction out of
+its tolls, but makes a present of itself to the State, with _about
+thirty millions of dollars_ of net profit, and that it does more than
+five times the business of the great New York Central Railroad,
+transporting annually over five million tons of cargo (which exceeds the
+total foreign commerce of New York City), and yet is "choked" and gorged
+with freight, the close figuring of the engineers does not appear to be
+questionable.
+
+The immense saving in the cost of water-carriage as compared with that
+of railway-transportation is hardly conceived by the public mind. Many
+of the railroads carry produce at very low and reasonable rates, but
+they cannot afford to take it at much if any less than _three times the
+amount_ charged by the canals. It appears from the report of the New
+York State Engineer for 1868 that the average receipts per ton per mile
+on the New York Central Railroad and the Erie Railway was 2.92 cents and
+2.42 cents respectively; while on the New York State canals it was 1
+cent only, tolls included. But a trans-Alleghany canal would, after
+getting fully into operation, be able to transport produce more cheaply
+than the New York canals, which are frozen over about five months of the
+year, and during the very period when the great tide of Western
+freightage and the ingathered crops is pressing most heavily for an
+outlet to the East.[C] There are many products of the West and the
+Mississippi Valley that will not bear the cost of transportation to the
+Eastern cities, either by rail, Gulf or Lake route, because they would
+consume _in transitu_ for freight between sixty and seventy per cent. of
+their market value in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
+
+These views have been ably and earnestly pressed time and again upon
+Congress by Eastern and Western statesmen, merchants and citizens of all
+classes, by the press of all parties, and by the boards of trade and
+commercial conventions. The surveys cover every foot of the proposed
+James River Canal extension to the Ohio Valley, which, by general
+consent, seems to be regarded as the most eligible because it is the
+most direct central route, and because the State of Virginia has most
+munificently offered to remand the half-completed work to the general
+government on the sole condition of its _nationalization_.
+
+If, as history has always testified, it be true that
+
+              Mountains interposed
+    Make enemies of nations, which had else,
+    Like kindred drops, been mingled into one,
+
+it would be difficult, as it is unnecessary, even to attempt to form an
+adequate estimate of this great trans-Alleghany highway as a benign and
+powerful agent in the political reconstruction and moral unification of
+the American States.
+
+After leaving Buchanan, the proposed route for the extension of the
+James River and Kanawha Canal runs westward to the mouth of Fork Run, a
+small mountain-river, and ascends that stream to the summit-level,
+seventeen hundred feet above tide-water. It then pierces the main range
+of the Alleghanies, passing under Tuckahoe and Katis Mountains by a
+tunnel nearly eight miles long, and emerges into the valley of the
+Greenbrier River on the western mountain-slope. Its water-line pursues
+its course by slack-water navigation down the Greenbrier to New River,
+and down New River to Lyken's Shoals on the Kanawha, eighty-five miles
+above its mouth. The last distance of eighty-five miles will be
+traversed by open navigation, as the Kanawha Valley permits it. Major W.
+B. Craighill of the Engineer Corps, in his able report to General A. A.
+Humphreys on this central water-line, says: "The recent completion of
+the Mont Cenis Tunnel in Europe, and the rapid progress made with the
+Hoosac Tunnel in this country, with the experience gained in these
+works, and the improved facilities daily coming into use for carrying on
+such operations, induce us to approach such an undertaking as the
+Lorraine tunnel not only without apprehension of failure, but with a
+feeling of assured certainty of success. It is no longer an
+extraordinary, but an ordinary, undertaking."
+
+The practical capacity of the water-line when completed will be of
+almost unlimited extent, while the canal proper with its locks will have
+a capacity of from fifteen to twenty millions of tons annually. In the
+fall and early winter, after the harvests are over, and during the very
+season that the highway is most needed, and when the northern routes are
+blocked by ice, this trans-Alleghany water-way will be open.
+
+The local trade in its path would alone justify its construction. It
+will penetrate the finest mineral lands of Virginia and West Virginia,
+which have been so long locked up from the world. The great Kanawha
+coal-fields and iron- and salt-mines are unsurpassed by any now known in
+any part of the globe. In the large demand from England and Europe for
+coal, which is finding expression in the large orders sent to
+Philadelphia and Baltimore for Pennsylvania and Maryland coal,[D] there
+is the best possible evidence that the local trade of the national canal
+would be enormous. So highly thought of is the Kanawha cannel coal that
+it is now shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans,
+and sent thence by sea to New York, where it brings per ton about three
+times the price of anthracite in that market. It is equal to the best
+English and Nova Scotia cannel, while the Kanawha bituminous and splint
+coals are unsurpassed by any others. The veins lie horizontally, and
+vary from three to fifteen feet in thickness, the aggregate thickness of
+the various strata amounting in some localities to forty or fifty feet
+of the solid carbon.
+
+But, great as are the local interests and the trade of the water-line,
+they are entirely lost sight of in the national aspect of the question.
+
+The population now demanding a direct and central highway for its great
+inland commerce, according to the best estimates (those of Poor), cannot
+fall short of fifteen millions, and most probably exceeds that number.
+It is now conclusively established that the centre of gravity of our
+national population has crossed the Appalachian chain. Professor Hilgard
+of the Coast Survey prepared a year ago, at the request of the Hon. J.
+A. Garfield of Ohio, a series of calculations to ascertain this centre
+of gravity by the four last censuses. Supposing a plane of the exact
+shape and size of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, loaded with
+the actual population, he determined the points on which it would
+balance. In the recently-published words[E] of Mr. Garfield we give the
+following results of Professor Hilgard's calculations: By this process
+he found that in 1840 the centre of gravity of the population was at a
+point in Virginia near the eastern foot of the Appalachian chain, and
+near the parallel of 39 deg. N. latitude. In 1850 this centre had moved
+westward fifty-seven miles across the mountains, to a point nearly south
+of Parkersburg, Virginia. In 1860 it had moved westward eighty-two
+miles, to a point nearly south of Chillicothe, Ohio. In 1870 it had
+reached a point near Wilmington, Clinton county, Ohio, about forty-five
+miles north-east of Cincinnati. In no case had it widely departed from
+the thirty-ninth parallel. If the same rate be maintained during the
+next three decades, which I doubt, it will fall in the neighborhood of
+Bloomington, Indiana, by 1900. Professor Hilgard also found that a line
+drawn from Lake Erie, at the north-eastern corner of Ohio, to Pensacola
+in Florida, would divide the population of the United States, as it
+stood in 1870, into two equal parts. This line is nearly parallel to the
+line of the Atlantic coast. From these calculations it will appear that
+both the "centre of gravity" and the line that divides the population in
+half are more than one hundred and fifty miles west of the Appalachian
+chain.
+
+If these computations be correct, Poor's figures are too low by two or
+three millions at least. But, apart from the demand for an
+inter-continental canal by the population on the west of the Appalachian
+chain, the seaboard States and cities east of the Appalachians are, as
+we have already shown, as profoundly interested in such a national cheap
+thoroughfare as is the former section. Careful estimates have shown that
+the surplus produce[F] of the trans-Alleghany sections and the
+Mississippi Valley cannot be less than twenty-five million tons; and
+this would immediately seek an outlet through the Virginia water-line
+to the sea. The saving that would result to the West and to the whole
+country would be enormous; and at a very moderate calculation the amount
+would be an average of two dollars per ton on the river route, _via_ New
+Orleans, and ten dollars per ton over the railroad routes. The
+completion of a comparatively short canal of eighty miles, to cover the
+gap from Buchanan to the upper Kanawha, would without the shadow of
+exaggeration save the West forty millions of dollars a year; and the
+central water-line would yield an interest of ten to fifteen per cent.
+on the capital invested, while opening a continuous water-road from
+Liverpool to Omaha, running nearly due west, fifty-nine hundred miles in
+length! By reducing the freights on the other present thoroughfares
+through the influence of wholesome competition, it would perhaps at once
+lessen the cost of inland transportation by nearly one hundred millions
+of dollars annually!
+
+These considerations, and the added fact that for many years the
+chambers of commerce of the great Western cities, the many commercial
+conventions that have met, and the legislatures of the States bordering
+on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, have earnestly and unanimously
+memorialized Congress in behalf of the completion of this great
+inter-continental highway, fully establish the _national_ character of
+the measure now pending in the national councils.
+
+                        THOMPSON B. MAURY.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] New York _Times_.
+
+[B] From the 3d to the 6th of March, last year, the thermometer at
+Rochester was several degrees _below zero_; at Troy, New York, on the
+5th it stood at -14 deg. (_below zero_); at Ogdensburg, New York, at -32 deg.
+(_below zero_); at Watertown, New York, -34 deg. (_below zero_)! These
+intense colds recur as late as April.
+
+[C] The average of twenty years shows that the James River and Kanawha
+Canal was closed annually by ice only fifteen days; the longest period
+in any one year was fifty-six days.
+
+[D] A single English order for Cumberland coal, to be shipped by a
+Baltimore dealer last December, was for three hundred thousand tons.
+
+[E] New York _Nation_, December 19, 1872.
+
+[F] Last year's grain-yield in the Mississippi Valley was one billion
+and thirty-six millions of bushels. In many parts of the West, for want
+of transportation, corn is now sold for as little as eighteen and twenty
+cents per bushel, and the husks are worth, for fuel, nearly as much as
+the grain. One of the great newspapers of the West, the Chicago
+_Inter-Ocean_ (January 8th) in discussing editorially "The Reason
+Farming does not Pay" in that country, forcibly says: "A charge of
+thirty cents per bushel for the carriage of corn, when the freight
+should be only fifteen cents, absorbs _one-half the value of the crop_;
+and this process, repeated from year to year during the whole period of
+a decade, exhausts what would otherwise become the surplus of the
+farmer, and finally impoverishes the entire agricultural community."
+
+
+
+
+A PRINCESS OF THULE.
+
+BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+"LOCHABER NO MORE."
+
+On a small headland of the distant island of Lewis an old man stood
+looking out on a desolate waste of rain-beaten sea. It was a wild and a
+wet day. From out of the louring south-west fierce gusts of wind were
+driving up volumes and flying rags of clouds, and sweeping onward at the
+same time the gathering waves that fell hissing and thundering on the
+shore. Far as the eye could reach the sea and the air and the sky seemed
+to be one indistinguishable mass of whirling and hurrying vapor, as if
+beyond this point there were no more land, but only wind and water, and
+the confused and awful voices of their strife.
+
+The short, thick-set, powerfully-built man who stood on this solitary
+point paid little attention to the rain that ran off the peak of his
+sailor's cap or to the gusts of wind that blew about his bushy gray
+beard. He was still following, with an eye accustomed to pick out
+objects far at sea, one speck of purple that was now fading into the
+gray mist of the rain; and the longer he looked the less it became,
+until the mingled sea and sky showed only the smoke that the great
+steamer left in its wake. As he stood there, motionless and regardless
+of everything around him, did he cling to the fancy that he could still
+trace out the path of the vanished ship? A little while before it had
+passed almost close to him. He had watched it steam out of Stornoway
+harbor. As the sound of the engines came nearer and the big boat went
+by, so that he could have almost called to it, there was no sign of
+emotion on the hard and stern face, except, perhaps, that the lips were
+held firm and a sort of frown appeared over the eyes. He saw a tiny
+white handkerchief being waved to him from the deck of the vessel; and
+he said, almost as though he were addressing some one there, "My good
+little girl!"
+
+But in the midst of that roaring of the sea and the wind how could any
+such message be delivered? And already the steamer was away from the
+land, standing out to the lonely plain of waters, and the sound of the
+engines had ceased, and the figures on the deck had grown faint and
+visionary. But still there was that one speck of white visible; and the
+man knew that a pair of eyes that had many a time looked into his
+own--as if with a faith that such intercommunion could never be
+broken--were now trying, through overflowing and blinding tears, to send
+him a last look of farewell.
+
+The gray mists of the rain gathered within their folds the big vessel
+and all the beating hearts it contained, and the fluttering of that
+little token disappeared with it. All that remained was the sea,
+whitened by the rushing of the wind and the thunder of waves on the
+beach. The man, who had been gazing so long down into the south-east,
+turned his face landward, and set out to walk over a tract of wet grass
+and sand toward a road that ran near by. There was a large wagonette of
+varnished oak and a pair of small, powerful horses waiting for him
+there; and having dismissed the boy who had been in charge, he took the
+reins and got up. But even yet the fascination of the sea and of that
+sad farewell was upon him, and he turned once more, as if, now that
+sight could yield him no further tidings, he would send her one more
+word of good-bye. "My poor little Sheila!" That was all he said; and
+then he turned to the horses and sent them on, with his head down to
+escape the rain, and a look on his face like that of a dead man.
+
+As he drove through the town of Stornoway the children playing within
+the shelter of the cottage doors called to each other in a whisper, and
+said, "That is the King of Borva."
+
+But the elderly people said to each other, with a shake of the head, "It
+iss a bad day, this day, for Mr. Mackenzie, that he will be going home
+to an empty house. And it will be a ferry bad thing for the poor folk of
+Borva, and they will know a great difference, now that Miss Sheila iss
+gone away, and there iss nobody--not anybody at all--left in the island
+to tek the side o' the poor folk."
+
+He looked neither to the right nor to the left, though he was known to
+many of the people, as he drove away from the town into the heart of the
+lonely and desolate land. The wind had so far died down, and the rain
+had considerably lessened, but the gloom of the sky was deepened by the
+drawing on of the afternoon, and lay heavily over the deary wastes of
+moor and hill. What a wild and dismal country was this which lay before
+and all around him, now that the last traces of human occupation were
+passed! There was not a cottage, not a stone wall, not a fence, to break
+the monotony of the long undulations of moorland, which in the distance
+rose into a series of hills that were black under the darkened sky. Down
+from those mountains, ages ago, glaciers had slowly crept to eat out
+hollows in the plains below; and now in those hollows were lonely lakes,
+with not a tree to break the line of their melancholy shores. Everywhere
+around were the traces of the glacier-drift--great gray boulders of
+gneiss fixed fast into the black peat-moss or set amid the browns and
+greens of the heather. The only sound to be heard in this wilderness of
+rock and morass was the rushing of various streams, rain-swollen and
+turbid, that plunged down their narrow channels to the sea.
+
+The rain now ceased altogether, but the mountains in the far south had
+grown still darker, and to the fisherman passing by the coast it must
+have seemed as though the black peaks were holding converse with the
+louring clouds, and that the silent moorland beneath was waiting for the
+first roll of the thunder. The man who was driving along this lonely
+route sometimes cast a glance down toward this threatening of a storm,
+but he paid little heed to it. The reins lay loose on the backs of the
+horses, and at their own pace they followed, hour after hour, the rising
+and falling road that led through the moorland and past the gloomy
+lakes. He may have recalled mechanically the names of those stretches of
+water--the Lake of the Sheiling, the Lake of the Oars, the Lake of the
+Fine Sand, and so forth--to measure the distance he had traversed; but
+he seemed to pay little attention to the objects around him, and it was
+with a glance of something like surprise that he suddenly found himself
+overlooking that great sea-loch on the western side of the island in
+which was his home.
+
+He drove down the hill to the solitary little inn of Garra-na-hina. At
+the door, muffled up in a warm woolen plaid, stood a young girl,
+fair-haired, blue-eyed, and diffident in look.
+
+"Mr. Mackenzie," she said, with that peculiar and pleasant intonation
+that marks the speech of the Hebridean who has been taught English in
+the schools, "it wass Miss Sheila wrote to me to Suainabost, and she
+said I might come down from Suainabost and see if I can be of any help
+to you in the house."
+
+The girl was crying, although the blue eyes looked bravely through the
+tears as if to disprove the fact.
+
+"Ay, my good lass," he said, putting his hand gently on her head, "and
+it wass Sheila wrote to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and I hef come down from Suainabost."
+
+"It is a lonely house you will be going to," he said absently.
+
+"But Miss Sheila said I wass--I wass to--" But here the young girl
+failed in her effort to explain that Miss Sheila had asked her to go
+down to make the house less lonely. The elderly man in the wagonette
+seemed scarcely to notice that she was crying: he bade her come up
+beside him; and when he had got her into the wagonette he left some
+message with the innkeeper, who had come to the door, and drove off
+again.
+
+They drove along the high land that overlooks a portion of Loch Roag,
+with its wonderful network of islands and straits, and then they stopped
+on the lofty plateau of Callernish, where there was a man waiting to
+take the wagonette and horses.
+
+"And you would be seeing Miss Sheila away, sir?" said the man; "and it
+wass Duncan Macdonald will say that she will not come back no more to
+Borva."
+
+The old man with the big gray beard only frowned and passed on. He and
+the girl made their way down the side of the rocky hill to the shore,
+and here there was an open boat awaiting them. When they approached, a
+man considerably over six feet in height, keen-faced, gray-eyed,
+straight-limbed and sinewy in frame, jumped into the big and rough boat
+and began to get ready for their departure. There was just enough wind
+to catch the brown mainsail, and the King of Borva took the tiller, his
+henchman sitting down by the mast. And no sooner had they left the shore
+and stood out toward one of the channels of this arm of the sea, than
+the tall, spare keeper began to talk of that which made his master's eye
+grow dark. "Ah, well," he said, in the plaintive drawling of his race,
+"and it iss an empty house you will be going to, Mr. Mackenzie; and it
+iss a bad thing for us all that Miss Sheila hass gone away; and it iss
+many's ta time she will hef been wis me in this very boat--"
+
+"---- ---- ---- ---- you, Duncan Macdonald!" cried Mackenzie, in an
+access of fury, "what will you talk of like that? It iss every man,
+woman and child on the island will talk of nothing but Sheila! I will
+drive my foot through the bottom of the boat if you do not hold your
+peace!"
+
+The tall gillie patiently waited until his master had exhausted his
+passion, and then he said, as if nothing had occurred, "And it will not
+do much good, Mr. Mackenzie, to tek ta name o' God in vain; and there
+will be ferry much more of that now since Miss Sheila iss gone away, and
+there will be much more of trinking in ta island, and it will be a great
+difference, mirover. And she will be so far away that no one will see
+her no more--far away beyond ta Sound of Sleat, and far away beyond
+Oban, as I hef heard people say. And what will she do in London, when
+she has no boat at all, and she will never go out to ta fishing? And I
+will hear people say that you will walk a whole day and never come to ta
+sea, and what will Miss Sheila do for that? And she will tame no more o'
+ta wild-ducks' young things, and she will find out no more o' ta nests
+in the rocks, and she will hef no more horns when the deer is killed,
+and she will go out no more to see ta cattle swim across Loch Roag when
+they go to ta sheilings. It will be all different, all different, now;
+and she will never see us no more. And it iss as bad as if you wass a
+poor man, Mr. Mackenzie, and had to let your sons and your daughters go
+away to America, and never come back no more. And she ta only one in
+your house! And it wass the son o' Mr. Macintyre of Sutherland he would
+hef married her, and come to live on ta island, and not hef Miss Sheila
+go away among strangers that doesna ken her family, and will put no
+store by her, no more than if she wass a fisherman's lass. It wass Miss
+Sheila herself had a sore heart tis morning when she went away; and she
+turned and she looked at Borva as the boat came away, and I said, Tis
+iss the last time Miss Sheila will be in her boat, and she will not come
+no more again to Borva."
+
+Mr. Mackenzie heard not one word or syllable of all this. The dead,
+passionless look had fallen over the powerful features, and the deep-set
+eyes were gazing, not on the actual Loch Roag before them, but on the
+stormy sea that lies between Lewis and Skye, and on a vessel
+disappearing in the midst of the rain. It was by a sort of instinct that
+he guided this open boat through the channels, which were now getting
+broader as they neared the sea, and the tall and grave-faced keeper
+might have kept up his garrulous talk for hours without attracting a
+look or a word.
+
+It was now the dusk of the evening, and wild and strange indeed was the
+scene around the solitary boat as it slowly moved along. Large
+islands--so large that any one of them might have been mistaken for the
+mainland--lay over the dark waters of the sea, remote, untenanted and
+silent. There were no white cottages along these rocky shores; only a
+succession of rugged cliffs and sandy bays, but half mirrored in the
+sombre water below. Down in the south the mighty shoulders and peaks of
+Suainabhal and its sister mountains were still darker than the darkening
+sky; and when at length the boat had got well out from the network of
+islands and fronted the broad waters of the Atlantic, the great plain of
+the western sea seemed already to have drawn around it the solemn mantle
+of the night.
+
+"Will you go to Borvabost, Mr. Mackenzie, or will we run her into your
+own house?" asked Duncan--Borvabost being the name of the chief village
+on the island.
+
+"I will not go on to Borvabost," said the old man peevishly. "Will they
+not have plenty to talk about at Borvabost?"
+
+"And it iss no harm tat ta folk will speak of Miss Sheila," said the
+gillie with some show of resentment: "it iss no harm tey will be sorry
+she is gone away--no harm at all, for it wass many things tey had to
+thank Miss Sheila for; and now it will be all ferry different--"
+
+"I tell you, Duncan Macdonald, to hold your peace!" said the old man,
+with a savage glare of the deep-set eyes; and then Duncan relapsed into
+a sulky silence and the boat held on its way.
+
+In the gathering twilight a long gray curve of sand became visible, and
+into the bay thus indicated Mackenzie turned his small craft. This
+indentation of the island seemed as blank of human occupation as the
+various points and bays they had passed, but as they neared the shore a
+house came into sight, about half-way up the slope rising from the sea
+to the pasture-land above. There was a small stone pier jutting out at
+one portion of the bay, where a mass of rocks was imbedded in the white
+sand; and here at length the boat was run in, and Mackenzie helped the
+young girl ashore.
+
+The two of them, leaving the gillie to moor the little vessel that had
+brought them from Callernish, went silently toward the shore, and up the
+narrow road leading to the house. It was a square, two-storied
+substantial building of stone, but the stone had been liberally oiled to
+keep out the wet, and the blackness thus produced had not a very
+cheerful look. Then, on this particular evening the scant bushes
+surrounding the house hung limp and dark in the rain, and amid the
+prevailing hues of purple, blue-green and blue the bit of scarlet coping
+running round the black house was wholly ineffective in relieving the
+general impression of dreariness and desolation.
+
+The King of Borva walked into a large room, which was but partially lit
+by two candles on the table and by the blaze of a mass of peats in the
+stone fireplace, and threw himself into a big easy-chair. Then he
+suddenly seemed to recollect his companion, who was timidly standing
+near the door, with her shawl still round her head.
+
+"Mairi," he said, "go and ask them to give you some dry clothes. Your
+box it will not be here for half an hour yet." Then he turned to the
+fire.
+
+"But you yourself, Mr. Mackenzie, you will be ferry wet--"
+
+"Never mind me, my lass: go and get yourself dried."
+
+"But it wass Miss Sheila," began the girl diffidently--"it wass Miss
+Sheila asked me--she asked me to look after you, sir--"
+
+With that he rose abruptly, and advanced to her and caught her by the
+wrist. He spoke quite quietly to her, but the girl's eyes, looking up at
+the stern face, were a trifle frightened.
+
+"You are a ferry good little girl, Mairi," he said slowly, "and you will
+mind what I say to you. You will do what you like in the house, you will
+take Sheila's place as much as you like, but you will mind this--not to
+mention her name, not once. Now go away, Mairi, and find Scarlett
+Macdonald, and she will give you some dry clothes; and you will tell her
+to send Duncan down to Borvabost, and bring up John the Piper and
+Alister-nan-Each, and the lads of the _Nighean dubh_, if they are not
+gone home to Habost yet. But it iss John the Piper must come directly."
+
+The girl went away to seek counsel of Scarlett Macdonald, Duncan's wife,
+and Mr. Mackenzie proceeded to walk up and down the big and half-lit
+chamber. Then he went to a cupboard, and put out on the table a number
+of tumblers and glasses, with two or three odd-looking bottles of
+Norwegian make, consisting of four semicircular tubes of glass meeting
+at top and bottom, leaving the centre of the vessel thus formed open. He
+stirred up the blazing peats in the fireplace. He brought down from a
+shelf a box filled with coarse tobacco, and put it on the table. But he
+was evidently growing impatient, and at last he put on his cap again and
+went out into the night.
+
+The air blew cold in from the sea, and whistled through the bushes that
+Sheila had trained about the porch. There was no rain now, but a great
+and heavy darkness brooded overhead, and in the silence he could hear
+the breaking of the waves along the hard coast. But what was this other
+sound he heard, wild and strange in the stillness of the night--a shrill
+and plaintive cry that the distance softened until it almost seemed to
+be the calling of a human voice? Surely those were words that he heard,
+or was it only that the old, sad air spoke to him?--
+
+    For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,
+    Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.
+
+That was the message that came to him out of the darkness, and it seemed
+to him as if the sea and the night and the sky were wailing over the
+loss of his Sheila. He walked away from the house and up the hill
+behind. Led by the sound of the pipes, that grew louder and more
+unearthly as he approached, he found himself at length on a bit of high
+table-land overlooking the sea, where Sheila had had a rude bench of
+iron and wood fixed into the rock. On this bench sat a little old man,
+humpbacked and bent, and with long white hair falling down to his
+shoulders. He was playing the pipes--not wildly and fiercely, as if he
+were at a drinking-bout of the lads come home from the Caithness
+fishing, nor yet gayly and proudly, as if he were marching at the head
+of a bridal-procession, but slowly, mournfully, monotonously, as though
+he were having the pipes talk to him.
+
+Mackenzie touched him on the shoulder, and the old man started. "Is it
+you, Mr. Mackenzie?" he said in Gaelic. "It is a great fright you have
+given me."
+
+"Come down to the house, John. The lads from Habost and Alister, and
+some more will be coming; and you will get a ferry good dram, John, to
+put wind in the pipes."
+
+"It is no dram I am thinking of, Mr. Mackenzie," said the old man. "And
+you will have plenty of company without me. But I will come down to the
+house, Mr. Mackenzie--oh yes, I will come down to the house--but _in a
+little while_ I will come to the house."
+
+Mackenzie turned from him with a petulant exclamation, and went along
+and down the hill rapidly, as he could hear voices in the darkness. He
+had just got into the house when his visitors arrived. The door of the
+room was opened, and there appeared some six or eight tall and stalwart
+men, mostly with profuse brown beards and weatherbeaten faces, who
+advanced into the chamber with some show of shyness. Mackenzie offered
+them a rough and hearty welcome, and as soon as their eyes had got
+accustomed to the light bade them help themselves to the whisky on the
+table. With a certain solemnity each poured out a glass and drank
+"_Shlainte!_" to his host as if it were some funeral rite. But when he
+bade them replenish their glasses, and got them seated with their faces
+to the blaze of the peats, then the flood of Gaelic broke loose. Had the
+wise little girl from Suainabost warned these big men? There was not a
+word about Sheila uttered. All their talk was of the reports that had
+come from Caithness, and of the improvements of the small harbor near
+the Butt, and of the black sea-horse that had been seen in Loch
+Suainabhal, and of some more sheep having been found dead on the Pladda
+Isles, shot by the men of the English smacks. Pipes were lit, the peats
+stirred up anew, another glass or two of whisky drunk, and then, through
+the haze of the smoke, the browned faces of the men could be seen in
+eager controversy, each talking faster than the other, and comparing
+facts and fancies that had been brooded over through solitary nights of
+waiting on the sea. Mackenzie did not sit down with them: he did not
+even join them in their attention to the curious whisky-flasks. He paced
+up and down the opposite side of the room, occasionally being appealed
+to with a story or a question, and showing by his answers that he was
+but vaguely hearing the vociferous talk of his companions. At last he
+said, "Why the teffle does not John the Piper come? Here, you men--you
+sing a song, quick! None of your funeral songs, but a good brisk one of
+trinking and fighting."
+
+But were not nearly all their songs--like those of all dwellers on a
+rocky and dangerous coast--of a sad and sombre hue, telling of maidens
+whose lovers were drowned, and of wives bidding farewell to husbands
+they were never to see again? Slow and mournful are the songs that the
+northern fishermen sing as they set out in the evening, with the
+creaking of their long oars keeping time to the music, until they get
+out beyond the shore to hoist the red mainsail and catch the breeze
+blowing over from the regions of the sunset. Not one of these Habost
+fishermen could sing a brisk song, but the nearest approach to it was a
+ballad in praise of a dark-haired girl, which they, owning the _Nighean
+dubh_, were bound to know. And so one young fellow began to sing, "Mo
+Nighean dubh d'fhas boidheach dubh, mo Nighean dubh na treig mi,"[G] in
+a slow and doleful fashion, and the others joined in the chorus with a
+like solemnity. In order to keep time, four of the men followed the
+common custom of taking a pocket handkerchief (in this case an immense
+piece of brilliant red silk, which was evidently the pride of its owner)
+and holding it by the four corners, letting it slowly rise and fall as
+they sang. The other three men laid hold of a bit of rope, which they
+used for the same purpose. "Mo Nighean dubh," unlike most of the Gaelic
+songs, has but a few verses; and as soon as they were finished the young
+fellow, who seemed pleased with his performances, started another
+ballad. Perhaps he had forgotten his host's injunction, perhaps he knew
+no merrier song, but at any rate he began to sing the "Lament of
+Monaltrie." It was one of Sheila's songs. She had sung it the night
+before in this very room, and her father had listened to her describing
+the fate of young Monaltrie as if she had been foretelling her own, and
+scarcely dared to ask himself if ever again he should hear the voice
+that he loved so well. He could not listen to the song. He abruptly left
+the room, and went out once more into the cool night-air and the
+darkness. But even here he was not allowed to forget the sorrow he had
+been vainly endeavoring to banish, for in the far distance the pipes
+still played the melancholy wail of Lochaber.
+
+    Lochaber no more! Lochaber no more!
+
+--that was the only solace brought him by the winds from the sea; and
+there were tears running down the hard gray face as he said to himself,
+in a broken voice, "Sheila, my little girl, why did you go away from
+Borva?"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE FAIR-HAIRED STRANGER.
+
+"Why, you must be in love with her yourself!"
+
+"I in love with her? Sheila and I are too old friends for that!"
+
+The speakers were two young men seated in the stern of the steamer
+Clansman as she ploughed her way across the blue and rushing waters of
+the Minch. One of them was a tall young fellow of three-and-twenty, with
+fair hair and light blue eyes, whose delicate and mobile features were
+handsome enough in their way, and gave evidence of a nature at once
+sensitive, nervous and impulsive. He was clad in light gray from head to
+heel--a color that suited his fair complexion and yellow hair; and he
+lounged about the white deck in the glare of the sunlight, steadying
+himself from time to time as an unusually big wave carried the Clansman
+aloft for a second or two, and then sent her staggering and groaning
+into a hissing trough of foam. Now and again he would pause in front of
+his companion, and talk in a rapid, playful, and even eloquent fashion
+for a minute or two; and then, apparently a trifle annoyed by the slow
+and patient attention which greeted his oratorical efforts, would start
+off once more on his unsteady journey up and down the white planks.
+
+The other was a man of thirty-eight, of middle height, sallow complexion
+and generally insignificant appearance. His hair was becoming
+prematurely gray. He rarely spoke. He was dressed in a suit of rough
+blue cloth, and indeed looked somewhat like a pilot who had gone ashore,
+taken to study and never recovered himself. A stranger would have
+noticed the tall and fair young man who walked up and down the gleaming
+deck, evidently enjoying the brisk breeze that blew about his yellow
+hair, and the sunlight that touched his pale and fine face or sparkled
+on his teeth when he laughed, but would have paid little attention to
+the smaller, brown-faced, gray-haired man, who lay back on the bench
+with his two hands clasped round his knee, and with his eyes fixed on
+the southern heavens, while he murmured to himself the lines of some
+ridiculous old Devonshire ballad or replied in monosyllables to the
+rapid and eager talk of his friend.
+
+Both men were good sailors, and they had need to be, for although the
+sky above them was as blue and clear as the heart of a sapphire, and
+although the sunlight shone on the decks and the rigging, a strong
+north-easter had been blowing all the morning, and there was a
+considerable sea on. The far blue plain was whitened with the tumbling
+crests of the waves, that shone and sparkled in the sun, and ever and
+anon a volume of water would strike the Clansman's bow, rise high in
+the air with the shock, and fall in heavy showers over the forward
+decks. Sometimes, too, a wave caught her broadside, and sent a handful
+of spray over the two or three passengers who were safe in the stern;
+but the decks here remained silvery and white, for the sun and wind
+speedily dried up the traces of the sea-showers.
+
+At length the taller of the young men came and sat down by his
+companion: "How far to Stornoway yet?"
+
+"An hour."
+
+"By Jove, what a distance! All day yesterday getting up from Oban to
+Skye, all last night churning our way up to Loch Gair, all to-day
+crossing to this outlandish island, that seems as far away as
+Iceland;--and for what?"
+
+"But don't you remember the moonlight last night as we sailed by the
+Cuchullins? And the sunrise this morning as we lay in Loch Gair? Were
+not these worth coming for?"
+
+"But that was not what you came for, my dear friend. No. You came to
+carry off this wonderful Miss Sheila of yours, and of course you wanted
+somebody to look on; and here I am, ready to carry the ladder and the
+dark lantern and the marriage-license. I will saddle your steeds for you
+and row you over lakes, and generally do anything to help you in so
+romantic an enterprise."
+
+"It is very kind of you, Lavender," said the other with a smile, "but
+such adventures are not for old fogies like me. They are the exclusive
+right of young fellows like you, who are tall and well-favored, have
+plenty of money and good spirits, and have a way with you that all the
+world admires. Of course the bride will tread a measure with you. Of
+course all the bridesmaids would like to see you marry her. Of course
+she will taste the cup you offer her. Then a word in her ear, and away
+you go as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and as if the
+bridegroom was a despicable creature merely because God had only given
+him five feet six inches. But you couldn't have a Lochinvar five feet
+six."
+
+The younger man blushed like a girl and laughed a little, and was
+evidently greatly pleased. Nay, in the height of his generosity he began
+to protest. He would not have his friend imagine that women cared only
+for stature and good looks. There were other qualities. He himself had
+observed the most singular conquests made by men who were not
+good-looking, but who had a certain fascination about them. His own
+experience of women was considerable, and he was quite certain that the
+best women, now--the sort of women whom a man would respect--the women
+who had brains--
+
+And so forth and so forth. The other listened quite gravely to these
+well-meant, kindly, blundering explanations, and only one who watched
+his face narrowly could have detected in the brown eyes a sort of amused
+consciousness of the intentions of the amiable and ingenuous youth.
+
+"Do you really mean to tell me, Ingram," continued Lavender in his rapid
+and impetuous way--"do you mean to tell me that you are not in love with
+this Highland princess? For ages back you have talked of nothing but
+Sheila. How many an hour have I spent in clubs, up the river, down at
+the coast, everywhere, listening to your stories of Sheila, and your
+praises of Sheila, and your descriptions of Sheila! It was always
+Sheila, and again Sheila, and still again Sheila. But, do you know,
+either you exaggerated or I failed to understand your descriptions; for
+the Sheila I came to construct out of your talk is a most incongruous
+and incomprehensible creature. First, Sheila knows about stone and lime
+and building; and then I suppose her to be a practical young woman, who
+is a sort of overseer to her father. But Sheila, again, is romantic and
+mysterious, and believes in visions and dreams; and then I take her to
+be an affected school-miss. But then Sheila can throw a fly and play her
+sixteen-pounder, and Sheila can adventure upon the lochs in an open
+boat, managing the sail herself; and then I find her to be a tom-boy.
+But, again, Sheila is shy and rarely speaks, but looks unutterable
+things with her soft and magnificent eyes; and what does that mean but
+that she is an ordinary young lady, who has not been in society, and who
+is a little interesting, if a little stupid, while she is unmarried, and
+who after marriage calmly and complacently sinks into the dull domestic
+hind, whose only thought is of butchers' bills and perambulators?"
+
+This was a fairly long speech, but it was no longer than many which
+Frank Lavender was accustomed to utter when in the vein for talking. His
+friend and companion did not pay much heed. His hands were still clasped
+round his knee, his head leaning back, and all the answer he made was to
+repeat, apparently to himself, these not very pertinent lines:
+
+    "In Ockington, in Devonsheer,
+    My vather he lived vor many a yeer;
+    And I his son with him did dwell,
+    To tend his sheep: 'twas doleful well.
+                        Diddle-diddle!"
+
+"You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for a man who has to knock
+about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to
+everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person,
+and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him
+in his own house--that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment
+that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage--but a
+man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife."
+
+Another pause.
+
+    "It happened on a zartin day
+    Four-score o' the sheep they rinned astray:
+    Says vather to I, 'Jack, rin arter 'm, du!'
+    Sez I to vather, 'I'm darned if I du!'
+                        Diddle-diddle!"
+
+"Now you are the sort of a man, I should think, who would never get
+careless about your wife. You would always believe about her what you
+believed at first; and I dare say you would live very happily in your
+own house if she was a decent sort of woman. But you would have to go
+out into society sometimes; and the very fact that you had not got
+careless--as many men would, leaving their wives to produce any sort of
+impression they might--would make you vexed that the world could not
+off-hand value your wife as you fancy she ought to be valued. Don't you
+see?"
+
+This was the answer:
+
+    "Purvoket much at my rude tongue,
+    A dish o' brath at me he vlung,
+    Which so incensed me to wrath,
+    That I up an' knack un instantly to arth.
+                        Diddle-diddle!"
+
+"As for your Princess Sheila, I firmly believe you have some romantic
+notion of marrying her and taking her up to London with you. If you
+seriously intend such a thing, I shall not argue with you. I shall
+praise her by the hour together, for I may have to depend on Mrs. Edward
+Ingram for my admission to your house. But if you only have the fancy as
+a fancy, consider what the result would be. You say she has never been
+to a school; that she has never had the companionship of a girl of her
+own age; that she has never read a newspaper; that she has never been
+out of this island; and that almost her sole society has been that of
+her mother, who educated her and tended her, and left her as ignorant of
+the real world as if she had lived all her life in a lighthouse.
+Goodness gracious! what a figure such a girl would cut in South
+Kensington!"
+
+"My dear fellow," said Ingram at last, "don't be absurd. You will soon
+see what are the relations between Sheila Mackenzie and me, and you will
+be satisfied. I marry her? Do you think I would take the child to London
+to show her its extravagance and shallow society, and break her heart
+with thinking of the sea, and of the rude islanders she knew, and of
+their hard and bitter struggle for life? No. I should not like to see my
+wild Highland doe shut up in one of your southern parks among your tame
+fallow-deer. She would look at them askance. She would separate herself
+from them; and by and by she would make one wild effort to escape, and
+kill herself. That is not the fate in store for our good little Sheila;
+so you need not make yourself unhappy about her or me.
+
+    'Now all ye young men, of every persuasion,
+    Never quarl wi' your vather upon any occasion;
+    For instead of being better, you'll vind you'll be wuss,
+    For he'll kick you out o' doors, without a varden in your puss!
+                        Diddle-diddle!'
+
+Talking of Devonshire, how is that young American lady you met at
+Torquay in the spring?"
+
+"There, now, is the sort of woman a man would be safe in marrying!"
+
+"And how?"
+
+"Oh, well, you know," said Frank Lavender. "I mean the sort of woman who
+would do you credit--hold her own in society, and that sort of thing.
+You must meet her some day. I tell you, Ingram, you will be delighted
+and charmed with her manners and her grace, and the clever things she
+says; at least, everybody else is."
+
+"Ah, well!"
+
+"You don't seem to care much for brilliant women," remarked the other,
+rather disappointed that his companion showed so little interest.
+
+"Oh yes, I like brilliant women very well. A clever woman is always a
+pleasanter companion than a clever man. But you were talking of the
+choice of a wife; and pertness in a girl, although it may be amusing at
+the time, may become something else by and by. Indeed, I shouldn't
+advise a young man to marry an epigrammatist, for you see her shrewdness
+and smartness are generally the result of experiences in which _he_ has
+had no share."
+
+"There may be something in that," said Lavender carelessly; "but of
+course, you know, with a widow it is different; and Mrs. Lorraine never
+does go in for the _ingenue_."
+
+The pale blue cloud that had for some time been lying faintly along the
+horizon now came nearer and more near, until they could pick out
+something like the configuration of the island, its bays and
+promontories and mountains. The day seemed to become warmer as they got
+out of the driving wind of the Channel, and the heavy roll of the sea
+had so far subsided. Through comparatively calm water the great Clansman
+drove her way, until, on getting near the land and under shelter of the
+peninsula of Eye, the voyagers found themselves on a beautiful blue
+plain, with the spacious harbor of Stornoway opening out before them.
+There, on the one side, lay a white and cleanly town, with its shops
+and quays and shipping. Above the bay in front stood a great gray
+castle, surrounded by pleasure-grounds and terraces and gardens; while
+on the southern side the harbor was overlooked by a semicircle of hills,
+planted with every variety of tree. The white houses, the blue bay and
+the large gray building set amid green terraces and overlooked by wooded
+hills, formed a bright and lively little picture on this fresh and
+brilliant forenoon; and young Lavender, who had a quick eye for
+compositions which he was always about to undertake, but which never
+appeared on canvas, declared enthusiastically that he would spend a day
+or two in Stornoway on his return from Borva, and take home with him
+some sketch of the place.
+
+"And is Miss Sheila on the quay yonder?" he asked.
+
+"Not likely," said Ingram. "It is a long drive across the island, and I
+suppose she would remain at home to look after our dinner in the
+evening."
+
+"What? The wonderful Princess Sheila look after our dinner! Has she
+visions among the pots and pans, and does she look unutterable things
+when she is peeling potatoes?"
+
+Ingram laughed: "There will be a pretty alteration in your tune in a
+couple of days. You are sure to fall in love with her, and sigh
+desperately for a week or two. You always do when you meet a woman
+anywhere. But it won't hurt you much, and she won't know anything about
+it."
+
+"I should rather like to fall in love with her, to see how furiously
+jealous you would become. However, here we are."
+
+"And there is Mackenzie--the man with the big gray beard and the peaked
+cap--and he is talking to the chamberlain of the island."
+
+"What does he get up on his wagonette for, instead of coming on board to
+meet you?"
+
+"Oh, that is one of his little tricks," said Ingram with a good-humored
+smile. "He means to receive us in state, and impress you, a stranger,
+with his dignity. The good old fellow has a hundred harmless ways like
+that, and you must humor him. He has been accustomed to be treated _en
+roi_, you know."
+
+"Then the papa of the mysterious princess is not perfect?"
+
+"Perhaps I ought to tell you now that Mackenzie's oddest notion is that
+he has a wonderful skill in managing men, and in concealing the manner
+of his doing it. I tell you this that you mayn't laugh and hurt him when
+he is attempting something that he considers particularly crafty, and
+that a child could see through."
+
+"But what is the aim of it all?"
+
+"Oh, nothing."
+
+"He does not do a little bet occasionally?"
+
+"Oh dear! no. He is the best and honestest fellow in the world, but it
+pleases him to fancy that he is profoundly astute, and that other people
+don't see the artfulness with which he reaches some little result that
+is not of the least consequence to anybody."
+
+"It seems to me," remarked Mr. Lavender with a coolness and a shrewdness
+that rather surprised his companion, "that it would not be difficult to
+get the King of Borva to assume the honors of a papa-in-law."
+
+The steamer was moored at last: the crowd of fishermen and loungers drew
+near to meet their friends who had come up from Glasgow--for there are
+few strangers, as a rule, arriving at Stornoway to whet the curiosity of
+the islanders--and the tall gillie who had been standing by Mackenzie's
+horses came on board to get the luggage of the young men.
+
+"Well, Duncan," said the elder of them, "and how are you, and how is Mr.
+Mackenzie, and how is Miss Sheila? You have not brought her with you, I
+see."
+
+"But Miss Sheila is ferry well, whatever, Mr. Ingram, and it is a great
+day, this day, for her, tat you will be coming to the Lewis; and it wass
+tis morning she wass up at ta break o' day, and up ta hills to get some
+bits o' green things for ta rooms you will hef, Mr. Ingram. Ay, it iss
+a great day, tis day, for Miss Sheila."
+
+"By Jove, they all rave about Sheila up in this quarter!" said Lavender,
+giving Duncan a fishing-rod and a bag he had brought from the cabin. "I
+suppose in a week's time I shall begin to rave about her too. Look
+sharp, Ingram, and let us have audience of His Majesty."
+
+The King of Borva fixed his eye on young Lavender, and scanned him
+narrowly as he was being introduced. His welcome of Ingram had been most
+gracious and friendly, but he received his companion with something of a
+severe politeness. He requested him to take a seat beside him, so that
+he might see the country as they went across to Borva; and Lavender
+having done so, Ingram and Duncan got into the body of the wagonette,
+and the party drove off.
+
+Passing through the clean and bright little town, Mackenzie suddenly
+pulled up his horses in front of a small shop, in the window of which
+some cheap bits of jewelry were visible. The man came out, and Mr.
+Mackenzie explained with some care and precision that he wanted a silver
+brooch of a particular sort. While the jeweler had returned to seek the
+article in question, Frank Lavender was gazing around him in some wonder
+at the appearance of so much civilization on this remote and
+rarely-visited island. There were no haggard savages, unkempt and
+scantily clad, coming forth from their dens in the rocks to stare wildly
+at the strangers. On the contrary, there was a prevailing air of comfort
+and "bienness" about the people and their houses. He saw handsome girls
+with coal-black hair and fresh complexions, who wore short and thick
+blue petticoats, with a scarlet tartan shawl wrapped round their bosom
+and fastened at the waist; stalwart, thick-set men, in loose blue jacket
+and trowsers and scarlet cap, many of them with bushy red beards; and
+women of extraordinary breadth of shoulder, who carried enormous loads
+in a creel strapped on their back, while they employed their hands in
+contentedly knitting stockings as they passed along. But what was the
+purpose of these mighty loads of fish-bones they carried--burdens that
+would have appalled a railway porter of the South?
+
+"You will see, sir," observed the King of Borva in reply to Lavender's
+question, "there is not much of the phosphates in the grass of this
+island; and the cows they are mad to get the fish-bones to lick, and it
+iss many of them you cannot milk unless you put the bones before them."
+
+"But why do the lazy fellows lounging about there let the women carry
+those enormous loads?"
+
+Mr. Mackenzie stared: "Lazy fellows! They hef harder work than any you
+will know of in your country; and besides the fishing they will do the
+ploughing and much of the farm-work. And iss the women to do none at
+all? That iss the nonsense that my daughter talks; but she has got it
+out of books, and what do they know how the poor people hef to live?"
+
+At this moment the jeweler returned with some half dozen brooches
+displayed on a plate, and shining with all the brilliancy of cairngorm
+stones, polished silver and variously-colored pebbles.
+
+"Now, John Mackintyre, this is a gentleman from London," said Mackenzie,
+regarding the jeweler sternly, "and he will know all apout such fine
+things, and you will not put a big price on them."
+
+It was now Lavender's turn to stare, but he good-naturedly accepted the
+duties of referee, and eventually a brooch was selected and paid for,
+the price being six shillings. Then they drove on again.
+
+"Sheila will know nothing of this--it will be a great surprise for her,"
+said Mackenzie, almost to himself, as he opened the white box and saw
+the glaring piece of jewelry lying on the white cotton.
+
+"Good heavens, sir!" cried Frank Lavender, "you don't mean to say you
+bought that brooch for your daughter?"
+
+"And why not?" said the King of Borva in great surprise.
+
+The young man perceived his mistake, grew considerably confused, and
+only said, "Well, I should have thought that--that some small piece of
+gold jewelry, now, would be better suited for a young lady."
+
+Mackenzie smiled shrewdly: "I had something to go on. It wass Sheila
+herself was in Stornoway three weeks ago, and she wass wanting to buy a
+brooch for a young girl who has come down to us from Suainabost and is
+very useful in the kitchen, and it wass a brooch just like this one she
+gave to her."
+
+"Yes, to a kitchen-maid," said the young man meekly.
+
+"But Mairi is Sheila's cousin," said Mackenzie with continued surprise.
+
+"Lavender does not understand Highland ways yet, Mr. Mackenzie," said
+Ingram from behind. "You know we in the South have different fashions.
+Our servants are nearly always strangers to us--not relations and
+companions."
+
+"Oh, I hef peen in London myself," said Mackenzie in somewhat of an
+injured tone; and then he added with a touch of self-satisfaction, "and
+I hef been in Paris, too."
+
+"And Miss Sheila, has she been in London?" asked Lavender, feigning
+ignorance.
+
+"She has never been out of the Lewis."
+
+"But don't you think the education of a young lady should include some
+little experience of traveling?"
+
+"Sheila, she will be educated quite enough; and is she going to London
+or Paris without me?"
+
+"You might take her."
+
+"I have too much to do on the island now, and Sheila has much to do. I
+do not think she will ever see any of those places, and she will not be
+much the worse."
+
+Two young men off for their holidays, a brilliant day shining all around
+them, the sweet air of the sea and the moorland blowing about
+them,--this little party that now drove away from Stornoway ought to
+have been in the best of spirits. And indeed the young fellow who sat
+beside Mackenzie was bent on pleasing his host by praising everything he
+saw. He praised the gallant little horses that whirled them past the
+plantations and out into the open country. He praised the rich black
+peat that was visible in long lines and heaps, where the townspeople
+were slowly eating into the moorland. Then all these traces of
+occupation were left behind, and the travelers were alone in the
+untenanted heart of the island, where the only sounds audible were the
+humming of insects in the sunlight and the falling of the streams. Away
+in the south the mountains were of a silvery and transparent blue.
+Nearer at hand the rich reds and browns of the moorland softened into a
+tender and beautiful green on nearing the margins of the lakes; and
+these stretches of water were now as fair and bright as the sky above
+them, and were scarcely ruffled by the moorfowl moving out from the
+green rushes. Still nearer at hand great masses of white rock lay
+embedded in the soft soil; and what could have harmonized better with
+the rough and silver-gray surface than the patches of rose-red
+bell-heather that grew up in their clefts or hung over their summits?
+The various and beautiful colors around seemed to tingle with light and
+warmth as the clear sun shone on them and the keen mountain-air blew
+over them; and the King of Borva was so far thawed by the enthusiasm of
+his companions that he regarded the far country with a pleased smile, as
+if the enchanted land belonged to him, and as if the wonderful colors
+and the exhilarating air and the sweet perfumes were of his own
+creation.
+
+Mr. Mackenzie did not know much about tints and hues, but he believed
+what he heard; and it was perhaps, after all, not very surprising that a
+gentleman from London, who had skill of pictures and other delicate
+matters, should find strange marvels in a common stretch of moor, with a
+few lakes here and there, and some lines of mountain only good for
+sheilings. It was not for him to check the raptures of his guest. He
+began to be friendly with the young man, and could not help regarding
+him as a more cheerful companion than his neighbor Ingram, who would sit
+by your side for an hour at a time without breaking the monotony of the
+horses' tramp with a single remark. He had formed a poor opinion of
+Lavender's physique from the first glimpse he had of his white fingers
+and girl-like complexion; but surely a man who had such a vast amount of
+good spirits and such a rapidity of utterance must have something
+corresponding to these qualities in substantial bone and muscle. There
+was something pleasing and ingenuous too about this flow of talk. Men
+who had arrived at years of wisdom, and knew how to study and use their
+fellows, were not to be led into these betrayals of their secret
+opinions; but for a young man--what could be more pleasing than to see
+him lay open his soul to the observant eye of a master of men? Mackenzie
+began to take a great fancy to young Lavender.
+
+"Why," said Lavender, with a fine color mantling in his cheeks as the
+wind caught them on a higher portion of the road, "I had heard of Lewis
+as a most bleak and desolate island, flat moorland and lake, without a
+hill to be seen. And everywhere I see hills, and yonder are great
+mountains which I hope to get nearer before we leave."
+
+"We have mountains in this island," remarked Mackenzie slowly as he kept
+his eye on his companion--"we have mountains in this island sixteen
+thousand feet high."
+
+Lavender looked sufficiently astonished, and the old man was pleased. He
+paused for a moment or two, and said, "But this iss the way of it: you
+will see that the middle of the mountains it has all been washed away by
+the weather, and you will only have the sides now dipping one way and
+the other at each side o' the island. But it iss a very clever man in
+Stornoway will tell me that you can make out what wass the height o' the
+mountain, by watching the dipping of the rocks on each side; and it iss
+an older country, this island, than any you will know of; and there were
+the mountains sixteen thousand feet high long before all this country
+and all Scotland and England wass covered with ice."
+
+The young man was very desirous to show his interest in this matter, but
+did not know very well how. At last he ventured to ask whether there
+were any fossils in the blocks of gneiss that were scattered over the
+moorland.
+
+"Fossils?" said Mackenzie. "Oh, I will not care much about such small
+things. If you will ask Sheila, she will tell you all about it, and
+about the small things she finds growing on the hills. That iss not of
+much consequence to me; but I will tell you what is the best thing the
+island grows: it is good girls and strong men--men that can go to the
+fishing, and come back to plough the fields and cut the peat and build
+the houses, and leave the women to look after the fields and the gardens
+when they go back again to the fisheries. But it is the old people--they
+are ferry cunning, and they will not put their money in the bank at
+Stornoway, but will hide it away about the house, and then they will
+come to Sheila and ask for money to put a pane of glass in their house.
+And she has promised that to every one who will make a window in the
+wall of their house; and she is very simple with them, and does not
+understand the old people that tell lies. But when I hear of it, I say
+nothing to Sheila--she will know nothing about it--but I hef a watch put
+upon the people; and it wass only yesterday I will take back two
+shillings she gave to an old woman of Borvabost that told many lies.
+What does a young thing know of these old people? She will know nothing
+at all, and it iss better for some one else to look after them, but not
+to speak one word of it to her."
+
+"It must require great astuteness to manage a primitive people like
+that," said young Lavender with an air of conviction; and the old man
+eagerly and proudly assented, and went on to tell of the manifold
+diplomatic arts he used in reigning over his small kingdom, and how his
+subjects lived in blissful ignorance that this controlling power was
+being exercised.
+
+They were startled by an exclamation from Ingram, who called to
+Mackenzie to pull up the horses just as they were passing over a small
+bridge.
+
+"Look there, Lavender! did you ever see salmon jumping like that? Look
+at the size of them!"
+
+"Oh, it iss nothing," said Mackenzie, driving on again. "Where you will
+see the salmon, it is in the narrows of Loch Roag, where they come into
+the rivers, and the tide is low. Then you will see them jumping; and if
+the water wass too low for a long time, they will die in hundreds and
+hundreds."
+
+"But what makes them jump before they get into the rivers?"
+
+Old Mackenzie smiled a crafty smile, as if he had found out all the ways
+and the secrets of the salmon: "They will jump to look about them--that
+iss all."
+
+"Do you think a salmon can see where he is going?"
+
+"And maybe you will explain this to me, then," said the king with a
+compassionate air: "how iss it the salmon will try to jump over some
+stones in the river, and he will see he cannot go over them; but does he
+fall straight down on the stones and kill himself? Neffer--no, neffer.
+He will get back to the pool he left by turning in the air: that is what
+I hef seen hundreds of times myself."
+
+"Then they must be able to fly as well as see in the air."
+
+"You may say about it what you will please, but that is what I
+know--that is what I know ferry well myself."
+
+"And I should think there were not many people in the country who knew
+more about salmon than you," said Frank Lavender. "And I hear, too, that
+your daughter is a great fisher."
+
+But this was a blunder. The old man frowned: "Who will tell you such
+nonsense? Sheila has gone out many times with Duncan, and he will put a
+rod in her hands: yes, and she will have caught a fish or two, but it
+iss not a story to tell. My daughter she will have plenty to do about
+the house, without any of such nonsense. You will expect to find us all
+savages, with such stories of nonsense."
+
+"I am sure not," said Lavender warmly. "I have been very much struck
+with the civilization of the island, so far as I have seen it; and I
+can assure you I have always heard of Miss Sheila as a singularly
+accomplished young lady."
+
+"Yes," said Mackenzie somewhat mollified, "Sheila has been well brought
+up: she is not a fisherman's lass, running about wild and catching the
+salmon. I cannot listen to such nonsense, and it iss Duncan will tell
+it."
+
+"I can assure you, no. I have never spoken to Duncan. The fact is,
+Ingram mentioned that your daughter had caught a salmon or two--as a
+tribute to her skill, you know."
+
+"Oh, I know it wass Duncan," said Mackenzie, with a deeper frown coming
+over his face. "I will hef some means taken to stop Duncan from talking
+such nonsense."
+
+The young man, knowing nothing as yet of the child-like obedience paid
+to the King of Borva by his islanders, thought to himself, "Well, you
+are a very strong and self-willed old gentleman, but if I were you I
+should not meddle much with that tall keeper with the eagle beak and the
+gray eyes. I should not like to be a stag, and know that that fellow was
+watching me somewhere with a rifle in his hands."
+
+At length they came upon the brow of the hill overlooking
+Garra-na-hina[H] and the panorama of the western lochs and mountains.
+Down there on the side of the hill was the small inn, with its little
+patch of garden; then a few moist meadows leading over to the estuary of
+the Black River; and beyond that an illimitable prospect of heathy
+undulations rising into the mighty peaks of Cracabhal, Mealasabhal and
+Suainabhal. Then on the right, leading away out to the as yet invisible
+Atlantic, lay the blue plain of Loch Roag, with a margin of yellow
+seaweed along its shores, where the rocks revealed themselves at low
+water, and with a multitude of large, variegated and verdant islands
+which hid from sight the still greater Borva beyond.
+
+They stopped to have a glass of whisky at Garra-na-hina, and Mackenzie
+got down from the wagonette and went into the inn.
+
+"And this is a Highland loch!" said Lavender, turning to his companion
+from the South. "It is an enchanted sea: you could fancy yourself in the
+Pacific, if only there were some palm trees on the shores of the
+islands. No wonder you took for an Eve any sort of woman you met in such
+a paradise!"
+
+"You seem to be thinking a good deal about that young lady."
+
+"Well, who would not wish to make the acquaintance of a pretty girl,
+especially when you have plenty of time on your hands, and nothing to do
+but pay her little attentions, you know, and so forth, as being the
+daughter of your host?"
+
+There was no particular answer to such an incoherent question, but
+Ingram did not seem so well pleased as he had been with the prospect of
+introducing his friend to the young Highland girl whose praises he had
+been reciting for many a day.
+
+However, they drank their whisky, drove on to Callernish, and here
+paused for a minute or two to show the stranger a series of large
+so-called Druidical stones which occupy a small station overlooking the
+loch. Could anything have been more impressive than the sight of these
+solitary gray pillars placed on this bit of table-land high over the
+sea, and telling of a race that vanished ages ago, and left the
+surrounding plains and hills and shores a wild and untenanted solitude?
+But, somehow Lavender did not care to remain among those voiceless
+monuments of a forgotten past. He said he would come and sketch them
+some other day. He praised the picture all around, and then came back to
+the stretch of ruffled blue water lying at the base of the hill. "Where
+was Mr. Mackenzie's boat?" he asked.
+
+They left the high plain, with its _Tuir-sachan_,[I] or Stones of
+Mourning, and descended to the side of the loch. In a few moments,
+Duncan, who had been disposing of the horses and the wagonette,
+overtook them, got ready the boat, and presently they were cutting
+asunder the bright blue plain of summer waves.
+
+At last they were nearing the King of Borva's home, and Ingram began to
+study the appearance of the neighboring shores, as if he would pick out
+some feature of the island he remembered. The white foam hissed down the
+side of the open boat. The sun burned hot on the brown sail. Far away
+over the shining plain the salmon were leaping into the air, catching a
+quick glint of silver on their scales before they splashed again into
+the water. Half a dozen sea-pyes, with their beautiful black and white
+plumage and scarlet beaks and feet, flew screaming out from the rocks
+and swept in rapid circles above the boat. A long flight of solan geese
+could just be seen slowly sailing along the western horizon. As the
+small craft got out toward the sea the breeze freshened slightly, and
+she lay over somewhat as the brine-laden winds caught her and tingled on
+the cheeks of her passengers from the softer South. Finally, as the
+great channel widened out, and the various smaller islands disappeared
+behind, Ingram touched his companion on the shoulder, looked over to a
+long and low line of rock and hill, and said, "Borva!"
+
+And this was Borva!--nothing visible but an indefinite extent of rocky
+shore, with here and there a bay of white sand, and over that a
+table-land of green pasture, apparently uninhabited.
+
+"There are not many people on the island," said Lavender, who seemed
+rather disappointed with the look of the place.
+
+"There are three hundred," said Mackenzie with the air of one who had
+experienced the difficulties of ruling over three hundred islanders.
+
+He had scarcely spoken when his attention was called by Duncan to some
+object that the gillie had been regarding for some minutes back.
+
+"Yes, it iss Miss Sheila," said Duncan.
+
+A sort of flush of expectation passed over Lavender's face, and he
+sprang to his feet. Ingram laughed. Did the foolish youth fancy he
+could see half as far as this gray-eyed, eagle-faced man, who had now
+sunk into his accustomed seat by the mast? There was nothing visible to
+ordinary eyes but a speck of a boat, with a single sail up, which was
+apparently, in the distance, running in for Borva.
+
+"Ay, ay, ay," said Mackenzie in a vexed way, "it is Sheila, true enough;
+and what will she do out in the boat at this time, when she wass to be
+at home to receive the gentlemen that hef come all the way from London?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Mackenzie," said Lavender, "I should be sorry to think that
+our coming had interfered in any way whatever with your daughter's
+amusements."
+
+"Amusements!" said the old man with a look of surprise. "It iss not
+amusements she will go for: that is no amusements for her. It is for
+some teffle of a purpose she will go, when it iss the house that is the
+proper place for her, with friends coming from so great a journey."
+
+Presently it became clear that a race between the two boats was
+inevitable, both of them making for the same point. Mackenzie would take
+no notice of such a thing, but there was a grave smile on Duncan's face,
+and something like a look of pride in his keen eyes.
+
+"There iss no one, not one," he said, almost to himself, "will take her
+in better than Miss Sheila--not one in ta island. And it wass me tat
+learnt her every bit o' ta steering about Borva."
+
+The strangers could now make out that in the other boat there were two
+girls--one seated in the stern, the other by the mast. Ingram took out
+his handkerchief and waved it: a similar token of recognition was
+floated out from the other vessel. But Mackenzie's boat presently had
+the better of the wind, and slowly drew on ahead, until, when her
+passengers landed on the rude stone quay, they found the other and
+smaller craft still some little distance off.
+
+Lavender paid little attention to his luggage. He let Duncan do with it
+what he liked. He was watching the small boat coming in, and getting a
+little impatient, and perhaps a little nervous, in waiting for a
+glimpse of the young lady in the stern. He could vaguely make out that
+she had an abundance of dark hair looped up; that she wore a small straw
+hat with a short white feather in it; and that, for the rest, she seemed
+to be habited entirely in some rough and close-fitting costume of dark
+blue. Or was there a glimmer of a band of rose-red round her neck?
+
+The small boat was cleverly run alongside the jetty: Duncan caught her
+bow and held her fast, and Miss Sheila, with a heavy string of lythe in
+her right hand, stepped, laughing and blushing, on to the quay. Ingram
+was there. She dropped the fish on the stones and took his two hands in
+hers, and without uttering a word looked a glad welcome into his face.
+It was a face capable of saying unwritten things--fine and delicate in
+form, and yet full of an abundance of health and good spirits that shone
+in the deep gray-blue eyes. Lavender's first emotion was one of surprise
+that he should have heard this handsome, well-knit and proud-featured
+girl called "little Sheila," and spoken of in a pretty and caressing
+way. He thought there was something almost majestic in her figure, in
+the poising of her head and the outline of her face. But presently he
+began to perceive some singular suggestions of sensitiveness and
+meekness in the low, sweet brow, in the short and exquisitely-curved
+upper lip, and in the look of the tender blue eyes, which had long black
+eyelashes to give them a peculiar and indefinable charm. All this he
+noticed hastily and timidly as he heard Ingram, who still held the
+girl's hands in his, saying, "Well, Sheila, and you haven't quite
+forgotten me? And you are grown such a woman now: why, I mustn't call
+you Sheila any more, I think. But let me introduce to you my friend, who
+has come all the way from London to see all the wonderful things of
+Borva."
+
+If there was any embarrassment or blushing during that simple ceremony,
+it was not on the side of the Highland girl, for she frankly shook hands
+with him, and said, "And are you very well?"
+
+The second impression which Lavender gathered from her was, that nowhere
+in the world was English pronounced so beautifully as in the island of
+Lewis. The gentle intonation with which she spoke was so tender and
+touching--the slight dwelling on the _e_ in "very" and "well" seemed to
+have such a sound of sincerity about it, that he could have fancied he
+had been a friend of hers for a lifetime. And if she said "ferry" for
+"very," what then? It was the most beautiful English he had ever heard.
+
+The party now moved off toward the shore, above the long white curve of
+which Mackenzie's house was visible. The old man himself led the way,
+and had, by his silence, apparently not quite forgiven his daughter for
+having been absent from home when his guests arrived.
+
+"Now, Sheila," said Ingram, "tell me all about yourself: what have you
+been doing?"
+
+"This morning?" said the girl, walking beside him with her hand laid on
+his arm, and with the happiest look on her face.
+
+"This morning, to begin with. Did you catch those fish yourself?"
+
+"Oh no, there was no time for that. And it was Mairi and I saw a boat
+coming in, and it was going to Mevaig, but we overtook it, and got some
+of the fish, and we thought we should be back before you came. However,
+it is no matter, since you are here. And you have been very well? And
+did you see any difference in Stornoway when you came over?"
+
+Lavender began to think that Styornoway sounded ever so much more
+pleasant than mere Stornoway.
+
+"We had not a minute to wait in Stornoway. But tell me, Sheila, all
+about Borva and yourself: that is better than Stornoway. How are your
+schools getting on? And have you bribed or frightened all the children
+into giving up Gaelic yet? How is John the Piper? and does the Free
+Church minister still complain of him? And have you caught any more
+wild-ducks and tamed them? And are there any gray geese up at
+Loch-an-Eilean?"
+
+"Oh, that is too many at once," said Sheila, laughing. "But I am afraid
+your friend will find Borva very lonely and dull. There is not much
+there at all, for all the lads are away at the Caithness fishing. And
+you should have shown him all about Stornoway, and taken him up to the
+castle and the beautiful gardens."
+
+"He has seen all sorts of castles, Sheila, and all sorts of gardens in
+every part of the world. He has seen everything to be seen in the great
+cities and countries that are only names to you. He has traveled in
+France, Italy, Russia, Germany, and seen all the big towns that you hear
+of in history."
+
+"That is what I should like to do if I were a man," said Sheila; "and
+many and many a time I wish I had been a man, that I could go to the
+fishing and work in the fields, and then, when I had enough money, go
+away and see other countries and strange people."
+
+"But if you were a man, I should not have come all the way from London
+to see you," said Ingram, patting the hand that lay on his arm.
+
+"But if I were a man," said the girl, quite frankly, "I should go up to
+London to see you."
+
+Mackenzie smiled grimly, and said, "Sheila, it is nonsense you will
+talk."
+
+At this moment Sheila turned round and said, "Oh, we have forgotten poor
+Mairi. Mairi, why did you not leave the fish for Duncan? They are too
+heavy for you. I will carry them to the house?"
+
+But Lavender sprang forward, and insisted on taking possession of the
+thick cord with its considerable weight of lythe.
+
+"This is my cousin Mairi," said Sheila; and forthwith the young,
+fair-faced, timid-eyed girl shook hands with the gentlemen, and said,
+just as if she had been watching Sheila, "And are you ferry well, sir?"
+
+For the rest of the way up to the house Lavender walked by the side of
+Sheila; and as the string of lythe had formed the introduction to their
+talk, it ran pretty much upon natural history. In about five minutes she
+had told him more about sea-birds and fish than ever he knew in his
+life; and she wound up this information by offering to take him out on
+the following morning, that he might himself catch some lythe.
+
+"But I am a wretchedly bad fisherman, Miss Mackenzie," he said. "It is
+some years since I tried to throw a fly."
+
+"Oh, there is no need for good fishing when you catch lythe," she said
+earnestly. "You will see Mr. Ingram catch them. It is only a big white
+fly you will need, and a long line, and when the fish takes the fly,
+down he goes--a great depth. Then when you have got him and he is
+killed, you must cut the sides, as you see that is done, and string him
+to a rope and trail him behind the boat all the way home. If you do not
+do that, it iss no use at all to eat. But if you like the
+salmon-fishing, my papa will teach you that. There is no one," she added
+proudly, "can catch salmon like my papa--not even Duncan--and the
+gentlemen who come in the autumn to Stornoway, they are quite surprised
+when my papa goes to fish with them."
+
+"I suppose he is a good shot too," said the young man, amused to notice
+the proud way in which the girl spoke of her father.
+
+"Oh, he can shoot anything. He will shoot a seal if he comes up but for
+one moment above the water; and all the birds--he will get you all the
+birds if you will wish to take any away with you. We have no deer on the
+island--it is too small for that--but in the Lewis and in Harris there
+are many, many thousands of deer, and my papa has many invitations when
+the gentlemen come up in the autumn; and if you look in the game-book of
+the lodges, you will see there is not any one who has shot so many deer
+as my papa--not any one whatever."
+
+At length they reached the building of dark and rude stone-work, with
+its red coping, its spacious porch and its small enclosure of garden in
+front. Lavender praised the flowers in this enclosure: he guessed they
+were Sheila's particular care; but in truth there was nothing rare or
+delicate among the plants growing in this exposed situation. There were
+a few clusters of large yellow pansies, a calceolaria or two, plenty of
+wallflower, some clove-pinks, and an abundance of sweet-william in all
+manner of colors. But the chief beauty of the small garden was a
+magnificent tree-fuchsia which grew in front of one of the windows, and
+was covered with deep rose-red flowers set amid its small and deep-green
+leaves. For the rest, a bit of honeysuckle was trained up one side of
+the porch, and at the small wooden gate there were two bushes of
+sweetbrier that filled the warm air with fragrance.
+
+Just before entering the house the two strangers turned to have a look
+at the spacious landscape lying all around in the perfect calm of a
+summer day. And lo! before them there was but a blinding mass of white
+that glared upon their eyes, and caused them to see the far sea and the
+shores and the hills as but faint shadows appearing through a silvery
+haze. A thin fleece of cloud lay across the sun, but the light was
+nevertheless so intense that the objects near at hand--a disused boat
+lying bottom upward, an immense anchor of foreign make, and some such
+things--seemed to be as black as night as they lay on the warm road. But
+when the eye got beyond the house and the garden, and the rough hillside
+leading down to Loch Roag, all the world appeared to be a blaze of calm,
+silent and luminous heat. Suainabhal and its brother mountains were only
+as clouds in the south. Along the western horizon the portion of the
+Atlantic that could be seen lay like a silent lake under a white sky. To
+get any touch of color, they had to turn eastward, and there the
+sunlight faintly fell on the green shores of Borva, on the narrows of
+Loch Roag, and the loose red sail of a solitary smack that was slowly
+coming round a headland. They could hear the sound of the long oars. A
+pale line of shadow lay in the wake of the boat, but otherwise the black
+hull and the red sail seemed to be coming through a plain of molten
+silver. When the young men turned to go into the house the hall seemed a
+cavern of impenetrable darkness, and there was a flush of crimson light
+dancing before their eyes.
+
+When Ingram had had his room pointed out, Lavender followed him into it
+and shut the door.
+
+"By Jove, Ingram," he said, with a singular light of enthusiasm on his
+handsome face, "what a beautiful voice that girl has! I have never heard
+anything so soft and musical in all my life; and then when she smiles
+what perfect teeth she has! And then, you know, there is an appearance,
+a style, a grace about her figure--But, I say, do you seriously mean to
+tell me you are not in love with her?"
+
+"Of course I am not," said the other impatiently, as he was busily
+engaged with his portmanteau.
+
+"Then let me give you a word of information," said the younger man, with
+an air of profound shrewdness: "she is in love with you."
+
+Ingram rose with some little touch of vexation on his face: "Look here,
+Lavender: I am going to talk to you seriously. I wish you wouldn't fancy
+that every one is in that condition of simmering love-making you delight
+in. You never were in love, I believe--I doubt whether you ever will
+be--but you are always fancying yourself in love, and writing very
+pretty verses about it, and painting very pretty heads. I like the
+verses and the paintings well enough, however they are come by; but
+don't mislead yourself into believing that you know anything whatever of
+a real and serious passion by having engaged in all sorts of imaginative
+and semi-poetical dreams. It is a much more serious thing than that,
+mind you, when it comes to a man. And, for Heaven's sake, don't
+attribute any of that sort of sentimental make-believe to either Sheila
+Mackenzie or myself. We are not romantic folks. We have no imaginative
+gifts whatever, but we are very glad, you know, to be attentive and
+grateful to those who have. The fact is, I don't think it quite fair--"
+
+"Let us suppose I am lectured enough" said the other, somewhat stiffly.
+"I suppose I am as good a judge of the character of a woman as most
+other men, although I am no great student, and have no hard and dried
+rules of philosophy at my fingers' ends. Perhaps, however, one may learn
+more by mixing with other people and going out into the world than by
+sitting in a room with a dozen of books, and persuading one's self that
+men and women are to be studied in that fashion."
+
+"Go away, you stupid boy, and unpack your portmanteau, and don't quarrel
+with me," said Ingram, putting out on the table some things he had
+brought for Sheila; "and if you are friendly with Sheila and treat her
+like a human being, instead of trying to put a lot of romance and
+sentiment about her, she will teach you more than you could learn in a
+hundred drawing-rooms in a thousand years."
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THERE WAS A KING IN THULE.
+
+He never took that advice. He had already transformed Sheila into a
+heroine during the half hour of their stroll from the beach and around
+the house. Not that he fell in love with her at first sight, or anything
+even approaching to that. He merely made her the central figure of a
+little speculative romance, as he had made many another woman before. Of
+course, in these little fanciful dramas, written along the sky-line, as
+it were, of his life, he invariably pictured himself as the fitting
+companion of the fair creature he saw there. Who but himself could
+understand the sentiment of her eyes, and teach her little love-ways,
+and express unbounded admiration of her? More than one practical young
+woman, indeed, in certain circles of London society, had been informed
+by her friends that Mr. Lavender was dreadfully in love with her; and
+had been much surprised, after this confirmation of her suspicions, that
+he sought no means of bringing the affair to a reasonable and sensible
+issue. He did not even amuse himself by flirting with her, as men would
+willingly do who could not be charged with any serious purpose whatever.
+His devotion was more mysterious and remote. A rumor would get about
+that Mr. Lavender had finished another of those charming heads in
+pastel, which, at a distance, reminded one of Greuze, and that Lady
+So-and-so, who had bought it forthwith, had declared that it was the
+image of this young lady who was partly puzzled and partly vexed by the
+incomprehensible conduct of her reputed admirer. It was the fashion, in
+these social circles, to buy those heads of Lavender when he chose to
+paint them. He had achieved a great reputation by them. The good people
+liked to have a genius in their own set whom they had discovered, and
+who was only to be appreciated by persons of exceptional taste and
+penetration. Lavender, the uninitiated were assured, was a most
+cultivated and brilliant young man. He had composed some charming songs.
+He had written, from time to time, some quite delightful little poems,
+over which fair eyes had grown full and liquid. Who had not heard of the
+face that he painted for a certain young lady whom every one expected
+him to marry?
+
+The young man escaped a great deal of the ordinary consequences of this
+petting, but not all. He was at bottom really true-hearted, frank and
+generous--generous even to an extreme--but he had acquired a habit of
+producing striking impressions which dogged and perverted his every
+action and speech. He disliked losing a few shilling at billiards, but
+he did not mind losing a few pounds: the latter was good for a story.
+Had he possessed any money to invest in shares, he would have been
+irritated by small rises or small falls; but he would have been vain of
+a big rise, and he would have regarded a big fall with equanimity, as
+placing him in a dramatic light. The exaggerations produced by this
+habit of his fostered strange delusions in the minds of people who did
+not know him very well: and sometimes the practical results, in the way
+of expected charities or what not, amazed him. He could not understand
+why people should have made such mistakes, and resented them as an
+injustice.
+
+And as they sat at dinner on this still, brilliant evening in summer, it
+was Sheila's turn to be clothed in the garments of romance. Her father,
+with his great gray beard and heavy brow, became the King of Thule,
+living in this solitary house overlooking the sea, and having memories
+of a dead sweetheart. His daughter, the princess, had the glamour of a
+thousand legends dwelling in her beautiful eyes; and when she walked by
+the shores of the Atlantic, that were now getting yellow under the
+sunset, what strange and unutterable thoughts must appear in the wonder
+of her face! He remembered no more how he had pulled to pieces Ingram's
+praises of Sheila. What had become of the "ordinary young lady, who
+would be a little interesting, if a little stupid, before marriage, and
+after marriage sink into the dull, domestic hind"? There could be no
+doubt that Sheila often sat silent for a considerable time, with her
+eyes fixed on her father's face when he spoke, or turning to look at
+some other speaker. Had Lavender now been asked if this silence had not
+a trifle of dullness in it, he would have replied by asking if there
+were dullness in the stillness and the silence of the sea. He grew to
+regard her calm and thoughtful look as a sort of spell; and if you had
+asked him what Sheila was like, he would have answered by saying that
+there was moonlight in her face.
+
+The room, too, in which this mystic princess sat was strange and
+wonderful. There were no doors visible, for the four walls were
+throughout covered by a paper of foreign manufacture, representing
+spacious Tyrolese landscapes and incidents of the chase. When Lavender
+had first entered this chamber his eye had been shocked by these coarse
+and prominent pictures--by the green rivers, the blue lakes and the
+snow-peaks that rose above certain ruddy chalets. Here a chamois was
+stumbling down a ravine, and there an operatic peasant, some eight or
+ten inches in actual length, was pointing a gun. The large figures, the
+coarse colors, the impossible scenes--all this looked, at first sight,
+to be in the worst possible taste; and Lavender was convinced that
+Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable
+decoration. But somehow, when he turned to the line of ocean that was
+visible from the window, to the lonely shores of the island and the
+monotony of colors showing in the still picture without, he began to
+fancy that there might be a craving up in these latitudes for some
+presentation, however rude and glaring, of the richer and more
+variegated life of the South. The figures and mountains on the walls
+became less prominent. He saw no incongruity in a whole chalet giving
+way, and allowing Duncan, who waited at table, to bring forth from this
+aperture to the kitchen a steaming dish of salmon, while he spoke some
+words in Gaelic to the servants at the other end of the tube. He even
+forgot to be surprised at the appearance of little Mairi, with whom he
+had shaken hands a little while before, coming round the table with
+potatoes. He did not, as a rule, shake hands with servant-maids, but was
+not this fair-haired, wistful-eyed girl some relative, friend or
+companion of Shiela's? and had he not already begun to lose all
+perception of the incongruous or the absurd in the strange pervading
+charm with which Sheila's presence filled the place?
+
+He suddenly found Mackenzie's deep-set eyes fixed upon him, and became
+aware that the old man had been mysteriously announcing to Ingram that
+there were more political movements abroad than people fancied. Sheila
+sat still and listened to her father as he expounded these things, and
+showed that, although at a distance, he could perceive the signs of the
+times. Was it not incumbent, moreover, on a man who had to look after a
+number of poor and simple folks, that he should be on the alert?
+
+"It iss not bekass you will live in London you will know everything,"
+said the King of Borva, with a certain significance in his tone. "There
+iss many things a man does not see at his feet that another man will see
+who is a good way off. The International, now--"
+
+He glanced furtively at Lavender.
+
+"--I hef been told there will be agents going out every day to all
+parts of this country and other countries, and they will hef plenty of
+money to live like gentlemen, and get among the poor people, and fill
+their minds with foolish nonsense about a revolution. Oh yes, I hear
+about it all, and there iss many members of Parliament in it; and it iss
+every day they will get farther and farther, all working hard, though no
+one sees them who does not understand to be on the watch."
+
+Here again the young man received a quiet, scrutinizing glance; and it
+began to dawn upon him, to his infinite astonishment, that Mackenzie
+half suspected him of being an emissary of the International. In the
+case of any other man he would have laughed and paid no heed, but how
+could he permit Sheila's father to regard him with any such suspicion?
+
+"Don't you think, sir," he said boldly, "that those Internationalists
+are a lot of incorrigible idiots?"
+
+As if a shrewd observer of men and motives were to be deceived by such a
+protest! Mackenzie regarded him with increased suspicion, although he
+endeavored to conceal the fact that he was watching the young man from
+time to time. Lavender saw all the favor he had won during the day
+disappearing, and moodily wondered when he should have a chance of
+explanation.
+
+After dinner they went outside and sat down on a bench in the garden,
+and the men lit their cigars. It was a cool and pleasant evening. The
+sun had gone down in red fire behind the Atlantic, and there was still
+left a rich glow of crimson in the west, while overhead, in the pale
+yellow of the sky, some filmy clouds of rose-color lay motionless. How
+calm was the sea out there, and the whiter stretch of water coming into
+Loch Roag! The cool air of the twilight was scented with sweetbrier. The
+wash of the ripples along the coast could be heard in the stillness. It
+was a time for lovers to sit by the sea, careless of the future or the
+past.
+
+But why would this old man keep prating of his political prophecies?
+Lavender asked of himself. Sheila had spoken scarcely a word all the
+evening; and of what interest could it be to her to listen to theories
+of revolution and the dangers besetting our hot-headed youth? She merely
+stood by the side of her father, with her hand on his shoulder. He
+noticed, however, that she paid particular attention whenever Ingram
+spoke; and he wondered whether she perceived that Ingram was partly
+humoring the old man, at the same time that he was pleasing himself with
+a series of monologues, interrupted only by his cigar.
+
+"That is true enough, Mr. Mackenzie," Ingram would say, lying back with
+his two hands clasped round his knee, as usual: "you've got to be
+careful of the opinions that are spread abroad, even in Borva, where not
+much danger is to be expected. But I don't suppose our young men are
+more destructive in their notions than young men always have been. You
+know every young fellow starts in life by knocking down all the beliefs
+he finds before him, and then he spends the rest of his life in setting
+them up again. It is only after some years he gets to know that all the
+wisdom of the world lies in the old commonplaces he once despised. He
+finds that the old familiar ways are the best, and he sinks into being a
+commonplace person, with much satisfaction to himself. My friend
+Lavender, now, is continually charging me with being commonplace. I
+admit the charge. I have drifted back into all the old ways and
+beliefs--about religion and marriage and patriotism, and what not--that
+ten years ago I should have treated with ridicule."
+
+"Suppose the process continues?" suggested Lavender, with some evidence
+of pique.
+
+"Suppose it does," continued Ingram carelessly. "Ten years hence I may
+be proud to become a vestryman, and have the most anxious care about the
+administration of the rates. I shall be looking after the drainage of
+houses and the treatment of paupers and the management of Sunday
+schools--But all this is an invasion of your province, Sheila," he
+suddenly added, looking up to her.
+
+The girl laughed, and said, "Then I have been commonplace from the
+beginning?"
+
+Ingram was about to make all manner of protests and apologies, when
+Mackenzie said, "Sheila, it wass time you will go in-doors, if you have
+nothing about your head. Go in and sing a song to us, and we will listen
+to you; and not a sad song, but a good merry song. These teffles of the
+fishermen, it iss always drownings they will sing about from the morning
+till the night."
+
+Was Sheila about to sing in this clear, strange twilight, while they sat
+there and watched the yellow moon come up behind the southern hills?
+Lavender had heard so much of her singing of those fishermen's ballads
+that he could think of nothing more to add to the enchantment of this
+wonderful night. But he was disappointed. The girl put her hand on her
+father's head, and reminded him that she had had her big greyhound Bras
+imprisoned all the afternoon, that she had to go down to Borvabost with
+a message for some people who were leaving by the boat in the morning,
+and would the gentlemen therefore excuse her not singing to them for
+this one evening?
+
+"But you cannot go away down to Borvabost by yourself, Sheila," said
+Ingram. "It will be dark before you return."
+
+"It will not be darker than this all the night through," said the girl.
+
+"But I hope you will let us go with you," said Lavender, rather
+anxiously; and she assented with a gracious smile, and went to fetch the
+great deerhound that was her constant companion.
+
+And lo! he found himself walking with a princess in this wonder-land
+through that magic twilight that prevails in northern latitudes.
+Mackenzie and Ingram had gone on in front. The large deerhound, after
+regarding him attentively, had gone to its mistress's side, and remained
+closely there. Lavender could scarcely believe his ears that the girl
+was talking to him lightly and frankly, as though she had known him for
+years, and was telling him of all her troubles with the folks at
+Borvabost, and of those poor people whom she was now going to see. No
+sooner did he understand that they were emigrants, and that they were
+going to Glasgow before leaving finally for America, than in quite an
+honest and enthusiastic fashion he began to bewail the sad fate of such
+poor wretches as have to forsake their native land, and to accuse the
+aristocracy of the country of every act of selfishness, and to charge
+the government with a shameful indifference. But Sheila brought him up
+suddenly. In the gentlest fashion she told him what she knew of these
+poor people, and how emigration affected them, and so forth, until he
+was ready to curse the hour in which he had blundered into taking a side
+on a question about which he cared nothing and knew less.
+
+"But some other time," continued Sheila, "I will tell you what we do
+here, and I will show you a great many letters I have from friends of
+mine who have gone to Greenock and to New York and Canada. Oh yes, it is
+very bad for the old people: they never get reconciled to the
+change--never; but it is very good for the young people, and they are
+glad of it, and are much better off than they were here. You will see
+how proud they are of the better clothes they have, and of good food,
+and of money to put in the bank; and how could they get that in the
+Highlands, where the land is so poor that a small piece is of no use,
+and they have not money to rent the large sheep-farms? It is very bad to
+have people go away--it is very hand on many of them--but what can they
+do? The piece of ground that was very good for the one family, that is
+expected to keep the daughters when they marry, and the sons when they
+marry, and then there are five or six families to live on it. And hard
+work--that will not do much with very bad land and the bad weather we
+have here. The people get downhearted when they have their crops spoiled
+by the long rain, and they cannot get their peats dried; and very often
+the fishing turns out bad, and they have no money at all to carry on the
+farm. But now you will see Borvabost."
+
+Lavender had to confess that this wonderful princess would persist in
+talking in a very matter-of-fact way. All the afternoon, while he was
+weaving a luminous web of imagination around her, she was continually
+cutting it asunder, and stepping forth as an authority on the growing of
+some wretched plants or the means by which rain was to be excluded from
+window-sills. And now, in this strange twilight, when she ought to have
+been singing of the cruelties of the sea or listening to half-forgotten
+legends of mermaids, she was engaged with the petty fortunes of men and
+girls who were pleased to find themselves prospering in the Glasgow
+police-force or educating themselves in a milliner's shop in Edinburgh.
+She did not appear conscious that she was a princess. Indeed, she seemed
+to have no consciousness of herself at all, and was altogether occupied
+in giving him information about practical subjects in which he professed
+a profound interest he certainly did not feel.
+
+But even Sheila, when they had reached the loftiest part of their route,
+and could see beneath them the island and the water surrounding it, was
+struck by the exceeding beauty of the twilight; and as for her
+companion, he remembered it many a time thereafter as if it were a dream
+of the sea. Before them lay the Atlantic--a pale line of blue, still,
+silent and remote. Overhead, the sky was of a clear, pale gold, with
+heavy masses of violet cloud stretched across from north to south, and
+thickening as they got near to the horizon. Down at their feet, near the
+shore, a dusky line of huts and houses was scarcely visible; and over
+these lay a pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move in the still
+air. Then they saw the bay into which the White Water runs, and they
+could trace the yellow glimmer of the river stretching into the island
+through a level valley of bog and morass. Far away, toward the east, lay
+the bulk of the island--dark green undulations of moorland and pasture;
+and there, in the darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the
+clear light of the sky, and was gleaming westward like a star. But all
+this was as nothing to the glory that began to shine in the south-east,
+where the sky was of a pale violet over the peaks of Mealasabhal and
+Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dome, rose the golden crescent of
+the moon, warm in color, as though it still retained the last rays of
+the sunset. A line of quivering gold fell across Loch Roag, and touched
+the black hull and spars of the boat in which Sheila had been sailing in
+the morning. That bay down there, with its white sands and massive
+rocks, its still expanse of water, and its background of mountain-peaks
+palely colored by the yellow moonlight, seemed really a home for a magic
+princess who was shut off from all the world. But here, in front of
+them, was another sort of sea and another sort of life--a small
+fishing-village hidden under a cloud of pale peat-smoke, and fronting
+the great waters of the Atlantic itself, which lay under a gloom of
+violet clouds.
+
+"Now," said Sheila with a smile, "we have not always weather as good as
+this in the island. Will you not sit on the bench over there with Mr.
+Ingram, and wait until my papa and I come up from the village again?"
+
+"May not I go down with you?"
+
+"No. The dogs would learn you were a stranger, and there would be a
+great deal of noise, and there will be many of the poor people asleep."
+
+So Sheila had her way; and she and her father went down the hillside
+into the gloom of the village, while Lavender went to join his friend
+Ingram, who was sitting on the wooden bench, silently smoking a clay
+pipe.
+
+"Well, I have never seen the like of this," said Lavender in his
+impetuous way: "it is worth going a thousand miles to see. Such colors
+and such clearness! and then the splendid outlines of those mountains,
+and the grand sweep of this loch! This is the sort of thing that drives
+me to despair, and might make one vow never to touch a brush again. And
+Sheila says it will be like this all the night through."
+
+He was unaware that he had spoken of her in a very familiar way, but
+Ingram noticed it.
+
+"Ingram," he said suddenly, "that is the first girl I have ever seen
+whom I should like to marry."
+
+"Stuff!"
+
+"But it is true. I have never seen any one like her--so handsome, so
+gentle, and yet so very frank in setting you right. And then she is so
+sensible, you know, and not too proud to have much interest in all sorts
+of common affairs--"
+
+There was a smile in Ingram's face, and his companion stopped in some
+vexation: "You are not a very sympathetic confidant."
+
+"Because I know the story of old. You have told it me about twenty
+women, and it is always the same. I tell you, you don't know anything at
+all about Sheila Mackenzie yet: perhaps you never may. I suppose you
+will make a heroine of her, and fall in love with her for a fortnight,
+and then go back to London and get cured by listening to the witticisms
+of Mrs. Lorraine."
+
+"Thank you very much."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean to offend you. Some day, no doubt, you will love a
+woman for what she is, not for what you fancy her to be; but that is a
+piece of good-fortune that seldom occurs to a youth of your age. To
+marry in a dream, and wake up six months afterward--that is the fate of
+ingenuous twenty-three. But don't you let Mackenzie hear you talk of
+marrying Sheila, or he'll have some of his fishermen throw you into Loch
+Roag."
+
+"There, now, that _is_ one point I can't understand about her," said
+Lavender eagerly. "How can a girl of her shrewdness and good sense have
+such a belief in that humbugging old idiot of a father of hers, who
+fancies me a political emissary, and plays small tricks to look like
+diplomacy? It is always 'My papa can do this,' and 'My papa can do
+that,' and 'There is no one at all like my papa.' And she is continually
+fondling him, and giving little demonstrations of affection, of which he
+takes no more notice than if he were an Arctic bear."
+
+Ingram looked up with some surprise in his face. "You don't mean to say,
+Lavender," he said slowly, "that you are already jealous of the girl's
+own father?"
+
+He could not answer, for at this moment Sheila, her father and the big
+greyhound came up the hill. And again it was Lavender's good fortune to
+walk with Sheila across the moorland path they had traversed some little
+time before. And now the moon was still higher in the heavens, and the
+yellow lane of light that crossed the violet waters of Loch Roag
+quivered in a deeper gold. The night-air was scented with the Dutch
+clover growing down by the shore. They could hear the curlew whistling
+and the plover calling amid that monotonous plash of the waves that
+murmured all around the coast. When they returned to the house the
+darker waters of the Atlantic and the purple clouds of the west were
+shut out from sight, and before them there was only the liquid plain of
+Loch Roag, with its pathway of yellow fire, and far away on the other
+side the shoulders and peaks of the southern mountains, that had grown
+gray and clear and sharp in the beautiful twilight. And this was
+Sheila's home.
+
+[To be continued.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[G] "My black-haired girl, my pretty girl, my black-haired girl, don't
+leave me." _Nighean dubh_ is pronounced _Nyean du_.
+
+[H] Literally, _Gearaidh-na'h-Aimhne_--"the cutting of the river."
+
+[I] Another name given by the islanders to these stones is
+_Fir-bhreige_, "false men." Both names, False Men and the Mourners,
+should be of some interest to antiquarians, for they will suit pretty
+nearly any theory.
+
+
+
+
+WINTER.
+
+
+    The golden sunshine has fled away,
+    The clouds o'erhead hang heavy and gray,
+    The world is woefully sad to-day;
+
+    And I am thinking of you, dear, you.
+    The cold clay hides from the rain and dew
+    The tenderest heart that the world e'er knew.
+
+    Why should I think of you when the rain
+    Smiteth so sharply the window-pane,
+    And the wild winds round the old house 'plain?
+
+    You were so sweet and sunny and bright,
+    Ever your presence brought life and light,
+    And I recall you in storm and night.
+
+    When snow-shrouds hang on the corpse-cold trees,
+    When sharp frosts sting and the north winds freeze,
+    What has your mem'ry to do with these?
+
+    O fair lost love! O love that is dead!
+    The pleasant days from my life are fled,
+    The rosy morns and the sunsets red.
+
+    The light has faded from out my life,
+    Leaving the clouds and the stormy strife,
+    And the keen sharp cold that cuts like a knife.
+
+    The days and the months, how slow they glide,
+    Gray-robed and cold-breathed and frozen-eyed!
+    The summer died for me when you died.
+
+    O world of woe and of want and pain!
+    O heaven of clouds and storm and rain!
+    When shall I find my summer again?
+
+
+                        LUCY H. HOOPER.
+
+
+
+
+NEW WASHINGTON.
+
+
+A stranger visiting the national capital should begin by leaving it. He
+should cross the Anacostia River at the Navy-yard, climb the heights
+behind the village of Uniontown, be careful to find exactly the right
+path, and seat himself on the parapet of old Fort Stanton. His feeling
+of fatigue will be overcome by one of astonishment that the scene should
+contain so much that is beautiful in nature, so much that is exceedingly
+novel if not very good in art, and so much that has the deepest
+historical interest. From the blue hills of Prince George's county in
+Maryland winds the Anacostia, whose waters at his feet float all but the
+very largest vessels of our navy, while but six miles above they float
+nothing larger than a Bladensburg goose. To the left flows the Potomac,
+a mile wide. Between the rivers lies Washington. A vast amphitheatre,
+its green or gray walls cloven only by the two rivers, appears to
+surround the city. "Amphitheatre" is the word, for within the great
+circle, proportioned to it in size and magnificence, dwarfing all other
+objects, stands the veritable arena where our public gladiators and wild
+beasts hold their combats. This of course is the Capitol, whose white
+dome rises like a blossoming lily from the dark expanse below.
+
+Along these summits are the remains of a chain of earthworks that
+completely enveloped the capital. They are all overgrown by verdure, and
+are fast disappearing; but whenever the site of one is relieved against
+the clear sky a grassy embrasure or a bit of rampart may yet be seen
+from a distance. Here stretched
+
+    The watchfires of a hundred circling camps,
+
+whose light is in the "Battle-Hymn of the Republic," for it was a
+personal view of them, and of these altars built in the evening dews and
+damps, which gave form to the great lyric. Here in a few years, when
+more of the business-men of Washington shall have learned how to do
+business, or when her social development shall have detained the
+cultured and wealthy who now come and go, will be found a circle of
+beautiful villas and nearly all the luxuries of summer life.
+
+Below the high bank opposite, where the Congressional Cemetery skirts
+the city, where some famous men are actually buried, and where Congress
+places cenotaphs that look like long rows of antiquated beehives for all
+who die while members of that body, a line of black dots crosses the
+Anacostia like the corks of a fisherman's seine. They are the piles that
+upheld a bridge in the summer of 1814. On the hills to the right the
+little army of five thousand redcoats made a feint toward this bridge,
+and caused the Americans to burn it. Away to the left, across the
+Potomac, stretches Long Bridge, which was also fired the next night by
+the British and by the fleeing inhabitants of the captured town.
+
+The eight miles of Virginia shore visible from Washington contain really
+but three objects. Two or three dark chimneys and steeples and a few
+misty outlines are all one needs to see of Alexandria, which is six
+miles down the river, and appears about as ancient as its Egyptian
+namesake. Nearer, the monotony is broken by the tower of Fairfax
+Seminary; nearer still, among the oaks of Arlington, by the mansion of
+Custis-Lee, imposing, pillared and cream-colored; or it was the last in
+the days when cream had a color.
+
+Descending from the old fort, the stranger should go at once to
+Georgetown and climb up into the little burying-ground of Holyrood. The
+view thence will give him all that was excluded from the other. He will
+now be prepared to examine Washington in detail, and as this is not a
+guide-book he shall go his way alone. But the "gentle reader" is
+requested to linger an hour longer upon the natural walls and look down
+with me on the dark city.
+
+Below is such a growth of beautiful and strange that we can understand
+it only by remembering that we look down on all the United States. Into
+that problem of squares and circles and triangles wise men from the East
+plunge and see Beacon street; wise men from the West plunge and see
+Poker Flat; and from the highest ground we can find we will try to see
+the whole of Washington. We cannot distinguish a friend's house from an
+enemy's. The lines are mingled and the colors blended by our distance.
+Individuals are lost to sight entirely. What would be such a conflict of
+sounds down there that we should never be certain of what we heard, is
+now so faint a hum that it does not disturb us or affect our speech. We
+have risen into a better atmosphere, and find that some things which
+were ugly have grown good and graceful.
+
+To allude to all the noted and novel things in this complicated scene
+would be to fill a book, and enough pre-Raphaelites are already browsing
+there. Giving due attention to particulars in their places, we must yet
+give effects in sweeping strokes, steering as best we can between the
+Scylla of didactic details and the Charybdis of glittering generalities.
+
+The candid observer wonders not that Washington is so far below what it
+ought to be, but that it exists as a city at all. It has suffered
+calamities that would have extinguished any other place. The vitality
+that could survive them would seem capable of surviving anything. Other
+towns have had to contend against natural disadvantages, but they have
+had the aid of citizens who knew what they wanted, and who used the
+public money and energy and brains for the public good. But here has
+been the novel sight of a city having every natural advantage, yet
+compelled to fight its own citizens for life; to see the public money
+and energy and brains--what little there were--used to kill not only the
+town, but the people in it; to support men of weight in the community
+who really did not want it polluted by trade or manufactures or any
+such vulgar things.
+
+The Capitol, which now, like the Irishman's shanty, has the front door
+on the back side, was made to face the east because in that direction
+lay as fine a site as ever a town possessed, and there the city was to
+be built. To the westward the ground was such that men are living who as
+boys waded for reed-birds and caught catfish where now is the centre of
+business. The necessity of transforming this tract in the very beginning
+of trade retarded the general growth incalculably. The owners of the
+good ground didn't want to do anything themselves, and were too greedy
+to let anybody else. The Executive Mansion, a mile to the westward,
+attracted other public buildings about it; the people who had to support
+themselves bought real estate in the swamps; those who lived without
+business of their own followed them of course; and the fine plateau
+prepared by Nature has been touched only so far as improvement has been
+compelled by forces radiating from the other side of the Capitol. The
+life and trade that tend to crystallize around one centre are still much
+dissipated by the policy that ruined Capitol Hill; but as this can no
+longer endanger the general prosperity, it is now more a blessing than a
+calamity. It makes sure and speedy the reclamation of the waste places,
+while the improvement of all the good ones must take place at last. The
+owners of the barren sites which yet break the continuity of blocks in
+good localities can sit still and "hold on" if they please, but they
+must expect to see the "worthless" tracts--Swampoodle, Murder Bay and
+Hell's Bottom--fill with life and rise in value faster than their own.
+
+Another calamity, which has grown with the city instead of being
+outgrown, is the changes that have been permitted to take place in the
+Potomac. Long Bridge, instead of being built so as to permit an
+uninterrupted flow of the stream, was composed for a great distance of
+an earthen road--a dam--arresting half the water of the river. This
+temporarily benefited the Georgetown channel, no doubt, by forcing all
+the water into it. But a marsh is rising in the middle of the stream,
+creeping rapidly up to the Washington wharves, threatening the health of
+the city, and so crippling its commerce that an expensive remedy must be
+speedily applied. There is some difference of opinion as to the
+comparative injuries and benefits arising from the bridge, but the fact
+remains clear that this important river has suffered needless injury to
+a degree that is deplorable. In the past, however, the fault has been as
+much with the city as with Congress. That body cannot improve rivers
+where there is no commerce to be benefited, nor give new facilities to
+towns that do not make the most of what they have. But the gazer from
+Fort Stanton--glancing beyond the Navy-yard and the shot-battered
+monitors that lie there, across Greenleaf's Point and the Arsenal, made
+tragic by the death of many a British soldier and of the Lincoln-Seward
+assassins half a century later--overlooking the wharves of Washington
+and dimly descrying the masts at Georgetown, now sees a traffic that has
+earned a consideration it has not received. A few weeks ago we paused in
+an after-dinner walk, down there on the Arsenal boulevard, to watch the
+troubles of a crew and the labors of a tug which were altogether too
+suggestive. A senseless fellow of a captain came sailing up the river
+from a foreign port, his vessel laden with a valuable cargo, and
+attempted a landing at Washington. He knew no better than to suppose
+that the capital of this nation, on one of our finest rivers, possessing
+all its days a navy-yard, would permit itself to be approached by a
+merchantman. He stuck in the mud within a hundred yards of the wharf.
+There he spent three or four days in anxiety and chagrin, and finally
+got a tug to pull him back into navigable water. He swung about, made
+haste down the river and took his vessel to another port, uttering some
+natural oaths, no doubt, and wondering what kind of country he had got
+into. A small vessel going from Washington to Georgetown heads for
+Chesapeake Bay, passes up around the island of filth accumulated by the
+bridge, and sails four miles in ascending two.
+
+Bordering the broad belt of grass and trees which we see sweeping
+gracefully through the heart of the city from the Capitol to the
+President's, where rise the towers of the Smithsonian, the roof of the
+Agricultural Bureau, and all that is built of the Washington Monument,
+there stretched another calamity, which existed some fifty years, which
+was at last extinguished during 1872 at an immense cost to the city,
+which was one of the "improvements" of the past, which once employed the
+public money and energy--we cannot repeat brains--to kill not only the
+town, but the people in it. This was the great pestiferous open sewer
+that stole into a filthy existence under the name of the Washington
+Canal.
+
+But there was a greater misfortune than any of these. Slavery need only
+be mentioned. More of Washington's present defects are attributable to
+it in one way or another than to all else. Yet under this crowning
+calamity, added to the others, the undulating plain before us, which
+appears so sluggish from the height to which we have climbed, has within
+seventy-five years passed from a wilderness into a city of one hundred
+and eleven thousand inhabitants. Although the general government kept
+the breath of life in it during a period when perhaps nothing else could
+have done so, yet such a growth, under all the circumstances, cannot be
+accounted for without recognizing an inherent strength that has never
+been acknowledged by the multitudes who come to "see" Washington. It
+proves that she may have a significance of her own. The visitor should
+remember that New York and Boston are enjoying, and Philadelphia has
+nearly reached, the third century of their lives.
+
+This scene from the heights is a fascinating one for the day-dreamer.
+Everything is in harmony with the past character of the capital.
+Everything is misty, vast, uncertain, grand and ill-defined. One does
+not see clearly the boundaries--the city and country are one. Every
+street we trace in the distance, almost every building, almost every
+foot of ground, has gathered something of tradition from the lives of
+the statesmen, generals, jurists, diplomates who have lived and wrought
+here for three-quarters of a century. The visions that passed before the
+eyes of Washington as he stood on the Observatory Hill there, a
+subaltern under Braddock, contemplating the wilderness about him and
+imagining the future; the pictures that filled the fancy of the
+intractable L'Enfant as he defined the great mall and thought of the
+gardens between the Tuileries and the Chamber of Deputies; Andrew J.
+Downing giving his last days to such an arrangement of the trees and
+grass as would be worthy of the design; President Madison and his
+cabinet, with a useless little army at their heels, flying in despair
+from yonder bloody hillside; Admiral Cockburn derisively riding an old
+mare up Pennsylvania Avenue; the burning Capitol and White House
+lighting up the gloom of that hideous night; Stephen Decatur shot to
+death just round the bend of the Anacostia there; the conflicts by
+tongue and pen that have again and again gone on here till the whole
+country swayed; Gamaliel Bailey silencing a mob at his door; the
+histories that lie buried under the thirty thousand headboards that
+gleam like an army of ghosts among the trees of Arlington; Abraham
+Lincoln gasping his life away in that little Tenth street house; his
+assassin dashing in darkness across the bridge at our feet, over which
+we have just passed, and spurring almost into the shadow of the parapet
+where we stand;--all these things, and a hundred more as tempting to the
+dreamer, come crowding on the mind at every glance. Yet who stops to
+call Washington a romantic city? When the White House, just visible from
+those tree-tops, shall have ceased, as it soon must do, to be the home
+of the chief magistrate, what future magician shall summon down those
+cheerless stairways the ghostly procession of dead Presidents, as our
+first literary necromancer marshaled the shades of royal governors
+across the threshold of the Province House? We turn from all this to
+speak of the practical affairs of to-day which await us in the city,
+with a reluctance that delays our feet as we descend.
+
+A phrase applied, we believe, by Dickens, when writing of the avenues
+here many years ago, and illustrating his remarkable faculty of telling
+the most truth when he exaggerated most, rises so constantly to mind
+when one considers what Washington has been, that we are tempted to make
+it a kind of text. He described the great houseless thoroughfares as
+"beginning nowhere and ending in nothing." That phrase sets old
+Washington before the reader as the literal truth could never do.
+
+But the reader must now remember that old Washington is going--that a
+new Washington has come. The city is no longer disposed to make
+apologies, wait for generosity or beg for patronage. It is disposed--and
+has proved its disposition--to take off its seedy coat and go to work in
+its own way. Its waiting is now only for enlightened judgment from
+others, and its begging is only for justice.
+
+The change of local government in 1871, when Congress gave the District
+of Columbia a legislature and a representative, was the particular event
+from which may be dated such innovations as make necessary a revision of
+the popular opinion. The visitors who come this month, and who have not
+been here since the last inauguration, will have to learn the capital
+anew. While the establishment of the territorial government and the
+organization of its outgrowths--particularly the Board of Public
+Works--mark the new departure by physical changes, all will understand
+that it was the first gun at Charleston, startling the stagnant pool
+here, which set in motion the successive waves that carried the city up
+to this departure. The public affairs of the city became practically
+unmanageable. A joint-stock company could not organize for the most
+trifling business without depending on the slow and uncertain action of
+Congress for a charter. A few active men, who saw that the old order of
+things could be endured no longer, met quietly in 1870 at the house of
+an honored citizen on K street to see what further they could see. They
+continued to meet at each other's homes, lightening their interchange of
+thought for the public by such an extension of hospitality as drew into
+their circle many influential Congressmen, and converted them to the new
+idea that there was something in Washington besides the national
+service. The result was, that the city government was abolished; a
+legislative assembly was created; a governor was appointed by the
+President of the United States; and a delegate was sent to Congress,
+instead of a crowd of lobbyists, to represent the District of Columbia.
+This delegate is always to be a member of the committee on the District,
+Congress has the constitutional right of exclusive legislation, and the
+Assembly cannot impose taxes of any consequence without especial
+authority from the people.
+
+The wisdom of the change was doubted at first by many real friends of
+progress, who thought they saw grave legal complications arising; who
+knew what popular government in a large city, with no restriction of the
+election franchise, might mean; who at times thought of New York with a
+shudder; who knew that as Washington was the centre of everything
+political, it was necessarily the centre of political corruption; that
+her alleys were crowded with ignorant freedmen; that her ward
+politicians were as unscrupulous and skillful as the same class in other
+cities; and who thought it safer to trust the average Congressman than
+the small political trader and his chattels. But Congress sits as a
+perpetual court of appeal on the spot where its members can judge from
+personal knowledge, ready to overrule any act of the Assembly that can
+be shown to be a bad one; and one house of the Assembly, with the
+governor and executive boards, is appointed by the President. The
+election of the larger house and of the delegate to Congress is
+sufficient security to the people, and Washington is to-day in most
+respects the best-governed city of its size in the United States. The
+powers of the little Assembly are very limited: the governor can veto
+its measures; Congress can override them both; the President can veto
+the acts of Congress; two-thirds of Congress can still surmount this
+veto. This complicated system may retard good measures, but it is not
+probable that any very bad one can long survive under it.
+
+The Baron Haussmann here is the Board of Public Works. It is grading,
+filling, paving, planting, fencing, parking, and making the
+thoroughfares what they would never have become by ordinary means. At
+last we see what Washingtonians never saw before--vast public operations
+having a consistent and tangible shape; obeying a purpose that can be
+understood, defined and executed; beginning somewhere and ending in
+something. Within its sphere this Board has despotic power: it would be
+worthless with any less. It dares to strike without fear or favor, and
+hit whoever stands in the way: the way would never be cleared if it did
+not. It makes bitter enemies by its inexorable exactions: the public
+cannot be served except at the expense of the individual. A strong party
+has fought it by injunctions and failed: the same persons will no doubt
+continue to fight, while the Board will no doubt continue to vindicate
+itself and go on with its work. It made some mistakes which wrought
+hardships to individuals who wished it well, but such were the
+difficulties before it at the outset that it might have made greater
+mistakes and still been forgiven. It is to be hoped that it will have
+enemies enough to watch it closely, criticise it sharply and hold it to
+a strict accountability; but should it have enough to really interfere
+with its present course, then we shall have to add one more, and a great
+one, to the list of Washington's calamities. The new blood that created
+it is able to sustain it, while the air it has done so much to purify is
+already laden with blessings from the lips of strangers.
+
+In the matter of public improvements an equitable adjustment of
+relations--always heretofore uncertain and unsatisfactory--between the
+District and the general government still remains to be accomplished,
+and at this writing is impatiently awaited by the city. Congress should
+explicitly define for itself a course that can be depended upon, so that
+the city can go ahead and know what it ought to do. The general
+government, promising great things which began nowhere and ended in
+nothing, laid out the city for its own use, and gave more space to
+streets and ornamental grounds than to buildings. The plan was wise and
+good, but did not appear so until the liberal citizens, unable to endure
+the disgrace of such a city as the nation thrust upon them, taxing
+themselves six millions of dollars for street purposes, went generously
+to work, with their own money improved the immense fronts of the
+government property, which pays no taxes, evolved something tangible out
+of the old cloudy-magnificent plan, and gave the country, so far as they
+could, a decent capital.
+
+There is another important matter for adjustment. The city has left
+nothing undone that money and labor could do to make the public schools
+the best in the United States. It is doubtful whether there has ever
+before been seen in any city or State an expenditure for public schools
+so generous, under all the circumstances, as that of Washington within
+the past few years. The best school-houses here are the best the
+Prussian commissioners, who lately came to inspect them, had ever seen.
+A very great number of the pupils educated by the city are the children
+of government servants whose homes are in the States, and who pay no
+considerable taxes here. Every State and Territory has received a
+liberal allotment of public land for school-purposes except the District
+of Columbia, which has probably done more for schools without the
+endowment, considering the time and taxable property at command, than
+any State has ever done with it.
+
+Of course the city has received many benefits from the general
+government, but the considerable ones have been indirect. The excellent
+water-works, for instance, costing about three millions of dollars, were
+built with the nation's money and by army engineers, because the nation
+needed them, and show how entirely identical are the interests of both
+parties. Their respective duties, while they need defining anew, are so
+wedded that there is no room for serious difference. It is really a
+matter for congratulation that the general government held back and did
+not take more of the improvements into its own hands. The city's present
+claims are by so much stronger: the two governments can work in harmony,
+and any efforts that are now made will not be thrown away. Had Congress
+acted sooner we might have had more Washington canals, and Washington
+and Georgetown street-cars, and similar Congressional "improvements,"
+beginning nowhere but in ignorance or selfishness, and ending in nothing
+but nuisances. The improvement of the interiors of the national grounds,
+however, by the general government, is now keeping pace with that of the
+exteriors by the city as nearly as is possible under present
+legislation, and their superintendence has become at last an office of
+some practical consequence to Washington. The general government owns
+about one-half of the property in the District, and during seventy years
+has expended for the improvement of the thoroughfares a little over one
+million of dollars. The city during the same time has expended for the
+same purpose nearly fourteen millions of dollars.
+
+The old Washington idea seems to have consisted in finishing a city
+before it was begun. To use an architectural figure, the capital of the
+column has been well designed and partly carved, but the base is not yet
+laid. Those characteristics which the builders thought would be a sure
+foundation of greatness have proved insufficient in the past and will
+prove so in the future. The infusion of new blood has done wonders
+within ten years, but there is still needed the admixture of another
+current. Wealth and ideality--supposed to be possessed by all who are
+attracted hither--do not raise a man above material wants or fail to
+multiply them. When Washington shall give her utmost attention to
+satisfying the vulgarest common wants of common people, she will have
+taken her first real step toward--anything. She has had enough of fog
+and moonshine. She wants for a proper period the most unmitigated
+materiality--not as an end, of course, but as the first means of making
+something else possible. She will be made our republican Paris, if made
+so at all, by the aid of the shops, the wonderful skilled labor, the
+economical living of poor people, on which rested, as well as on higher
+things, the splendors of the imperial Paris. The average American lady
+goes to that city to buy "things," as well as to visit the Louvre, and
+while the late emperor endeavored to make his capital the social centre
+of the world, he did not scorn to make it a fashionable market and
+foster a Palace of Industry.
+
+That Washington is an admirable place for manufactures is clear to all
+who have sought the facts. Whether she will ever become a manufacturing
+city is a question that must be settled by the citizens themselves.
+Whoever doubts that the growth of skilled labor here will be an
+indispensable condition of the higher growth that is sought fails to
+understand modern civilization, and should not have survived the days
+when things began nowhere and ended in nothing. The old thoroughbred
+Washingtonian will never invest a dollar to build a railroad or a modern
+workshop, of course. He does not know anything about them, and does not
+want to. His idea of business is to get real estate, and "hold on" till
+somebody else makes it valuable. Gentlemen of new Washington, Hercules
+will stand idle till he sees your own shoulders at the wheel. When you
+shall have the faithful, enlightened manual labor of New England, you
+may expect such flowers as Yale and Harvard and the aesthetic fruits they
+enfold. You may be unable to see any intimate connection between such
+labor and such culture, but nevertheless it exists. Old Washington could
+not see it, and now you are compelled to bury old Washington out of
+sight. It is time for Mohammed to start if he wants his mountain.
+
+There are a few business-men in Washington who are as enlightened, as
+liberal, as trustworthy as any in the country; and abundant is their
+reward. There are a few who deal only in good wares, who always sell
+them at a reasonable profit, who believe that any kind of deception is a
+blunder, who manage their establishments with economy, who are aware
+that the more money they permit their customers to make the more they
+will ultimately make themselves,--who, in short, have learned the
+principles of business and have the character to stand by them. But so
+many fall short--often through ignorance--in one or more of these
+respects that the average business character is low. If a lady wishes to
+spend twenty-five dollars in shopping, she can generally travel eighty
+miles--to Baltimore and back--and save enough of that small sum to pay
+her for going, besides being sure of finding what she wants. The
+Washington shopkeepers may really think that they cannot help this. They
+_must_ help it, or consent to be soon shoved aside by those who can.
+Instead of being troubled by the sight of his best customers going as
+far as New York whenever they have anything of consequence to buy, the
+genuine old Washington retailer seems to take a calm satisfaction in
+putting such fastidious buyers to so much inconvenience. Here it is
+rather the exception than the rule for the man of small business to do
+just what he promises to do. He don't know the value of another's time,
+is used to disappointments himself, and somehow or other will manage to
+disarrange your most careful calculations. Unable himself to meet an
+engagement thoroughly and exactly, he seems determined that nobody else
+shall.
+
+But you cease censuring the average business-man when you begin to deal
+with the average Washington mechanic. There are some good ones, but they
+are absorbed by the large and experienced dealers in labor, and are
+beyond the knowledge or reach of ordinary mortals. You want a little
+job done at your house; you call on a "boss;" certainly--it shall be
+done instantly; a workman will be sent in a few minutes; two days
+afterward he comes and "looks at it;" the next day he returns with
+another man and they both look at it; another day passes, and an
+apprentice-boy, with a lame negro to wait on him, comes and makes your
+home hideous by pretending to begin; when they have given your family a
+proper amount of information, and torn things to pieces sufficiently,
+they go away. Two more days elapse, and you go again to the boss; he is
+surprised--he supposed the work had been done, for he had given
+"orders;" at the end of a week perhaps the job that should have consumed
+two hours of honest work is done; then, if you pay the boss no more than
+the work actually cost him, you know that the sum is twice as much as it
+should have cost him. As a generalization this is a true picture of
+Washington labor.
+
+These things are trifles? They are just what determine the permanent
+residence of multitudes of valuable citizens. They are the trifles that
+in the aggregate make the difference between civilization and barbarism.
+For every broken promise or slighted piece of work the city suffers.
+Civilized people like to live smoothly and comfortably. Washington,
+thinking of something besides hotels and boarding-houses, and the people
+of leisure who come once a year to fill them for a few weeks, must
+provide for a permanent population of moderately poor people. The word
+of a merchant or banker is supposed to be as good as his bond; his
+occupation is gone when this ceases to be the case; his standing is
+reported in a business guide-book, and dealers with him act accordingly.
+Cannot some of the methods that enforce integrity in higher branches of
+business be more systematically applied by dealers in manual labor? The
+men who are reforming the city's outward appearance have an opportunity
+of doing something in this direction. A Northern mechanic who reverences
+his conscience, and makes the most of his opportunities to gain
+knowledge and character, cannot emigrate to a better place than
+Washington.
+
+Yet when one looks into the past he thinks that perhaps labor is
+improving as fast as other things here. He is inclined to admire it when
+he remembers how much worse it used to be. John Adams was the first
+occupant of the White House, and this is what his wife said in a private
+letter just after moving into it: "To assist us in this great castle,
+and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one
+single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you
+can obtain. If they put me up bells, and let me have wood enough to keep
+fires, I design to be pleased. But, surrounded with forests, can you
+believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to
+cut and cart it?" Seventy-two years ago the President's wife could get
+nothing but promises toward hanging a servant's bell! Washington was in
+a forest and couldn't furnish wood enough to warm the presidential
+hearthstone! The forests and people of that day are gone, but those
+eternal "promises" remain.
+
+The recent building in Washington has been mostly that of dwellings,
+which the ordinary visitor, following the old routes between the Capitol
+and West End, will hardly notice, although they have covered many acres
+within the past four years. Since the Board of Public Works has
+settled--some would say unsettled--the foundations of things, we may
+expect to see the heavy building for business purposes, which must soon
+take place even if there be no change in the character of business,
+conducted with a little system and uniformity. The streets themselves
+have been made so fine that it will require some moral courage--a thing
+for which Washington is not noted--to disfigure them by the hideous
+jumbles that accorded so well with the old ways. Such splendid
+monstrosities as the Treasury--as a whole, the worst public building in
+the city, although good in parts, so situated that one must go down
+stairs from Pennsylvania Avenue to get into the grand north entrance,
+without proportion, completeness or consistency--it will be impossible
+even for Congress to build.
+
+Both the physical and moral appearance of Washington truly represent the
+civilization of the nation as a whole. Such is, after all, the only
+description that can be given; and so vast and heterogeneous is the
+nation that to many readers this will be no description at all. A farmer
+measures out a half bushel of wheat, "levels" it, and tells you truly
+that the only difference is in quantity between that in the measure and
+that which it came from in the bin: take the architecture, the people,
+the ideas of all these States, shake them together in a half bushel,
+"level" them, and you can truly say you have Washington. Any noteworthy
+character of its own is still lacking. So long as it is nothing more
+than a representative of the whole country, it will in many desirable
+things fall far below a dozen other cities, whose independence has
+enabled them to reach excellences toward which Washington vaguely
+aspires. As the capital it will not be the best and most enlightened,
+but will be the "average" city. As an independent one its destiny is now
+in its own hands, and facilities are thrown at its feet such as no other
+can hope to have. There have been good excuses for its shortcomings in
+the past. There are none now. Two years ago, Washington was a great boy
+who had grown up under the repressive guardianship of his Uncle Samuel;
+he had not been permitted to do anything for himself; he had no money
+except the few pennies which the old gentleman had grudgingly given him
+for menial services. He needed higher culture and better business habits
+than his uncle exhibited: the leading-strings were at last sufficiently
+cut. His guardian, still exercising a good deal of authority, has
+permitted him to go into business for himself; given him the use of the
+greatest library in the United States; surrounded him with specimens of
+architecture invaluable as models or as warnings; opened to him the
+treasures of the Smithsonian, the Coast Survey and a unique medical
+museum; given him the benefit of a fine observatory; placed at his
+disposal magnificent pleasure-grounds; set before him a botanical
+garden; put up for him some good statues and pictures; shown him models
+of all the mechanical inventions of the age; sent to him as associates
+the first statesmen, jurists and captains of the land; and brought to
+his door as guests the polished representatives of all civilized
+countries. What more does the boy want that he may make a man of
+himself? Nothing but a will of his own so to develop his natural
+resources that he can use these things. Will he now refuse to earn the
+necessary money to enjoy them, and insist on living, in shabby-genteel
+ignorance and idleness, exclusively on the pocket-money of the visitors
+to whom his uncle introduces him? If he does, shall we call him a
+gentleman?
+
+                        CHAUNCEY HICKOX.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
+
+
+Forty days in the great desert of the sea--forty nights camped under
+cloud-canopies, with the salt dust of the waves drifting over us.
+Sometimes a Bedouin sail flashed for an hour upon the distant horizon,
+and then faded, and we were alone again; sometimes the west, at sunset,
+looked like a city with towers, and we bore down upon its glorified
+walls, seeking a haven; but a cold gray morning dispelled the illusion,
+and our hearts sank back into the illimitable sea, breathing a long
+prayer for deliverance.
+
+Once a green oasis blossomed before us--a garden in perfect bloom,
+girded about with creaming waves; within its coral cincture pendulous
+boughs trailed in the glassy waters; from its hidden bowers spiced airs
+stole down upon us; above all, the triumphant palm trees clashed their
+melodious branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet from the very gates
+of this paradise a changeful current swept us onward, and the happy isle
+was buried in night and distance.
+
+In many volumes of adventure I had read of sea-perils: I was at last to
+learn the full interpretation of their picturesque horrors. Our little
+craft, the Petrel, had buffeted the boisterous waves for five long
+weeks. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was edible: we feared neither
+famine nor thirst. Moreover, in spite of the continuous gale that swept
+us out of our reckoning, the Petrel was in excellent condition, and, as
+far as we could judge, we had no reason to lose confidence in her. It
+was the gray weather that tried our patience and found us wanting: it
+was the unparalleled pitching of the ninety-ton schooner that
+disheartened and almost dismembered us. And then it was wasting time at
+sea. Why were we not long before at our journey's end? Why were we not
+threading the vales of some savage island, reaping our rich reward of
+ferns and shells and gorgeous butterflies?
+
+The sea rang its monotonous changes--fair weather and foul, days like
+death itself, followed by days full of the revelations of new life, but
+mostly days of deadly dullness, when the sea was as unpoetical as an
+eternity of cold suds and blueing.
+
+I cannot always understand the logical fitness of things, or, rather, I
+am at a loss to know why some things in life are so unfit and illogical.
+Of course, in our darkest hour, when we were gathered in the confines of
+the Petrel's diminutive cabin, it was our duty to sing psalms of hope
+and cheer, but we didn't. It was a time for mutual encouragement: very
+few of us were self-sustaining, and what was to be gained by our
+combining in unanimous despair?
+
+Our weatherbeaten skipper--a thing of clay that seemed utterly incapable
+of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial contortion
+consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw--the skipper sat,
+with barometer in hand, eyeing the fatal finger that pointed to our
+doom: the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table, glad
+of any object to fix our eyes upon, and nervously awaiting a turn in the
+state of affairs, that was then by no means encouraging.
+
+I happened to remember that there were some sealed letters to be read
+from time to time on the passage out, and it occurred to me that one of
+the times had come, perhaps the last and only, wherein I might break the
+remaining seals and receive a sort of parting visit from the fortunate
+friends on shore.
+
+I opened one letter and read these prophetic lines: "Dear child"--she
+was twice my age, and privileged to make a pet of me--"Dear child, I
+have a presentiment that we shall never meet again in the flesh."
+
+That dear girl's intuition came near to being the death of me: I
+shuddered where I sat, overcome with remorse. It was enough that I had
+turned my back on her and sought consolation in the treacherous bosom of
+the ocean--that, having failed to find the spring of immortal life in
+human affection, I had packed up and emigrated, content to fly the ills
+I had in search of change; but that parting shot, below the water-line
+as it were, that was more than I asked for, and something more than I
+could stomach. I returned to watch with the rest of our little company,
+who clung about the table with a pitiful sense of momentary security,
+and an expression of pathetic condolence on every countenance, as though
+each were sitting out the last hours of the others.
+
+Our particular bane that night was a crusty old sea-dog whose memory of
+wrecks and marine disasters of every conceivable nature was as complete
+as an encyclopaedia. This "old man of the sea" spun his tempestuous yarn
+with fascinating composure, and the whole company was awed into silence
+with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been
+air-tight--it was as close as possible--yet we heard the shrieking of
+the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves
+rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam
+buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing
+stricken with sudden fear: we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a
+great bubble that was, sooner or later, certain to burst and let us drop
+into its vast, black chasm, where in Cimmerian darkness we should be
+entombed for ever.
+
+The scenic effect, as I then considered, was unnecessarily vivid: as I
+now recall it, it seems to me strictly in keeping and thoroughly
+dramatic. At any rate, you might have told us a dreadful story with
+almost fatal success.
+
+I had still one letter left--one bearing this suggestive legend: "To be
+read in the saddest hour." Now, if there is a sadder hour in all time
+than the hour of hopeless and friendless death, I care not to know of
+it. I broke the seal of my letter, feeling that something charitable and
+cheering would give me strength. A few dried leaves were stored within
+it. The faint fragrance of summer bowers reassured me: somewhere in the
+blank world of waters there was land, and there Nature was kind and
+fruitful: out over the fearful deluge this leaf was borne to me in the
+return of the invisible dove my heart had sent forth in its extremity. A
+song was written therein, perhaps a song of triumph: I could now silence
+the clamorous tongue of our sea-monster, who was glutting us with tales
+of horror, for a jubilee was at hand, and here was the first note of its
+trumpets.
+
+I read:
+
+    Beyond the parting and the meeting
+        I shall be soon:
+    Beyond the farewell and the greeting,
+    Beyond the pulse's fever-beating,
+        I shall be soon.
+
+I paused. A night black with croaking ravens, brooding over a slimy
+hulk, through whose warped timbers the sea oozed--that was the sort of
+picture that arose before me. I looked farther for a crumb of comfort:
+
+    Beyond the gathering and the strewing
+        I shall be soon:
+    Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,
+    Beyond the coming and the going,
+        I shall be soon.
+
+A tide of ice-water seemed rippling up and down my spinal column: the
+marrow congealed within my bones. But I recovered. When a man has supped
+full of horror, and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself
+and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.
+
+Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated Petrel resumed his
+lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the
+barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of
+gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in
+idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove
+to" in the teeth of the gale.
+
+The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man
+who floated about in a waterlogged hulk for three months--who saw all
+his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch
+alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the staunch French brig La
+Perle, bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough weather
+from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a cyclone
+burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon her
+beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts
+were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling
+like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was
+swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into
+the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and
+gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched
+souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and
+despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a
+drop of water remained: then their tongues were loosened, and they
+railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate:
+one man alone was speechless--a Spaniard with a wicked light in his eye,
+and a repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than
+once.
+
+When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost
+miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the
+brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various
+projects for the capture of them: tough as a shark is, they would
+willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same. Somehow,
+though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden
+lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the
+shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and
+divided equally among the crew: some ate a little, and reserved the rest
+for another day; some ate till they were sick, and had little left for
+the next meal. The Spaniard with the evil eye greedily devoured his
+portion, and then grew moody again, refusing to speak with the others,
+who were striving to be cheerful, though it was sad enough work.
+
+When the food was all gone save a few mouthfuls that one meagre eater
+had hoarded to the last, the Spaniard resolved to secure a morsel at the
+risk of his life. It had been a point of honor with the men to observe
+sacredly the right of ownership, and any breach of confidence would have
+been considered unpardonable. At night, when the watch was sleeping, the
+Spaniard cautiously removed the last mouthful of shark hidden in the
+pocket of his mate, but was immediately detected and accused of theft.
+He at once grew desperate, struck at the poor wretch whom he had robbed,
+missed his blow, and fell headlong from the narrow platform in the
+foretop, and was lost in the sea. It was the first scene in the mournful
+tragedy about to be enacted on that limited stage.
+
+There was less disturbance after the disappearance of the Spaniard: the
+spirits of the doomed sailors seemed broken: in fact, the captain was
+the only one whose courage was noteworthy, and it was his indomitable
+will that ultimately saved him.
+
+One by one the minds of the miserable men gave way: they became peevish
+or delirious, and then died horribly. Two, who had been mates for many
+voyages in the seas north and south, vanished mysteriously in the night:
+no one could tell where they went nor in what manner, though they seemed
+to have gone together.
+
+Somehow, these famishing sailors seemed to feel assured that their
+captain would be saved: they were as confident of their own doom, and to
+him they entrusted a thousand messages of love. They would lie around
+him--for few of them had strength to assume a sitting posture--and
+reveal to him the story of their lives. It was most pitiful to hear the
+confessions of these dying men. One said: "I wronged my friend; I was
+unkind to this one or to that one; I deserve the heaviest punishment God
+can inflict upon me;" and then he paused, overcome with emotion. But
+another took up the refrain: "I could have done much good, but I would
+not, and now it is too late." And a third cried out in his despair: "I
+have committed unpardonable sins, and there is no hope for me. Lord
+Jesus, have mercy!" The youngest of these perishing souls was a mere
+lad: he too accused himself bitterly. He began his story at the
+beginning, and continued it from time to time as the spirit of
+revelation moved him: scarcely an incident, however insignificant,
+escaped him in his pitiless retrospect. Oh the keen agony of that boy's
+recital! more cruel than hunger or thirst, and in comparison with which
+physical torture would have seemed merciful and any death a blessing.
+
+While the luckless Perle drifted aimlessly about, driven slowly onward
+by varying winds under a cheerless sky, sickness visited them: some were
+stricken with scurvy; some had lost the use of their limbs and lay
+helpless, moaning and weeping hour after hour; vermin devoured them,
+and when their garments were removed and cleansed in the salt water,
+there was scarcely sunshine enough to dry them before night, and they
+were put on again, damp, stiffened with salt, and shrunken so as to
+cripple the wearers, who were all blistered and covered with boils. The
+nights were bitter cold: sometimes the icy moon looked down upon them;
+sometimes the bosom of an electric cloud burst over them, and they were
+enveloped for a moment in a sheet of flame. Sharks lingered about them,
+waiting to feed upon the unhappy ones who fell into the sea overcome
+with physical exhaustion, or who cast themselves from that dizzy
+scaffold, unable longer to endure the horrors of lingering death. Flocks
+of sea-fowl hovered over them; the hull of the Perle was crusted with
+barnacles; long skeins of sea-grass knotted themselves in her gaping
+seams; myriads of fish darted in and out among the clinging weeds,
+sporting gleefully; schools of porpoises leaped about them, lashing the
+sea into foam; sometimes a whale blew his long breath close under them.
+Everywhere was the stir of jubilant life--everywhere but under the
+tattered awning stretched in the foretop of the Perle.
+
+Days and weeks dragged on. When the captain would waken from his
+sleep--which was not always at night, however, for the nights were
+miserably cold and sleepless--when he wakened he would call the roll:
+perhaps some one made no answer; then he would reach forth and touch the
+speechless body and find it dead. He had not strength now to bury the
+corpses in the sea's sepulchre; he had not strength even to partake of
+the unholy feast of the inanimate flesh: he lay there in the midst of
+pestilence, and at night, under the merciful veil of darkness, the fowls
+of the air gathered about him and bore away their trophy of corruption.
+
+By and by there were but two left of all that suffering crew--the
+captain and the boy--and these two clung together like ghosts, defying
+mortality. They strove to be patient and hopeful: if they could not
+eat, they could drink, for the nights were dewy, and sometimes a mist
+covered them--a mist so dense it seemed almost to drip from the rags
+that poorly sheltered them. A cord was attached to the shrouds, the end
+of it carefully laid in the mouth of a bottle slung in the rigging. Down
+the thin cord slid occasional drops: one by one they stole into the
+bottle, and by morning there was a spoonful of water to moisten those
+parched lips--sweet, crystal drops, more blessed than tears, for _they_
+are salt--more precious than pearls. A thousand prayers of gratitude
+seemed hardly to quiet the souls of the lingering ones for that great
+charity of Heaven.
+
+There came a day when the hearts of God's angels must have bled for the
+suffering ones. The breeze was fresh and fair; the sea tossed gayly its
+foam-crested waves; sea-birds soared in wider circles, and the clouds
+shook out their fleecy folds, through which the sunlight streamed in
+grateful warmth: the two ghosts were talking, as ever, of home, of
+earth, of land. Land--land anywhere, so that it were solid and broad.
+Oh, to pace again a whole league without turning! Oh, to pause in the
+shadow of some living tree!--to drink of some stream whose waters flowed
+continually--flowed, though you drank of them with the awful thirst of
+one who has been denied water for weeks, and weeks, and weeks!--for
+three whole months--an eternity, as it seemed to them!
+
+Then they pictured life as it might be if God permitted them to return
+to earth once more. They would pace K----street at noon, and revisit
+that capital restaurant where many a time they had feasted, though in
+those days they were unknown to one another; they would call for coffee,
+and this dish and that dish, and a whole bill of fare, the thought of
+which made their feverish palates grow moist again. They would meet
+friends whom they had never loved as they now loved them; they would
+reconcile old feuds and forgive everybody everything; they held
+imaginary conversations, and found life very beautiful and greatly to
+be desired; and somehow they would get back to the little _cafe_ and
+there begin eating again, and with a relish that brought the savory
+tastes and smells vividly before them, and their lips would move and the
+impalpable morsels roll sweetly over their tongues.
+
+It had become a second nature to scour the horizon with jealous eyes:
+never for a moment during their long martyrdom had their covetous sight
+fixed upon a stationary object. But it came at last. Out of a cloud a
+sail burst like a flickering flame. What an age it was a-coming! how it
+budded and blossomed like a glorious white flower, that was transformed
+suddenly into a barque bearing down upon them! Almost within hail it
+stayed its course, the canvas fluttered in the wind; the dark hull
+slowly rose and fell upon the water; figures moved to and fro--men,
+living and breathing men! Then the ghosts staggered to their feet and
+cried to God for mercy. Then they waved their arms, and beat their
+breasts, and lifted up their imploring voices, beseeching deliverance
+out of that horrible bondage. Tears coursed down their hollow cheeks,
+their limbs quaked, their breath failed them: they sank back in despair,
+speechless and forsaken.
+
+Why did they faint in the hour of deliverance when that narrow chasm was
+all that separated them from renewed life? Because the barque spread out
+her great white wings and soared away, hearing not the faint voices,
+seeing not the thin shadows that haunted that drifting wreck. The
+forsaken ones looked out from their eyrie, and watched the lessening
+sail until sight failed them, and then the lad with one wild cry leaped
+toward the speeding barque, and was swallowed up in the sea.
+
+Alone in a wilderness of waters! Alone, without compass or rudder, borne
+on by relentless winds into the lonesome, dreary, shoreless ocean of
+despair, within whose blank and forbidding sphere no voyager ventures;
+across whose desolate waste dawn sends no signal and night brings no
+reprieve; but whose sun is cold, and whose moon is clouded, and whose
+stars withdraw into space, and where the insufferable silence of vacancy
+shall not be broken for all time.
+
+O pitiless Nature! thy irrevocable laws argue rare sacrifice in the
+waste places of God's universe!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Petrel gave a tremendous lurch, that sent two or three of us into
+the lee corners of the cabin; a sea broke over us, bursting in the
+companion-hatch, and half filling our small and insecure retreat; the
+swinging lamp was thrown from its socket and extinguished; we were
+enveloped in pitch-darkness, up to our knees in salt water. There was a
+moment of awful silence: we could not tell whether the light of day
+would ever visit us again; we thought perhaps it wouldn't. But the
+Petrel rose once more upon the watery hilltops and shook herself free of
+the cumbersome deluge; and at that point, when she seemed to be riding
+more easily than usual, some one broke the silence: "Well, did the
+captain of the Perle live to tell the tale?"
+
+Yes, he did. God sent a messenger into the lonesome deep, where the
+miserable man was found insensible, with eyes wide open against the
+sunlight, and lips shrunken apart--a hideous breathing corpse. When he
+was lifted in the arms of the brave fellows who had gone to his rescue,
+he cried "Great God! am I saved?" as though he couldn't believe it when
+it was true: then he fainted, and was nursed through a long delirium,
+and was at last restored to health and home and happiness.
+
+Our cabin-boy managed to fish up the lamp, and after a little we were
+illuminated: the agile swab soon sponged out the cabin, and we resumed
+our tedious watch for dawn and fairer weather.
+
+Somehow, my mind brooded over the solitary wreck that was drifting about
+the sea: I could fancy the rotten timbers of the Perle clinging
+together, by a miracle, until the Ancient Mariner was taken away from
+her, and then, when she was alone again, with nothing whatever in sight
+but blank blue sea and blank blue sky, she lay for an hour or so,
+bearded with shaggy sea-moss and looking about a thousand years old.
+Suddenly it occurred to her that her time had come--that she had
+outlived her usefulness, and might as well go to pieces at once. So she
+yawned in all her timbers, and the sea reached up over her, and laid
+hold of her masts, and seemed to be slowly drawing her down into its
+bosom. There was not an audible sound, and scarcely a ripple upon the
+water, but when the waves had climbed into the foretop, there was a
+clamor of affrighted birds, and a myriad bubbles shot up to the surface,
+where a few waifs floated and whirled about for a moment. It was all
+that marked the spot where the Perle went down to her eternal rest.
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried our skipper, with something almost like a change of
+expression on his mahogany countenance, "the barometer is rising!" and
+sure enough it was. In two hours the Petrel acted like a different craft
+entirely, and by and by came daybreak, and after that the sea went down,
+down, down, into a deep, dead calm, when all the elements seemed to have
+gone to sleep after their furious warfare. Like half-drowned flies we
+crawled out of the close, ill-smelling cabin to dry ourselves in the
+sun: there, on the steaming deck of the schooner, we found new life, and
+in the hope that dawned with it we grew lusty and jovial.
+
+Such a flat, oily sea as it was then! So transparent that we saw great
+fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark
+drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface
+like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish
+darting hither and thither, striped like little one-legged harlequins.
+
+Flat-headed gonies sat high on the water, piping their querulous note
+as they tugged at something edible, a dozen of them entering into the
+domestic difficulty: one after another would desert the cause, run a
+little way over the sea to get a good start, leap heavily into the air,
+sail about for a few minutes, and then drop back on the sea, feet
+foremost, and skate for a yard or two, making a white mark and a
+pleasant sound as it slid over the water.
+
+The exquisite nautilus floated past us, with its gauzy sail set, looking
+like a thin slice out of a soap-bubble; the strange anemone laid its
+pale, sensitive petals on the lips of the wave and panted in ecstasy:
+the Petrel rocked softly, swinging her idle canvas in the sun; we heard
+the click of the anchor-chain in the forecastle, the blessedest
+sea-sound I wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and
+tossed down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned: the man at
+the wheel struck two bells--it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went
+the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the
+fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were
+about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much
+longer. Then came the purplest twilight; and then the sky blossomed all
+over with the biggest, ripest, goldenest stars--such stars as hang like
+fruits in sun-fed orchards; such stars as lay a track of fire in the
+sea; such stars as rise and set over mountains and beyond low green
+capes, like young moons, every one of them; and I conjured up my spells
+of savage enchantment, my blessed islands, my reefs baptized with silver
+spray; I saw the broad fan-leaves of the banana droop in the motionless
+air, and through the tropical night the palms aspired heavenward, while
+I lay dreaming my sea-dream in the cradle of the deep.
+
+                        CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.
+
+
+
+
+HER CHANCE.
+
+
+Mary Trigillgus tucked the money away in her purse. It was a very small
+sum, but it was the utmost that could be spared for the evening outfit:
+she and her mother had talked it all over, and such was the decision.
+
+"Now, Mary," said her mother, "don't get a tarletan, or anything
+exclusively for evening wear: you so seldom go to parties that you can't
+afford such a dress. I would try to get a nice silk. Something that's a
+little out of style by being made up fashionably might answer very
+well."
+
+Mary gave a sigh and turned her face toward the shops, feeling how
+difficult it would be to purchase a fashionable outfit with the scanty
+sum in her purse. And she sighed many another time that afternoon as she
+went from shop to shop. The goods were too expensive for her slender
+purse, or they were poor or old-fashioned. Twilight was settling down on
+the gay streets; window after window was flashing into light, revealing
+misty laces with gay ribbons and silks streaming like banners; the
+lamplighters on every hand were building their walls of flame; and yet
+Mary wandered from store to store, each moment more bewildered and
+undecided as to the best investment for her money.
+
+She approached a brilliant store, passed it with lingering step, then
+paused, turned back, and stood looking down the glittering aisle. The
+large mirror at the farther end seemed scarcely broader than the little
+cracked bureau-glass in her humble room before which she dressed her
+hair in the mornings. The clerks were hurrying to and fro, eager and
+business-like, while fine ladies were coming and going, jostling her as
+she stood just outside the door. Among the hurrying forms her eye sought
+one familiar and loved: not a woman's, I need scarcely say, else why
+does she stand in the shadow there, with her veil half drawn over her
+face, trembling and frightened? Why else does her cheek glow with shame?
+
+Poor Mary! You feel like a guilty thing in thus seeking a man who has
+never declared his love; but let me whisper a word in your ear: True
+love is woman's blue ribbon of honor: without it her nature is the rose
+tree without the rose--the dead egg among the cliffs: quickened by the
+grand passion, it is the eagle soaring to the stars. Your heart is a
+grander thing now than ever before. Next to loving God, the best thing
+for woman is to love a good man. Take the comfort of this thought, and
+leave the humiliation to the heart too hard or too light for loving.
+
+Were I looking into your eyes, my reader, telling my story by word of
+mouth, I can fancy we might hold something like this dialogue: "Whom was
+Mary Trigillgus, this keeper of a small day-school--whom was she seeking
+in this brilliant store? One of the underclerks, perhaps?" "No." "The
+bookkeeper?" "No." "The confidential clerk?" "You must guess again."
+"The junior partner?" "No, it was Christian Van Pelt, the sole
+proprietor of that fine establishment, one of the merchant princes of
+the city." "But what right had Mary Trigillgus, this obscure
+school-teacher, to love this man of fortune? How did she ever come to
+his acquaintance?" And then I should tell you a very long story, and a
+tedious one perhaps, of two Hollanders, close friends, who settled in
+New Amsterdam; of how fortune had prospered the one until Christian Van
+Pelt, his lineal descendant, was among the leaders in the dry-goods
+trade of New York City; of how various disasters had befallen the family
+of the other, until the daughter of the house, and its only lineal
+descendant, Mary Trigillgus's mother, had married an intemperate
+spendthrift, who had at his death left her penniless, though the
+grandchild, Mary Trigillgus, had inherited the small house in which
+mother and daughter found a home.
+
+In the back parlor Mary kept a school for small children: the front
+chamber was let to a quiet man, who went down town at eight and returned
+at five, and whom they seldom saw except when he rapped at the
+sitting-room door on the first day of every month to hand in the three
+five-dollar bills which covered his rent. Besides these sources of
+revenue there were a few day-boarders, who sometimes paid for their
+keeping and sometimes did not.
+
+An intercourse and a show of friendship had all along been maintained
+between the families of these Hollanders; and now Mrs. Van Pelt, the
+young merchant's mother, was to give a large party. Mary Trigillgus had
+been invited, and her mother had insisted on an acceptance of the
+invitation.
+
+"They are quite friendly to you, Mary, and you can't afford to throw
+away such friends," the mother said.
+
+So it was for Christian Van Pelt's broad, square figure that Mary's
+eager eyes were seeking; but in vain they sought: it was nowhere to be
+seen. A choking feeling of disappointment rose in her heart--a
+disappointment very unequal to the occasion, since she had meant nothing
+more than to get a sight of the loved figure and then to go on her way.
+Having satisfied herself that he was not in the store, a yearning desire
+possessed her to enter the place where he every day walked--a place to
+her invested with romance, haunted by his presence--a place to which her
+thoughts often wandered as some stupid child stood by her side in the
+little school-room spelling out his reading-lesson. She had not for
+months entered the store--not since that evening when, in her poor
+parlor, Christian Van Pelt, the rich young merchant, had looked into her
+eyes with a look that thrilled her for many a day, and spoken some
+nothings in tones that set her heart throbbing. Indeed, since that day
+she had avoided passing the store, lest she might seem, even to herself,
+to be seeking him. And yet her poor eyes and heart were ever seeking
+him in the countless throngs that passed up and down the busy streets.
+
+"I'll get my dress from his store," she said mentally. "I shall wear it
+with the greater pleasure that he has handled it. My patronage will be
+to him but as the drop to the ocean," she said with a little bitterness,
+"but it will be a sweet thought to me that I have contributed even one
+drop to the flood of his prosperity."
+
+So she entered Christian Van Pelt's trade-palace, and said, in answer to
+the smart clerk's look of inquiry, "I am looking for a silk that will do
+for the evening and also for the street--something a little out of
+style, perhaps, might answer."
+
+"We have some bargains in such silks--elegant dress-patterns at a third
+of what they cost us in Paris. Step this way;" and Mary found herself
+going back and back through the spacious building, with her image
+advancing to meet her.
+
+In a few seconds the counter was strewn with silks at most enticing
+figures, and the clerk showed them off to such advantage, gathering them
+so dexterously into elegant folds, shifting them so skillfully in the
+brilliant gas-light, persuading the lady, in the mean while, in such a
+clever, lawyer-like way: "These cost us in Paris three times the money I
+am offering them for, and they are but very little _passe_; there is an
+extraordinary demand for them; they are going like wildfire; country
+merchants are ordering them by the score; we sent eighty pieces to
+Chicago, to one house, yesterday, and fifty patterns to Omaha this
+morning; one hundred and ten we last week shipped to the South; the
+whole lot will perhaps be sold by to-morrow," etc.--that poor Mary felt
+like a speculator on the verge of a great chance. So she decided on a
+light-green brocade, and could not gainsay the smooth-tongued clerk as
+he assured her, while tying the bundle, that she had secured a very
+handsome and elegant dress at a great bargain.
+
+The next day Mary and her mother spent in studying and discussing the
+latest fashion-plates, but the elaborate descriptions of expensive
+costumes plunged the girl into another state of bewilderment and slough
+of despond. She heartily regretted having accepted the invitation. She
+began to dread the party as an execution--to shrink from exhibiting
+herself to Christian with the fine ladies and gentlemen who would form
+the company at Mrs. Van Pelt's. However, the dress was cut and made, and
+in this there was a fair degree of success, for necessity had taught
+these women considerable skill in the use of the scissors and needle.
+The dress was trimmed with some handsome old lace that had been in the
+mother's family for years. Mrs. Trigillgus pronounced the dress very
+handsome as she spread it on the bed and stepped off to survey it, and
+even the despondent Mary took heart, and as she surveyed her image in
+the mirror at the conclusion of her toilet for the important evening,
+she felt a degree of complacency toward herself--a feeling of admiration
+even.
+
+"You look like a snowdrop, dear," said the mother fondly; and the
+comparison was not inapt, for the young girl's Saxon complexion and fair
+hair were in pretty contrast with the lace-decked silk of delicate green
+falling about her.
+
+As she had no attendant, she went early to Mrs. Van Pelt's, feeling at
+liberty to be unceremonious; and she thought, with a beating heart, that
+Christian would be her escort home. Mrs. Van Pelt was not in the parlor
+when Mary entered, but Christian received her kindly, though with a
+slight embarrassment that embarrassed her. She tried to keep the
+love-flicker from her eyes and the love-tremor from her voice as she sat
+there alone with the man she loved, trying to reply indifferently to his
+indifferent remarks, and wondering if he could not hear the beating of
+her heart. She was greatly relieved at the entrance of Mrs. Van Pelt.
+When this lady had kissed her guest, she stepped off a few paces and
+looked the girl over.
+
+"Your dress is very becoming, my dear," she said, "but why did you get a
+brocade? Don't you know that brocades are out of style? Nobody wears
+brocades; and they are not trimming with lace at all. I wish you had
+advised with me."
+
+The blood rushed to Mary's face. Though she did not turn her eyes to
+Christian's, she knew that they were looking at her--that he was noting
+her confusion and comprehending its cause. "He knows why I have bought
+this brocade," was her thought, "and he knows that I am humiliated in
+having my poverty held up to his view. Of course Christian knows that I
+am poor, and he must know, as a consequence, that I wear poor clothes. I
+can endure that he should know this in a general way, while I shrink
+from having the details of my poverty revealed to him. I would not wish
+my patched gaiters and darned stockings held up for his inspection."
+
+Mary hesitated a moment before replying to Mrs. Van Pelt's criticism.
+Then, with a feeling that it was better to acknowledge a poverty of
+which both her companions were cognizant than an ignorance of style, she
+said, with a slight kindling of the eye, "I decided on this dress from
+economical considerations, and the lace is some which my mother's
+great-grandmother brought from Holland.--I have reminded them, at least,
+that I had a grandfather," she thought.
+
+As she finished speaking she lifted her eyes to Christian's. She could
+not understand the expression she saw there. But the poor girl's
+satisfaction in her dress was all gone. She was ready to reproach her
+mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if
+it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when
+nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my
+grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at
+least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I
+am the silly moth in the candle."
+
+If these were Mary's thoughts as she sat there with her two friends,
+what must they have become as the regally-dressed ladies, one after
+another, were announced? There were the majestic sweep of velvet, the
+floating of cloudlike gossamer, the flashing diamond, the starry pearl,
+the flaming ruby, the blazing carbuncle. There were marvelous toilets
+where contrast and harmony and picturesqueness--the effect of every
+color and ornament--had been patiently studied as the artist studies
+each shade and line on his canvas. And when the laugh and the jest and
+the wit were sounding all about her, and the intoxicating music came
+sweeping in from the dancing-room, there came over Mary a lost feeling
+amid the strange faces and voices--a bewildered, dizzy feeling, such as
+the semi-conscious opium-eater might have, half real, half dreaming. It
+was all so strange, so separate from her, as though, herself invisible,
+she was watching a festival among a different order of beings. Everybody
+was coming and going, continually varying his pastime, while she sat as
+unobserved as though invisible. Occasionally an eye-glass was leveled at
+her, or some lady accidentally placed beside her superciliously
+inspected the lace and green brocade.
+
+Mrs. Van Pelt found her in the course of the evening, and insisted that
+she should go to the dancing-room and see the dancing. Mary begged to
+remain seated where she was. She dreaded any move that would render her
+more conspicuous, and dreaded especially being recalled to Christian's
+mind. But the hostess insisted, so the wretched girl crept out of her
+retreat, and with a dizzy step traversed the parlors and halls to the
+dancing-rooms. The band was playing a delicious waltz, and graceful
+ladies and elegant gentlemen were moving to its measures. Mary's eyes
+soon discovered Christian waltzing with a young girl in a rose-colored
+silk. She was not a marked beauty, but the face was refined and pretty,
+and was uplifted to Christian's with a look of listening interest. A
+pang of jealousy shot through Mary's heart as she saw this and noted the
+close embrace in which Christian held his partner, with his face bent
+down to hers. Soon they came whirling by.
+
+"There is Christian with Miss Jerome," said Mrs. Van Pelt. "Her father
+is said to be worth four millions."
+
+The next moment Mrs. Van Pelt was called away, and Mary was again left
+to her isolation. With a dread of having Christian see her there,
+old-fashioned and neglected, a stranger to every individual in the
+assemblage of wealth and fashion, she slipped quietly away into the
+library, where some elderly people were playing whist. She would have
+gone home, but she lived in an obscure street some distance away. With a
+sense of suffocation she now remembered that she would have to recall
+herself to Christian's mind, for she must depend upon him to see her
+home. "He has not thought of me once this evening," she said bitterly.
+Soon supper was announced. Gentlemen and ladies began to pair off, not
+one mindful of her. She was hesitating between remaining there in the
+library and going unattended to the refreshment-room, when a
+white-haired gentleman entered from the parlor. He glanced at Mary, and
+was passing on when he paused and looked again. A moment of hesitation
+ensued while the young girl and the old gentleman gazed at each other.
+
+"Miss Trigillgus, I believe?" he said, finally. "My name is Ten Eyck. I
+knew your mother when she was a girl, and I knew her father. Allow me
+the pleasure of escorting you to supper."
+
+Mary took the proffered arm with the feeling of one who unexpectedly
+encounters a friend in a foreign land.
+
+As he reseated her in the library after supper he said, "Present me
+kindly to your mother: if ever I can serve her, I should be glad to do
+so."
+
+At length the party was ended. Every guest had gone except Miss
+Trigillgus.
+
+"I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you to see me home, Mr. Van Pelt,"
+she said to Christian with a burning at her heart.
+
+"Allow me the pleasure, you mean to say," replied Christian with a bow.
+
+This was but a passing pleasantry, and Mary should not have allowed it
+to bring the color to her cheek, and that peculiar, half-disdainful look
+to her eye and lip.
+
+"I fear you haven't had a pleasant evening," said Mrs. Van Pelt as Mary
+took leave of her hostess.
+
+"It was not to be expected that I should, being an entire stranger."
+
+"Well, dear, come and spend a quiet evening with me soon; and give my
+love to your mother."
+
+Mary went up to the dressing-room, and soon reappeared, looking demure
+and nun-like in her white hood and black-and-white plaid shawl. How she
+dreaded the ride home with Christian! and yet for a whole week she had
+been longing for this very thing. The thought of the party had always
+brought the throbbing anticipation of the ride with Christian after the
+party. How near he had seemed then, and ever since the memorable evening
+when they had sat together over that book of engravings! How happy she
+had been then! how hopeful of his love! But now, what a gulf there
+seemed between them! What had she to do with this atmosphere of wealth
+and luxury and fashion where Christian dwelt? He had been pleased to
+amuse himself for a brief space with looking into her eyes, with making
+some silly speeches, which he had straightway forgotten, but which
+she--poor fool!--had laid away in her heart.
+
+Thus she was thinking as Christian handed her into the carriage. She
+wondered what he would talk about. For a time there was a constrained
+and painful silence, and Mary tried to think of something to say, that
+she might hide her aching heart from his merciless gaze. Finally she
+remarked that the streets were quiet, and he that the night was fine;
+and in such commonplaces the ride was passed.
+
+Mary found her mother up, eager to learn her impressions of the first
+large party she had ever attended.
+
+"I am very tired, mother," she said, determined to end the torturing
+inquisition, "and am aching to get to bed. I'll tell you about the party
+to-morrow. Don't call me early: let me have a good sleep."
+
+With a feeling of sickening disgust she laid off the silk and lace and
+flowers which a few hours before had so pleased her. The pale face
+which met her as she stood before her mirror was very unlike the happy,
+expectant face she had seen there in the early evening. Turning from the
+piteous image, she hurriedly put the mean dress away, longing to have
+the sheltering darkness about her. Soon she had laid her head on the
+pillow, where, with eyes staring into the darkness, it throbbed for a
+weary while. "What am I to Christian Van Pelt?" This was the question
+the poor heart argued and re-argued. One sweet delicious evening stood
+over against this last, so full of heartache.
+
+The next morning Mary felt weary with all the world. Her home seemed
+poorer and meaner than ever; the boarders disgusted her with their
+coarseness; teaching was unrelieved drudgery; everything was
+distasteful. To her mother's renewed inquiries about the party she
+replied wearily, "My dress was poor and mean, mother; and had I spent
+our year's income on my toilet, it would have still been poor, compared
+with those I saw last night. For such as I there is nothing in
+fashionable life but heart-burning and humiliation."
+
+A few days after this there came from Mrs. Van Pelt to Miss Trigillgus
+an invitation to tea. She at once longed and dreaded to meet Christian;
+so the invitation was declined on the plea of indisposition. It was
+renewed two evenings, later, and she was obliged to accept it. Mary
+never looked better than on that evening. She wore a blue empress-cloth,
+which heightened the fairness of her complexion and of her bright hair.
+After tea she and Mrs. Van Pelt were looking at some old pictures. They
+were discussing an ambrotype of herself, taken when she was thirteen,
+when a servant announced guests in the parlor.
+
+"You were a pretty child, my dear," said Mrs. Van Pelt, rising to go to
+the parlor, "and you are a handsome woman--a beautiful woman, I may
+say--your beauty ought to be a fortune to you--but you lack style. I
+must take you in hand," she continued, talking all the way to the door.
+"I shall need some amusement after Christian's marriage, to keep me
+from being jealous of his little wife;" and she disappeared through the
+door, little dreaming of the arrow she had sent to the poor heart.
+
+Mary caught her breath, and Christian saw her stagger at the shot. Taken
+by surprise, completely off his guard, he opened his arms and received
+the stricken girl in his bosom, and pressed his lips to hers. But Mary
+had not lost her consciousness. Quickly recovering, she disengaged
+herself and reached a chair. She was more self-possessed than he. He sat
+down beside her, quivering in every fibre.
+
+"Mary! Mary!" he cried in passionate beseechment, "I never meant to win
+your love to betray it. We have both been surprised into a confession of
+our love for each other, and now let me lay open my heart to you. I do
+love you, as you must have seen, for I have not been always able to keep
+the love out of my eyes and voice. You will recall one evening--I know
+you must remember it--when I was near declaring my love and asking you
+to be my wife. I don't know why I did not--why I left my story but half
+told. I sometimes wish that I had declared myself fully, and that we
+were now pledged to each other. But the very next morning I sustained
+heavy losses in my business, and others soon followed, and to-day I am
+threatened with utter ruin. If I cannot raise a hundred thousand dollars
+this week, and as much in another week, I am a bankrupt. And now you
+will understand why in two days I am to marry Miss Jerome."
+
+Mary started again. Was the execution, then, so near? She drew a long
+breath, as though gathering her strength for a hard struggle.
+"Christian," she said in a low tone that trembled with the energy
+underlying it, "my poor Christian, you are bewildered. These troubles
+have shut the light away from your path, and you have lost your way in
+the darkness. If this is true which you have told me, do you not see
+that when you have delivered yourself from this threatened bankruptcy,
+you are yet a bankrupt--a bankrupt in heart and happiness? How can you
+weigh wealth and position against the best good than can ever come to
+either of us? I am not afraid of poverty, for I have known nothing else;
+and surely you do not dread it for yourself. This love is the one good
+thing which God has permitted in my pitiless destiny. Am I unwomanly? If
+I plead for my life, who can blame me? And shall that which is more than
+life go from me without a word? Oh, I cannot smile and look cold as
+though I was not hurt: I am pierced and torn. Yet, Christian, for your
+sake, rather than for mine, I entreat. You would bring desolation into
+both our lives. I might endure it, but how could you bear through the
+years the memory of your deed? You are trampling on your manhood. You
+are giving to this woman's hungry heart a stone: you are buying with a
+lie the holiest thing in her womanhood."
+
+"For four generations my house has withstood every financial storm. The
+honorable name which my ancestors bequeathed to me I will maintain at
+every hazard," Christian replied with gloomy energy.
+
+"And you will marry Miss Jerome?"
+
+"Yes: it is my only hope."
+
+"Then God help you, Christian. Your lot is harder than mine. At the
+worst, my life shall be true: I shall hide no lie in my heart, to fester
+there." Her words, begun in tenderness, ended in a tone of scorn. "And
+now I must ask you to see me home."
+
+She left the room, and soon returned cloaked and hooded, to find
+Christian waiting in overcoat and gloves and with hat in hand. With her
+arm in his they walked in perfect silence through the gay, bustling
+streets, passing God knows how many other spirits as sad as their own.
+When they came to the humble little house which was Mary's home,
+Christian stopped on the step as though he would say something, but Mary
+said "Good-night," and passed into the hall.
+
+We magazine-writers have no chance in the space allotted to a short
+story for a quantitative analysis of emotions and situations, or for
+following the processes by which marked changes come about in the human
+heart. We must content ourselves with informing the reader that certain
+changes or modifications ensued, trusting that he will receive the
+statement without requiring reasons or the _modus operandi_.
+
+For a time it seemed to Mary Trigillgus that the sun would never shine
+for her again, but a certain admixture in her feeling of scorn and
+contempt for Christian prevented her from sinking into a total
+despondency. As she revolved day after day the strange separation of two
+lives which should have flowed on together, there grew in her heart a
+kind of bitterness toward the society which had demanded the separation.
+And then the diffused bitterness gathered, and was concentrated on the
+woman and the man who had robbed her of her happiness. Especially did
+her heart rise against Christian Van Pelt. Gold had won him from her: he
+had made his choice between gold and her love; and then she would chafe
+against the poverty which from her earliest recollection had fettered
+her tastes and aspirations, and at every step had been her humiliation.
+And then she would feel a wild, unreasoning longing to win gold. What a
+triumph to earn gold beyond what his wife had brought him--beyond what
+they would together possess! From the time this thought first occurred
+to her it never left her except for brief intervals. Day after day, hour
+after hour, it recurred to her, until she became possessed with it. It
+was in her dreams by night, and with the day she seized and revolved it,
+until her brain whirled with delirium. A hundred wild schemes and
+projects came and went in scurrying confusion. With hungry eyes she read
+the daily advertisements of "Business Chances," "Partners Wanted," etc.,
+and in answering some of these was led into some strange discoveries and
+adventures.
+
+"I am mad! I am losing my reason! More gold than their millions! I
+cannot even make a living for myself, lunatic!" she would say; and
+straightway in fancy would read in the papers the announcement of a
+fortune being left to Mary Trigillgus--of great and marvelous riches
+coming to her--and would thrill with her triumph over Christian Van
+Pelt. She would even pen these announcements to see how they looked, and
+read them aloud to study their sound.
+
+Mrs. Trigillgus grew alarmed at her daughter's unaccountable moods. A
+physician was summoned, who decided that she was overworked, and advised
+a few months in the country. But Mary refused to leave the city, and
+continued to search for her "chance."
+
+One day she was reading the New York _Tribune_, when her eye caught a
+little paragraph in relation to the eclipse of the sun which was to
+occur on the twentieth of August, and of the preparations that were
+being made in the scientific world for its observance--of the universal
+interest it was exciting, etc. etc.
+
+Mary thought of the amount of smoked glass which would be prepared for
+the day, then of the soiled fingers, then of a remedy for this, and
+then--her chance flashed upon her.
+
+For a time she sat there, with kindled eyes, with throbbing heart and
+brain, revolving and shaping her thought. Then she put on her hat and
+took the omnibus for Mr. Ten Eyck's office.
+
+"Mr. Ten Eyck," she said, after the customary commonplaces, "you once
+said that you would be glad to serve my mother. Are you as willing to
+serve her daughter?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Mr. Ten Eyck, growing a little uneasy; "that is, if
+I can, you understand."
+
+"I have urgent need for money."
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck began to fidget visibly.
+
+"I own a house and lot on Thirty-second street. How much money can you
+lend me on it? It is a house of seven rooms."
+
+"I know the house," answered Mr. Ten Eyck. "Your mother's father left it
+to you. There is no encumbrance on it?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Allow me to suggest, Miss Trigillgus, as your mother's old friend,
+that this step should be well considered before it is decided upon. The
+necessity should be very urgent before you mortgage your home. As your
+mother's old friend, may I inquire how you intend using this money? Do
+not answer me if you have any hesitancy in giving me your confidence."
+
+The old gentleman looked at her with such kindly, fatherly solicitude
+that, after a moment of confused hesitation, she answered: "I will give
+the confidence you invite, Mr. Ten Eyck. I have a plan by which I can
+make a fortune in a few days. I propose to manufacture glasses for the
+great eclipse--say three millions of eclipse-glasses--and distribute
+them throughout the United States and the Canadas."
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck stared at her through his golden-bowed glasses: "What kind
+of glasses? Explain yourself more fully."
+
+"I shall buy up all the common glass in New York and Pittsburg, and in
+other cities perhaps, at the lowest possible figure. Much of the refuse
+glass will answer my purpose. I shall have it cut, three inches by five,
+stain it, put two stained surfaces together, and bind with paper. At ten
+cents apiece the gross proceeds of three millions will be three hundred
+thousand dollars."
+
+"And how will you distribute them?"
+
+"Through the news agents," she answered promptly, "and on the same terms
+at which they push the newspapers. By this great system I shall secure a
+simultaneous distribution throughout the whole country."
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck had laid off his glasses and assumed an attitude of deep
+attention: "Suppose it should rain on eclipse-day?"
+
+"I have thought of that contingency. I should anticipate it by having
+the glasses in the market for two or three days preceding the eclipse.
+To give the glass additional value, I should paste on it a printed slip
+stating the hour when the eclipse will begin, the period of its
+duration, and the moment of total obscuration." Then she started and
+glowed with a sudden revelation that came flashing through her brain.
+"I will make the glasses an advertising medium," she continued eagerly.
+"I will make the advertisements pay all the expenses, and much more. Can
+I not find a man in New York City, or somewhere in the United States,
+who would pay a hundred thousand dollars to have three millions of
+people reading in one moment the merits of his wares or of his remedies!
+And if such a man cannot be found, one who will purchase the exclusive
+right to advertise with me, I'll parcel it out. Yes, I can pay all
+expenses with the advertisements; but I must have some ready money to
+begin with--to initiate the enterprise. Will you lend me the money on my
+house and lot?"
+
+Mr. Ten Eyck resumed his glasses, and sat for a long time staring into a
+pigeon-hole of his desk in profound meditation.
+
+"My dear Miss Trigillgus, allow me, as your mother's old friend, to
+speak plainly to you. You are planning an enterprise of such proportions
+that no woman could go through with it. In the most skillful hands great
+risk would attend it, even with abundance of money to back it; and let
+me assure you that a woman without business education and with cramped
+means could have no chance whatever in the arena of experts. Her defeat
+would be inevitable. I would gladly serve you, Miss Trigillgus, and I
+think, pardon me, that my surest way of doing this is to decline making
+the loan you ask, and to advise you, as your mother's old friend, to
+abandon this scheme."
+
+"I shall consider your advice, Mr. Ten Eyck," said Miss Trigillgus, "and
+I thank you for it, whether I act upon it or not;" and she gave a cold
+bow that contradicted her words.
+
+Mary made many other attempts to raise money, but all were unsuccessful.
+A few mornings after this her advertisement appeared in the _Tribune_,
+calling for a partner with ten thousand dollars to take a half interest
+in an enterprise which was sure to net a quarter of a million within a
+month. It had such an extravagant sound that it was set down as a
+humbug, and few answered it. She had interviews with two young men of
+such suspicious appearance that she did not dare reveal her scheme to
+them. Day after day the card appeared with no satisfactory result; and
+Mary perceived with a kind of frenzy the short time in which her great
+work was to be accomplished growing shorter and shorter. She moved
+cautiously, lest her grand idea should be appropriated, but she left no
+stone unturned for raising the money. Finally, on the ninth of August,
+impatient, anxious, nervous, she had six thousand dollars in hand, and
+only ten days intervened before the day of the eclipse. She went
+immediately to an eminent solicitor of patents, who had influence at
+Washington, and made application for a patent for advertising on
+eclipse-glasses. The solicitor thought there was no doubt but that the
+patent could be secured, so that she might freely proceed with her
+enterprise. She next contracted with a glass-factory for five thousand
+dollars' worth of glass, and engaged one hundred men to cut and stain it
+and put up the eclipse-glasses. Then she made several endeavors to see
+the president of the news agency, and after repeated failures she opened
+a correspondence by letter with him, briefly outlining her plan, and
+asking him to undertake through the news agents the distribution of the
+glasses. The next morning she received in response, through the
+post-office, these lines:
+
+
+"MISS TRIGILLGUS: You have been anticipated in your enterprise. We are
+engaged to distribute eclipse-glasses for another party."
+
+As Mary read the cruel words that ended all her hopes, she fell lifeless
+to the floor, and was thus discovered by her mother.
+
+The following day there came a confirmatory note from the solicitor of
+patents, stating that she had been anticipated also in her application
+for a patent.
+
+From this period Mary's moods became indescribable. From a state of
+unrelieved despondency she issued so merry, in such exhilaration, that
+her mother was glad to welcome back the shadowed mood which soon
+succeeded. The sagacity of physicians, of her most familiar
+acquaintances, of her mother, was all at fault. No one could decide
+whether or not her mind was unhinged, whether or not Mary Trigillgus was
+insane; for it must be remembered that her friends were ignorant of the
+events we have been narrating--her love for Christian Van Pelt, her
+disappointment, her grand scheme, the sacrifice of her home and the
+failure of her enterprise.
+
+The nineteenth of August came, the day preceding the grand event of the
+century. Mary Trigillgus and her mother were lingering at the
+breakfast-table. The girl seemed wild and hawk-like, startling her
+mother with her unnatural merriment, commenting with weird brilliancy
+and grotesqueness and sparkle on the various items as Mrs. Trigillgus
+read them. At length she read a paragraph about the eclipse. "'And we
+would advise every reader,'" she continued, "'to furnish himself with an
+eclipse-glass, which he can procure at any of the news depots for the
+sum of ten cents. The glass is nicely finished, and is very perfect for
+the purpose intended. We understand that five millions of these glasses
+have been put into the market, for which the country is indebted to the
+genius and enterprise of our young fellow-citizen, Mr. Christian Van
+Pelt, assisted by Mr. W. V. Ten Eyck.'"
+
+"He has done it! he has again stabbed me!" cried Mary Trigillgus, with
+the maniac's glare in her eyes. "The gold is his--his and hers! Piles of
+gold! and they have cut it out of my heart, dug it out of my brain! I
+have nothing left! Don't you see, mother, I am only an empty shell? Stab
+me here in the heart, where he has stabbed me: it won't hurt. There's
+nothing there! nothing! it's all hollow." There was no longer any doubt
+that Mary Trigillgus's mind was unhinged.
+
+During all that day men and children were crying the eclipse-glasses in
+the street, selling them at every door.
+
+"Hear them! hear them!" the poor maniac would cry. "They are selling
+millions of them! they are piling the gold all about him and her! They
+are to have a palace of gold, and Mary's to have only the ashes. Poor
+Mary! poor Mary! All the good's for them, all the pain's for Mary!" and
+then she would weep herself into a quiet mood of despondency.
+
+The next day, the day of the eclipse, Mary demanded one of the glasses,
+and would not be diverted from her desire. She read the advertisement on
+the eclipse-glass: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher will put out any fire!
+Get one!"
+
+"Mother, get me one: I have a fire here;" and she pressed her hand to
+her brow. She examined the glass again and again, looking it over and
+over, and reading the advertisement aloud: "Babcock's Fire-Extinguisher
+will put out any fire! Get one!" All day long, at short intervals, she
+was running to the window and looking through the glass at the sun.
+
+And when the grand hour arrived for the wonderful phenomenon, when the
+five million glasses were raised to witness the obscuration, and the
+weird twilight had settled over all nature, this young life too had
+passed into a total eclipse, from which it has never for a moment
+emerged.
+
+The poor lunatic never rages. She is sweet and harmless as a child. She
+makes frequent visits to the glass-factories and to the news-rooms to
+inquire after the progress of her enterprise, and over and over again
+makes her contract to advertise the "Babcock Fire-Extinguisher," and
+comes back with promises to her mother of the boundless riches which are
+to flow in upon them.
+
+As for Christian Van Pelt, his wrong to Mary had been unintentional, as
+he was ignorant of her connection with the eclipse-glass scheme. Though
+Mr. Ten Eyck had been honest in advising Miss Trigillgus to abandon her
+plans, under the persuasion that with her limited means and want of
+business training the result could not fail to be disastrous, he yet saw
+that with capital and energy to push it a grand success might be
+achieved. Having little loose capital, and his time being well occupied,
+he unfolded the scheme to Christian Van Pelt, and together they put the
+enterprise through. Mr. Ten Eyck argued that since Miss Trigillgus had
+abandoned the plan, as he really supposed had been the case, he was not
+wronging her by prosecuting it himself. He was one of that numerous
+class who fail to perceive that _ideas_ have commercial value.
+
+                        S. W. Kellogg.
+
+
+
+
+CUBA.
+
+
+"If," wrote Franklin, "you wish a separation to be always possible, take
+the utmost pains that the colonies shall never be incorporated with the
+mother-country. Do not let them share your liberties. Make use of their
+commerce, regulate their industry, tax them at your will, and spend at
+your caprice the wealth thus drawn from them, which costs you nothing.
+Take care to invest the general in charge of them with despotic power,
+and at the same time give him immunity from all colonial control. If the
+colonists protest, do not listen to them, but reply by charges of high
+treason and rebellion. Say that all such complaints are the invention of
+certain demagogues, and that if one could catch and hang these wretched
+fellows all would go well. If need be, arrest and hang them. By
+continuing such a policy you will infallibly arrive at your goal, and to
+a certainty be in a brief time disembarrassed of your colonies."
+
+The above, wrote an accomplished Spaniard a few years ago, applies as
+exactly to the Spanish colonies to-day as it did to those of England at
+the time of our struggle with her. In fact, the misrule in Cuba has been
+fifty times worse than the worst Anglo-Saxon misrule ever known. The
+island has been used by Spain simply as a gold-mine.[J] So far as those
+toiling in it are concerned, she has displayed an indifference similar
+to that which resulted in the destruction of her West Indian population
+three centuries ago. The Cubans have been taxed without representation,
+shot down if they remonstrated, and mocked by acts of the Cortes,
+granting relief which it was never intended to afford to them, but which
+for a time served in some degree to throw dust in the eyes of Europe.
+
+And thus it came to pass that on the 10th of October, 1868, the Cubans,
+recognizing the truth of the poetic axiom, that
+
+    Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,
+
+and that Spain's difficulty should be Cuba's opportunity, issued a
+Declaration of Independence. The document, dated from Manzanillo, thus
+stated the case: "In arming ourselves against the tyrannical government
+of Spain, we must, according to precedent in all civilized countries,
+proclaim before the world the cause that impels us to take this step,
+which, though likely to entail considerable disturbance now, will ensure
+future happiness. It is well known that Spain governs this island with
+an iron and blood-stained hand, holding its inhabitants deprived of
+political, civil and religious liberty. Hence the unfortunate Cubans,
+illegally prosecuted, sent into exile and executed in time of peace by
+military commissions. Hence their being prohibited from attending public
+meetings, and forbidden to speak or write on affairs of state. Hence
+their remonstrances against the evils that afflict them being regarded
+as the proceedings of rebels, from the fact that they are expected to
+keep silent and obey. Hence the never-ending plague of hungry officials
+from Spain to devour the product of their industry and labor. Hence the
+restrictions to which public instruction with them is subjected, in
+order to keep them so ignorant as to render them unable to know and
+enforce their rights in any shape or form. Hence the navy and standing
+army kept in and about their country at an enormous expense (paid out of
+taxes levied on Cuba), to make them submit to the terrible yoke
+imposed....
+
+"As we are in danger of losing our property, our lives and our honor
+under further Spanish domination; as we have reached a depth of
+degradation revolting to manhood; as great nations have sprung from
+revolt against a similar disgrace after exhausted pleadings for relief;
+as we despair of justice from Spain through reasoning, and cannot longer
+live deprived of the rights which other people enjoy,--we are
+constrained to appeal to arms, to assert our rights in the battle-field,
+cherishing the hope that our grievances will be a sufficient excuse for
+this last resort to redress them and secure our future welfare."
+
+Ten days later the Cuban insurgent general Cespedes asked our own
+government to recognize the belligerent rights of his party, in a letter
+which detailed the rapid success of the movement. On the 27th of
+December, 1868, Cespedes issued a proclamation of emancipation. In
+January, 1869, it would appear that Spain, herself in a very critical
+condition under a provisional government, thought that a sop must be
+thrown to Cuba, and accordingly the captain-general of Cuba issued one
+of those highflown addresses which come with such readiness from Spanish
+bureaus. Said this gallant and noble-minded governor: "I will brave
+every danger, accept every responsibility, for your welfare. The
+revolution has swept away the Bourbon dynasty, tearing up by the roots a
+plant so poisonous that it putrefied the air we breathe. To the citizen
+shall be returned his rights, to man his dignity." [An admission, by the
+way, that they had been bereft of both.] "You will receive all the
+reforms which you require. Cubans and Spaniards are all brothers. From
+this day Cuba will be considered as a province of Spain. Freedom of the
+press, the right of meeting in public, and representation in the
+national Cortes--the three fundamental principles of true liberty--are
+granted you. Speaking in the name of our mother, Spain, I adjure you to
+forget the past, hope for the future and establish union and
+fraternity."
+
+These very fine words, however, seem to have utterly failed in buttering
+the Cuban parsnips. They were, in truth, calculated to carry about as
+much conviction to the mind of Cubans as Joseph Surface's sentiments
+after the discovery of Lady Teazle behind the screen do to her
+ladyship's husband.
+
+The insurrection saw no abatement. A reinforcement of fifteen hundred
+men came from Spain, and within six weeks of all these blessings being
+promised by the captain-general, freedom of the press was abolished and
+trial by military commission established. On the 3d of March came a
+second reinforcement of a thousand men from Spain.
+
+Meanwhile, Cespedes, the Cuban general, found his only available policy
+to be a sort of guerilla warfare until he could rally a sufficient force
+and collect arms for an encounter with the Spanish army; and on March
+1, 1869, he again addressed our President, asking for the recognition of
+belligerent rights.
+
+Up to this date no civil organization had existed among the insurgents,
+but in April, 1869, representatives from the several anti-Spanish
+districts met at Guaymazo, in the province of Puerto Principe, when
+Cespedes formally resigned his power into the hands of the House of
+Representatives, who thereupon proclaimed him president of the Cuban
+republic, and General Quesada commander of the forces.
+
+During the summer of 1869 the war was carried on with indifferent
+success by the Spaniards, and in June General Dulce, captain-general,
+went home,[K] being, in fact, virtually deposed by the "volunteers," who
+were supposed to support the Spanish interest. These latter are, for the
+most part, a set of worthless men, the scum of Spain and other
+countries, who, with everything to gain and nothing to lose, consented
+to enlist in the service of the Spanish slave-dealing clique in Havana,
+and were furious at what they deemed too great clemency on the part of
+the captain-general.
+
+Dulce was succeeded by De Rodas, who announced "a vigorous policy."
+During the autumn of 1869 no decisive step was taken on either side, but
+the insurgents, careful to prevent the enemy profiting by the
+confiscated property of the Cubans who had been compelled to abandon
+their plantations, set fire to the cane, and hundreds of valuable crops
+were thus destroyed. The year 1870 saw no abatement of the struggle.
+
+Meanwhile, Peru and Chili formally and cordially recognized the
+independence of the insurgents, toward whom still warmer symptoms of
+sympathy from this quarter have been lately evinced, and widespread
+sympathy has also been expressed toward them in the United States; but
+the President in his message of December, 1869, intimated that he did
+not consider the position of the insurgents such as to warrant him in
+recognizing their belligerent rights.
+
+And thus matters have continued till to-day. For more than four years
+Cuba has been the scene of bloodshed, misery and ruin. Notwithstanding
+the strong feeling for Cuba in this country, it would appear that even
+now our cabinet deems it undesirable to recognize belligerent rights on
+the part of the Cubans, but at the same time Mr. Fish's letter to Mr.
+Sickles of the 29th of October last is couched in terms which clearly
+indicate a limit to this forbearance, when he says: "Sustained, as is
+the present ministry, by the large popular vote which has recently
+returned to the Cortes an overwhelming majority in its support, there
+can be no more room to doubt their ability to carry into operation the
+reforms of which they have given promise than there can be justification
+to question the sincerity with which the assurance was given. It seems,
+therefore, to be a fitting occasion to look back upon the relations
+between the United States and Spain, and to mark the progress which may
+have been made in accomplishing those objects in which we have been
+promised her co-operation. It must be acknowledged with regret that
+little or no advance has been made. The tardiness in this respect,
+however, cannot be said to be in any way imputable to a want of
+diligence, zeal or ability in the legation of the United States at
+Madrid. The department is persuaded that no person, however gifted with
+those qualities and faculties, could have better succeeded against the
+apparent apathy or indifference of the Spanish authorities, if, indeed,
+their past omission to do what we have expected should not be ascribable
+to other causes.
+
+"The Spanish government, partly at our instance, passed a law providing
+for the gradual emancipation of slaves in the West India colonies. This
+law, so far as this department is aware, remains unexecuted, and it is
+feared that the recently-issued regulations, professedly for its
+execution, are wholly inadequate to any practical result in favor of
+emancipation, if they be not really in the interest of the slaveholder
+and of the continuance of the institution of slavery."
+
+And after various stringent comments he concludes: "It is hoped that
+you will present the views above set forth, and the present grievances
+of which this government so justly complains, to the government to which
+you are accredited, in a way which, without giving offence, will leave a
+conviction that we are in earnest in the expression of those views, and
+that we expect redress; and that if it should not soon be afforded Spain
+must not be surprised to find, as the inevitable result of the delay, a
+marked change in the feeling and in the temper of the people and of the
+government of the United States. Believing that the present ministry of
+Spain is in a sufficiently confirmed position of power to carry out the
+measures which it announces and the reforms which have been promised,
+and to do justice by the removal of the causes of our well-founded
+complaints, and not doubting the sincerity of the assurances which have
+been given, the United States look confidently for the realization of
+those hopes, which have been encouraged by repeated promises, that all
+causes for estrangement or for the interruption of those friendly
+feelings which are traditional, as they are sincere, on the part of this
+government toward Spain, will be speedily and for ever removed."
+
+The cry is now loudly raised for recognition of belligerent rights, with
+a view to independence and annexation by the United States. But, as we
+have said, the government of this country does not--wisely for American
+interests, in our opinion--appear inclined to hurry toward such a
+course, and we should like to see the experiment first tried of active
+mediation on its part between Spain and Cuba. A meeting of leading
+representatives of both parties of the island under a distinguished
+jurist at Washington might not impossibly assist the solution of the
+difficulty.
+
+Although many Cubans, despairing of reconciliation, are disposed at this
+moment to declare that the time has quite gone by for a compromise, it
+is doubtful whether this be really the case. Cuba and Spain have been
+united for centuries, and notwithstanding fierce animosities have yet
+many common ties. There are, too, not a few prudent men who, whilst
+strongly in favor of abolition, dread the sudden adoption of such a
+course, which would be the inevitable result of an entire break with
+Spain. They see in it nothing but ruin to the majority of whites,
+without corresponding advantage to the blacks. "Let abolition come,"
+they say, "by all means, but not all at once. Look at Jamaica, look at
+your own South! Would it not have really been better for all parties if
+the abolition had been more gradual, or at least attended by such
+conditions as would have ensured less immediate depreciation of
+property?"
+
+We believe that our government could not more effectually serve the
+interests of the Cubans than by a vigorous intercession[L] to secure
+them an independent government on the Anglo-colonial system, accompanied
+by the passage of an act of the Cortes freeing every slave within five
+years; and meantime enforcing rigorously protective measures for the
+enslaved, including payment of wages.
+
+There seems no reason why a legislative system on the plan of the
+Australian colonies of Great Britain should not be attempted. Its
+failure in Jamaica is not sufficient ground against it. In Jamaica there
+were a few grains of whites to bushels of blacks: in Cuba there are some
+seven hundred thousand colored--of whom only four hundred thousand are
+slaves--to about one million four hundred thousand whites.
+
+We can scarcely doubt that the Spanish government will feel constrained
+to hearken to the remonstrances of that of the United States. Spain is
+to-day in all but extent of territory a fourth-rate rather than a
+second-rate power. Her government is the least stable in Europe, except
+possibly that of France. Her exchequer is exhausted. Her credit is
+utterly gone. Assume a war: where is she to get money? There is not a
+people in Europe, save the Dutch and the English, who at this moment
+have anything to lend, and neither Dutch nor English are likely at
+present to send more money to Madrid. Spain has too amply proved herself
+the defaulter _par excellence_ of the world.
+
+Now, therefore, is the time for American mediation; and we sincerely
+hope that Mr. Fish will not let it pass, but will follow up vigorously
+his admirable despatch, and thus secure to Cubans the blessings of a
+free country.
+
+For years Spain has been promising, and not performing. Performance
+seems with her the result only of compulsion; and if this really be so,
+she must be compelled. So far as Cuban affairs are concerned, she has
+had ample indulgence at the hands of ourselves and Great Britain. Every
+reasonable chance has been given her to mend her ways. She has failed to
+avail herself of her opportunities, and cannot complain if she suffer
+accordingly. It is not in the nature of things that this country should
+look calmly for all time on the just struggles of an enthralled and
+trodden-down people dwelling within a few hours of our own mainland.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[J] In September, 1872, Senator Benot made a remarkable speech in the
+Cortes in reference to the treatment of Cuba. "It is," he said, "the
+Spanish peninsula alone that is ignorant of events in Cuba. But it is
+not ignorance only of which I complain. From those remote possessions
+comes the blood of the negro converted into gold to pervert the public
+mind."
+
+Referring to the horrid massacre of students in 1871, Senator Benot
+said: "Spain does not rule Cuba: if she did, innocent children would not
+be executed at the instance of the Spanish clique in Havana. Senators,
+you are parents. Suppose that your boys in the professors' absence were
+to run out to play in the adjoining cemetery. Suppose that for this lack
+of reverence a ferocious mob seized your sons, subjected them to a
+court-martial, charged them falsely with the demolition of
+sepulchres--sepulchres whose crystals are untouched even now. Imagine
+them brought before a court-martial and absolved, and then imagine these
+children dragged by the mob, disappointed of their prey, before another
+military council, who under terror condemned eight to death and the
+remainder to the galleys. There were forty-four children, and the kind
+council drew lots to decide which of them should be shot. Two brothers
+were drawn, but even the stony hearts of the so-called judges thought
+that it would be going rather too far to rob one father of his two sons;
+so one was discharged, and another substituted because older than the
+rest. This incredible, unprecedented crime yet goes unpunished."
+
+[K] He died in the following November at Madrid.
+
+[L] "I have, since the beginning of the present session of Congress,
+communicated to the House of Representatives, upon their request, an
+account of the steps which I had taken in the hope of securing to the
+people of Cuba the blessings and the right of independent
+self-government. These efforts failed, but not without an assurance from
+Spain that the good offices of this government might still avail for the
+objects to which they had been addressed. It is stated, on what I
+believe to be good authority, that Cuban bonds have been prepared to a
+large amount, whose payment is made dependent upon the recognition by
+the United States of either Cuban belligerency or independence. The
+object of making their value thus contingent upon the action of this
+government is a subject for serious reflection." (_President Grant's
+message, June, 1870._) Suggestive statements, indicating how powerful
+the interference of our government may be! It would more than aught else
+give the Spanish cabinet strength in inducing the Cortes to endorse it
+in high-handed measures against the moneyed slave-holding, slave-dealing
+clique in Havana, which is the root of all evil there.
+
+
+
+
+PROBATIONER LEONHARD;
+
+OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE ADVANTAGE OF A DEBTOR.
+
+The house to which Spener's steps now turned was the sixth one below
+Loretz's, on the same narrow street facing the stream--the long white
+house with a deep porch in which young men might often be seen smoking.
+Spener had given it the name of "Brethren's House," rather in
+remembrance of the custom still existing in Moravian villages than
+because it was strictly the abode of unmarried men who sought there a
+home. It was the fact that many unmarried men did dwell there, but also
+it was true that the house was the one inn of the place, and at this
+time it was well filled, as Loretz had said to Leonhard when he opened
+for him his hospitable gate.
+
+At the head of the long dining-table Albert Spener took his place, and
+room was made beside him for his guest; and truly it was a company of
+cheerful-hearted workers, on whom no director might look without a
+thrill of satisfaction.
+
+"Stay a month with us as a probationer," said Spener suddenly, bringing
+his eyes to bear upon Leonhard, and there was kindly and powerful
+persuasion in them. "We can make you comfortable at least, and perhaps
+you may be brought to like us. I want to have a school-house built here:
+it is getting to be a necessity. You shall give us something ornamental
+in spite of ourselves, if you insist upon it. And it may be no difficult
+thing to compel me to put up houses on both those sites. But you are
+settled already, I suppose?"
+
+"No," answered Leonhard: "I am much more unsettled than any man of my
+years ought to be. I am so unfortunate as to have two professions."
+
+"Get into debt, and that will straighten you for a while," said Spener,
+laughing heartily. "When I had fairly left my employer and set this
+enterprise afoot, I gave up my sleeping habits. You will be obliged to
+part with something in order to convince yourself that you are in
+earnest. If you give up sleep, you will soon come to decisions."
+
+"I owe enough," said Leonhard.
+
+"I should not have guessed it. You sleep yet, though."
+
+"Because I can't help it. Yes, I sleep."
+
+"Then you will have to part with something of your free will--one of the
+professions, I suppose: you can't follow two very well. It is
+astonishing," Spener continued, not averse to talking about himself just
+now, when he was so much occupied with thoughts which concerned himself
+chiefly--"it is astonishing how different things look from the two sides
+of an action. Do your best, you cannot tell before you have taken a step
+how you will feel after it." On that remark he paused for a moment. Then
+he went on. It was a relief to talk with this young stranger: he had
+this advantage in the talk--it relieved him, and what he said, much or
+little, did not affect in the least the more that was left unsaid. There
+was nobody in Spenersberg to whom he could say as much as he was saying
+to Marten. Any Spenersberger would immediately proceed with the clew to
+the end. "My employer," he continued, "was a very cautious man, and I
+believe he thought me crazy when I told him what I was going to do, and
+asked him to lend me the money. Not a dollar would he lend, and I thank
+him for it. Go to the bank if you can find an endorser: it is best to
+feel that an institution is at your heels, and will be down on you if
+you are not up to time. An avalanche is a thing anybody in his senses
+will keep clear of."
+
+"True," said Leonhard; and Spener went on eating his dinner, without
+suspecting that his talk had entirely appeased his companion's hunger.
+
+The young men spent a part of the afternoon walking about the garden
+alluded to where the willows were under cultivation. A scene of thrift
+and industry of which the eye could not soon tire was presented by these
+products of careful labor in every stage of growth.
+
+At length Spener came to Leonhard and told him that he should be obliged
+to leave him till the next day. "I find that I must go to town this
+afternoon," he said, "but you are to stay until after the festival. That
+is decided. I must talk with you again, and arrange about those
+buildings."
+
+It was easy now for Leonhard to decide that he would stay till after the
+festival--there was reason good why he should--and he promised to do so.
+Spener was so desirous that he should stay that after he had left the
+field he came back to urge it. But when he had looked again at Leonhard,
+he did not urge it in the way he had intended to do: "You must think
+whether it will be worth your while to stay or not. What is the
+profession you spoke about that keeps you unsettled, did you say?"
+
+"Music."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"But I am a builder of course--an architect and a builder," said poor
+Leonhard hurriedly.
+
+"I like you," said Spener, drawing Leonhard's arm within his. "If you
+could make up your mind to stay, we might make it your interest to do
+so. As a probationer, you understand. There is a good deal to be done
+here, and I may throw open the farm up there to purchasers. The only
+difficulty is, that our people here might object. But it is quite clear
+to me--quite clear--that a little daylight wouldn't do any of us harm if
+it could be had, you know, by merely cutting away the dead underbrush
+and worthless timber."
+
+He shook hands again with Leonhard, who said, "I will think about what
+you have said: I like the sound of it."
+
+"There will be no end of work here for a skillful man of your business
+if the land is sold in lots. I have had a great many applications. I
+don't know of any such building-sites anywhere. My house will have to
+be over there on the slope, I think--a sort of guard to the valley and
+an assurance to Spenersbergers."
+
+He now went away, looking back and nodding at Leonhard, confident that
+they understood each other.
+
+"There's a man to envy!" thought our explorer; and he felt as if a
+strong staff had been wrenched out of his hand.
+
+But the thoughts with which Albert Spener strode toward the station, a
+mile away, were not enviable thoughts. For a little while he went on
+thinking about Leonhard with great satisfaction, and he made many plans
+based on ground-lines traced for his new acquaintance; but as he went
+his way he passed first Mr. Wenck's small abode, and farther on the
+house where Elise lived, and his indignation was not lessened when he
+thought how trivial was the part he had allowed himself to act in the
+play which might end as a tragedy if Elise should prove obstinate.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+LORETZ ON THE TROMBONE.
+
+Later in the afternoon, toward sunset, Leonhard left the gardens and
+walked slowly down the street, taking cognizance of all things in his
+way. He noticed that Taste had taken Haste in hand in many a place, and
+that already attempts were evident to repair and amend or construct
+anew. What might not be done toward making a paradise of such a place
+under the encouragement of a man like Albert Spener? But a probationer!
+That meant, Say that you will present yourself to Moravian brethren as a
+candidate for admission to their fellowship. He smiled at the thought,
+but when he considered the opportunities of work Spener would put in his
+way, he began to look grave. Of course he must give up his music: it was
+no profession for him, and he saw that it was folly and weakness to
+attempt the service of two masters; and yet he will go back and talk
+with Mrs. Anna about Herrnhut and old Leonhard Marten. Just here comes
+the sound of a trombone cleaving the air.
+
+It startles him, and it startles others also. "Who is gone?" he hears
+one man ask another from his place in the garden; and he understands
+that the trombone has made an announcement to the people of Spenersberg.
+How the notes wind along, a noble stream of solemn sound!
+
+"Who is gone home?" he hears another ask, but again there is no answer.
+
+He sees a group of children stopping in the midst of their play and
+looking at each other with scared faces--one little one suddenly hiding
+its face in its mother's apron, as if in the shrinking shyness and awe
+of apprehension.
+
+As he approaches his destination a ghostlike face and figure startles
+Leonhard: he looks back and sees it is "our little minister, Wenck,"
+whom Spener had pointed out to him in their morning walk. He is hurrying
+down the street, and it is not likely that any one will stop a man
+proceeding at such a rate, with questions.
+
+Loretz stands on his piazza with his trombone in his hand: it is he who
+blows that blast which echoes through Spenersberg, announcing a death.
+
+Doubting what the signal means, Leonhard, with a little hesitation,
+approaches his host and looks for the information he does not ask. Is it
+a calamity that has overtaken the house? One could hardly gather from a
+glance at Mr. Loretz. Evidently the stout little man has been moved by
+some powerful surprise: his eyes are full of agitation; his dress
+betokens it; he has been driven to and fro, distracted, within the hour.
+When he sees Leonhard his excitement exhibits itself in a new form: he
+lifts the trombone to his lips, and taking another key he sounds again;
+it is a note of solemn triumph, so prolonged that it would seem as if
+the desire was that all space should be filled with the echoes thereof.
+
+Leonhard sits down on one of the large wooden chairs in the piazza to
+enjoy the music: then Loretz comes to him and says, "You have heard it?"
+
+"I have heard it?" repeated Leonhard, interrogatively.
+
+"Sister Benigna--"
+
+"What is it, sir?" exclaimed Leonhard, starting to his feet.
+
+"She has gone home."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Leonhard. "Do you mean to say that she is dead?"
+
+"We call it going home," answered Loretz.
+
+"But gone home! When, why, how did she go?"
+
+"It shocks you," said Loretz, finding perhaps not a little satisfaction
+in seeing this stranger so moved. He had himself been so horrified by
+Benigna's silent, unlooked-for departure, and to be shocked and
+horrified by death was so undesirable and so fought against among good
+Moravians, that Leonhard's emotion, and much more than emotion, seemed a
+real solace for the moment. "We don't know how it was," he continued.
+"My daughter was to go to practice the music with her in the hall after
+school, and when she went into the school-room she found Sister Benigna
+sitting at her desk with _The Messiah_ open. But she was gone. We had in
+Doctor Hummel, and he says it was the heart. He has thought, he says,
+for a year or so, that there must be some feeble action of the valves.
+She went to him a twelvemonth since about it, and he told her his
+opinion; but he told her she might live fifty years yet, though she
+_might_ go any day. She never mentioned it to us. But Hummel says when
+he told her she said it was good news. Yet, sir, you never saw a happier
+creature. You saw her last night and this morning. Well, sir, that's a
+fair sample--busy all the time, and happy as happy."
+
+"But are you sure that nothing could be done for her?" exclaimed
+Leonhard, to whom the quiet and calm into which Loretz had talked
+himself was anything but composing.
+
+"Perfectly sure. If you should look at her once you would see. But I
+must go back to my women. Will you make yourself at home within? We
+shall all be back in an hour or so."
+
+Leonhard said he would go to the Brethren's House and spend the night
+there, but Loretz said hastily, "I was afraid you would be thinking of
+that, sir. Stay with us: we want your company. We shall not bring
+Sister Benigna here. If she had--had died here, we should have carried
+her to the corpse-house this evening. It is but a short distance from
+the factory, and she will lie there to-night. And--I have been
+thinking--to-morrow evening we must celebrate our congregation festival
+with her funeral."
+
+"Then if I had not come just when I did," thought Leonhard, "I should
+never have seen Sister Benigna. If the truth could be known, I don't
+believe the woman has known any greater pleasure in a long time than I
+gave her when I made those suggestions last evening. Only twenty-four
+hours, and it might be a year! She ought to have lived until after the
+festival. How she would have enjoyed it! I should like to look at Spener
+when he hears that the woman is actually out of the world. It would be a
+bad job for him if it had happened to be the other one. Jupiter!
+wouldn't I like to know whether it is better to be lamented by the
+community, so far as the community's principles will allow it to lament,
+or to spread devastation all around in the way this little Miss Elise
+couldn't help doing if she should be 'called home,' as they say!
+Musician answers one way, architect the other. Have you the nerve to go
+in and touch that piano, Probationer Marten?"
+
+    Rex tremendae Majestatis,
+    Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
+    Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
+
+What voice was this which made the house resound, and thrilled the
+hearts of the listeners at the gate as they stood there for a moment in
+the moonlight?
+
+"I left Mr. Marten within," said Loretz to his wife and daughter.
+
+"He is singing the Requiem," said Elise. They waited a moment longer,
+but just then Leonhard stepped over the window-sill, and began pacing
+the piazza with his arms folded on his breast, his head bent. The words
+he sang in fact had electrified him, and the rush of thoughts had driven
+him from the piano.
+
+    Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.
+
+Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the
+event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when
+talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister
+proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening.
+The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had
+evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under
+constraint in the midst of this very select audience.
+
+Loretz said, "I don't know that we can decide till Mr. Spener gets back.
+He went to town this afternoon."
+
+"When will he come?" asked the minister.
+
+"Some time to-morrow--toward night: he usually comes up at six or seven,
+unless he is detained."
+
+"We might fix the funeral at six: the concert was to begin at seven. I
+think we may take it for granted that the hours would meet his approval.
+He would say, if he were here, that we had better decide on the hour
+ourselves."
+
+"Yes, yes, he would say so, of course," said Loretz quickly, "and he
+would mean what he said, sir," he added, argumentatively. "Of course:
+let us then say at six o'clock the procession will move from--from the
+corpse-house to the church. She has been taken away just as she was in
+the midst of preparation for the festival; let us therefore observe it
+even as it would have been observed."
+
+The voice which spoke these words was altogether under the speaker's
+control, but the pathos in it so moved the heart of dear little Dame
+Loretz that she exclaimed, "Let it be so, father: certainly, it must be.
+It would please Sister Benigna beyond anything to have all the little
+children there just as she had arranged. And who has done for the church
+more than she has? I am sure it is what--what _everybody_ must see is
+the right thing. Mr. Wenck, I am very glad you came to talk about it: we
+were all beside ourselves--we didn't know what to think or what to do."
+
+"Shall it be so, Elise?" asked Loretz, turning to his daughter quietly
+after his wife had concluded her animated speech.
+
+"I know it would be what she would wish," said Elise.
+
+"Then it shall be. I have a mind to go to town for Mr. Spener. But he
+will come: he is always on time. He knows when he means to be here, if
+we don't, and we can't change that."
+
+So it was decided, and Mr. Wenck went away, having declined the entreaty
+of Mrs. Loretz to fill a seat at their supper-table.
+
+Slowly walking back to his lonely house, which had never seemed so
+lonely, so desolate to him, Mr. Wenck saw little Charles Hummel, who was
+going in the same direction and homeward. He had been looking for
+Charley, for he had heard one of the children say that he was in the
+school-room with the teacher last, and so he took the boy's hand, and
+they walked along together.
+
+"Are you all prepared with your pieces, Charley?" the minister asked.
+
+"Oh yes, sir, but now we shall not sing them."
+
+"And why will you not sing them, my boy?"
+
+"Because there will not be any celebration--will there, sir?"
+
+"Certainly: why should there not?"
+
+"What, sir! to-morrow night, just the same?"
+
+"Do you think that Sister Benigna would approve of our having no
+congregation festival?"
+
+"Why, sir, you know--don't you know? I saw them carrying her from the
+school-room. She--she--"
+
+"Yes, I know all," said the minister: "she is gone home. But then she
+will know about our celebration: oh yes, just the same: it must be that
+she will hear all the sweet voices. It seems far away to us where she
+is: perhaps it has seemed so, but she brings heaven nearer: it is surely
+but a step to the Better Land."
+
+It had appeared almost impossible for Mr. Wenck to speak in Loretz's
+house, but now words came so freely to his lips that he seemed even to
+find comfort in speech.
+
+The boy had now reached his father's house, and would have gone in, but
+the minister with gentle force retained the small hand he held, and
+said, "Let us walk on a little farther, Charley. How beautiful the moon
+is to-night! Were you in the school-room to-day, my boy?"
+
+"I was there this afternoon, sir," said the little lad, awed by the
+sound of his own voice's gentleness--so gently the minister spoke he
+could himself speak in no other way. But he would not have liked the
+boys to hear him, and he looked around as if to see if any one followed,
+and was a little startled when he saw his shadow and the shadow of Mr.
+Wenck following so close.
+
+"When I come to speak to the congregation about her I shall want to tell
+them all about to-day," said Mr. Wenck, "if there is anything it would
+be pleasant for them to know. Do you remember anything she--she said or
+did, Charley?"
+
+The boy thought a moment. "It was just the same as always," said he.
+
+"Did you practice your songs this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes, sir, we practiced them."
+
+"For the last time, and you did not know it!" Would that little lad
+remember, when he came to manhood, this hour and these words? Would he
+from that noonday sun receive a light that could enlighten the mystery
+of this pallid, shadowy hour which filled his little being with such
+awe?
+
+"But she said we sang beautifully," he said, moved by the spirit of
+obedience to stay and answer, and not shake off the hand that held him
+and run home affrighted, and dream of spirits and Mr. Wenck's pale face
+and his strange voice.
+
+"Oh, then you pleased her?"
+
+"She said it was the best singing, sir, she had ever heard, and that she
+was glad we had worked so hard and had been so attentive and patient.
+That was what she said, I remember now," said the little lad with
+spirit: "I thought there was something I forgot. She said when we sang
+our part in the festival all the people would know how hard we had tried
+to learn."
+
+"And when she dismissed you, was there anything more?"
+
+"She--she kissed us: she always did," said the little fellow, bursting
+into sudden crying.
+
+"Oh, Charley," said the minister--and he bent down and kissed the little
+boy, whose face was wet with tears--"we must not cry for her--not any of
+us. And God himself has wiped away _her_ tears."
+
+"And then when I was going out," said Charley, rallying again, "she
+asked me to bring her a pitcher of water from the spring before I went
+home. When I took it in she was reading her music, and she had some
+flowers in a glass. And I filled it with fresh water for her," he said
+proudly. And that was all he had to tell.
+
+"You are a good boy to remember so much," said Mr. Wenck; and now he
+walked back with Charley to the doctor's gate, and kissing him again
+bade him "Good-night."
+
+Long after every light was extinguished in Spenersberg homes, Mr. Wenck
+was walking up and down in front of his own house beneath the trees,
+pacing the grass, a noiseless sentinel. He had no duties now to perform:
+undisturbed his thoughts might wander whither they would. They could not
+wander far--too near was the magnet. The day had begun in a manner which
+he could not but think remarkable: the shadow of approaching calamity
+had disturbed him until the horror appeared. For, accustomed as he had
+been to teach and preach and to think of death as a friend, the
+conductor to a happier world, the enlightener and the life-giver, he
+could not regard the departure of Sister Benigna in such light. The loss
+to the community was almost irreparable, he began by saying to himself,
+but he ended by saying, "Hypocrite! do you mourn the community's loss,
+or your own?"
+
+The tower-clock struck twelve as in his walk he approached the gate to
+his little garden: he hesitated, and then noiselessly opened it. Here
+were various fragrant flowers in blossom, and roses innumerable on the
+well-cared-for bushes, but he passed these, and gathered from the house
+wall a few ivy leaves, and climbing the fence in the rear of his house
+began to ascend the slope that led to the cemetery, that place of the
+people's constant resort. He did not enter it, but stood a long while on
+the peaceful plain, which was filled with moonlight. At last he slowly
+turned away and walked across the wooded knolls and fields until he came
+to the corpse-house, which only yesterday he had garnished with fresh
+boughs. He knew whither he went, and yet when he had come to the door of
+that resting-place the external calm disappeared--the props of
+consolation, the support of faith, gave way. He opened the door,
+entered, closed it behind him, and by the light of the lamp suspended
+from the whitewashed rafters saw Sister Benigna lying on the bier,
+dressed in white garments, with a rose in one white hand.
+
+When he came forth again a cold fog was filling the valley, and morning
+approached. Who will wish to dwell even in imagination on the hours he
+had passed in that silent house, or care to guess the battle which
+perchance had been fought there, or the wild flow of tears which had for
+years been pent, or the groans which could not be uttered, which at last
+had utterance; or how at last the man died there, and the victor, as one
+who had been slain, came forth?
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE MOTHER CONFESSOR.
+
+So the day passed in preparation for Sister Benigna's funeral, as well
+as for the congregation festival.
+
+Mr. Spener had given out yesterday that the workers in the factory
+should have a half holiday, and, in conformity to his orders, at twelve
+o'clock Loretz dismissed the weavers for the day. The various performers
+met in the hall and rehearsed their several parts, and the programme, it
+was decided, should be carried out precisely as Sister Benigna had
+designed.
+
+Leonhard looked on and listened, wondering. Mrs. Loretz, who had only
+to sing in the choruses, had a little time on her hands during the day,
+and was glad that the young man was there to be talked to. True, he was
+busily at work over his drawing, which he wished to have ready to show
+Mr. Spener in the morning, but he was glad to listen, and the talk was
+in itself not uninteresting. Dame Anna had a great deal to say about
+Sister Benigna--not much to tell, really: the facts of her life as they
+were known to Mrs. Loretz were few. Benigna had come six years ago to
+Spenersberg, and had been an active member of the church there since
+that day. What everybody said was true: she had been the Genius of Music
+there, and in the true Moravian spirit had rallied every musical thought
+and all musical skill to the standard of religion. At first there had
+been a good deal of talk about founding a Sisters' House, but that had
+been given up: it was thought that the ends to be accomplished by it
+could be obtained at less cost and with less labor. She had lived in
+their house since the day she came: she was like a daughter to them, and
+a sister and more to Elise.
+
+Then by and by the communicativeness of the good woman, as well as her
+confidence in Leonhard, increasing with her speech, she began to talk
+about Mr. Spener, and to hint his "intentions;" and she ended by telling
+this stranger what was not known outside her own family except to the
+minister. And when she had explained all it became clear to her that she
+must justify the method of proceeding in matrimonial affairs which had
+given to herself a good husband, and had been the means of establishing
+many happy households which she could name.
+
+The only trouble that could possibly arise from the turn affairs had
+taken was a trouble that did look rather threatening, Leonhard thought.
+Spener had consented to abide by the decision of the lot, but now--would
+he?
+
+After she had told all this, Mrs. Loretz asked Leonhard what he thought
+about it. He said he thought it was a hard case: he could feel for Mr.
+Spener. He was afraid that under the circumstances he should not behave
+well.
+
+The good woman nodded her head as if she quite understood the force of
+his remarks, but, though it seemed hard, wasn't it better to be
+disappointed before marriage than after? Undoubtedly, he answered, yet
+he should prefer to feel that in an affair like that he could make his
+own choice, with consent of the lady.
+
+Mrs. Loretz thought to herself he spoke as if he had already chosen for
+himself, and knew what he was talking about; and the cheerful fancies
+which she had entertained last night with regard to the beneficent care
+of Providence in sending Leonhard to Spenersberg disappeared like a
+wreath of mist. She must now mourn the loss of Sister Benigna more
+heavily than before, since she found herself without support on the
+highway of sorrow.
+
+Had an unhappy marriage never come within her knowledge, Leonhard asked,
+which the lot had seemed to sanction?
+
+She had been thinking of that, Mistress Anna acknowledged. There had,
+certainly--she could not deny it. But it was where the parties had not
+seriously tried to make the best of everything.
+
+Was it necessary, then, he asked--even when the lot decided
+favorably--that people should _put up_ with each other, and find it not
+easy to keep back sharp words which would edge their way out into
+hearing in spite of all efforts to keep them back? Must people
+providentially yoked together find themselves called upon, just like
+others, to make sacrifices of temper and taste and opinion all through
+life?
+
+Wasn't that going on everywhere? she asked. Did he know of any people
+anywhere who agreed so well about everything that there was never a
+chance of dispute? And where was there such an abundance of everything
+that there was no occasion for self-sacrifice?
+
+Leonhard laughed at these questions, and Mistress Anna looked wise, but
+she did not laugh. Leonhard might not be the providential substitute for
+a lover providentially removed, but at least he was a pleasant companion
+for a troubled hour. He had thought so much on this subject, possibly
+he had some experimental knowledge. Had he a wife?--Not yet, he said.
+But he would have.--Oh, of course: what would a man do in this world
+without a wife? Perhaps it would not trouble him to think of the one he
+would like to marry if he might.--No, not in the least.--And he would be
+satisfied to decide for himself, and not ask any counsel?--Was he not
+the one who must live with the lady? and was it likely that anybody
+would know as well as himself what he wanted?--Only, she suggested, how
+could he feel certain that he would have what he wanted, after
+all?--What! hadn't a man eyes?--That can be trusted, my dear?--If he
+can't trust his own, will he trust another man's?--But can he feel sure
+that what he wants would be best for him?--Is the best he can imagine
+any too good for a man, if he can get it?
+
+But she has been thinking, How happened it that father should have found
+his very name in the birthday book? She has been thinking of it nearly
+all the morning. When she first set eyes on him--did he know?--she felt
+sure that he belonged to them.
+
+Leonhard did not know about the name. He felt very grateful to her for
+her kindness. He hoped the book had shown him the writing of his
+ancestor, but he did not know. His parents died when he was a little
+boy, and if he had any relatives alive, they were unknown to him. He
+should be glad to believe that the Herrnhuter was his grandfather or
+great-grandfather. But they must not ask him to run the risk of losing
+his chance if there should be a young lady whom he might wish to marry:
+he could not trust any voice in such a matter except hers.
+
+"Loretz and I have had our share of trials," she answered solemnly. "It
+has helped us to bear them, I am sure, dear youth, to think that God had
+brought us together and united us, for the lot decided how it should be.
+There have been times when I knew not how I could have endured what was
+put upon me but for remembering--remembering that in the counsels of a
+better world our marriage was decreed. See, Sister Benigna brought the
+ink home with her this noon! Now write your name in Frederick's book,
+and think whether it would not be best to stay with us."
+
+Leonhard appeared to be intent on his drawings: he bent over his work,
+but in truth his eyes could not see quite distinctly the lines which he
+drew. "I will not forget the book," he said: "as to staying in
+Spenersberg, I am only a probationer wherever I am."
+
+"And who knows how happy you might be among us!" said Dame Anna, who was
+quite clear now on a point somewhat cloudy before. The stranger had
+brought with him some secret sorrow and trouble, poor dear!
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE CONGREGATION FESTIVAL.
+
+As the day passed on, all thoughts were evidently directed toward the
+solemn scenes with which it was to close. It was pleasant to our friend
+to walk along the street toward the end of the afternoon, and look at
+the pretty cottages, each with its garden of flowers in front and its
+vine-encased windows and doors. Now and then he saw at door or window or
+in little garden young girls with flowers in their hands: were they
+weaving them into emblematic devices for the coffin and the grave? This
+little hamlet seemed to be the sanctuary of beautiful thoughts and
+things. Music was loved and served here, and he had never seen so many
+flowers as were crowded into these gardens.
+
+Instead of entering the church at the hour appointed for the funeral, as
+Mrs. Loretz had advised him to do, Leonhard merely ascended the steps
+and looked within on the neat edifice, all the architectural points of
+which could be surveyed at a glance, for there was neither pulpit nor
+altar within, nor pointed window nor arched roof to gaze at, but merely
+a large square room well furnished with benches, and a table and the
+minister's chair; and then descending the steps, he retired to a group
+of trees in the distance, beneath which he sat down to await the
+procession. He had not to wait long. Soon the sound of trombones came
+floating upon, encompassing, filling the air. A slight breeze was
+stirring; the sun was going down; the willow-covered plain was aglow
+with its golden light; among the hills the evening shadows were already
+gathering. Night was only awaiting its swift-coming opportunity.
+
+A small company gathered around the corpse-house, the body was brought
+forth upon the bier, and the procession, which had silently and quickly
+gathered at the signal of the trombones, started on foot for the church.
+
+When all had entered the edifice, Leonhard went in and sat down near the
+door. It was but his third night in Spenersberg, yet he was not among
+strangers, and how his heart was moved by all he saw and heard! An
+influence prevailed in this place which was fast mastering him.
+
+As he sat down and looked upon the faces of the elders, the faces of the
+men and the women--of the people who had toiled, and whose toil had been
+blessed to them--who had suffered, and whose suffering had been
+sanctified to them--his heart was like wax. In the drive and hurry of
+life he had never seen such faces. When he watched the troop of
+children, dressed in white and walking hand in hand, he thought of his
+own lonely childhood, and sighed to think that he had come here too
+late. And the minister, whom Spener had spoken about with patronizing
+contempt--looking at him, Leonhard said to himself, "Here is a man who
+could counsel me. He has fought his fight, and for him there is a crown
+of victory and rejoicing."
+
+The impression he had received when he glanced toward the minister's
+place was deepened as the services went forward, and he saw Mr. Wenck
+stand looking down upon the coffin, and from it toward the people.
+
+The music for the congregation festival was sung. It was all as Benigna
+had arranged it: there was no omission of parts except her own and
+Elise's. Such voices, such trained voices, and such instrumental
+performances, Leonhard said to himself, and could say truly, he had
+never heard. He was dumb with wonder, and because he loved music he wept
+as though he had loved Benigna. It seemed indeed that the mourners--and
+the church was filled with mourners in spite of all the words of
+resignation and immortal hope upon their tongues--were all intent on
+doing honor to the woman whose life among them would never be forgotten.
+
+In accordance with the usual custom--nothing could he omit that would do
+honor to her memory--the minister gave a slight biographical sketch of
+Benigna. He spoke of her childhood, and told the children that there was
+not one of them who had not been born in a happier home and to better
+fortunes than she. She had served music well because she loved it well,
+and they were all witnesses whether she had received any reward for
+faithfulness in that service. She had served her Master well because to
+her His service was the highest freedom, and she found in it the
+greatest joy. They had but to think upon, to look upon, her beautiful
+face if they would know whether she could have chosen another service in
+which she would have found such joy. Did she not appear to them--not
+because she had departed: would she not if she were still among
+them?--the most complete in excellences and virtues of any character
+they had known? Was she not farther on in the perfect life than any one
+of them? And how happy her life in Spenersberg had been! "Surely,
+surely," he concluded, "this heroic example of constancy to duty, of
+struggle against weakness, will not be lost on us! Never, on any
+battle-field of faith, fought a braver soldier. God has given her the
+victory. In a moment, at the close of a day of labor, in her
+school-room, right there in that blessed, that sacred place--just there
+where she would have chosen, with the kisses of her children on her
+face--just there she heard the summons. Can we doubt, O friends! that
+when our day of labor is ended we shall see Sister Benigna again? Not
+if we resolve that with God's help we will prove ourselves worthy of the
+high honor of being called her friends on earth."
+
+The silence which filled the house after the minister sat down was
+broken by the sounding of the trombones: then from beneath the trees
+Leonhard saw the beautiful procession again following the bier; and as
+he watched the flutter of garments between the dark-green cedar walls,
+it had been no difficult thing to see in that company not a company of
+mourners, but the ransomed sons and daughters of the New Jerusalem.
+
+After the services at the grave the people assembled in the church again
+to partake of the love-feast. Leonhard still followed. No wonder if he
+walked as in a dream, and at times stood to ask himself where he was,
+and what all this might mean. A month ago, a week ago, he might have
+seen half his acquaintances hid away in darkness, and such feelings not
+have been stirred, such thoughts suggested, as were stirred and
+suggested here. So much human kindness he had never heard in human
+voices or seen in human faces. The fierce grasping at opportunity, the
+wild struggle for place, which his short experience had shown him was
+the world's way of living, made him wonder if it was possible that
+mortals could live so near heaven as these people lived. In that hour
+the sharp strain of life relaxed--his disappointments ceased to torment
+him--he almost forgot that he stood in the attitude of an absconding
+debtor. Around him flowed the isolating, soothing, life-renewing waters.
+He had passed rapids and cataract: could his humbled head receive the
+benediction of the hour? Could he drop his burdens here, and go forward
+on a new path and with a new ambition? What were all the honors of the
+world, its rewards, its pride, compared with the peace and satisfaction
+of this people? Home, work, friendship, holiness--could so much
+content him? All were to be had here. But why might he not find
+the same elsewhere--home, work, friendship, uprightness, honor,
+success--patience to do the work that offered and to wait for the
+ripening of the harvest which should rightfully be his? While the people
+sat at their love-feast, exchanging the grasp of friendship and the kiss
+of peace, these questions waited upon him. Then came thoughts that were
+like answers. He would write to Wilberforce: if Spener had spoken
+seriously he would undertake those buildings; and then he looked around,
+and his imagination transformed this room of the worshiping congregation
+into a temple all beautiful within; and somehow into tint and form the
+character of the Spenersbergers seemed so to enter that over the people
+as well as the house of worship he saw the wings of the Angel of the
+Covenant outspread.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+LEONHARD'S THIRD NIGHT IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.
+
+Loretz invited Mr. Wenck to go home with him after the services: there
+was something he wished to speak about, he said. Mr. Wenck needed no
+urging: he wanted to see Elise one moment alone. But he did not find
+that moment, for while Loretz was talking about the work which should be
+done without delay in the cemetery, and saying that there could be no
+better time to call attention to it than the present, when so many would
+be going to visit Sister Benigna's grave, Spener came in. He had heard
+already all that could be told him with regard to Benigna's death, but
+his surprise had brought him straight to Loretz, and what he said was
+creditable to him, although he had made certain statements to Leonhard
+yesterday concerning Sister Benigna which neither of them would be
+likely to forget. It was perhaps the recollection of them just now which
+made him look at Leonhard and say, "I have been speaking to Mr. Marten
+about a school-building, and he has promised to give me a design for
+one. Shall we not call it Sister Benigna's monument?"
+
+"Sister Benigna's monument should be erected by the people," said the
+minister instantly. "She is in such regard among them all that it would
+be a most beautiful memorial."
+
+"We will consider that," said Spener. He was not very well pleased by
+Wenck's remark, and perhaps there could be no better time than the
+present to express his thought in regard to such assistance as he would
+be likely to receive from Spenersberg in erecting a monument. "I dare
+say the parents would be pleased to contribute their mite, and the
+children also; but no doubt in the end it would be my lookout. And it
+would be my pleasure, certainly, to see that there was no debt on the
+building."
+
+"Then, sir, pray do not call it her monument," said Mr. Wenck.
+
+When Spener had spoken he felt a slight misgiving, as one who should
+look pitifully on the moth which he had crushed. The minister's words
+now amazed him, but he restrained his rising anger. Wenck must have
+something else to say: let him say it then.
+
+"I judged the people by myself," Wenck said. "And that is saying a great
+deal more than I can express. It would be no pleasure, certainly, to see
+that her friends bore the least share in such expenses."
+
+"But, dear Brother Wenck, we are all Sister Benigna's friends," said
+Spener with the expostulation of a master in his voice.
+
+"Could we praise ourselves more highly, sir, than to say we are her
+friends? For myself, I feel that the glory of Spenersberg has passed
+away. I came here, Brother Loretz, to speak to you about her."
+
+Loretz nodded: he was too much surprised by the minister's remarks to
+speak. They all seemed to feel that the only thing asked of them was a
+hearing.
+
+"One week ago," Mr. Wenck continued, "I did not suppose that I could
+speak to you with such freedom as I feel I may use now. If I had said
+then what I now must, I might not have been able to convince anybody
+except of one thing. Perhaps I could not have felt certain about my own
+motives. But now I am above suspicion: I cannot suspect myself. _She_
+will not doubt my secret thought, and you will all bear me witness." The
+minister looked around him as he spoke, and Spener would never point him
+out to man again as yesterday he had called Leonhard's attention to the
+little minister. Leonhard sat uneasily on his chair, doubting whether to
+go or stay, but nobody thought of him, and he felt himself to be in the
+centre of a charmed circle, out of which he could not remove himself.
+Every one was looking at Mr. Wenck, who, pausing a second as if to
+assure himself again that all to whom he would speak were before him,
+went on, his voice becoming more calm and strong, and his whole bearing
+witnessing for him in his speech. "Before I heard of Spenersberg," he
+said--"before it had existence even in the brain of its honored
+founder--my acquaintance with Benigna began."
+
+"Is it possible, Mr. Wenck?" exclaimed Dame Loretz, her voice breaking
+under the weight of her sympathy.
+
+"Yes, and I was hoping that she and I were to spend our lives together.
+Dear Sister Loretz, you understand now why I could not take a wife."
+
+"Why--why is that so, sir?" asked Loretz, doubting, and not very well
+pleased: "that's news, I'm sure."
+
+"It is, I know. And the story would never be told by me but for--for
+your sake, my friends."
+
+"Well, well, but--" said Loretz, afraid to hear what was coming; not
+that he guessed, but because Spener sat there with a face so--so
+inexplicable. Loretz could not make out its meaning when just now he
+glanced that way; and the face was full of meaning. What was passing in
+his mind?
+
+"Let me tell the story, Mr. Loretz. I want you to know it. It will not
+take long. May I not go on?"
+
+"Go on, sir, by all means!" exclaimed Spener. "Say what you have to say,
+and--" His voice sunk: he did not finish the sentence, audibly at least.
+
+But Wenck still waited until Mrs. Loretz said, "Husband, surely you
+would like to know about dear Sister Benigna?"
+
+"Well," said Loretz, reluctant still because of his misgivings, "go on.
+It will be a comfort to you, I dare say, Mr. Wenck, to talk about her
+here."
+
+"It is my duty, sir, to talk about her here, and my privilege. We were
+both toiling in our way to reach the time when our love for each other
+might be spoken and shown to be something short of unreasonable. When
+that time did come we were led to ascertain whether our union would be
+in accordance with the Divine will, in the manner of our fathers, which
+had been adhered to for generations in the village where we lived. We
+found that, according to the lot, our lives must be lived apart. It did
+not appear to me then that we did right to give each other up. But I did
+not attempt to persuade her--or--to assure myself that I had not made a
+mistake when I loved her."
+
+"I believe that," was the comment on this statement which appeared on
+the scornful face of Spener.
+
+"But I have often asked myself whether I should not have performed my
+duty in a better way, a more enlightened way, if I had tried to persuade
+Benigna to a step which has been taken by many of the most devout,
+God-fearing brethren."
+
+"What! what!" exclaimed Loretz, aghast. This was the very thing he had
+feared from some quarter, and now he heard it whence he had least
+expected it to come.
+
+"I told you before you resorted to the lot--and my inmost hope was that
+you would act upon it--that the lot is not now considered among the
+brethren essential in the decision of questions of this kind. Surely you
+have not forgotten."
+
+"You mentioned it," said Spener reluctantly, in most ungenerous
+acknowledgment. "I recollect wishing that you would make a point of it."
+
+"It was impossible," replied the minister. "But now I can speak. If I
+understand you, my friends, there is none of you that feels ready to
+resign his own will in this matter. In your own secret hearts you
+understand there is no submission. With such sacrifice God is not well
+pleased. Do you think He can be? You have but followed a fashion. It is
+a vain oblation. But"--he went on hurriedly, for he did not wish to
+provoke discussion, at least until he had told the brief tale to the
+end--"Benigna and I accepted the decision as final. When I came to
+Spenersberg and found her here, it was a great, an overwhelming
+surprise. Brother Loretz, you know by whose request I came."
+
+"I have always felt proud of having brought you here, Brother Wenck: I
+stand by it yet. You have done the right thing always, so far as I know.
+Surely it was well to bring you here."
+
+"When I found her here I thought I could not stay, but I finally
+accepted that too as a dispensation of the Divine will, thankful, sir,
+thankful that I might have the woman for my friend and co-worker. Has
+she worked with me? Oh, Benigna, thou art still and for ever my
+friend--for ever!--and the thought of thee will be an inspiration to my
+work till my work too is done! But, Mr. Spener, I do not think that this
+trial is set for you and Elise. Brother Loretz, I feel called upon to
+testify that I do not believe that this trial is appointed to Brother
+Spener and Elise. Think of it, and give me your consent, all of you, and
+I will immediately, with devout thanksgiving, in the presence of God,
+join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."
+
+Spener was first to break the silence which bound each amazed soul of
+this little company when Mr. Wenck ceased to speak. His face shone, he
+looked as if he could have embraced "our little minister" then and
+there. He had been, in spite of his pride and prejudice, converted
+wholly into faith in Wenck, but instead of manifesting his conversion at
+once, he strode across the room to Elise's mother. "This is a house of
+mourning," said he, "otherwise I would never consent that Elise's
+marriage should be a private one. I would wish all Spenersberg to see my
+bride: I would like all the people to see our happiness. But let it be
+now, let it be now, Loretz. Elise, let it be now. Surely you see the
+wisdom of it. Such a compliance as ours to a mere custom would be an
+insult to our Father in heaven. Common sense is against it."
+
+His voice was tremulous with emotion: he took Elise's hand. Who could
+stand against him? Her eyes were lifted as to the hills whence help had
+come to them.
+
+Loretz was sadly disconcerted. Spener's instant acceptance of the
+minister's proposal completed the overthrow occasioned by Mr. Wenck's
+astonishing words. How true what he was always saying, that nobody could
+stand against that man!
+
+"Surely, father, surely," said Spener, approaching him, and drawing
+Elise along with him--"surely you cannot fail to feel the force of what
+our good brother has said."
+
+Loretz looked at his wife: it was not merely Albert, the man he revered
+most, but the child--yes, the child of his heart also was arrayed
+against him. How was it with Anna?
+
+"Listen to the minister," said she. "He knows what is right."
+
+"I have spoken in the fear of God," said Mr. Wenck. "I call no man
+master."
+
+Spener looked down at these words: he understood their significance. The
+interview he had returned home intending to ask of Wenck was of a
+different character from this. "I think that no one could suspect you,
+sir, of tampering with another man's destiny or his conscience," he
+said. "I have never understood you till now, and for my misunderstanding
+I humbly ask your pardon." And indeed who that looked at him could
+suppose that this was a moment of proud rejoicing over a success won in
+spite of Church and household?
+
+The minister silently gave him his hand. Spener did himself justice when
+he took the extended palm and held it a moment reverently in his.
+
+"Father, we await your decision," he said to Loretz. He still held
+Elise's hand, and she would not have flown away had he held it less
+firmly.
+
+Leonhard, quite forgotten, just here accidentally touched the piano with
+his elbow, and the sound that came forth was the keynote to
+Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." Forthwith he began to play it. Loretz
+looked at him, and seemed to feel suddenly reassured. A wavering light
+fell around him: he beckoned to the minister. "Do any of the folks
+around here know?" he asked.
+
+"About the lot? Who would have told them? I should say no one."
+
+"Then 'twill do them no harm: I am my brother's keeper. Go on. We won't
+make a balk of it this time."
+
+"What, father!" exclaimed Dame Loretz. "How! Now?" It was her turn to
+offer herself as a stumbling-block, but, dear soul! she must always make
+poor work of such endeavor.
+
+"If they are agreed, let it be. Albert Spener never gave his consent out
+and out to the testing; and look at our girl here! The Lord have mercy
+on us! If I can understand, though, it isn't Albert's doing."
+
+"It is wholly Brother Wenck's," said Spener.
+
+"It is Benigna's," said the minister. "Let us therefore celebrate this
+day of sorrow by a concluding special service;" and he drew from his
+pocket the manual from which he had read the burial service over Sister
+Benigna. "We will rejoice together, as she will rejoice if it is given
+her to know what the friends she loved do on the earth. Is it not as if
+she had given her life for her friends?"
+
+When Leonhard took up the interrupted strain of the "Wedding March,"
+bridegroom had saluted bride, and Loretz, by the light of his daughter's
+eyes, had taken one decided step toward conviction that he had consented
+in that hour not to the furtherance of his own will, but the will of
+Heaven.
+
+Have we permitted Miss Elise to figure almost as a mute on this
+momentous occasion? But does the reader think it likely that she had
+much to say? She might perhaps have uttered one word that would have
+proved insurmountable, but Mr. Wenck had spoken as it were with
+Benigna's authority, and so to yield now was the most obvious duty.
+
+The next morning saw Leonhard Marten on his way back to A----. He had
+submitted to Spener his designs for the monument to be erected among the
+living to the memory of Sister Benigna, and for the houses to be built
+on those elected sites; and these all accepted, he had said to himself,
+"I am an architect and a builder as long as I live," though Spener had
+embraced him when he said, "I never heard such music, sir--never--as you
+gave us last night!"
+
+He went away, promising to come back and bring with him a young lady to
+study music of the Spenersbergers, so soon as he should have despatched
+a letter to a friend who was about to travel abroad.
+
+He promised with a young man's audacity, but he performed it all. If
+Marion was not to be abandoned at once and for ever to a false style of
+music and a false way of living, she must be converted, as he had been,
+out of all patience with the foolish falseness of their life. And then
+everything seemed so easy to him, and really was so easy, after he had
+decided that he could write his name down in that birthday book sacred
+to friendship in which Loretz had offered him a place.
+
+And here is explanation ample of the fact that Wilberforce, about to
+travel abroad and in sore need of money, found a thousand dollars
+deposited to his credit when he expected five thousand, and in due time
+received a letter which satisfied him, in spite of its surprise, that
+Leonhard was the best friend he had and the most trustworthy man living,
+and that whoever she might be whom he had taken in holy matrimony for
+his life-companion, he was worthy of her.
+
+CAROLINE CHESEBRO'.
+
+
+
+
+UNSETTLED POINTS OF ETIQUETTE.
+
+     In England the higher the rank the more affable and kind I
+     found them. It is only the little people climbing up who are
+     disagreeable.--SULLY.
+
+
+Not alone of English people can this be said. In "society" all over the
+world it is the same; for everywhere men and women born and bred ladies
+and gentlemen value their reputation as such too highly to risk it by
+any rudeness or uncourteousness. They may upon occasion be frigidly
+polite, but polite they will always be. But customs vary so much that
+some things which would be considered polite in one country would be
+looked upon in another as rude or intrusive. Take, for instance, one
+illustration among many which might be cited. A foreigner sent on a
+diplomatic mission to this country brought with him letters of
+introduction to several members of a large family. Having affairs of
+importance to attend to, he was remiss about delivering these letters on
+this occasion, but on a second visit, having more leisure, he made it a
+point to have himself presented at a ball to every member of the family
+who was present. After the ball he told a lady of the trouble he had
+given himself, and asked her congratulations upon having accomplished so
+much in one evening. She, being upon intimate terms with him, assured
+him that his politeness was not only unnecessary, but would in all
+probability be misunderstood. "According to the customs of our country,"
+said the lady, "you ought to have waited until they asked to be
+presented to you." "How could I do that," he inquired indignantly, "when
+it was my duty to make myself known to them, out of respect for the
+writer of the letters as well as for those to whom she had written?
+Besides, one can never be too civil to ladies and gentlemen." The lady
+replied, "True; only you must first be sure that you are dealing with
+ladies and gentlemen who understand all points of etiquette as you do."
+Before his return to his own country he learned his error by the result,
+for during a stay of some months he never received an invitation from
+any of the family. By following the customs of his own country, instead
+of adopting those of the country he was in, he had subjected himself to
+being looked upon as "a pushing foreigner," who valued their
+acquaintance so highly that he was determined to gain it, even at the
+sacrifice of the customs of good society.
+
+Americans when abroad, unless in an official position, have very little
+opportunity of gaining a knowledge of such requirements of etiquette as
+had influenced this gentleman in making the overtures he had thought
+necessary; nor can we be expected to be acquainted with them. The rules
+of social etiquette are all so well understood and practiced in Europe
+that no opportunity presents itself for the miscomprehensions as to
+one's duties in society which prevail with us. There every detail is
+prescribed by the codes and usages of courts; and one might as well pass
+an acquaintance in the street without the usual salutation as neglect
+any one of these forms. Again to illustrate: A gentleman belonging at
+one time to the English legation in Washington passed a summer at one of
+our fashionable watering-places. His official position would have
+secured him the consideration to which he was entitled, even had he not
+been the general favorite that he was; but the men who left their cards
+from time to time upon him were not always particular in having
+themselves presented the first time they met him afterward at the club
+or at dinners; and looking upon this omission as he had been trained to
+do, it could not but seem to him an intentional rudeness on their part.
+The consequence was, he avoided the watering-place thereafter, and
+sought his summer recreation where there was less pretension at least,
+and where he doubtless became less exacting or more accustomed to such
+trifling breaches of etiquette.
+
+For want of an exact code many points of etiquette are with us left
+open to discussion, and this without reference to foreign ideas. Thus
+the custom of inviting gentlemen to call when a married lady wishes to
+give them the entree to her house seems to have become an obsolete one
+with a great many. Quite recently a discussion took place as to its
+propriety between several ladies of distinction in this city. One lady
+said that it was the Philadelphia custom for gentlemen to call where
+they wished, without waiting for an invitation, after they had made the
+acquaintance of any lady in the family; and more than one married woman
+asserted that they had never yet asked a gentleman to come to see them;
+while another insisted that gentlemen generally would not venture to
+make a call upon any married lady unless she had invited them, or they
+had first asked her permission. As a difference of opinion exists on
+this point, it would be well if it could be an understood thing that any
+gentleman wishing to make the acquaintance of a lady could, after having
+himself presented to her, leave his card at her house with his address
+upon it. Of course this applies only to comparative strangers, for any
+young man can commit his card to his mother or sister to leave for him
+at a house where either visits, if he wishes to be included in
+invitations. Unless his card is left in this way or in person, how can
+he expect to be remembered? Some years ago, a lady who gave a ball
+during the winter after her return from a residence abroad, omitted to
+send invitations to the young men who, having previously visited at her
+house, had not left their cards at her door since her arrival home,
+preferring to substitute gentlemen who had never been entertained by her
+to inviting those who were so remiss. For this reason she gave
+permission to several young ladies to name gentlemen among their friends
+whom they would like to have invited; and so agreeable to the hostess
+was the selection thus made that she placed permanently upon her
+inviting list the names of those who sufficiently appreciated her
+courtesy to remember afterward the slight duties which their acceptance
+of her hospitality imposed upon them.
+
+Still another illustration will show what unsettled ideas many hold in
+regard to points of etiquette which ought not to admit of any diversity
+of opinion. Ladies sometimes say to each other, after having been in the
+habit of meeting for years without exchanging visits, "I hope you will
+come and see me," and almost as frequently the answer is made, "Oh, you
+must come and see me first." One moment of reflection would prevent a
+lady from making that answer, unless she were much the older of the two,
+when she could with propriety give that as the reason. The lady who
+extends the invitation makes the first advance, and the one who receives
+it should at least say, "I thank you--you are very kind," even if she
+has no intention of availing herself of it. A lady in the fashionable
+circles of our largest metropolis once boasted that she had never made a
+first visit. She was not aware, probably, that in the opinion of those
+conversant with the duties of her position she stamped herself as being
+just as underbred as if she had announced that she did not wait for any
+one to call upon her. No lady surely is of so little importance in the
+circle in which she moves as never to be placed in circumstances where a
+first visit is requisite from her; nor does any one in our land so
+nearly approach the position of a reigning monarch as to decree that
+all, irrespective of age or priority of residence, should make the first
+call upon her.
+
+One of the most reasonable rules of etiquette is that which requires
+prompt replies to invitations. The reason why an invitation to dine or
+to an opera-box should be answered as soon as received is so evident
+that it will not admit of questioning; but many who are punctilious in
+these particulars are remiss in sending promptly their acceptances or
+regrets for parties and balls. Most of those who neglect this duty do so
+from thoughtlessness or carelessness, but there are some who have the
+idea that it increases their importance to delay their reply, or that
+promptness gives evidence of eagerness to accept or to refuse. Others,
+again, are prevented from paying that direct attention to an invitation
+which politeness requires by the inconvenience of sending a special
+messenger with their notes. Where any doubt exists in reference to the
+ability of the person invited to be present at a soiree or ball, an
+acceptance should be sent at once; and if afterward prevented from going
+a short note of explanation or regret should be despatched. It is well
+known that a few words make all the difference between a polite and an
+impolite regret. "Mrs. Gordon regrets that she cannot accept Mrs.
+Sydney's invitation for Tuesday evening," is not only curt, but would be
+considered by many positively rude. The mistake arises, however, more
+frequently from ignorance than from intentional rudeness. "Mrs. Gordon
+regrets extremely that she cannot accept Mrs. Sydney's kind invitation
+for Tuesday evening," is all that is necessary. All answers to
+invitations given in the name of the lady and gentleman of the house are
+generally acknowledged to both in the answer, and the envelope addressed
+to the lady alone.
+
+Some persons are in the habit of sending acceptances to invitations for
+balls even when they know that they are not going; but this is very
+unfair to the hostess, not only because she orders her supper for all
+who accept, but because she may wish to invite others in their places if
+she knows in time that they are not to be present. No house is so large
+but it has a limit to the number of people that can be comfortably
+entertained; and some ladies are compelled by the length of their
+visiting-list to give two or three entertainments in order to include
+all whom they wish to invite. When the invitations are sent out ten days
+in advance, if answered within three days the hostess is enabled to
+select from her other lists such of her friends as she would like to pay
+the compliment of inviting twice, in case the number of regrets which
+she receives will permit her to do so; but delaying the answers or
+accepting with no intention of going puts it out of her power to send
+other invitations.
+
+An invitation once given cannot be recalled, even from the best motives,
+without subjecting the one who recalls it to the charge of being either
+ignorant or regardless of all conventional rules of politeness. Some
+years ago a lady who had been invited with her husband to a musical
+entertainment given at the house of an acquaintance for a mutual friend
+of the inviter and the invited, received, after having accepted the
+invitation, a note requesting her not to come, on the ground that she
+had spoken slanderously of the lady for whom the soiree was to be given.
+Entirely innocent of the charge, she demanded an explanation, which
+resulted in completely exonerating her. The invitation was then
+repeated, but of course, as the withdrawal of it had been intended as a
+punishment, the rudeness was of too flagrant a character to overlook,
+and all visiting between the parties ceased from that day. The rule
+would not apply to a more recent case, where a lady gave a ball, and, in
+endeavoring to avoid a crush and make it agreeable for her guests, left
+out all young men under twenty-one years of age; but finding that she
+had received wrong information concerning the age of one whom she had
+invited, and that this one exception was much commented upon, causing
+her to appear inconsistent, she wrote a note asking permission to recall
+the invitation (having received no answer to it), and expressing her
+regret that she should be made to appear rude where no rudeness was
+intended. In this case the gentleman could, without compromising his
+dignity, have sent a courteous reply, assuring the lady that he
+perfectly understood her motives, and begging her not to give herself
+any uneasiness upon his account in having felt compelled to withdraw the
+invitation. By doing so he would have made the lady his firm friend, and
+had she appreciated his politeness as it would have deserved to be
+appreciated, she would have lost no opportunity of showing her sense of
+it.
+
+There is no better test of ladies and gentlemen than the manner in
+which they receive being left out of a general invitation. They may feel
+ever so keenly the omission, but it should never betray itself in a
+shadow of change either in look or in tone. If the invitation is not a
+general one, why should any one feel hurt by being omitted? No one but
+the entertainer can know all the motives that influence her in her
+selections. And here might be mentioned several reasonable points of
+etiquette which may control her. When a first invitation has not been
+accepted, it is to be supposed that no other will be expected until the
+recipient of the invitation has returned the courtesy in some way, be it
+ever so simple. In cases where previous invitations have been accepted,
+even those who are not in the habit of balancing the exchange of
+hospitalities cannot continue to extend them year after year, however
+much they may wish to do so, when not the slightest disposition is shown
+to make any return. Then, too, many ladies are not willing to overlook
+the omission of leaving cards after their entertainments, and they very
+naturally feel that a distinction should be made between such young men
+as have shown an appreciation of their past courtesies and those who
+have not. And again, a lady may often be deterred from sending
+invitations to those whom she heartily wishes to invite, from her
+dislike of making any advance to persons who are older residents, or
+from a fear of being considered pushing or patronizing. A lady who never
+makes first calls upon those who have lived longer than herself in the
+city where she resides (unless in cases where age or infirmities upon
+the part of those inviting her makes it her province to do so), learned
+just before giving an entertainment that the wife of a gentleman from
+whom she had received assistance in the charitable labors which occupied
+some of her leisure hours was a native of another city; and in writing a
+note upon business to the gentleman she expressed her intention of
+calling upon his wife, explaining why she had not sooner done so. She
+received an immediate reply from the husband, in which, after the
+business had been attended to, he informed her that he and his wife
+selected their own circle of friends, which was quite as large as they
+desired to make it. The lady as promptly sent back a note in answer, in
+which she expressed her regret for the mistake she had made, and thanked
+him for having corrected the impression which she had formed of him as a
+gentleman in her acquaintance with him solely in business relations.
+Such an experience would prevent a sensitive woman from ever placing
+herself in a position to receive such a rudeness again from any one and
+therefore no one whose duty it is to make a first call, and who has not
+made it, should ever feel hurt or offended at not being invited by such
+an acquaintance, no matter how general may have been the invitation.
+
+Ladies who are the most apt to give offence are those who divide their
+lists, giving two parties in the course of the year, instead of the
+grand crush which is more popular. Some feel aggrieved because they are
+not invited to both, fancying that there are reasons why an exception
+should be made in their favor; while others prefer the party for which
+no invitation was sent. Those who send regrets for the first party
+sometimes expect to be invited to the second, but this in no way changes
+the relation between the inviter and the invited. It is the misfortune
+and not the fault of the lady who invites that such regrets are sent;
+and if she is able to repeat her invitations to any upon her first list,
+it will surely be to those who gave such reasons for regretting as
+illness or absence from the city. Certainly the entertainer must desire
+to make both parties equally pleasant, and must select her guests to
+this end; and yet there are those who, when left out, do not hesitate to
+show her by the change in their manner that they consider themselves
+more capable than she is of selecting her guests.
+
+The question is frequently asked whether replies should be sent to
+invitations to wedding and other receptions, and to "at-home" cards. If
+one receives the great compliment of being invited to a marriage
+ceremony (not at church), an acceptance or regret would of course be
+immediately sent, for it is only in the case of the reception following
+that any doubt seems to exist. It is generally understood that no
+answers are expected; but as it is certainly very polite to send a
+regret when one is unable to accept, why is it not equally polite to
+send an acceptance? After receptions it is not considered necessary for
+those who have been present to call, but those who are prevented from
+going call in person as soon as is convenient. Sometimes, as in the case
+of wedding receptions, many are invited for the occasion, friends either
+of the bride or groom, whom the relative who gives the reception has
+never visited, and does not wish to visit in the future. Of course the
+visiting then ends with the call made after the reception; for if the
+cards left at the reception or afterward are not returned by those of
+the host or hostess, no matter how desirous the recipient of the
+civility may be to extend her hospitality in return, she ought not to do
+so unless under corresponding circumstances. Frequently those who are
+prevented from attending wedding-receptions send their cards, and these
+are returned by those of the bride and groom when they make their round
+of visits, except in cases where, after the reception, their cards are
+sent with a new address. Then, of course, those who receive them always
+pay the first visit. The gentleman sends his card alone (when there has
+been no reception) where he wishes to have his wife make the
+acquaintance of his friends whom she has not previously visited; and the
+sooner the call is made under such circumstances the more polite it is
+considered.
+
+The reason why an invitation to an opera-box, like an invitation to
+dine, must be answered immediately is because the number of seats being
+limited it is necessary, when regrets are received, to send out other
+invitations at once, in order that all may be complimented alike by
+receiving them upon the same day. Gentleman not receiving any special
+invitation to a box, who chance to be in the opera-house in a
+dress-suit, often pay visits of ten or fifteen minutes to the box of any
+lady with whom they are well acquainted. If a gentleman wishes to enter
+the box of some chaperone with whom he is not acquainted, he always
+requests some mutual acquaintance in the box to present him to the
+chaperone immediately upon entering. Unless invited by her to remain, he
+is careful not to prolong his visit beyond the time allowed. Young
+ladies are sometimes very thoughtless in urging young gentlemen to stay
+during an entire act, or even longer; but when the party is made up by
+the chaperone, she does not like to see the gentlemen whom she has
+invited incommoded by one whom she has not asked to her box.
+
+The diversity of opinion that exists with us in reference to many points
+of etiquette is unfortunate; for where no fixed rules exist there must
+always be misapprehensions and misunderstandings; rudenesses suspected
+where none are intended, and sometimes resented, to the great perplexity
+of the offender as to the cause of the offence. It is not every one who
+knows how rude a thing people of the old school consider it to make use
+of a lady's house in calling upon a guest staying with her, and leaving
+no card for the hostess. This simple act of courtesy does not
+necessitate a continuance of visiting, inasmuch as the lady only feels
+obliged to return her card through her friend, leaving it to after
+circumstances to decide whether it will be mutually agreeable to make
+the acquaintance. To call upon strangers for whom dinners are given when
+invited to meet them is very polite, but it should not be construed into
+any intended impoliteness in this country if the call is not made; and
+it may even happen that one is unable to be presented to such guests
+where the dinner is large, though one should at least make the attempt.
+Nor is it generally understood how great is the discourtesy of
+permitting any person who has been shown into a house through the
+mistake of a servant when the ladies are engaged, to be shown out again
+without seeing any member of the family. The mistake having occurred,
+if no member of the family is able to make her appearance without
+considerable delay, a message should be sent down with an explanation,
+inquiring if the visitor will wait until one of the ladies can come
+down. The lady who finds herself admitted when out upon a round of calls
+will be without doubt only too glad of the excuse for departure; and
+even if calling upon matters that require an answer, her _savoir faire_
+would prevent her from waiting under such circumstances. Any hesitation
+upon the part of the servant who answers the bell, as to whether the
+ladies are at home or engaged, authorizes the persons calling to leave
+their cards without waiting to ascertain.
+
+The etiquette in regard to bowing is so simple and reasonable that one
+would scarcely suppose it possible that any differences of opinion could
+exist, and yet there are some who think it a breach of politeness if one
+neglect to bow, although meeting half a dozen times on a promenade or in
+driving. Custom has made it necessary to bow only the first time in
+passing: after that exchange of salutations it is very properly not
+expected. The difference between a courteous and a familiar bow should
+be remembered by gentlemen who wish to make a favorable impression. A
+lady dislikes to receive from a man with whom she has but a slight
+acquaintance a bow accompanied by a broad smile, as though he were on
+the most familiar terms with her. It is far better to err on the other
+side, and to give one of those stiff, ungracious bows which some men
+indulge in. Those gentlemen who smile with their eyes instead of their
+mouths give the most charming bows. As for men who bow charmingly at one
+time, and with excessive hauteur at others, according as they feel in a
+good or bad humor, they need never be surprised if the person thus
+treated should cease speaking altogether; nor can any man who does not
+lift, or at least touch, his hat in speaking to a lady expect that she
+will continue her salutations.
+
+The rules to which allusion has been made are all reasonable, but there
+are others which, having only an imaginary foundation in the
+requirements of true politeness, might be disregarded with advantage.
+Such, for example, as that of sending answers to invitations by a
+special messenger. It is equally convenient to employ a man to deliver
+invitations or to send them by post. With the reply it is different.
+Each family receiving an invitation has to send out a servant with the
+answer. This not being always convenient, the reply is frequently
+delayed--sometimes until it is forgotten. But if the foreign custom of
+sending acceptances and regrets by post could be brought into general
+use, how much more sensible it would be! It was the occasion of many
+comments when a few years since some cards, not invitations, were thus
+sent by mistake, the servant posting those which he had forgotten to
+deliver before the wedding had taken place. But it only needs a few
+resolute persons to set the example, and persist in it, to have it as
+generally adopted as it is abroad.
+
+
+
+
+THE HERMIT'S VIGIL.
+
+    Here is the ancient legend I was reading
+      From the black-letter vellum page last night:
+    Its yellow husk holds lessons worth the heeding,
+                        If we unfold it right.
+
+    The tome is musty with dank superstition
+      From which we shrink recoiling, to th' extreme
+    Of an unfaith that with material vision,
+                        Accounts as myth or dream
+
+    Problems too subtle for our clumsy fingers--
+      High truths that stretch beyond our reach as far
+    As o'er the fire-fly in the grass that lingers
+                        Stretches yon quenchless star.
+
+    Give rather back the old hallucinations--
+      The visible spirits--the rapture, terror, grief
+    Of faith so human, than the drear negations
+                        Of dumb, dead unbelief!
+
+    --But will you hear the story?
+                             --In a forest,
+      Girt round by blacken'd tarns, a hermit dwelt:
+    And as one midnight, when the storm raged sorest,
+                        Within his hut he knelt
+
+    In ghostly penance, sounds of fiendish laughter
+      Smote on the tempest's lull with sudden jar,
+    That sent the gibbering echoes shrilling after,
+                        O'er weir and wold afar.
+
+    "Christ ban ye now!"--he cried, the door wide flinging,
+      "Fare ye some whither with perdition's dole?"
+    --"We go"--out from the wrack a shriek came ringing--
+                        "To seize the emperor's soul,
+
+    "Who lies this hour death-smitten." Execration
+      Thereat still fouler filled the sulphurous air:
+    Before the rood the hermit sank:--"Salvation
+                        Grant, Lord! in his despair!"
+
+    And agonizing thus, with lips all ashen,
+      He prayed--till back, with ghastlier rage and roar,
+    The demon rout rushed, strung to fiercer passion,
+                        And crashed his osier door.
+
+    "Speak, fiend!--I do adjure thee!--Came repentance
+      Too late?"--With wrathful curse was answer made:
+    --"Heaped high within the Judgment Scales for sentence,
+                        The emperor's sins were laid;
+
+    "And downward, downward, with a plunge descended
+      _Our_ scale, till we exulted!--when a moan,
+    --'_Save, Christ, O save me!_'--from his lips was rended
+                        Out with his dying groan.
+
+    "Quick in the other scale did Mercy lay it,
+      _Lo! it outweighed his guilt_--"
+          --"Ha,--baffled! braved!"--
+    The hermit cried;--"Hence, fiends! nor dare gainsay it,
+                     _The emperor's soul is saved!_"
+
+                        MARGARET J. PRESTOX.
+
+
+
+
+CHATEAUBRIAND'S DUCKS.
+
+
+Francois-Auguste de Chateaubriand, the illustrious author of the _Genie
+du Christianisme_, the poet, statesman, diplomatist, soldier, and
+traveler in the Old World and the New, was one of the two or three human
+beings who, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, disputed with
+the emperor Napoleon the attention of Europe. Sprung from an old family
+of the Breton nobility--a race preserving longer perhaps than any other
+in France the traditions of the monarchy--he reluctantly gave in his
+adhesion to the _de facto_ government of Napoleon; but the execution of
+the duc d'Enghien outraged him profoundly, and sending back to Napoleon
+his commission as foreign minister, he abjured him for ever. Napoleon
+probably regretted the fact seriously. "Chateaubriand," said the
+emperor, "has received from Nature the sacred fire: his works attest it.
+His style is that of a prophet, and all that is grand and national
+appertains to his genius."
+
+It would be out of place in the brief sketch here given to trace his
+long and adventurous career. By turns author, minister, ambassador,
+soldier, he saw, like his famous contemporary and associate, Talleyrand,
+revolution after revolution, dynasty after dynasty, Bonapartist,
+Bourbon and Orleanist, pass before him; and having in this long career
+enjoyed or suffered all the splendors and all the woes of life--now at
+the height of wealth and power, now a penniless and homeless
+wanderer--he came at the age of eighty, in 1848, to Paris to die, in
+wellnigh abject poverty.
+
+Among the personal delineations of this celebrated man, the most
+characteristic and entertaining perhaps are those presented by Victor
+Hugo and Alexander Dumas in their respective memoirs. Chateaubriand is
+there shown in undress, and the portrait drawn of him is vivid and
+interesting. Victor Hugo describes him as he appeared in 1819 at his
+fine hotel in Paris, wealthy, influential and renowned. The author-to-be
+of _Les Miserables_ was then a mere youth, and his budding glories as an
+ultra-royalist poet conferred upon him the honor of an introduction to
+the great man. Hugo was ushered in, and saw before him, leaning in a
+stately attitude against the mantelpiece, the illustrious individual. M.
+de Chateaubriand, says Hugo, affected the bearing of a soldier: the man
+of the pen remembered the man of the sword. His neck was encircled by a
+black cravat, which hid the collar of his shirt: a black frockcoat,
+buttoned to the top, encased his small, bent body. The fine part about
+him was his head--out of proportion with his figure, but grave and
+noble. The nose was firm and imperious in outline, the eye proud, the
+smile charming; but this smile was a sudden flash, the mouth quickly
+resuming its severe and haughty expression.
+
+"Monsieur Hugo," said Chateaubriand without moving, "I am delighted to
+see you. I have read your verses on La Vendee and the death of the duc
+de Berri; and there are things in the latter more especially which no
+other poet of this age could have written. My years and experience give
+me, unfortunately, the right to be frank, and I say candidly that there
+are passages which I like less; but what is good in your poems is very
+good."
+
+In the attitude, inflections of voice and intonation of the speaker's
+phrases there was something sovereign, which rather diminished than
+exalted the young writer in his own eyes. Night came and lights were
+brought. The master of the mansion permitted the conversation to
+languish, and Hugo was much relieved when the friend who had introduced
+him rose to go. Chateaubriand, seeing them about to take their leave,
+invited Hugo to come and see him on any day between seven and nine in
+the morning, and the youth gained the street, where he drew a long
+breath.
+
+"Well," said his friend, "I hope you are content?"
+
+"Yes--to be out!"
+
+"How! Why, M. de Chateaubriand was charming! He talked a great deal to
+you. You don't know him: he passes four or five hours sometimes without
+saying a word. If you are not satisfied, you are hard to please."
+
+In response to Chateaubriand's general invitation, Hugo went soon
+afterward, at an early hour of the morning, to repeat his visit. He was
+shown into Chateaubriand's chamber, and found the illustrious personage
+in his shirt-sleeves, with a handkerchief tied around his head, seated
+at a table and looking over some papers. He turned round cordially, and
+said, "Ah! good-day, Monsieur Victor Hugo. I expected you. Sit down.
+Have you been working since I saw you? have you made many verses?"
+
+Hugo replied that he wrote a few every day.
+
+"You are right," said Chateaubriand. "Verses! make verses! 'Tis the
+highest department of literature. You are on higher ground than mine:
+the true writer is the poet. I have made verses, too, and am sorry I did
+not continue to do so, as my verses were worth more than my prose. Do
+you know that I have written a tragedy? I must read you a scene.
+Pilorge! come here: I want you."
+
+An individual with red face, hair and moustaches entered.
+
+"Go and find the manuscript of _Moses_," said Chateaubriand.
+
+Pilorge was Chateaubriand's secretary, and the place was no sinecure.
+Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied
+everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of
+posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling
+notes. The tragedy which Chateaubriand read from with pomp and emphasis
+did not immensely impress Hugo, and the scene was interrupted by the
+entrance of a servant with an enormous vessel full of water for the
+bath. Chateaubriand proceeded to take off his head handkerchief and
+green slippers, and seeing Hugo about to retire, motioned to him to
+remain. He then continued to disrobe without ceremony, took off his gray
+pantaloons, shirt and flannel undershirt, and went into the bath, where
+his servant washed and rubbed him. He then resumed his clothes, brushed
+his teeth, which were beautiful, and of which he evidently took great
+care; and during this process talked with animation.
+
+This morning seems to have been a fortunate exception, as Hugo declares
+that he found Chateaubriand on other occasions a man of freezing
+politeness, stiff, arousing rather respect than sympathy--a genius
+rather than a man. The royal carelessness of his character was shown in
+his financial affairs. He kept always on his mantelpiece piles of
+five-franc pieces, and when his servant brought him begging letters--a
+thing which took place constantly--he took a piece from the pile,
+wrapped it in the letter and sent it out by the servant. Money ran
+through his fingers. When he went to see Charles X. at Prague, and the
+king questioned him in reference to his affairs, his response was, "I am
+as poor as a rat."
+
+"That will not do," said the king. "Come, Chateaubriand, how much would
+make you rich?"
+
+"Sire," was the reply, "you are throwing away your time. If you gave me
+four millions this morning, I should not have a penny this evening."
+
+It must be conceded that there was something imposing in this refusal of
+royal generosity; but the poet seems to have passed through life thus,
+with his head carried superbly aloft, and his "grand air" ready on all
+occasions.
+
+Hugo draws him at fifty, in his fine hotel at Paris--a celebrity in
+politics and society. Dumas shows him in his old age, poor, self-exiled,
+and wellnigh forgotten by the world in which he had played so great a
+part. The brilliant and eccentric author of _Henry III._ was traveling
+in Switzerland in 1834, and on reaching Lucerne was informed that the
+hotel of The Eagle had the honor of sheltering no less a personage than
+one of his own literary idols--the great, the famous, the imposing M. de
+Chateaubriand. Dumas declares that genius in misfortune was always
+dearer to him than in its hours of greatest splendor, and the statement
+seems to have been honest. He determined to call and pay his respects to
+the great poet. He accordingly repaired to the hotel of The Eagle, asked
+for M. de Chateaubriand, and was informed by the waiter in a
+matter-of-fact voice that M. de Chateaubriand was not then at the hotel,
+as he had "gone to feed his ducks."
+
+At this strange announcement Dumas stared. He suppressed his curiosity,
+nevertheless, left his name and address, and duly received on the next
+morning a polite note from Chateaubriand inviting him to come and
+breakfast with him at ten.
+
+The invitation was gladly accepted, not, however, without a tremor of
+awe on the part of the youthful author. Even in old age, poverty, exile
+and forgotten by the world, Chateaubriand was to him the impersonation
+of grandeur. He trembled at the very thought of approaching this "mighty
+rock upon which the waves of envy had in vain beaten for fifty
+years"--this grand genius whose "immense superiority wellnigh crushed
+him." His demeanor, therefore, he declares, when shown into
+Chateaubriand's presence, must have appeared exceedingly awkward.
+Nevertheless, the cordial courtesy of the exile speedily restored his
+self-possession, and they proceeded to breakfast, conversing meanwhile
+upon political affairs, the news from France, and other topics of
+national interest to the old poet. Dumas represents him as simple,
+cordial, grave, yet unreserved. He was gray, but preserved his imposing
+carriage.
+
+When breakfast was over, and they had conversed for some time upon
+French affairs, Chateaubriand rose and said with great simplicity, "Now
+let us go and feed my ducks."
+
+At these words Dumas looked with surprise at his host, and after
+hesitating an instant essayed to reach a solution of the mystery.
+
+"The waiter informed me yesterday," he said, "that you had gone out for
+that purpose. May I ask if you propose in your retirement to become a
+farmer?"
+
+In reply to this question Chateaubriand said in his tranquil voice, "Why
+not? A man whose life has been, like mine, driven by caprice, adventure,
+revolutions and exile toward the four quarters of the world, would be
+happy, I think, to possess, not a chalet in these mountains--I do not
+like the Alps--but a country-place in Normandy or Brittany. Really, I
+think that this is the resource of my old age."
+
+"Permit me to doubt it," returned Dumas. "You remember Charles V. at
+Yuste. You do not belong to the class of emperors who abdicate or kings
+who are dethroned, but to those princes who die under a canopy, and who
+are buried, like Charlemagne, their feet in their bucklers, swords at
+their sides, crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands."
+
+"Take care!" replied Chateaubriand. "It is long since I have been
+flattered, and it may overcome me. Come and feed my ducks."
+
+The impressible visitor declares that he felt disposed to fall upon his
+knees before this grand and simple human being, but refrained. They went
+to the middle of a bridge thrown across an arm of the lake, and
+Chateaubriand drew from his pocket a piece of bread which he had placed
+there after breakfast. This he began to throw into the lake, when a
+dozen ducks darted forth from a sort of isle formed of reeds, and
+hastened to dispute the repast prepared for them by the hand which had
+written _Rene, The Genius of Christianity_ and _The Martyrs_. Whilst
+thus engaged, Chateaubriand leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, his
+lips contracted by a smile, but his eyes grave and sad. Gradually his
+movements became mechanical, his face assumed an expression of profound
+melancholy, the shadow of his thoughts passed across his large forehead
+like clouds of heaven; and there were among them recollections of his
+country, his family and his tender friendships, more sorrowful than all
+others. He moved, sighed, and, recalling the presence of his visitor,
+turned round.
+
+"If you regret Paris," said Dumas, "why not return? Nothing exiles
+you--all recalls you."
+
+"What could I do?" said Chateaubriand. "I was at Cauterets when the
+revolution of July took place. I returned to Paris. I saw one throne in
+blood, and another in the mud--lawyers making a constitution--a king
+shaking hands with rag-pickers: that was mortally sad; above all, when a
+man is filled as I am with the great traditions of the monarchy."
+
+"I thought you recognized popular sovereignty?"
+
+"Well, kings should go back from time to time to the source of their
+authority--election; but this time they have cut a branch from the tree,
+a link from the chain. They should have elected Henry V., not Louis
+Philippe."
+
+"A sad wish for the poor child! The Henrys are unfortunate: they have
+been poisoned or assassinated."
+
+"Well," said Chateaubriand, "it is better to die by the poniard than
+from exile: it is quicker, and you suffer less."
+
+"You will not return to France?"
+
+"Possibly, to defend the duchess de Berri if she is tried."
+
+"And if not?"
+
+"Then," said Chateaubriand, throwing bread into the water, "I shall
+continue to feed my ducks."
+
+                        JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
+
+
+
+
+OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
+
+
+BACONS AND BARONETS.
+
+There died in November last a gentleman who, though not remarkable
+himself, was the head and representative of so famous a family and order
+that his death is an event deserving of some notice. This was Sir Henry
+Hickman Bacon, premier baronet of England. This gentleman was not the
+descendant of the great Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, but head of the
+family whence that eminent man, a cadet of the house, sprung.
+
+The origin[M] of this family is lost in the obscurity of centuries. Sir
+Nicholas, an eminent lawyer of England in the reign of Queen Mary,
+succeeded, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, to the lord-keepership of
+the great seal. He married twice, and had a numerous issue, and the
+baronet lately deceased is the direct representative of the
+lord-keeper's eldest son by his first marriage, who was the first person
+created--by James I., on May 22, 1611--a baronet.
+
+And it is not a little remarkable that whilst of the baronetcies since
+created an immense percentage have become extinct, and only some half
+dozen of those created in 1611 remain, the first ever created has
+survived, and bids fair to do so for some time to come. The baronetcy of
+Hobart (earl of Buckinghamshire)--whose ancestral seat of Blickling, in
+Norfolk, passed some time since, with its magnificent collection of
+books, by marriage, into the Scotch family of Ker, and now belongs to
+the marquis of Lothian--and that of Shirley (held by Earl Ferrers), seem
+to be the only baronetcies now extant whose patents bear date the same
+day as that of Bacon.
+
+The others left of the same year are Mordaunt, of which we heard so much
+in a trial in 1870; Gerard, an ancient Lancashire Catholic house; Monson
+(Lord Monson); Musgrave of Edenhall ("the luck of Edenhall" is the
+subject of one of Longfellow's poems); Gresley, Twysden, Temple and
+Houghton. The last became well known a few years ago in this country as
+the largest holder of Confederate bonds.
+
+Francis Bacon, familiarly known as Lord Bacon, though in fact he never
+enjoyed that honor, his titles being Baron Verulam and Viscount St.
+Alban's, was second son of his father's second marriage, his mother
+being one of three sisters, the most eminent blue-stockings of the
+period, daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex.
+
+Another of Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters was Lady Burleigh, who had been
+governess to Edward VI., second wife of the famous lord-treasurer, and
+direct ancestress of the present talented marquis of Salisbury,
+vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, whose sister, Lady Mildred
+Beresford-Hope, wife of the well-known son of the author of
+_Anastasius_, bears the same name (Mildred) as her ancestress. Indeed,
+names are thus frequently transmitted for centuries in English families,
+and often thus serve as links in genealogical research. The Cooke family
+has long been extinct, and their stately seat was pulled down by a
+London alderman in the eighteenth century.
+
+Another sister, Lady Hobby--whose husband resided at Bisham Abbey, a
+fine old place, maintained in admirable repair, near Windsor--was a
+terrible disciplinarian, and there is an ugly story of her having
+whipped a wretched son of hers into his grave, from exasperation at his
+inability to make his "pothooks," when she was teaching him writing,
+without blots. Curiously enough, when, some years ago, improvements were
+being made at the Abbey, a number of copy-books of the style of writing
+common at the period in which Lady Hobby lived were discovered behind
+wainscoting, and all were blotted.
+
+The manor of Gorhambury, the great Bacon's seat, was purchased by his
+father, whose other seat was Redgrave in Suffolk. Gorhambury is near the
+town of St. Alban's, renowned for its abbey, now in course of splendid
+rehabilitation.
+
+Not far from St. Alban's once stood the celebrated Roman city of
+Verulam, called by Tacitus _Verulamium_, which Bacon, deeply imbued with
+Latin learning, appropriately selected for his first title. The plough
+has now for many centuries made furrows over it, and the only vestiges
+remaining are a few detached masses of the wall. Verulam was bounded on
+the south-west by the Roman Watling Street. Gorhambury was built by Sir
+Nicholas, and in the archbishop of Canterbury's library at Lambeth may
+be seen an interesting account of the expenses. It need scarcely be
+added that Queen Elizabeth paid her lord-keeper a visit there. Sir
+Nicholas Bacon left Gorhambury to Mr. Anthony Bacon, the eldest son of
+his second marriage, and he, dying unmarried, left the estate to his
+brother Francis.
+
+Gorhambury now belongs to the earl of Verulam, whose family name is
+Grimston. It was left by the great Bacon to his friend, Sir Thomas
+Meautys, and thence, by a course of intricate successions, came to the
+present proprietor.
+
+Bacon, like so many other famous men, had no children. He died in Lord
+Arundel's house at Highgate in 1626.
+
+Sir Robert Bacon, fifth baronet, sold Redgrave, the family seat in
+Suffolk, to Lord Chief-Justice Holt toward the end of the seventeenth
+century. Holt, who died in London 5th of March, 1710, was buried there,
+and a grand monument to his memory may be seen in the church. It was
+erected by his brother and heir, for, like Bacon, he was childless.
+
+Redgrave Hall, eighty-seven miles from London by the coach-road, is a
+large square mansion. The male line of the Holt family has long been
+extinct, but the present owner of the estate is descended from the great
+lord chief-justice's niece, who married Mr. Wilson, a younger son of an
+ancient Westmoreland family.
+
+But to pass to the origin of the order of baronets. After one of the
+almost chronic Irish insurrections against British rule, James I.
+conceived in 1609 the idea of offering to English and Scotch settlers,
+known to be possessed of capital, a large portion of the forfeited
+estates in Ulster. The supposed necessity of a military force for the
+protection of the colonists suggested to Sir Antony Shirley a project of
+raising money for the king. He proposed the creation of a new honor,
+between those of knight and baron, and that it be conferred by patent at
+a fixed price for the support of the army in Ulster--that it should
+descend to heirs male, and be confined to two hundred gentlemen of three
+descents in actual possession of lands worth one thousand pounds a
+year--a sum equal to five thousand now.[N]
+
+James I. approved of the scheme, as he would have done of any which
+seemed feasible for raising the wind, and the patents were offered at
+the price of ten hundred and ninety-five pounds, the estimated amount of
+the charge of thirty soldiers during three years. The purchasers did not
+prove so numerous as had been expected. In the first six years
+ninety-three patents were sold at L101,835. "It is unnecessary to add,"
+says Doctor Lingard, "that the money never found its way to Ireland" in
+the shape of forces paid for by this process.
+
+There have been three or four creations of baronetesses in their own
+right, but nearly two centuries have elapsed since such a creation.
+James II. made a curious remainder clause in a patent, by creating a
+Dutchman a baronet with remainder to his mother. It has been a mooted
+question whether baronets are not entitled to a coronet, and a certain
+Sir Charles Lamb, who died a few years ago, was so determined to uphold
+their privileges on this score that he had this ensign worked into the
+ornamentation of his entrance gates at Beaufort, near Battle Abbey,
+Sussex; but he met with small encouragement in such notions from his
+brother-baronets. An old English gentleman was wont to declare that more
+of disagreeable eccentricity is to be found amongst members of the
+baronetage than amongst those of any other order of men. He chanced to
+be thrown early in life amongst several eccentric beings of the class,
+and took his ideas accordingly; but it is a fact that a very large
+number of stories about eccentric baronets are in circulation. A marked
+man of the kind was early in the last century an individual who, in
+consequence of his height, was called Long Sir Thomas Robinson. It was
+in allusion to him that the lines were penned:
+
+    Unlike to Robinson shall be my song--
+    It shall be witty, and it sha'n't be long.
+
+This was the man to whom a Russian nobleman displayed the greatest
+anxiety to be introduced, under the impression that he was the real
+identical and unadulterated Robinson Crusoe.
+
+Sir Thomas was a bore of the first magnitude, and an inveterate
+hanger-on about cabinet-ministers and other prominent persons. He was
+constantly worrying Lord Burlington and Lord Burlington's servants by
+his Paul-pry-like presence. On calling at Burlington House, and being
+told that his lordship had gone out, he would desire to be let in to
+look at the clock or to play with a monkey which was kept in the hall,
+and so at length get into his lordship's room. The servants,
+exasperated, preconcerted a scheme to be rid of the nuisance. So, one
+day, as soon as the porter opened the gate and found Sir Thomas
+outside, he said, "His lordship is gone out, the clock has stopped, the
+monkey is dead."[O]
+
+
+MISS NEILSON.
+
+The story of _La Giulietta_ was told, in the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, by Luigi da Porto, a gentleman of Vicenza who had served in the
+army, and to whom it was narrated by one of his archers to beguile a
+solitary night-march. After passing through various translations the
+story was taken by Shakespeare as the groundwork of his wonderful
+tragedy, _Romeo and Juliet_, one of his earliest plays, and one of the
+most varied in passion and sentiment. Schlegel says of it: "It shines
+with the colors of the dawn of morning, but a dawn whose purple clouds
+already announce the thunder of a sultry day."
+
+The stormy acting of the elder Kean in _Richard III._--that epitome of
+ambition and bloodshed--was said to produce the effect of reading
+Shakespeare by flashes of lightning: in _Romeo and Juliet_ the first two
+acts are illumined only by the soft moonlight of love, and we are not
+startled by the lightning of tragedy until it gleams upon the bloody
+blade of Tybalt in the beginning of the third act: then Love and Death
+join hands, and move for a time with equal step across the stage.
+Finally come the poisoning and self-slaughters, and in the
+representation the curtain falls upon a corse-strewn graveyard, where
+Death reigns alone. Sad contrast to the lighted ball-room where the
+lovers first looked into each other's eyes--to the fair garden that lay
+at midnight "all Danae to the stars"--to the moon-silvered balcony from
+which Juliet leaned in her loveliness as she exchanged with Romeo her
+earliest vows!
+
+Beneath Italian skies girls spring with sudden leap to womanhood, and
+the seed of the tender passion hardly drops into the heart before it
+buds and blooms, a perfect flower. Though the actual lapse of time
+represented in the play occupies only a few days, Juliet in that brief
+period must assume several distinct characters. We see her first the
+coy, heart-whole maiden, the cherished heiress of a patrician house:
+soon the blind bow-boy launches his shaft, and, quick as thought, she is
+passionately, impulsively, enduringly in love; then we see her but a few
+hours a bride, with black sorrow creeping already to darken her
+happiness; her kinsman is slain, Romeo banished, and the coy maiden is
+changed at once to the devoted wife, capable of any sacrifice that will
+enable her to rejoin her husband, then follow the fearful drinking of
+the philter, the miscarriage of the Friar's scheme, and the death of the
+lovers, who seek in the grave that union denied them on earth. What
+varied qualities and acts are clustered here!--simplicity, love, hope,
+fear, courage, despair, suicide. In the whole range of Shakespeare's
+female characters there is none so difficult to portray--none requiring
+such a combination of beauty and talent; and we need not marvel that the
+part of Juliet is rarely attempted, and still more rarely with success.
+
+That Miss Neilson was successful during her recent short engagement at
+the Walnut Street Theatre may be inferred, not alone from the great
+audiences that thronged the theatre night after night--for people will
+often throng to see a very unworthy performance--but from the
+intellectual character of those audiences, and the manifest pleasure
+they derived from seeing the fair English actress.
+
+In every criticism it should be borne in mind that she played under
+great disadvantage. She was unfortunately, with some few exceptions,
+very badly supported. It seems ungracious, therefore, to search for any
+flaw in the performance of such an admirable actress, who has left
+behind her so many charming memories; yet it must be admitted that her
+acting is not always as faultless as her face. In her Juliet there are
+striking inequalities perceptible: sometimes she seems to have just
+grasped perfection, then again she makes one wonder that she does no
+better. In portraying love-scenes she is unsurpassed: she is graceful
+and beautiful, has studied her parts thoroughly, has a sweet,
+penetrating voice, and seems herself to feel the sentiments she would
+convey to others. Her enunciation is remarkably distinct, and she has
+the power of mingling more or less pathos with the tones to express
+sorrow in greater or less degree: in one scene, where she thinks that
+Romeo has been murdered, her cheeks are wet with actual tears. At the
+close of the ball, when she learns that the fascinating young pilgrim is
+a Montague, the hereditary enemy of her house, she gives her first touch
+of pathos to the words--
+
+    My only love sprung from my only hate!
+    Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
+
+But it is a pathos entirely different from that which later tinges her
+sad good-night to her mother and nurse when she has determined to
+counterfeit death:
+
+    Farewell!--God knows when we shall meet again.
+
+Miss Neilson also possesses, in an eminent degree, the power to portray
+that sly humor without malice known as _archness_. In the earlier phases
+of Juliet's career, and throughout the whole impersonation of Rosalind
+in _As You Like It_, this accomplishment stands the actress in good
+stead: she undoubtedly owes to it much of her power to charm. It strikes
+one when she first comes on the stage as Juliet and gently checks the
+garrulous old Nurse, taking up the thread of the discourse--
+
+    And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I
+
+again, in her witty word-fencing with the mock palmer at the ball--
+
+    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
+    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss;
+
+so too in the garden-scene, when she half rebukes herself, and all
+encourages her lover--
+
+                                 O gentle Romeo,
+    If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
+    Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
+    I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
+    So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
+
+And she shows it wonderfully in her coaxing, half-pettish behavior to
+the provoking old woman--talkative and reticent by fits and starts, now
+whining and now laughing--who has been to seek out Romeo, and brought
+back news of him. In _As You Like It_, Rosalind's bright humor ripples
+and laughs like a silver brook through the glades of Ardennes, and
+trickles gently even into the epilogue: in this lively comedy--so much
+lighter and easier than the heavy tragedy we are discussing too--love
+and despair never come to overlay and destroy the arch humor. If there
+be any defect in the performance of the banished princess, it must still
+remain, like Orlando's verses, tacked to some tree in the forest, but,
+unlike those verses, still unseen.
+
+To return to the tragedy--for in the discussion of two plays in which
+the same faculties are exhibited by the same actress it is most
+convenient to pass at times from one play to the other--who that has
+seen Miss Neilson tread the stately _minuet de la cour_ at the ball
+given in the palace of the Capulets will deny her the possession of
+marvelous grace? The long floating robe and abundant train, the
+high-heeled, pointed shoe of the period, instead of embarrassing her,
+seem but to give additional opportunity for displaying elegance of pose
+and gesture. In the garden-scene, when nightingales are whist, bright
+moonlight falls upon the balcony, and lights up the face of Juliet who
+leans there, certainly the fairest flower in that scenic paradise. As
+yet the course of love runs smooth for her: she does not dream of the
+dreadful gulf down which she is about to plunge, and her happy tones
+fall musically upon the air, "smoothing the raven down of darkness till
+it smiles." This happiness continues till her speedy and clandestine
+marriage. Soon after the Nurse comes home, and by her incoherent
+mutterings leads Juliet to suppose that Romeo is slain: then we have the
+first display of grief, but it is a grief so sudden and so violent that
+the blow stuns and almost silences the young wife. She is roused from
+this by learning at last that it is Tybalt who is dead, and that Romeo
+is exiled; which last causes her far greater grief than the loss of her
+cousin. Her sorrow, however, is at once displaced by rage when the Nurse
+speaks against her husband--
+
+    Shame come to Romeo!--
+
+          Blistered be thy tongue,
+    For such a wish! he was not born to shame.
+
+The sorrow and anger here are well enacted, being neither overdone nor
+forced. It is here at least shown that Miss Neilson can, when she
+pleases, express great passions with that suppressed vehemence which
+carries the cultivated spectator away far more than violence of voice
+and gesture. Such suppression, with a view to producing greater effect
+by leaving much to the excited imagination of the beholder, is not
+practiced only by the tactful histrionic artist--it pervades all art. To
+take a single brief example: the greatest sculptors, knowing that the
+chisel could produce form, not color, have shrunk from indicating the
+pupil of the eye in their statues, and left the eyeball smooth, because
+the imagination was more pleased with entire absence of the organ than
+with its imperfect representation. So with ultra-clamorous passion and
+wild melodramatic action on the stage: both are better omitted than
+expressed. These remarks are made here in connection with Miss Neilson's
+first fair displays of passionate sorrow and sorrowful passion:
+presently they may be applied again, less favorably, to her Juliet. In
+her Rosalind, however--to refer to _As You Like It_ once more--she gives
+another fine example of the power of suppressed, suggestive action
+accompanying the expression of hot wrath. When the tyrant duke informs
+her that she is banished from his court, she kneels before him in
+supplication and begs to know the reason of his harsh decree. But the
+instant he intimates that her father is a traitor, and she another as
+his daughter, she springs to her feet, and in an attitude of intense
+defiance, but without a motion of her folded arms, flings back her
+scornful retort:
+
+    So was I when your highness took his dukedom;
+    So was I when your highness banished him:
+    Treason is not inherited, my lord;
+    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
+    What's that to me? my father was no traitor.
+
+Here again is a display of power without distortion or over-acting, such
+as must give the actress fair title to celebrity.
+
+Let us return now to Juliet and her approaching doom. There is a sad
+scene in her chamber at early daybreak, for banished Romeo must leave
+her and haste to Mantua, lest sunrise betray him still lingering in
+Verona. Juliet at first lovingly detains him, then fearfully urges him
+to fly; then as he descends from the balcony would fain recall him, and
+sinks in a swoon when she finds he is really gone. The parents come in
+and announce their determination that she must marry Paris forthwith:
+finding her unwilling to comply, they leave her with fierce threats in
+case she continue disobedient, and even the time-serving, timid old
+Nurse, though aware of her marriage with Romeo, urges her to comply with
+their wishes. Thus left entirely to herself, Juliet determines to die
+rather than prove false to her husband. She hastens to the Friar who
+married them, and he gives her the philter, which she accepts joyfully
+and carries home in her bosom. Up to this point her acting is good,
+because it is natural. Love, grief, stern determination are here
+successively and skillfully developed by Miss Neilson. But in the next
+act, just before she drinks the philter alone in her chamber, she
+oversteps the modesty of nature. In her attempt to express extreme
+terror at the fearful visions that her excited imagination conjures up,
+she loses herself in a wild whirlwind of vociferation, accompanied by
+frantic looks and gestures. All the loud artillery of old melodrama
+seems at once to be unlimbered and brought into action, with so much
+noise and smoke that one can neither hear the signals of the bugle nor
+see the manoeuvring of the guns. Of course, even to this part a
+superior actress like Miss Neilson can impart a certain dignity and
+interest which would be lacking in an inferior performer. She strikes a
+certain horror to the spectator by the very hideousness of her terror
+displayed. It is natural that a young girl about to be laid out alive in
+a tomb should be tormented with fearful imaginings; but then that young
+girl cherishes an all-pervading love for a living husband, whom she
+hopes to rejoin by means of her entombment: she expects that the gates
+of the mausoleum will open to admit her to life, not death, and she is
+urged by fear of a hateful second marriage; therefore it is unlikely--no
+matter what gloomy, blood-stained phantoms she may see--that she should
+shriek out her fears with such appalling clamor as would arouse any
+well-organized household, and thus defeat her prospects of success. As
+Miss Neilson has shown in former instances, a less violent announcement
+of her feelings would be far more forcible and far more natural.
+Besides, the actress has not yet reached the time when she wishes to
+depict her greatest misery: that climax is reached when she wakes in the
+vault and finds not only Tybalt "festering in his shroud," but her
+Romeo, her husband, a bloody corpse at her feet. If ever the
+ungovernable shriek of dying despair be allowable on the stage, it must
+be at such a time, when Juliet falls upon the still warm body. Even the
+effect of such a wild performance at the very climax and end of a
+tragedy may be questioned; but there can be little doubt that the great
+violence exerted before in describing her horrible suspicions merely,
+deprives the actress of power to throw increased stress into her
+performance as the play moves to its close, and she is confronted with a
+far more horrible reality.
+
+As though she feels that her power of melodramatic declamation has been
+weakened, Miss Neilson in the graveyard seems to rely more on
+melodramatic action. And it is very melodramatic. She rises from Romeo's
+body, where she has flung herself, where it would be natural she should
+remain to kill herself, and standing at some distance from the corpse,
+stabs herself openly with a stage dagger, then falling, drags herself
+slowly, accompanied by soft music, back to the body, and there at last
+expires. How much more effective would this part become if more were
+left to the beholder's imagination! Great artists generally avoid open
+stabbing on the stage, as it almost invariably produces the impression
+of trickery. We may see the gleaming blade and the arm descending to
+strike the blow, but it is best not to see the weapon pretending to
+enter the victim's body; and this can always be avoided by proper
+management. When Ristori as Medea murdered her children at the base of
+Saturn's statue, the other actors grouped around and screened the act
+from the view of the audience: when the crowd opened again, the bodies
+were discovered lying on the steps of the pedestal. The death of Juliet,
+instead of bringing tears to all eyes, as Miss Neilson undoubtedly could
+make it do, is thus rendered ineffective by over-acting; and when she
+drags herself six or eight feet along the stage, prostrate and stabbed,
+
+    Oh, 'tis dreadful there to see
+    A lady so richly clad as she,
+    Beautiful, exceedingly!
+
+On the last evening of her engagement Miss Neilson appeared in the _Lady
+of Lyons_, and after the performance recited the following epilogue,
+suggested by Lord Lytton's recent death:
+
+    FAIR LADIES AND GOOD SIRS: Since last this play
+    Was acted on this stage, has passed away
+    Its noble author from the gaze of men,
+    No more, alas! to wield his facile pen.
+    In Knebworth's ancient park, across the sea,
+    Lord Lytton sleeps, but not his witchery.
+    The dramatist, romancer, poet, still
+    Can touch our hearts and captivate our will;
+    For laureled genius has the power to brave
+    Death's fell advance, and lives beyond the grave:
+    Bear witness, this grand audience clustered here.
+    Your plaudits cannot reach dead Lytton's ear,
+    But no more sweet libation can you pour
+    To Lytton's memory, on this distant shore,
+    Than your prolonged applause, which now proclaims,
+    Though the great author's gone, his fame remains.
+
+    M. M.
+
+
+GENERAL LEE CONVULSED.
+
+An old lady who knew General R. E. Lee almost from childhood declared
+that when he was a young man he enjoyed fun and indulged in harmless
+frolics as much as anybody. Later in life, and after his sons became
+stout lads, it is said that he was fond of sleeping with them, in order
+that he might in the morning engage in a regular old-fashioned romp and
+pillow-fight with the boys. During the war, though habitually grave, as
+befitted a commanding officer, he relished an occasional joke very
+highly. When some of his staff mistook a jug of buttermilk that had been
+sent him for "good old apple-jack," and made wry faces in gulping it
+down, he did not attempt to conceal his merriment. So, too, when
+inquiring into the nature of "this new game, 'chuck-a-buck,' I think
+they call it," which had been introduced into his army, there was a sly
+twinkle in his eye that showed how shrewdly he guessed its real purport
+as a gambling game. So, again, it is reported that he appreciated fully
+the "sell" which a wag on his staff palmed off upon a reporter, who
+promptly inserted it in the papers. The reporter wanted to know General
+Lee's hour for dining.
+
+"Six o'clock--exactly at six," was the reply.
+
+"I infer, then, that it is rather a formal meal?"
+
+"Decidedly formal--in fact, I may say it is a rigidly military dinner."
+
+"Military! how military?"
+
+"Well, you see General Lee sits at the head of the table, and Colonel
+Chilton at the foot, and everything is done in red-tape style."
+
+"Red tape at table! I don't understand you. Please explain."
+
+"Certainly. General Lee never carves and never helps--all that is left
+to Colonel Chilton--but General Lee asks the guests what they will have:
+they tell him, then he issues his orders, and Colonel Chilton executes
+them. That's all."
+
+"Go on, go on!" opening his notebook: "give me an example--tell me
+exactly how it is done."
+
+"Suppose, then, that we have beef--we generally have beef. Grace is said
+by the chaplain, then General Lee raps on the table with the handle of
+his knife and says, 'Attention!' Everybody is silent. Every eye is
+turned toward General Lee. He looks at one of us--me, for example--and
+I rise and make a military salute. 'Captain C----, what will you be
+helped to?' says General Lee. I say 'Beef,' make another salute, and sit
+down. General Lee, fixing his eye on Colonel Chilton, says, 'Beef, for
+Captain C----.' My plate is passed, helped, and then Colonel Chilton,
+handing it to the servant, says,
+
+    'Beef for Captain C----,
+    By order of General Lee.
+    R. H. CHILTON, A. A. G.'"
+
+And this absurd story went the round of the Southern papers.
+
+After the war, General Lee rarely smiled, and one may say never laughed
+outright. Yet he was neither sad nor unsociable. But there was that
+about him which made it wellnigh impossible to believe that he could
+ever have given completely away to feelings of mirth and indulged in a
+real fit of cachinnation. Such, however, was the fact, and it occurred
+at a time when, of all others, one would have least expected it--in the
+retreat to Appomattox--and General Henry A. Wise was the occasion of it.
+
+On the second or third day of the retreat, General Wise, who had long
+desired an interview with General Lee, discovered him at a distance, and
+immediately hastened toward him. While he was yet a great way off,
+General Lee, who happened at the time to be alone, turned and began to
+stare in a way that was most unusual with him. As Wise drew nearer the
+stare became intense and mixed with wonderment. A few steps more, and
+still General Lee gazed and gazed wonderingly, as if he had never seen
+Wise in his life. Amazed and puzzled at General Lee's unmistakable
+ignorance of his identity, Wise advanced quite close to him and said
+rather stiffly, "Good-morning, General Lee." It was very early and very
+cool, too--a sharp spring morning.
+
+As he said this, General Lee's intense gaze relaxed, a smile appeared in
+its place, the smile deepened, broadened, and, spreading from feature to
+feature, ended at last in a fit of the most immoderate and
+uncontrollable laughter.
+
+Astounded beyond words, and indignant beyond measure at such a
+reception, it was some time before General Wise could demand an
+explanation. During all this time General Lee laughed as a mature man
+rarely ever laughs.
+
+The explanation, given through tears of laughter not yet dried, was
+simple enough. General Lee had mistaken the general for a Comanche
+Indian. He had lost his hat or cap, a dirty blanket was thrown over his
+shoulders to protect him from the keen morning air, and his face, washed
+in a mud-puddle and hastily wiped, retained a ring of red mud around the
+borders, which made the resemblance to an Indian as exact as well could
+be--all the more so in consequence of Wise's strong features.
+
+Barely sufficient at the time (so incensed was Wise), the explanation
+eventually proved ample, for General Wise now laughs at this incident as
+heartily as any one, and often relates it himself, while it may well be
+doubted whether ever again in life General Lee found either the occasion
+or the disposition to relax his wonted gravity.
+
+
+FUNERALS vs. PARTIES.
+
+A Southern correspondent sends the following incident from real life,
+which illustrates the well-known negro fondness for so-called lugubrious
+festivals:
+
+A lady friend of mine was much beset a few days ago by her cook for
+permission to attend the funeral of some relative. The _res angustae_
+forbade her leaving just at that time, but, to compensate her for the
+deprivation, her mistress said, "Rose, I really feel very sorry for you,
+but you shall lose nothing by staying at home. I promise that you shall
+go to the first party that is given by any of your friends, and stay all
+night long."
+
+Rose, tossing her head, replied, "Law! Miss Susan, how kin you talk like
+dat? You know I don't set no vally on parties. _Forty parties couldn't
+pay me for de sight of one corp!_" She saw the "corp."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[M] The origin of the name of Bacon is thus explained by Richard
+Verstegan, famous for Saxon lore and historical research:
+
+"Bacon, that is, 'of the beechen tree,' anciently called Bucon; and
+whereas swines' flesh is now called by the name of bacon, it grew only
+at the first unto such as were fatted with Bucon or beech-mast."
+
+It is, as a writer in _Notes and Queries_ points out, a curious
+authentication of this derivation that Collins, in his _Baronetage_,
+mentions that the first man of the name of Bacon of whom there is record
+in the Herald's College, bore for his arms "argent, a beech tree
+proper." Additional confirmation seems afforded by the fact that in
+certain places in England boys call beechen tops "bacons."
+
+[N] "My father," says Thomas Shirley to the king, "being a man of
+excellent and working wit, did find out the device of making baronets,
+which brought to Your Majesty's coffers wellnigh one hundred thousand
+pounds, for which he was promised by the late Lord Salisbury (son of
+Miss Cooke, Bacon's aunt), lord-treasurer, a good recompense, which he
+never had." Ninety-three patents were sold within six years. It was
+promised in the patents that no new title of honor should be created
+between barons and baronets, and that when the number of two hundred had
+been filled up, no more should ever after be added. The first promise
+has been kept.
+
+[O] This recalls a story of the Marquis of L----, Sydney Smith's friend,
+grandfather of the present peer. His lordship's gallantries were
+notorious, though most carefully concealed. On one occasion he went to
+visit a lady with whom he maintained very intimate relations. Not
+choosing to take a groom on such an occasion, he gave his horse to a boy
+in the street to hold. On coming out he looked up and down the street,
+but in vain, and at length had to go home steedless. On reaching L----
+House, the groom, waiting at the door for his return, said, "Shall I go
+for the horse, my lord?" "The horse is dead," was the brief response.
+"Where shall I send for the saddle and bridle, my lord?" "Oh--a--a--h"
+(and then with emphasis), "they're dead too!"
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+As a knowledge of the circumstances under which a work of art is
+composed occasionally gives a clearer insight into certain of its
+peculiarities, so perhaps an analysis of the individual elements which
+go to make up the present Assembly of Versailles may give the reader a
+clue to the reason of some of its legislative measures, as well as to
+its possibilities for the future and its political tendencies. Such an
+analysis is made by the _Rappel_ of Paris in an elaborate article, from
+which we must only cite a few points. The Assembly, then, contains, it
+appears, 2 princes (the princes d'Orleans), 7 dukes, 30 marquises, 52
+counts, 17 viscounts, 18 barons and 97 untitled nobles, or those
+"_n'ayant que la particule_;" which last phrase we may explain to mean
+having the _de_ prefixed to their names, without other titular
+distinction. Next, it contains 163 great landed proprietors, including
+the richest in France; 155 advocates; 48 leading manufacturers; 45
+officers or ex-officers of the army, chiefly of high rank; 35
+magistrates or ex-magistrates; 25 engineers; 23 physicians; 21
+professors; 19 notaries or ex-notaries; 16 wholesale merchants; 14
+officers or ex-officers of the navy; 10 attorneys; 5 bankers; 2
+druggists; 1 bishop; 1 curate; 1 Protestant minister; and 10 others of
+sundry occupations. The difference in composition between this
+republican Assembly and our own Congresses is in some respects
+remarkable; for, independently of the very large and indeed altogether
+disproportionate representation of the nobility or titled classes, we
+observe a very great preponderance of rich land-owners, representing in
+their own persons the agricultural and vine-growing interests. Very
+singular, also, is the small proportion of lawyers, only 155 being
+classed as advocates, and the magistrates and attorneys swelling the
+number only to 200. In an ordinary American Congress at least one-half,
+and usually two-thirds, of the members are or have been lawyers by
+profession. The clerical representation seems to reach a total of three,
+all told, Catholic and Protestant; and as trivial is that of the retail
+traders and mechanics, of whom there are but two or three in all. We may
+add that a full-blooded negro member, M. Pory-Papy, came as deputy from
+Martinique. The standard of intelligence and political experience is
+rather high: it is said, for example, that no less than 33 members have
+been ministers. Altogether, the Assembly may be considered as rather
+fortunately constituted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the session of the medical congress at Lyons one day was set
+apart for the study of alcoholic stimulants. On that occasion the
+physician of Sainte-Anne asylum, Dr. Magnan, comparing the chemical
+action of alcohol and absinthe on man, drew the conclusion that the
+former acts more slowly, gradually provoking delirium and digestive
+derangement, while absinthe rapidly results in epilepsy. Then, producing
+a couple of dogs, he treated one with alcohol and the other with essence
+of absinthe, this latter being the active principle of the absinthe
+liquor which is commonly drunk. The alcoholized brute could not stand
+up, became sleepy and stupid, and, when set on his legs, trembled in an
+inert mass: the other dog experienced at once frightful attacks of
+epilepsy. Analogous effects are produced in mankind. Surely the
+"absinthe duel" which is said to have taken place at Cannes, when both
+the combatants perished after drinking an extraordinary quantity, may be
+strictly denominated a duel with deadly weapons. In the south of France,
+it is said, one person sometimes invites another to partake of absinthe
+by the slang phrase, "Take a shovelful of earth;" as if an American
+bar-room lounger, recognizing with grim humor the deadly quality of his
+liquor, should say, "Come and get measured for your coffin." The French
+expression has certainly, in view of Dr. Magnan's disclosures, a
+melancholy picturesqueness. This subject has to France a national
+importance, since, if the recent report of Dr. Bergeron does not
+exaggerate, the _absintism_ introduced amongst the French army in
+general by the Algerian officers did its part toward producing that
+inertness and lack of vigor which generals often complained of in their
+subordinates during the disastrous invasion of 1870.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard II., in the play of that name, disheartened by his calamities,
+responds to all the encouraging words of his lords and followers with a
+bitter satire on the wretchedness of royalty:
+
+    For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
+    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
+    How some have been depos'd; some slain in war;
+    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd;
+    Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;
+    All murther'd; for within the hollow crown
+    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
+    Keeps Death his court.
+
+The unhappy monarch was destined to furnish in his own tragic fate one
+more illustration of his homily. His words come vividly to mind in
+reviewing the curious catalogue which a European statistician lately
+furnished of the number of sovereigns who have perished by violent
+deaths or been discrowned by disaster. The list, which must perforce be
+incomplete, embraces 2540 emperors or kings, who have ruled over 64
+nations. Of these, 299 were dethroned; 151 were assassinated; 123 died
+in captivity; 108 were formally condemned and executed; 100 were killed
+in battle; 64 abdicated; 62 were poisoned; 25 died the death of martyrs;
+20 committed suicide; and 11 died insane. Even these lists do not
+probably include all the unnatural deaths and dethronements that have
+occurred among the 2540 rulers thus tabulated, for it was often deemed
+politic to conceal the circumstances of a monarch's death, and history
+mentions many such instances in which the cause of death is doubtful; so
+that, for example, the 11 insane and the 20 suicides and the 62 poisoned
+doubtless do not comprise the whole number of deaths which ought to be
+included under those descriptions. Nevertheless, taking these figures as
+they are, they furnish a striking comment on King Richard's melancholy
+words; which, by the way, Richard's own conqueror and successor almost
+paralleled in his lamentations over the anxieties and perils that
+encompass the kingly state. We may add that the death of Napoleon III.
+at Chiselhurst has now, by one more name, increased the number of
+sovereigns dying in exile, while giving the whole subject a fresh
+interest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The authority of Professor Godebski of St. Petersburg is given for the
+extraordinary statement that the Russian authorities in Poland have
+prohibited the contemplated erection of a monument to Chopin in his
+native Warsaw, on the ground that it might become an occasion for a
+political manifestation. M. Godebski was to have executed the statue, a
+plan had been submitted and accepted, musical admirers of Chopin had
+favored the project, Prince Orloff, Princess Czartoryska and many ladies
+of the Polish nobility had contributed the necessary funds, when the
+whole scheme was vetoed by Count von Berg, on the pretext already
+stated. Surely this was pushing caution to extremes, even in Poland. It
+was Chopin's fate to be driven from his country in 1836 by revolutionary
+disorders; but the very composition of the monumental committee, which
+was under the direction of Madame Mouchanoff, an ardent admirer of the
+master, indicated that the enterprise was an artistic, not a political
+one. Chopin, reposing between Bellini and Cherubini in the Pere la
+Chaise, his chosen burial-place, has long since passed from the narrow
+confines of his Polish nationality to the worldwide and immortal realm
+of art. In pretending, thirty years after his death, that the genius of
+the artist is of less account than the accident of his birthplace, and
+in reviving against this memorial project the entirely secondary facts
+of the revolutionary epoch (when Chopin's career was not in politics,
+but in art), the Russian authorities are wondrously sensitive, to say
+the least. A chagrined friend of the sculptor has proposed that a piece
+of ground should be bought, a temporary wooden house built on it, the
+statue set up as if in a private courtyard or gallery, and the doors
+then thrown open to the public, while, after some days or months, the
+building could be taken down, leaving the statue substantially on a
+public square. But the prohibition which vetoed the original project
+would of course cover this stratagem also, and besides, it would be
+rather too petty a device to engage in.
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
+
+
+Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. By George Eliot. Vol. II. New
+York: Harper & Brothers.
+
+As a "study of provincial life" _Middlemarch_ appeals to a class of
+readers who might have little taste for the psychological studies in
+which the book abounds, and which give it a much deeper import. Its
+variety, spirit and truth of local color are Hogarthian, while it shows
+a figure, in the heroine, of far higher beauty and belonging to the
+great circle of epic characters. Dorothea, with her loveliness and her
+history of divine blunders, is fit to stand with any queen of song or
+story. This volume begins with the closing scenes in her
+scholar-husband's life. The character is a curious, and, after all, a
+pathetic one. What Philadelphia reader, at least, can pursue the
+narrative of poor Casaubon's misplaced study and ill-judged bequest
+without being reminded of another career of futile scholarship near
+home? Like him, as it will seem to the curious annalist, Richard Rush
+was a student without an audience, and like him a mistaken testator.
+Locking up his mind from the public amidst a company of ideas imbibed in
+the day when his city was the great book-producing city of the country,
+Rush prosecuted his barren researches in a moral prison, saw domestic
+life only through a grating woven from his own prejudices, and died in
+the confidence falsely sustaining him that the inefficiency of a
+lifetime would be amended by the bequests of an impracticable will.
+Rush, too, was wealthy, of influential family, studious, sterile, and
+apt to put off present action in the hope that the grave would one day
+co-operate with his motives; and Rush, like the imagined author of the
+_Key to all Mythologies_, finds the grave a treacherous trustee. The
+heroine of _Middlemarch_, in her action over her husband's testament,
+behaves as every true and lovable woman, obeying the emotions, will
+behave while the world lasts: a flippant, easy, youthful censor has told
+her, in a boudoir in the Via Sistina at Rome, that her husband's labor
+was thrown away because the Germans had taken the lead in historical
+inquiries, and that they laughed at those who groped about in woods
+where they had made good roads. The censor is agreeable, curly, and has
+engaging ways of lying about on hearth-rugs and giving his arm to quaint
+old maids: his criticism is therefore securely effective against all the
+conclusions of a life of dry labor; and so it comes that Dorothea writes
+on her husband's posthumous schedule: "_I could not use it. Do you not
+see now that I could not submit my soul to yours by working hopelessly
+at what I have no belief in?_" That is the way in which schemes of more
+or less erudition will for ever be lost to the world when entrusted to
+those who reason as Nature imperiously teaches them to do, through their
+affinity with blooming cheeks, curled locks and versatile intellects. It
+is inevitable that Dorothea must sink, from her dreams of emulating
+Saint Theresa, to comradeship with the glossy occupant of the
+hearth-rug. George Eliot, as a true artist, sees what is faulty in the
+catastrophe, but she will not unsex her creation. Another of her
+characters, Rosamond, she pursues with a minute, withering, one would
+say vindictive, contempt. It is the beautiful, distinguished young
+creature who marries Lydgate on account of his high connections, and who
+trains him to do up her plaits of hair for her, and allows him to talk
+the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning
+it, "accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then
+miraculously dimpling toward her votary." How such a creature can become
+the cool blighting Nemesis of a hopeful home, ruining it by
+extravagance, and taking credit to herself for every act of calm revolt,
+until her wretched husband, who had meant to be another Vesalius,
+compares her to Boccaccio's basil, that flourished upon the brains of a
+massacred man, the author sees only too plainly, and shows forth in some
+of the most cutting scenes she has ever written. Her "Study of
+Provincial Life," while it reveals her warm poet's love for a lofty
+nature defeated by its conditions, shows still plainer her intimate and
+personal dread of the cold thin nature that kills by its commonplace.
+The last she rewards contemptuously with a carriage in the Park and a
+rich second match: the first she punishes with exquisite Junonine
+tenderness by giving her a little boy in the bride-chamber of the home
+of the clever young politician whom the local editor has called a
+"violent energumen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In laying down the book the reader is conscious of a different feeling
+from that with which he ordinarily parts with a work of fiction which
+has gratified his artistic tastes and furnished him with a high
+intellectual pleasure. Comparing the productions of George Eliot with
+those of other novelists, we are tempted to think of these as trivial
+fond records, which might well be blotted from the tablets of the
+memory, leaving the inscription she has placed there to live alone in
+ineffaceable characters. It is not that they show her to be endowed with
+a larger measure of those gifts which constitute the artist. In each of
+these she has perhaps been equaled or surpassed by one or another of her
+predecessors. As a painter of manners, of all that belongs to the
+surface of life, she is rivaled in fidelity, if not in breadth and
+force, by Fielding, Thackeray and Miss Austen. Her observation is less
+keen than theirs, her portraiture less vivid, her humor less cordial and
+abundant. Her conceptions have not the intensity of Charlotte Bronte's,
+nor her great scenes the dramatic fire of Scott's. In the minor matters
+of invention and plot she sometimes has recourse to shifts that betray
+the deficiencies they are intended to conceal. The quality in which she
+is supreme is one that lies beyond the strict domain of art. It is the
+power of penetrating to the roots of human character and action--a power
+which seems to be something more than insight, but for which sympathy
+would be a still less adequate term, indicating as it does a nature
+harmonious and complete, one in which intellect and feeling are resolved
+into an element that overflows and envelops its object without effort or
+repulsion. In other novelists we admire a subtlety that winds through
+the intricacies of motives, unmasking deceptions, revealing weaknesses
+and flaws but half suspected, or delicacies and beauties but half
+appreciated: George Eliot drops a plummet that sinks straight and
+steadily, through turbid waves and calm under-current, reaching depths
+before unexplored. We can claim no part in her discoveries, however our
+faculties may be exercised in grasping or in testing them. They more
+often correct than confirm our impressions; they make large additions to
+our knowledge; they suggest the necessity of reconstructing our theories
+and placing them on a new and wider base.
+
+
+A Memorial of Alice and Phoebe Cary. By Mary Clemmer Ames. New York:
+Hurd & Houghton.
+
+Alice Cary was a poetess of feeling, tender, prolific, overworked,
+unhealthy, and cooked to desiccation in a New York "elegant residence"
+that was but one enormous stove. Phoebe, working less, was amusing,
+plump, gay and original. Alice, obediently grinding out her sweet
+morning poem for the _Ledger_ before she went to market, died at her
+desk, and then Phoebe died of loneliness. It is a gentle and a
+thoroughly American history. In the eyes of both these Ohio women, New
+York was the market where they could easiest sell their wares, and their
+poems were commodities from which they were determined to derive as
+comfortable an existence as possible. Any strict idea of duty to their
+art, as the responsibility committed to them above all things on earth,
+seems never to have crossed the mind of either sister, though Alice, who
+wrote a great many volumes, would occasionally complain--not, however,
+more feelingly than all sincere authors do--that she knew her labors
+were overtaxing her faculty. They arranged, at their handsome residence
+on Twentieth street, a _salon_ of Sunday evenings, where Mr. Greeley,
+Robert Bonner and Whitelaw Reid used to meet and converse kindly with
+the minor literati, and which were believed to have much of the
+pleasantness and life of French conversaziones. Alice Cary has left a
+profusion of pensive poetry: the following is the most beautiful extract
+she affords:
+
+    The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,
+      And a hundred streams are the same as one;
+    And the maiden dreameth her lovelit dream;
+      And what is it all when all is done?
+    The net of the fisher the burden breaks,
+    And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.
+
+Phoebe, who was reckoned less clever than Alice, excites a great deal
+more sympathy, quietly accepting a position of admiring secondariness,
+and yielding occasional good things in wit or poetry: she was famed
+among her friends as a punster and parodist, and once answered at a
+dinner to a question what wine they used, "Oh, we drink Heidsick, but we
+keep mum." An irresistibly taking and womanly remark of hers, disposing
+in its own way of whole schemes of Calvinistic theology, was her reply
+to the argument for endless punishment: "Well, if God ever sends me into
+such misery, I know He will give me a constitution to bear it." Again,
+as the least laborious of the sisters, her talent had moments of greater
+felicity than that of Alice, and she has left one hymn which has all the
+promise of a lasting favorite. The sacred lyric, "One sweetly solemn
+thought comes to me o'er and o'er," is sung, as it deserves to be,
+wherever Christianity is known, and there is an attested story of its
+having aroused a pair of gamblers in China to repentance and permanent
+reform. It is imprudent to predict a permanent place for even the best
+of Alice Carey's gentle songs; but Phoebe's utterance may very
+possibly be quoted, from her unpretending station as adviser and
+alleviator of every-day life, after her name shall be forgotten and her
+religion shall have become impersonal.
+
+
+
+How I Found Livingstone. By Henry M. Stanley. New York: Scribner,
+Armstrong & Co.
+
+This book, the circumstances of its writing considered, is a literary
+curiosity. It contains seven hundred and twenty pages octavo, and it was
+composed in an incredibly short time, while the stomach of its author
+was digesting a series of stout English dinners, and his attention
+dissipating among speech-makings and speech-listenings, feasts, meetings
+and visits. Only a New York reporter could have achieved the feat. The
+faculty acquired by men of Mr. Stanley's trade, of acting with the
+intense decision and energy of great military captains, and then
+relating the action with the voluble unction of bar-rooms or political
+stumps, is a strange mixed faculty, and is found to perfection in the
+reporters' rooms of the New York _Herald_. The tale has the _Herald's_
+well-known style, and is a correspondent's letter in a state of
+amplification. It is always energetic, often tinged with real heroism
+and romance, and adorned sometimes with an ambition of classical
+allusions that resemble Egyptian jewels worn by a Nubian savage. It has
+not the least self-restraint or good taste, but it sounds fresh, genuine
+and sincere. It brings out with fine distinctness the feudal fidelity of
+a reporter-errant, whose whole soul is dyed with belief in the great
+establishment whose behest he obeys--one of the last refuges in which
+mediaeval humility is to be found. As a part of the same habit of mind,
+Mr. Stanley shows a fine, literal, unquestioning championship of the
+object of his quest, Dr. Livingstone; but he seems to admire the doctor,
+after all, rather as an ornamental possession of the New York _Herald_.
+The great traveler's good-nature to Mr. Bennett, as a voluntary
+correspondent and coadjutor by brevet with the journal, disarms and
+enchants him: beginning with a prejudice, he ends by saying, "I grant he
+is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature
+of a living man will allow." In every trait Stanley shows himself
+whole-souled, ignorant of half measures, unscrupulous, cruel on
+occasion, driving, positive, and furnished with a sure instinct of
+success. The book, from its hasty construction, admits many
+inconsistencies, the worst of which is its long tirade against the
+Geographical Society, nullified finally by gracious thanks for their
+medal; but it has the energetic virtue of a book written while memory
+was fresh, and is often truly dramatic and pictorial. It is the
+garrulous appendage of a strange and solid achievement, the feather-end
+of the arrow, which advertises the hit of the steel.
+
+
+The Minnesinger of Germany. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd & Houghton.
+
+Mr. Kroeger appears to have an antiquarian's thoroughness in his
+subject, and he has made it an interesting one to Western readers. But
+he has not succeeded in his translations, partly because he does not
+respect the usage and associations of the English words he rivets
+incompatibly together, and partly because success, even for a more
+poetical translator, is impossible in the premises. The authors of the
+Minnelay, in their elaborate rhyme-caprice, must have remained
+harmonious and lyrical, which is not the case with a version like this:
+
+    I look so Esau-like, perdu,
+    My hair hangs rough and unkempt. Hu!
+    Gentle Summer, where are you?
+    Ah, were the world no more so dhu!
+    Rather than bide in this purlieu,
+    Longer to stay I'll say, Adieu!
+    And go as monk to Toberlu.
+
+Or like this, which Mr. Kroeger, without the fear of _Maud's_ author
+before his eyes, compares to Tennyson:
+
+      Rosy-colored meadows
+    To shadows we see vanish everywhere,
+      Wood-birds' warbling dieth,
+    Sore-trieth them the snow of wintry year.
+      Woe, woe! what red mouth's glow
+      Hovers now o'er the valley?
+      Ah, ah, the hours of woe!
+      Lovers it doth rally
+    No more; yet its caress seems cosy.
+
+These studies of intricate rhymes concealed in and terminating the lines
+are at least as hard for the reader as for the writer; yet we hope Mr.
+Kroeger will not lose his readers before they arrive at the historical
+and critical parts of the work, which are really valuable. The narrative
+of Ulrich von Lichtenstein of the thirteenth century, who sent one of
+his fingers to an exacting lady-love, and paraded through Europe on her
+quests disguised variously as King Arthur, Queen Venus or as a leper, is
+one which makes the maddest deeds of Quixote seem sane, although he was
+a true singer and an admired chevalier of his period. Gottfried von
+Strassburg, whose excellent poem of _Tristan and Isolde_ inspires the
+writer with his least unhappy translation, leads the subject away from
+the mere love-carolers toward the authors of the metrical romances, the
+bards of Germany. It is at this point that he introduces some forcible
+criticisms on Tennyson's poetry of that character, and makes it evident
+that the Laureate might have improved his Idyls by extending his
+readings among the German chanters of Arthurian legend. The following
+seems practical and just: "If Tennyson was determined to make the
+love-passion the chief theme of his work, rather than the religious
+element of the St. Graal, he had at hand in one of his legends that very
+same relation between the sexes which existed between Queen Guinevere
+and Launcelot, and yet deprived in the essential point of all disgusting
+characteristics. It seems strange that the impropriety of making this
+adulterous connection between the king and queen the chief theme of his
+song should not have struck Tennyson when he dedicated his legends to
+the husband of Queen Victoria, even in that dedication drawing
+comparisons: strange that he should have taken no means to hide it, by
+at least bringing the king into some position of interest, whereas he is
+made so little of that he seems a mild, inoffensive, gentle soul, who is
+ready even to shake hands with the seducer of his wife." In this
+connection it will repay the reader to peruse, even if the version has
+not much charm, the long extract from Gottfried's _Tristan_, with an eye
+to the noble and knightly way in which the legend is conceived and taken
+up. Mr. Kroeger, who can give it no grace in translation, is a warm
+partisan in matters of melody and rhythm, appreciating Coleridge and
+Swinburne. Altogether, he is a sincere and useful interpreter between
+our public--rather careless of musty poetry--and the fine old German
+singers.
+
+
+
+
+_Books Received._
+
+
+History of English Literature. By H. A. Taine. Abridged from the
+translation of H. van Laun, by John Fiske, Assistant Librarian of
+Harvard University. New York: Holt & Williams.
+
+The Polytechnic: A Collection of Music for Schools, Classes and Clubs.
+Arranged and Written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J.
+W. Schermerhorn.
+
+The Athenaeum: A Collection of Part Songs. Arranged and Written by U. C.
+Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.
+
+Joseph Noirel's Revenge. By Victor Cherbuliez. Translated from the
+French by William F. West, A. M. New York: Holt & Williams.
+
+A New Theory of the Origin of Species. By B. G. Ferris. New Haven,
+Connecticut: C. C. Chatfield & Co.
+
+Johnson's Natural Philosophy. By Frank G. Johnson, A.M., M.D. New York:
+J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.
+
+The Ordeal for Wives. By the author of "Ought We to Visit Her?" New
+York: Sheldon & Co.
+
+The Higher Ministry of Nature. By John Leifchild, A.M. New York: G. P.
+Putnam & Sons.
+
+A Manual of Pottery and Porcelain. By John H. Treadwell. New York: G. P.
+Putnam & Sons.
+
+The Outcast, and Other Poems. By J. W. Watson. Philadelphia: T. B.
+Peterson & Brothers.
+
+The Catholic Family Almanac for 1873. New York: The Catholic Publication
+Society.
+
+Off the Skelligs. By Jean Ingelow. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular
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