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+Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893, 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: The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893
+       An Illustrated Monthly
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2007 [EBook #23734]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IDLER MAGAZINE, VOL III. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Neville Allen, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribers Note: Title and Table of contents Added.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE IDLER MAGAZINE.
+
+AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.
+
+MAY 1893
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THE IDLER.
+  AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS.
+  BY BRETT HART.
+
+THE MODERN BABYLON.
+  BY CYNICUS.
+
+MY FIRST BOOKS.
+  "UNDERTONES" AND "IDYLLS AND LEGENDS OF
+  INVERBURN."
+
+BALDER'S BALL.
+  BY P. VON SCHÖNTHAN.
+
+LIONS IN THEIR DENS.
+  V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.
+  BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
+
+THE FEAR OF IT.
+  BY ROBERT BARR.
+
+MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NILIHILIST.
+  BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
+
+MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NILIHILIST.
+  BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
+
+PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.
+  BY SCOTT RANKIN.
+
+MY SERVANT JOHN.
+  BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.
+
+THE IDLER'S CLUB.
+  THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+[Illustration: "THE SIMPLE QUESTION I'VE GOT TO ASK YE IS _this_--DID
+YOU SIGNAL TO ANYBODY FROM THE COACH WHEN WE PASSED GALLOPER'S?"]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE IDLER.
+
+_AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS._
+
+BY BRET HARTE.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.
+
+I.
+
+
+We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness of
+Galloper's Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow;
+its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had just
+politely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigar
+with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For it
+had been rumoured that the Ramon Martinez gang of "road agents" were
+"laying" for us on the second grade, and would time the passage of our
+lights across Galloper's in order to intercept us in the "brush" beyond.
+If we could cross the ridge without being seen, and so get through the
+brush before they reached it, we were safe. If they followed, it would
+only be a stern chase with the odds in our favour.
+
+The huge vehicle swayed from side to side, rolled, dipped, and plunged,
+but Bill kept the track, as if, in the whispered words of the
+Expressman, he could "feel and smell" the road he could no longer see.
+We knew that at times we hung perilously over the edge of slopes that
+eventually dropped a thousand feet sheer to the tops of the sugar-pines
+below, but we knew that Bill knew it also. The half visible heads of the
+horses, drawn wedge-wise together by the tightened reins, appeared to
+cleave the darkness like a ploughshare, held between his rigid hands.
+Even the hoof-beats of the six horses had fallen into a vague,
+monotonous, distant roll. Then the ridge was crossed, and we plunged
+into the still blacker obscurity of the brush. Rather we no longer
+seemed to move--it was only the phantom night that rushed by us. The
+horses might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream; nothing
+but the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of Yuba Bill arose above
+them. Yet even in that awful moment our speed was unslackened; it was as
+if Bill cared no longer to _guide_ but only to drive, or as if the
+direction of his huge machine was determined by other hands than his. An
+incautious whisperer hazarded the paralysing suggestion of our "meeting
+another team." To our great astonishment Bill overheard it; to our
+greater astonishment he replied. "It 'ud be only a neck and neck race
+which would get to h--ll first," he said quietly. But we were
+relieved--for he had _spoken!_ Almost simultaneously the wider turnpike
+began to glimmer faintly as a visible track before us; the wayside trees
+fell out of line, opened up and dropped off one after another; we were
+on the broader tableland, out of danger, and apparently unperceived and
+unpursued.
+
+[Illustration: "STRUCK A MATCH AND HELD IT FOR HER."]
+
+Nevertheless in the conversation that broke out again with the
+relighting of the lamps and the comments, congratulations and
+reminiscences that were freely exchanged, Yuba Bill preserved a
+dissatisfied and even resentful silence. The most generous praise of his
+skill and courage awoke no response. "I reckon the old man waz just
+spilin' for a fight, and is feelin' disappointed," said a passenger. But
+those who knew that Bill had the true fighter's scorn for any purely
+purposeless conflict were more or less concerned and watchful of him. He
+would drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully knitted
+brows, but eyes still keenly observant under his slouched hat, and then,
+relaxing his strained attitude, would give way to a movement of
+impatience. "You aint uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" asked the
+Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a slightly
+contemptuous surprise. "Not about anything ter _come_. It's what _hez_
+happened that I don't exackly sabe. I don't see no signs of Ramon's gang
+ever havin' been out at all, and ef they were out I don't see why they
+didn't go for us."
+
+"The simple fact is that our _ruse_ was successful," said an outside
+passenger. "They waited to see our lights on the ridge, and, not seeing
+them, missed us until we had passed. That's my opinion."
+
+"You aint puttin' any price on that opinion, air ye?" enquired Bill,
+politely.
+
+"No."
+
+"'Cos thar's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've
+seen worse things in it."
+
+"Come off! Bill," retorted the passenger, slightly nettled by the
+tittering of his companions. "Then what did you put out the lights for?"
+
+"Well," returned Bill, grimly, "it mout have been because I didn't keer
+to hev you chaps blazin' away at the first bush you _thought_ you saw
+move in your skeer, and bringin' down their fire on us."
+
+The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no means an improbable
+one, and we thought it better to accept it with a laugh. Bill, however,
+resumed his abstracted manner.
+
+"Who got in at the Summit?" he at last asked abruptly of the Expressman.
+
+"Derrick and Simpson of Cold Spring, and one of the 'Excelsior' boys,"
+responded the Expressman.
+
+"And that Pike County girl from Dow's Flat, with her bundles. Don't
+forget her," added the outside passenger, ironically.
+
+"Does anybody here know her?" continued Bill, ignoring the irony.
+
+"You'd better ask Judge Thompson; he was mighty attentive to her;
+gettin' her a seat by the off window, and lookin' after her bundles and
+things."
+
+"Gettin' her a seat by the _window_?" repeated Bill.
+
+"Yes, she wanted to see everything, and wasn't afraid of the shooting."
+
+"Yes," broke in a third passenger, "and he was so d----d civil that when
+she dropped her ring in the straw, he struck a match agin all your
+rules, you know, and held it for her to find it. And it was just as we
+were crossin' through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through the
+window, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun ready for action.
+And it wasn't no fault of Judge Thompson's if his d----d foolishness
+hadn't shown us up, and got us a shot from the gang."
+
+Bill gave a short grunt--but drove steadily on without further comment
+or even turning his eyes to the speaker.
+
+We were now not more than a mile from the station at the cross roads
+where we were to change horses. The lights already glimmered in the
+distance, and there was a faint suggestion of the coming dawn on the
+summits of the ridge to the West. We had plunged into a belt of timber,
+when suddenly a horseman emerged at a sharp canter from a trail that
+seemed to be parallel with our own. We were all slightly startled; Yuba
+Bill alone preserving his moody calm.
+
+"Hullo!" he said.
+
+The stranger wheeled to our side as Bill slackened his speed. He seemed
+to be a "packer" or freight muleteer.
+
+"Ye didn't get 'held up' on the Divide?" continued Bill, cheerfully.
+
+"No," returned the packer, with a laugh; "_I_ don't carry treasure. But
+I see you're all right, too. I saw you crossin' over Galloper's."
+
+"_Saw_ us?" said Bill, sharply. "We had our lights out."
+
+"Yes, but there was suthin' white--a handkerchief or woman's veil, I
+reckon--hangin' from the window. It was only a movin' spot agin the
+hillside, but ez I was lookin' out for ye I knew it was you by that.
+Good night!"
+
+He cantered away. We tried to look at each other's faces, and at Bill's
+expression in the darkness, but he neither spoke nor stirred until he
+threw down the reins when we stopped before the station. The passengers
+quickly descended from the roof; the Expressman was about to follow, but
+Bill plucked his sleeve.
+
+"I'm goin' to take a look over this yer stage and these yer passengers
+with ye, afore we start."
+
+"Why, what's up?"
+
+"Well," said Bill, slowly disengaging himself from one of his enormous
+gloves, "when we waltzed down into the brush up there I saw a man, ez
+plain ez I see you, rise up from it. I thought our time had come and the
+band was goin' to play, when he sorter drew back, made a sign, and we
+just scooted past him."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well," said Bill, "it means that this yer coach was _passed through
+free_ to-night."
+
+"You don't object to _that_--surely? I think we were deucedly lucky."
+
+Bill slowly drew off his other glove. "I've been riskin' my everlastin'
+life on this d----d line three times a week," he said with mock
+humility, "and I'm allus thankful for small mercies. _But_," he added
+grimly, "when it comes down to being passed free by some pal of a hoss
+thief and thet called a speshal Providence, _I aint in it_! No, sir, I
+aint in it!"
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+It was with mixed emotions that the passengers heard that a delay of
+fifteen minutes to tighten certain screw-bolts had been ordered by the
+autocratic Bill. Some were anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine,
+but others were not averse to linger for the daylight that promised
+greater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing the real cause of
+Bill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to understand the object of it.
+The passengers were all well known; any idea of complicity with the road
+agents was wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederate of
+the gang among them, he would have been more likely to precipitate a
+robbery than to check it. Again, the discovery of such a confederate--to
+whom they clearly owed their safety--and his arrest would have been
+quite against the Californian sense of justice, if not actually illegal.
+It seemed evident that Bill's Quixotic sense of honour was leading him
+astray.
+
+[Illustration: "'THERE WAS SUTHIN' WHITE HANGIN' FROM THE WINDOW.'"]
+
+The station consisted of a stable, a waggon shed, and a building
+containing three rooms. The first was fitted up with "bunks" or sleeping
+berths for the _employés_, the second was the kitchen, and the third and
+larger apartment was dining-room or sitting-room, and was used as
+general waiting-room for the passengers. It was not a refreshment
+station, and there was no "bar." But a mysterious command from the
+omnipotent Bill produced a demi-john of whiskey, with which he
+hospitably treated the company. The seductive influence of the liquor
+loosened the tongue of the gallant Judge Thompson. He admitted to having
+struck a match to enable the fair Pike Countian to find her ring, which,
+however, proved to have fallen in her lap. She was "a fine, healthy
+young woman--a type of the Far West, sir; in fact, quite a prairie
+blossom! yet simple and guileless as a child." She was on her way to
+Marysville, he believed, "although she expected to meet friends--a
+friend--in fact, later on." It was her first visit to a large town--in
+fact, any civilised centre--since she crossed the plains three years
+ago. Her girlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence
+irresistible. In fact, in a country whose tendency was to produce
+"frivolity and forwardness in young girls, he found her a most
+interesting young person." She was even then out in the stable-yard
+watching the horses being harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable
+healthy young curiosity than to listen to the empty compliments of the
+younger passengers."
+
+[Illustration: "SHE WAS WATCHING THE REPLACING OF LUGGAGE IN THE BOOT."]
+
+The figure which Bill saw thus engaged, without being otherwise
+distinguished, certainly seemed to justify the Judge's opinion. She
+appeared to be a well-matured country girl, whose frank grey eyes and
+large laughing mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification in
+her life and surroundings. She was watching the replacing of luggage in
+the boot. A little feminine start, as one of her own parcels was thrown
+somewhat roughly on the roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there," he
+growled to the helper, "ye aint carting stone! Look out, will yer! Some
+of your things, miss?" he added, with gruff courtesy, turning to her.
+"These yer trunks, for instance?"
+
+She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper,
+seized a large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or
+some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily,
+striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges
+and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident
+discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine
+apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered
+another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his
+apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his
+intention of having the company "make it good" to her with a new one.
+Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room,
+entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting the
+nearest and most youthful passenger by the coat-collar from the stool
+that he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced
+another man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himself up
+to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon his
+fair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket.
+
+"Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?" he said.
+
+She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were
+the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a
+slight rise of colour, returned "Yes."
+
+"Well, Miss Mullins, I've got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it
+straight out afore this crowd. It's in my rights to take ye aside and
+ask it--but that aint my style; I'm no detective. I needn't ask it at
+all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked
+by others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye've got a friend
+over ther--Judge Thompson--who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest
+as any other man here is--as though ye'd packed your own jury. Well, the
+simple question I've got to ask ye is _this_--Did you signal to anybody
+from the coach when we passed Galloper's an hour ago?"
+
+We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had reached its climax
+here. To openly and publicly accuse a "lady" before a group of
+chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the further
+attractions of youth, good looks and innocence, was little short of
+desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair
+stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very
+boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson,
+with a bland propitiatory smile, began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on
+behalf of this young lady--" when the fair accused, raising her eyes to
+her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight
+but convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:
+
+"_I did._"
+
+"Ahem!" interposed the Judge, hastily, "er--that is--er--you allowed
+your handkerchief to flutter from the window. I noticed it myself,
+casually--one might say even playfully--but without any particular
+significance."
+
+The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride and
+impatience, returned briefly:
+
+"I signalled."
+
+"Who did you signal to?" asked Bill, gravely.
+
+"The young gentleman I'm going to marry."
+
+A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, was
+instantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill.
+
+"What did you signal to him for?" he continued.
+
+"To tell him I was here, and that it was all right," returned the young
+girl, with a steadily rising pride and colour.
+
+"Wot was all right?" demanded Bill.
+
+"That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyond
+Cass's Ridge Station." She hesitated a moment, and then, with a still
+greater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said:
+"I've run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stop
+me. Dad didn't like him just because he was poor, and dad's got money.
+Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things
+to bribe me."
+
+"And you're taking them in your trunk to the other feller?" said Bill,
+grimly.
+
+"Yes, he's poor," returned the girl, defiantly.
+
+"Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill.
+
+"It's not Mullins. I--I--took that name," she hesitated, with her first
+exhibition of self-consciousness.
+
+"Wot _is_ his name?"
+
+"Eli Hemmings."
+
+A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame of
+Eli or "Skinner" Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passed
+even beyond Galloper's Ridge.
+
+"The step that you're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, is one
+of great gravity," said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternal
+seriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect a
+glaring affectation, "and I trust that you and your affianced have fully
+weighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural
+affections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know of
+the--er--young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and,
+perhaps, imperilling your whole future? For instance, have you known him
+long?"
+
+The slightly troubled air of trying to understand--not unlike the vague
+wonderment of childhood--with which Miss Mullins had received the
+beginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehension
+as she said quickly, "Oh, yes, nearly a whole year."
+
+"And," said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation--is he in business?"
+
+"Oh, yes," she returned, "he's a collector."
+
+"A collector?"
+
+"Yes; he collects bills, you know, money," she went on, with childish
+eagerness, "not for himself--_he_ never has any money, poor Charley--but
+for his firm. It's dreadful hard work, too, keeps him out for days and
+nights, over bad roads and baddest weather. Sometimes, when he's stole
+over to the ranch just to see me, he's been so bad he could scarcely
+keep his seat in the saddle, much less stand. And he's got to take
+mighty big risks, too. Times the folks are cross with him and won't pay;
+once they shot him in the arm, and he came to me, and I helped do it up
+for him. But he don't mind. He's real brave, jest as brave as he's
+good." There was such a wholesome ring of truth in this pretty praise
+that we were touched in sympathy with the speaker.
+
+"What firm does he collect for?" asked the Judge, gently.
+
+"I don't know exactly--he won't tell me--but I think it's a Spanish
+firm. You see"--she took us all into her confidence with a sweeping
+smile of innocent yet half-mischievous artfulness--"I only know because
+I peeped over a letter he once got from his firm, telling him he must
+hustle up and be ready for the road the next day--but I think the name
+was Martinez--yes, Ramon Martinez."
+
+In the dead silence that ensued--a silence so profound that we could
+hear the horses in the distant stable-yard rattling their harness--one
+of the younger "Excelsior" boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but the
+fierce eye of Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantly
+stiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, however, took
+no note of it; following out, with lover-like diffusiveness, the
+reminiscences thus awakened, she went on:
+
+[Illustration: "AND--THEN CAME THE RAIN!"]
+
+"Yes, it's mighty hard work, but he says it's all for me, and as soon as
+we're married he'll quit it. He might have quit it before, but he won't
+take no money of me, nor what I told him I could get out of dad! That
+aint his style. He's mighty proud--if he is poor--is Charley. Why thar's
+all ma's money which she left me in the Savin's Bank that I wanted to
+draw out--for I had the right--and give it to him, but he wouldn't hear
+of it! Why, he wouldn't take one of the things I've got with me, if he
+knew it. And so he goes on ridin' and ridin', here and there and
+everywhere, and gettin' more and more played out and sad, and thin and
+pale as a spirit, and always so uneasy about his business, and startin'
+up at times when we're meetin' out in the South Woods or in the far
+clearin', and sayin': 'I must be goin' now, Polly,' and yet always
+tryin' to be chiffle and chipper afore me. Why he must have rid miles
+and miles to have watched for me thar in the brush at the foot of
+Galloper's to-night, jest to see if all was safe, and Lordy! I'd have
+given him the signal and showed a light if I'd died for it the next
+minit. There! That's what I know of Charley--that's what I'm running
+away from home for--that's what I'm running to him for, and I
+don't care who knows it! And I only wish I'd done it afore--and I
+would--if--if--if--he'd only _asked me!_ There now!" She stopped,
+panted, and choked. Then one of the sudden transitions of youthful
+emotion overtook the eager, laughing face; it clouded up with the swift
+change of childhood, a lightning quiver of expression broke over
+it--and--then came the rain!
+
+I think this simple act completed our utter demoralisation! We smiled
+feebly at each other with that assumption of masculine superiority which
+is miserably conscious of its own helplessness at such moments. We
+looked out of the window, blew our noses, said: "Eh--what?" and "I say,"
+vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved and yet apparently
+astonished when Yuba Bill, who had turned his back upon the fair
+speaker, and was kicking the logs in the fireplace, suddenly swept down
+upon us and bundled us all into the road, leaving Miss Mullins alone.
+Then he walked aside with Judge Thompson for a few moments; returned to
+us, autocratically demanded of the party a complete reticence towards
+Miss Mullins on the subject matter under discussion, re-entered the
+station, re-appeared with the young lady, suppressed a faint idiotic
+cheer which broke from us at the spectacle of her innocent face once
+more cleared and rosy, climbed the box, and in another moment we were
+under way.
+
+"Then she don't know what her lover is yet?" asked the Expressman,
+eagerly.
+
+"No."
+
+"Are _you_ certain it's one of the gang?"
+
+"Can't say _for sure_. It mout be a young chap from Yolo who bucked agin
+the tiger [1] at Sacramento, got regularly cleaned out and busted, and
+joined the gang for a flier. They say thar was a new hand in that job
+over at Keeley's--and a mighty game one, too--and ez there was some
+buckshot onloaded that trip, he might hev got his share, and that would
+tally with what the girl said about his arm. See! Ef that's the man,
+I've heered he was the son of some big preacher in the States, and a
+college sharp to boot, who ran wild in 'Frisco, and played himself for
+all he was worth. They're the wust kind to kick when they once get a
+foot over the traces. For stiddy, comf'ble kempany," added Bill
+reflectively, "give _me_ the son of a man that was _hanged!_"
+
+"But what are you going to do about this?"
+
+"That depends upon the feller who comes to meet her."
+
+"But you aint going to try to take him? That would be playing it pretty
+low down on them both."
+
+"Keep your hair on, Jimmy! The Judge and me are only going to rastle
+with the sperrit of that gay young galoot, when he drops down for his
+girl--and exhort him pow'ful! Ef he allows he's convicted of sin and
+will find the Lord, we'll marry him and the gal offhand at the next
+station, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. We're goin'
+to have this yer elopement done on the square--and our waybill
+clean--you bet!"
+
+"But you don't suppose he'll trust himself in your hands?"
+
+"Polly will signal to him that it's all square."
+
+"Ah!" said the Expressman. Nevertheless in those few moments the men
+seemed to have exchanged dispositions. The Expressman looked doubtfully,
+critically, and even cynically before him. Bill's face had relaxed, and
+something like a bland smile beamed across it, as he drove confidently
+and unhesitatingly forward.
+
+Day, meantime, although full blown and radiant on the mountain summits
+around us, was yet nebulous and uncertain in the valleys into which we
+were plunging. Lights still glimmered in the cabins and few ranch
+buildings which began to indicate the thicker settlements. And the
+shadows were heaviest in a little copse, where a note from Judge
+Thompson in the coach was handed up to Yuba Bill, who at once slowly
+began to draw up his horses. The coach stopped finally near the junction
+of a small cross road. At the same moment Miss Mullins slipped down from
+the vehicle, and, with a parting wave of her hand to the Judge who had
+assisted her from the steps, tripped down the cross road, and
+disappeared in its semi-obscurity. To our surprise the stage waited,
+Bill holding the reins listlessly in his hands. Five minutes passed--an
+eternity of expectation, and--as there was that in Yuba Bill's face
+which forbade idle questioning--an aching void of silence also! This was
+at last broken by a strange voice from the road:
+
+"Go on--we'll follow."
+
+[Illustration: "A PARTING WAVE OF HER HAND."]
+
+The coach started forward. Presently we heard the sound of other wheels
+behind us. We all craned our necks backward to get a view of the
+unknown, but by the growing light we could only see that we were
+followed at a distance by a buggy with two figures in it. Evidently
+Polly Mullins and her lover! We hoped that they would pass us. But the
+vehicle, although drawn by a fast horse, preserved its distance always,
+and it was plain that its driver had no desire to satisfy our curiosity.
+The Expressman had recourse to Bill.
+
+"Is it the man you thought of?" he asked, eagerly.
+
+"I reckon," said Bill, briefly.
+
+"But," continued the Expressman, returning to his former scepticism,
+"what's to keep them both from levanting together now?"
+
+Bill jerked his hand towards the boot with a grim smile.
+
+"Their baggage."
+
+"Oh!" said the Expressman.
+
+"Yes," continued Bill. "We'll hang on to that gal's little frills and
+fixin's until this yer job's settled, and the ceremony's over, jest as
+ef we waz her own father. And, what's more, young man," he added,
+suddenly turning to the Expressman, "_you'll_ express them trunks of
+hers _through to Sacramento_ with your kempany's labels, and hand her
+the receipts and cheques for them, so she _can get 'em there_. That'll
+keep _him_ outer temptation and the reach o' the gang, until they get
+away among white men and civilisation again. When your hoary-headed ole
+grandfather--or, to speak plainer, that partikler old whiskey-soaker
+known as Yuba Bill, wot sits on this box," he continued, with a
+diabolical wink at the Expressman--"waltzes in to pervide for a young
+couple jest startin' in life, thar's nothin' mean about his style, you
+bet. He fills the bill every time! Speshul Providences take a back seat
+when he's around."
+
+When the station hotel and straggling settlement of Sugar Pine, now
+distinct and clear in the growing light, at last rose within rifleshot
+on the plateau, the buggy suddenly darted swiftly by us--so swiftly that
+the faces of the two occupants were barely distinguishable as they
+passed--and, keeping the lead by a dozen lengths, reached the door of
+the hotel. The young girl and her companion leaped down and vanished
+within as we drew up. They had evidently determined to elude our
+curiosity, and were successful.
+
+But the material appetites of the passengers, sharpened by the keen
+mountain air, were more potent than their curiosity, and, as the
+breakfast-bell rang out at the moment the stage stopped, a majority of
+them rushed into the dining-room and scrambled for places without giving
+much heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba Bill, who had
+disappeared also. The through coach to Marysville and Sacramento was
+likewise waiting, for Sugar Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration,
+and the coach which we had just left went no further. In the course of
+twenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat ceremonious
+bustling in the hall and on the verandah, and Yuba Bill and the Judge
+re-appeared. The latter was leading, with some elaboration of manner and
+detail, the shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill was
+accompanying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to the windows to
+get a good view of the mysterious stranger and probable ex-brigand whose
+life was now linked with our fair fellow-passenger. I am afraid,
+however, that we all participated in a certain impression of
+disappointment and doubt. Handsome and even cultivated-looking, he
+assuredly was--young and vigorous in appearance. But there was a certain
+half-shamed, half-defiant suggestion in his expression, yet coupled with
+a watchful lurking uneasiness which was not pleasant and hardly becoming
+in a bridegroom--and the possessor of such a bride. But the frank,
+joyous, innocent face of Polly Mullins, resplendent with a simple, happy
+confidence, melted our hearts again, and condoned the fellow's
+shortcomings. We waved our hands; I think we would have given three
+rousing cheers as they drove away if the omnipotent eye of Yuba Bill had
+not been upon us. It was well, for the next moment we were summoned to
+the presence of that soft-hearted autocrat.
+
+We found him alone with the Judge in a private sitting-room, standing
+before a table on which there was a decanter and glasses. As we filed
+expectantly into the room and the door closed behind us, he cast a
+glance of hesitating tolerance over the group.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "you was all present at the beginnin' of a
+little game this mornin', and the Judge thar thinks that you oughter be
+let in at the finish. _I_ don't see that it's any of _your_ d----d
+business--so to speak--but ez the Judge here allows you're all in the
+secret, I've called you in to take a partin' drink to the health of Mr.
+and Mrs. Charley Byng--ez is now comf'ably off on their bridal tower.
+What _you_ know or what _you_ suspects of the young galoot that's
+married the gal aint worth shucks to anybody, and I wouldn't give it to
+a yaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought all to promise
+right here that you'll keep it dark. That's his opinion. Ez far as my
+opinion goes, gen'lmen," continued Bill, with greater blandness and
+apparent cordiality, "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhand
+gin'ral way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle-headed
+blatherin' idjet airin' _his_ opinion----"
+
+"One moment, Bill," interposed Judge Thompson with a grave smile--"let
+me explain. You understand, gentlemen," he said, turning to us, "the
+singular, and I may say affecting, situation which our good-hearted
+friend here has done so much to bring to what we hope will be a happy
+termination. I want to give here, as my professional opinion, that there
+is nothing in his request which, in your capacity as good citizens and
+law-abiding men, you may not grant. I want to tell you, also, that you
+are condoning no offence against the statutes; that there is not a
+particle of legal evidence before us of the criminal antecedents of Mr.
+Charles Byng, except that which has been told you by the innocent lips
+of his betrothed, which the law of the land has now sealed for ever in
+the mouth of his wife, and that our own actual experience of his acts
+have been in the main exculpatory of any previous irregularity--if not
+incompatible with it. Briefly, no judge would charge, no jury convict,
+on such evidence. When I add that the young girl is of legal age, that
+there is no evidence of any previous undue influence, but rather of the
+reverse, on the part of the bridegroom, and that I was content, as a
+magistrate, to perform the ceremony, I think you will be satisfied to
+give your promise, for the sake of the bride, and drink a happy life to
+them both."
+
+[Illustration: THE JUDGE AND MISS MULLINS.]
+
+I need not say that we did this cheerfully, and even extorted from Bill
+a grunt of satisfaction. The majority of the company, however, who were
+going with the through coach to Sacramento, then took their leave, and,
+as we accompanied them to the verandah, we could see that Miss Polly
+Mullins's trunks were already transferred to the other vehicle under the
+protecting seals and labels of the all-potent Express Company. Then the
+whip cracked, the coach rolled away, and the last traces of the
+adventurous young couple disappeared in the hanging red dust of its
+wheels.
+
+But Yuba Bill's grim satisfaction at the happy issue of the episode
+seemed to suffer no abatement. He even exceeded his usual deliberately
+regulated potations, and, standing comfortably with his back to the
+centre of the now deserted bar-room, was more than usually loquacious
+with the Expressman. "You see," he said, in bland reminiscence, "when
+your old Uncle Bill takes hold of a job like this, he puts it straight
+through without changin' hosses. Yet thar was a moment, young feller,
+when I thought I was stompt! It was when we'd made up our mind to make
+that chap tell the gal fust all what he was! Ef she'd rared or kicked in
+the traces, or hung back only ez much ez that, we'd hev given him jest
+five minits' law to get up and get and leave her, and we'd hev toted
+that gal and her fixin's back to her dad again! But she jest gave a
+little scream and start, and then went off inter hysterics, right on his
+buzzum, laughing and cryin' and sayin' that nothin' should part 'em.
+Gosh! if I didn't think _he_ woz more cut up than she about it--a minit
+it looked as ef _he_ didn't allow to marry her arter all, but that
+passed, and they was married hard and fast--you bet! I reckon he's had
+enough of stayin' out o' nights to last him, and ef the valley
+settlements hevn't got hold of a very shining member, at least the
+foothills hev got shut of one more of the Ramon Martinez gang."
+
+"What's that about the Ramon Martinez gang?" said a quiet potential
+voice.
+
+Bill turned quickly. It was the voice of the Divisional Superintendent
+of the Express Company--a man of eccentric determination of character,
+and one of the few whom the autocratic Bill recognised as an equal--who
+had just entered the bar-room. His dusty pongee cloak and soft hat
+indicated that he had that morning arrived on a round of inspection.
+
+"Don't care if I do, Bill," he continued, in response to Bill's
+invitatory gesture, walking to the bar. "It's a little raw out on the
+road. Well, what were you saying about Ramon Martinez gang? You haven't
+come across one of 'em, have you?"
+
+"No," said Bill, with a slight blinking of his eye, as he ostentatiously
+lifted his glass to the light.
+
+"And you _won't_," added the Superintendent, leisurely sipping his
+liquor. "For the fact is, the gang is about played out. Not from want of
+a job now and then, but from the difficulty of disposing of the results
+of their work. Since the new instructions to the agents to identify and
+trace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, you see,
+they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang are spotted at the
+offices, and it costs too much for them to pay a fence or a middleman of
+any standing. Why, all that flaky river gold they took from the
+Excelsior Company can be identified as easy as if it was stamped with
+the company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; they can't get
+others to do it for them; they can't ship it to the Mint or Assay
+Offices in Marysville and 'Frisco, for they won't take it without our
+certificate and seals, and _we_ don't take any undeclared freight
+_within_ the lines that we've drawn around their beat, except from
+people and agents known. Why, _you_ know that well enough, Jim," he
+said, suddenly appealing to the Expressman, "don't you?"
+
+Possibly the suddenness of the appeal caused the Expressman to swallow
+his liquor the wrong way, for he was overtaken with a fit of coughing,
+and stammered hastily as he laid down his glass, "Yes--of
+course--certainly."
+
+"No, sir," resumed the Superintendent cheerfully, "they're pretty well
+played out. And the best proof of it is that they've lately been robbing
+ordinary passengers' trunks. There was a freight waggon 'held up' near
+Dow's Flat the other day, and a lot of baggage gone through. I had to go
+down there to look into it. Darned if they hadn't lifted a lot o'
+woman's wedding things from that rich couple who got married the other
+day out at Marysville. Looks as if they were playing it rather low down,
+don't it? Coming down to hard pan and the bed rock--eh?"
+
+The Expressman's face was turned anxiously towards Bill, who, after a
+hurried gulp of his remaining liquor, still stood staring at the window.
+Then he slowly drew on one of his large gloves. "Ye didn't," he said,
+with a slow, drawling, but perfectly distinct, articulation, "happen to
+know old 'Skinner' Hemmings when you were over there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And his daughter?"
+
+"He hasn't got any."
+
+"A sort o' mild, innocent, guileless child of nature?" persisted Bill,
+with a yellow face, a deadly calm and Satanic deliberation.
+
+"No. I tell you he _hasn't_ any daughter. Old man Hemmings is a
+confirmed old bachelor. He's too mean to support more than one."
+
+"And you didn't happen to know any o' that gang, did ye?" continued
+Bill, with infinite protraction.
+
+"Yes. Knew 'em all. There was French Pete, Cherokee Bob, Kanaka Joe,
+One-eyed Stillson, Softy Brown, Spanish Jack, and two or three
+Greasers."
+
+"And ye didn't know a man by the name of Charley Byng?"
+
+[Illustration: "'YE DIDN'T KNOW A MAN BY THE NAME OF CHARLEY BYNG?'"]
+
+"No," returned the Superintendent, with a slight suggestion of weariness
+and a distraught glance towards the door.
+
+"A dark, stylish chap, with shifty black eyes and a curled up
+merstache?" continued Bill, with dry, colourless persistence.
+
+"No. Look here, Bill, I'm in a little bit of a hurry--but I suppose you
+must have your little joke before we part. Now, what _is_ your little
+game?"
+
+"Wot you mean?" demanded Bill, with sudden brusqueness.
+
+"Mean? Well, old man, you know as well as I do. You're giving me the
+very description of Ramon Martinez himself, ha! ha! No--Bill! you didn't
+play me this time. You're mighty spry and clever, but you didn't catch
+on just then."
+
+He nodded and moved away with a light laugh. Bill turned a stony face to
+the Expressman. Suddenly a gleam of mirth came into his gloomy eyes. He
+bent over the young man, and said in a hoarse, chuckling whisper:
+
+"But I got even after all!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"He's tied up to that lying little she-devil, hard and fast!"
+
+[Illustration: IDLERS]
+
+
+
+
+THE MODERN BABYLON.
+
+BY CYNICUS.
+
+[Illustration: THE MODERN PHAETON]
+
+    The day is done for honest thriving
+    Through Speculation's reckless driving.
+
+[Illustration: THE SCAPEGOAT]
+
+[Illustration: LAW & JUSTICE]
+
+    Your distance Madam, for you see
+    You dare not, unless I agree
+
+[Illustration: SAMSON AGONISTES]
+
+[Illustration: MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.]
+
+
+
+
+MY FIRST BOOKS.
+
+"UNDERTONES" AND "IDYLS AND LEGENDS OF INVERBURN."
+
+BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON.
+
+(PHOTOGRAPHS BY MESSRS. FRADELLE AND YOUNG.)
+
+
+My first serious effort in Literature was what I may call a
+double-barrelled one; in other words, I was seriously engaged upon Two
+Books at the same time, and it was by the merest accident that they did
+not appear simultaneously. As it was, only a few months divided one from
+the other, and they are always, in my own mind, inseparable, or Siamese,
+twins. The book of poems called _Undertones_ was the one; the book of
+poems called _Idyls and Legends of Inverburn_ was the other. They were
+published nearly thirty years ago, when I was still a boy, and as they
+happened to bring me into connection, more or less intimately, with some
+of the leading spirits of the age, a few notes concerning them may be of
+interest.
+
+[Illustration: MR. BUCHANAN'S HOUSE.]
+
+A word, first, as to my literary beginnings. I can scarcely remember the
+time when the idea of winning fame as an author had not occurred to me,
+and so I determined very early to adopt the literary profession, a
+determination which I unfortunately carried out, to my own life-long
+discomfort, and the annoyance of a large portion of the reading public.
+When a boy in Glasgow, I made the acquaintance of David Gray, who was
+fired with a similar ambition to fly incontinently to London--
+
+    The terrible City whose neglect is Death,
+    Whose smile is Fame!
+
+and to take it by storm. It seemed so easy! "Westminster Abbey," wrote
+my friend to a correspondent; "if I live, I shall be buried there--so
+help me God!" "I mean, after Tennyson's death," I myself wrote to Philip
+Hamerton, "to be Poet-laureate!" From these samples of our callow
+speech, the modesty of our ambition may be inferred. Well, it all
+happened just as we planned, only otherwise! Through some blunder of
+arrangement we two started for London on the same day, but from
+different railway stations, and, until some weeks afterwards, one knew
+nothing of the other's exodus. I arrived at King's Cross Railway Station
+with the conventional half-crown in my pocket; literally and absolutely,
+half-a-crown; I wandered about the Great City till I was weary, fell in
+with a Thief and Good Samaritan who sheltered me, starved and struggled
+with abundant happiness, and finally found myself located at 66,
+Stamford Street, Waterloo Bridge, in a top room, for which I paid, when
+I had the money, seven shillings a week. Here I lived royally, with Duke
+Humphrey, for many a day; and hither, one sad morning, I brought my poor
+friend Gray, whom I had discovered languishing somewhere in the Borough,
+and who was already death-struck through "sleeping out" one night in
+Hyde Park.[2] "Westminster Abbey--if I live, I shall be buried there!"
+Poor country singing-bird, the great Dismal Cage of the Dead was not for
+_him_, thank God! He lies under the open Heaven, close to the little
+river which he immortalised in song. After a brief sojourn in the "dear
+old ghastly bankrupt garret at No. 66," he fluttered home to die.
+
+To that old garret, in these days, came living men of letters who were
+of large and important interest to us poor cheepers from the North:
+Richard Monckton Milnes, Laurence Oliphant, Sydney Dobell, among others,
+who took a kindly interest in my dying comrade. But afterwards, when I
+was left to fight the battle alone, the place was solitary. Ever
+reserved and independent, not to say "dour" and opinionated, I made no
+friends, and cared for none. I had found a little work on the newspapers
+and magazines, just enough to keep body and soul alive, and while
+occupied with this I was busy on the literary Twins to which I referred
+at the opening of this paper. What did my isolation matter, when I had
+all the gods of Greece for company, to say nothing of the fays and
+trolls of Scottish Fairyland? Pallas and Aphrodite haunted that old
+garret; out on Waterloo Bridge, night after night, I saw Selene and all
+her nymphs; and when my heart sank low, the Fairies of Scotland sang me
+lullabies! It was a happy time. Sometimes, for a fortnight together, I
+never had a dinner--save, perhaps, on Sunday, when a good-natured Hebe
+would bring me covertly a slice from the landlord's joint. My favourite
+place of refreshment was the Caledonian Coffee House in Covent Garden.
+Here, for a few coppers, I could feast on coffee and muffins--muffins
+saturated with butter, and worthy of the gods! Then, issuing forth,
+full-fed, glowing, oleaginous, I would light my pipe, and wander out
+into the lighted streets.
+
+[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE HALL.]
+
+Criticisms for the _Athenæum_, then edited by Hepworth Dixon, brought me
+ten-and-sixpence a column. I used to go to the old office in Wellington
+Street and have my contributions measured off on the current number
+with a foot-rule, by good old John Francis, the publisher. I wrote,
+too, for the _Literary Gazette_, where the pay was less
+princely--seven-and-sixpence a column, I think, but with all extracts
+deducted! The _Gazette_ was then edited by John Morley, who came to the
+office daily with a big dog. "I well remember the time when you, a boy,
+came to me, a boy, in Catherine Street," wrote honest John to me years
+afterwards. But the neighbourhood of Covent Garden had greater wonders!
+Two or three times a week, walking, black bag in hand, from Charing
+Cross Station to the office of _All the Year Round_ in Wellington
+Street, came the good, the only Dickens! From that good Genie the poor
+straggler from Fairyland got solid help and sympathy. Few can realise
+now what Dickens was then to London. His humour filled its literature
+like broad sunlight; the Gospel of Plum-pudding warmed every poor devil
+in Bohemia.
+
+At this time, I was (save the mark!) terribly in earnest, with a dogged
+determination to bow down to no graven literary Idol, but to judge men
+of all ranks on their personal merits. I never had much reverence for
+Gods of any sort; if the Superior Persons could not win me by love, I
+remained heretical. So it was a long time before I came close to any
+living souls, and all that time I was working away at my poems. Then, a
+little later, I used to go o' Sundays to the open house of Westland
+Marston, which was then a great haunt of literary Bohemians. Here I
+first met Dinah Muloch, the author of _John Halifax_, who took a great
+fancy to me, used to carry me off to her little nest on Hampstead Heath,
+and lend me all her books. At Hampstead, too, I foregathered with Sydney
+Dobell, a strangely beautiful soul, with (what seemed to me then) very
+effeminate manners. Dobell's mouth was ever full of very pretty
+Latinity, for the most part Virgilian. He was fond of quoting, as an
+example of perfect expression, sound conveying absolute sense of the
+thing described, the doggrel lines--
+
+    "Down the stairs the young missises ran
+    To have a look at Miss Kate's young man!"
+
+The sibilants in the first line, he thought, admirably suggested the
+idea of the young ladies slipping along the banisters and peeping into
+the hall!
+
+But I had other friends, more helpful to me in preparing my first
+twin-offering to the Muses: the faces under the gas, the painted women
+on the Bridge (how many a night have I walked up and down by their
+sides, and talked to them for hours together), the actors in the
+theatres, the ragged groups at the stage doors, London to me, then, was
+still Fairyland! Even in the Haymarket, with its babbles of Nymph and
+Satyr, there was wonderful life from midnight to dawn--deep sympathy
+with which told me that I was a born Pagan, and could never be really
+comfortable in any modern Temple of the Proprieties. On other points
+connected with that old life on the borders of Bohemia, I need not
+touch; it has all been so well done already by Murger, in the _Vie de
+Bohème_, and it will not bear translation into contemporary English.
+There were cakes and ale, pipes and beer, and ginger was hot in the
+mouth too! _Et ego fui in Bohemiâ_! There were inky fellows and bouncing
+girls, _then_; _now_ there are only fine ladies, and respectable,
+God-fearing men of letters.
+
+[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM.]
+
+It was while the Twins were fashioning, that I went down in summer time
+to live at Chertsey on the Thames, chiefly in order to be near to one I
+had long admired, Thomas Love Peacock, the friend of Shelley and the
+author of _Headling Hall_--"Greekey Peekey," as they called him, on
+account of his prodigious knowledge of things and books Hellenic. I soon
+grew to love the dear old man, and sat at his feet, like an obedient
+pupil, in his green old-fashioned garden at Lower Halliford. To him I
+first read some of my _Undertones_, getting many a rap over the knuckles
+for my sacrilegious tampering with Divine Myths. What mercy could _I_
+expect from one who had never forgiven "Johnny" Keats for his frightful
+perversion of the sacred mystery of Endymion and Selene? and who was
+horrified at the base "modernism" of Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound?" But
+to think of it! He had known Shelley, and all the rest of the demigods,
+and his speech was golden with memories of them all! Dear old Pagan,
+wonderful in his death as in his life. When, shortly before he died, his
+house caught fire, and the mild curate of the parish begged him to
+withdraw from the library of books he loved so well, he flatly refused
+to listen, and cried roundly, in a line of vehement blank verse, "By the
+immortal gods, I will not stir!" [3]
+
+Under such auspices, and with all the ardour of youth to help, my Book,
+or Books, progressed. Meantime, I was breaking out into poetry in the
+magazines, and writing "criticism" by the yard. At last the time came
+when I remembered another friend with whom I had corresponded, and whose
+advice I thought I might now ask with some confidence. This was George
+Henry Lewes, to whom, when I was a boy in Glasgow, I had sent a bundle
+of manuscript, with the blunt question, "Am I, or am I not, a Poet?" To
+my delight he had replied to me with a qualified affirmative, saying
+that in the productions he had "discerned a real faculty, and _perhaps_
+a future poet. I say perhaps," he added, "because I do not know your
+age, and because there are so many poetical blossoms which never come to
+fruit." He had, furthermore, advised me "to write as much as I felt
+impelled to write, but to publish nothing"--at any rate, for a couple of
+years. Three years had passed, and I had neither published
+anything--that is to say, in book form--nor had I had any further
+communication with my kind correspondent. To Lewes, then, I wrote,
+reminding him of our correspondence, telling him that I _had_ waited,
+not two years, but three, and that I now felt inclined to face the
+public. I soon received an answer, the result of which was that I went,
+on Lewes's invitation, to the Priory, North Bank, Regent's Park, and met
+my friend and his partner, better known as "George Eliot."
+
+But, as the novelists say, I am anticipating. Sick to death, David Gray
+had returned to the cottage of his father, the hand-loom weaver, at
+Kirkintilloch, and there had peacefully passed away, leaving as his
+legacy to the world the volume of beautiful poems published under the
+auspices of Lord Houghton. I knew of his death the hour he died; awaking
+in my bed, I was certain of my loss, and spoke of it (long before the
+formal news reached me) to a temporary companion. This by the way; but
+what is more to the purpose is that my first grief for a beloved comrade
+had expressed itself in the words which were to form the "proem" of my
+first book--
+
+                    Poet gentle hearted,
+                    Are you then departed,
+    And have you ceased to dream the dream we loved of old so well?
+                    Has the deeply-cherish'd
+                    Aspiration perished,
+    And are you happy, David, in that heaven where you dwell?
+                    Have you found the secret
+                    We, so wildly, sought for,
+    And is your soul enswath'd at last in the singing robes you fought for?
+
+[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM.]
+
+Full of my dead friend, I spoke of him to Lewes and George Eliot,
+telling them the piteous story of his life and death. Both were deeply
+touched, and Lewes cried, "Tell that story to the public"; which I did,
+immediately afterwards, in the _Cornhill Magazine_. By this time I had
+my Twins ready, and had discovered a publisher for one of them,
+_Undertones_. The other, _Idyls and Legends of Inverburn_, was a
+ruggeder bantling, containing almost the first _blank verse_ poems ever
+written in Scottish dialect. I selected one of the poems, "Willie
+Baird," and showed it to Lewes. He expressed himself delighted, and
+asked for more. I then showed him the "Two Babes." "Better and better!"
+he wrote; "publish a volume of such poems and your position is assured."
+More than this, he at once found me a publisher, Mr. George Smith, of
+Messrs. Smith and Elder, who offered me a good round sum (such it seemed
+to me then) for the copyright. Eventually, however, after "Willie Baird"
+had been published in the _Cornhill_, I withdrew the manuscript from
+Messrs. Smith and Elder, and transferred it to Mr. Alexander Strahan,
+who offered me both more liberal terms and more enthusiastic
+appreciation.
+
+It was just after the appearance of my story of David Gray in the
+_Cornhill_ that I first met, at the Priory, North Bank, with Robert
+Browning. It was an odd and representative gathering of men, only one
+lady being present, the hostess, George Eliot. I was never much of a
+hero-worshipper; but I had long been a sympathetic Browningite, and I
+well remember George Eliot taking me aside after my first _tête-à-tête_
+with the poet, and saying, "Well, what do you think of him? Does he come
+up to your ideal?" He _didn't_ quite, I must confess, but I afterwards
+learned to know him well and to understand him better. He was delighted
+with my statement that one of Gray's wild ideas was to rush over to
+Florence and "throw himself on the sympathy of Robert Browning."
+
+Phantoms of these first books of mine, how they begin to rise around me!
+Faces of friends and counsellors that have flown for ever; the sibylline
+Marian Evans with her long, weird, dreamy face; Lewes, with his big brow
+and keen thoughtful eyes; Browning, pale and spruce, his eye like a
+skipper's cocked-up at the weather; Peacock, with his round, mellifluous
+speech of the old Greeks; David Gray, great-eyed and beautiful, like
+Shelley's ghost; Lord Houghton, with his warm worldly smile and
+easy-fitting enthusiasm. Where are they all now? Where are the roses of
+last summer, the snows of yester year? I passed by the Priory to-day,
+and it looked like a great lonely Tomb. In those days, the house where I
+live now was not built; all up here Hampstead-ways was grass and fields.
+It was over these fields that Herbert Spencer and George Eliot used to
+walk on their way to Hampstead Heath. The Sibyl has gone, but the great
+Philosopher still remains, to brighten the sunshine. It was not my luck
+to know him _then_--would it had been!--but he is my friend and
+neighbour in these latter days, and, thanks to him, I still get glimpses
+of the manners of the old gods.
+
+[Illustration: THE STUDY.]
+
+With the publication of my two first books, I was fairly launched, I may
+say, on the stormy waters of literature. When the _Athenæum_ told its
+readers that "this was _poetry_, and of a noble kind," and when Lewes
+vowed in the _Fortnightly Review_ that even if I "never wrote another
+line, my place among the pastoral poets would be undisputed," I suppose
+I felt happy enough--far more happy than any praise could make me now.
+Poor little pigmy in a cockle-boat, I thought Creation was ringing with
+my name! I think I must have seemed rather conceited and "bounceable,"
+for I have a vivid remembrance of a _Fortnightly_ dinner at the Star and
+Garter, Richmond, when Anthony Trollope, angry with me for expressing a
+doubt about the poetical greatness of Horace, wanted to fling a decanter
+at my head! It was about this time that an omniscient publisher, after
+an interview with me, exclaimed (the circumstance is historical), "I
+don't like that young man; he talked to me as if he was God Almighty, or
+_Lord Byron!_" But in sober truth, I never had the sort of conceit with
+which men credited me; I merely lacked gullibility, and saw, at the
+first glance, the whole unmistakable humbug and insincerity of the
+Literary Life. I think still that, as a rule, the profession of letters
+narrows the sympathy and warps the intelligence. When I saw the
+importance which a great man or woman could attach to a piece of
+perfunctory criticism, when I saw the care with which this Eminent
+Person "humoured his reputation," and the anxiety with which that
+Eminent Person concealed his true character, I found my young illusions
+very rapidly fading. On one occasion, when George Eliot was very much
+pestered by an unknown lady, an insignificant individual, who had thrust
+herself somewhat pertinaciously upon her, she turned to me and asked,
+with a smile, for my opinion? I gave it, rudely enough, to the effect
+that it was good for "distinguished people" to be reminded occasionally
+of how very small consequence they really were, in the mighty life of
+the World!
+
+From that time until the present I have pursued the vocation into which
+fatal Fortune, during boyhood, incontinently thrust me, and have
+subsisted, ill sometimes, well sometimes, by a busy pen. I may,
+therefore, with a certain experience, if with little authority, imitate
+those who have preceded me in giving reminiscences of their first
+literary beginnings, and offer a few words of advice to my younger
+brethren--to those persons, I mean, who are entering the profession of
+Literature. To begin with, I entirely agree with Mr. Grant Allen in his
+recent avowal that Literature is the poorest and least satisfactory of
+all professions; I will go even further, and affirm that it is one of
+the least ennobling. With a fairly extensive knowledge of the writers of
+my own period, I can honestly say that I have scarcely met one
+individual who has not deteriorated morally by the pursuit of literary
+Fame. For complete literary success among contemporaries, it is
+imperative that a man should either have no real opinions, or be able to
+conceal such as he possesses, that he should have one eye on the market
+and the other on the public journals, that he should humbug himself into
+the delusion that book-writing is the highest work in the Universe, and
+that he should regulate his likes and dislikes by one law, that of
+expediency. If his nature is in arms against anything that is rotten in
+Society or in Literature itself, he must be silent. Above all, he must
+lay this solemn truth to heart, that when the World speaks well of him
+the World will demand the _price_ of praise, and that price will
+possibly be his living Soul. He may tinker, he may trim, he may succeed,
+he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, he may hear before he dies all
+the people saying, "How good and great he is! how perfect is his art!
+how gloriously he embodies the Tendencies of his Time!"[4] but he will
+know all the same that the price has been paid, and that his living Soul
+has gone, to furnish that whitewashed Sepulchre, a Blameless Reputation.
+
+[Illustration: MR ROBERT BUCHANAN AND HIS FAVOURITE DOG.]
+
+For one other thing, also, the Neophyte in Literature had better be
+prepared. He will never be able to subsist by creative writing unless it
+so happens that the form of expression he chooses is popular in form
+(fiction, for example), and even in that case, the work he does, if he
+is to live by it, must be in harmony with the social and artistic
+_status quo_. Revolt of any kind is always disagreeable. Three-fourths
+of the success of Lord Tennyson (to take an example) was due to the fact
+that this fine poet regarded Life and all its phenomena from the
+standpoint of the English public school, that he ethically and
+artistically embodied the sentiments of our excellent middle-class
+education. His great American contemporary, Whitman, in some respects
+the most commanding spirit of this generation, gained only a few
+disciples, and was entirely misunderstood and neglected by contemporary
+criticism. Another prosperous writer, to whom I have already alluded,
+George Eliot, enjoyed enormous popularity in her lifetime, while the
+most strenuous and passionate novelist of her period, Charles Reade, was
+entirely distanced by her in the immediate race for Fame. In Literature,
+as in all things, manners and costume are most important; the hall-mark
+of contemporary success is perfect Respectability. It is not respectable
+to be too candid on any subject, religious, moral, or political. It is
+very respectable to say, or imply, that this country is the best of all
+possible countries, that War is a noble institution, that the Protestant
+Religion is grandly liberal, and that social evils are only diversified
+forms of social good. Above all, to be respectable, one must have
+"beautiful ideas." "Beautiful ideas" are the very best stock-in-trade a
+young writer can begin with. They are indispensable to every complete
+literary outfit. Without them, the short cut to Parnassus will never be
+discovered, even though one starts from Rugby.
+
+
+
+
+_BALDER'S BALL._
+
+
+BY P. VON SCHÖNTHAN.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY J. GÜLICH.
+
+
+Balder had begged me to give him a bed for the night. He was going to a
+ball that evening, and had business early the following morning in
+Berlin. He lived in such an out-of-the-way suburb that it would be quite
+impossible for him to go home to sleep. I was only too delighted to be
+of service to him. Although I could not offer him a bed, it would be
+easy to improvise a shakedown on which he could have a few hours' rest.
+I set to work at once, and did the best I could for him, using a bundle
+of rags for the pillows, and my old dressing-gown for the mattress. When
+Balder saw it, he declared that nothing could be more to his taste.
+
+[Illustration: "WALKED INTO MY ROOM."]
+
+It was long past midnight, when I was awakened from a refreshing sleep
+by somebody fumbling with a key at the lock of my door. Several bungling
+attempts were made before the key was fitted into the lock successfully.
+At last, Balder walked into my room. He presented rather a comical
+appearance, with his crush-hat on one side of his head like the leaning
+tower of Pisa, and a short overcoat, with his long tail-coat peeping
+beneath. His face was flushed, partly with excitement, and he appeared
+possessed of a burning desire to relate his adventures to somebody. I
+had been looking at him with one eye; the other, nearest him, I kept
+tight shut, and did not move, for I had no desire to enter into
+conversation with him. But my friend was not so easily shaken in his
+purpose; he came close to my bedside, stepping on my boot-jack, so that
+it fell over with a terrible noise, and held the lighted candle within a
+few inches of my nose. It was impossible for even the most shameless
+shammer of sleep to hold out any longer. I opened my eyes, and said in
+the sleepiest tone I could assume:
+
+"Enjoyed yourself?"
+
+[Illustration: "ON THE SIDE OF MY BED."]
+
+"Famously, my dear fellow," answered Balder, seating himself on the side
+of my bed, although I forestalled his intention, and left hardly an inch
+for him to sit on. Then he entered into a long and not very lucid
+rigmarole on souls which are destined to come together. The story was
+rendered all the more difficult to understand from the fact that I kept
+falling asleep, and dreaming between his rhapsodies; but I gathered that
+Balder had met with a young Spanish lady at the mask ball, who
+apparently possessed the soul which he was fated to meet, and that she
+was the only person on earth who could make him happy. He had spent the
+whole evening with her, and she had promised to meet him at the next
+ball. At his request she had lifted her veil for one instant, revealing
+a face of Madonna-like beauty. It was a simple story, but when a man's
+brain is fired with love he lingers over it. The words grace, Southern
+colouring, eyes like a gazelle, etc., must have been repeated very
+often, for I dreamed later on that I was repeating them to myself.
+
+I bore it all patiently, for hospitality is a sacred duty, and, besides,
+the state which Balder's mind was in demanded and deserved
+consideration.
+
+As he went on with his story, he raised his voice, perhaps to rouse my
+flagging attention. Suddenly, somebody coughed in the next room. It was
+not a natural cough, but an artificial one, evidently intended by my
+landlady to serve as a gentle reminder that at two o'clock in the
+morning all respectable people should be in bed and quiet. My room was
+only separated from the apartment in which my landlady and her daughter
+slept by a door, which was hidden on either side by a high wardrobe,
+through which, in spite of this precaution, voices could be heard very
+distinctly. I informed Balder of this fact, but, unfortunately, he
+utterly refused to take my advice and go quietly to bed. He said he
+could not sleep, and, unhappily, catching sight of my coffee-machine, he
+added that he would like some coffee.
+
+"Sleep if you can," he said; "I can manage it all for myself." He then
+removed his coat, dressed himself in the dressing-gown which acted as
+his mattress, and started to get some water from the kitchen, knocking
+things down on the way, and opening and shutting all the wrong doors. I
+became resigned, and made up my mind not to waste my breath on any fresh
+warnings. Somebody else coughed. It was Fräulein Lieschen this time, my
+landlady's daughter. At any other time, Balder himself would have shown
+more consideration.
+
+[Illustration: "STARTED TO GET SOME WATER."]
+
+Most extraordinary noises proceeded from the water-tap in the kitchen.
+At last the kitchen door banged, and Balder re-appeared again. I
+expressed my regret that I had no methylated spirit, but he said it did
+not matter, and catching hold of a bottle of my expensive brandy, poured
+a lot into the lamp. Then he sat gazing into the blue flame without
+blinking.
+
+Crash! went the glass globe, and the boiling water poured all over the
+table and put out the fire. I sprang out of my bed. "Good gracious!" I
+exclaimed, "the whole thing will explode." He said nothing, but began
+to pick up the hot pieces of glass patiently. The coughing in the next
+room became louder than ever.
+
+"For heaven's sake!" I went on, "try to be quiet if you can. The people
+in the next room want to go to sleep. _Don't_ you hear them coughing?"
+
+"Well! I never heard of such impudence! That coughing has disturbed me
+for some time. Anybody would think you'd got into an almshouse for old
+women--Where is the sugar?"
+
+"Up there, in the cigar-box. But don't knock that rapier down."
+
+Balder climbed up on a cane chair. It gave way. Klirr! The rapier fell
+on the floor, and Balder with it.
+
+"Confound you, do take care. Didn't I warn you?" An energetic knocking
+at the door of communication interrupted me.
+
+"Herr Reif, I must really beg you to be quiet," called my landlady's
+daughter, not by any means in her sweetest tones. "We've been kept awake
+for the last hour."
+
+"That's nothing to us," said Balder from the floor, where he was groping
+for the rapier that had rolled under the wardrobe.
+
+"Do be quiet! That is my landlady's daughter, a very respectable girl--"
+
+"Well, is nobody respectable except her? What do you pay rent for?" His
+face grew red with rage, and, placing his mouth close to the door, he
+called out, "What do you want with Reif? He's in bed. I only wanted to
+reach down the sugar, and the old rapier fell on my head--a thing that
+might happen to anybody! Just lie down quietly and go to sleep. Such a
+fuss about nothing! Are we in a hospital?"
+
+[Illustration: "IT GAVE WAY!"]
+
+"Do be quiet, Balder!" I begged, and my pleading at least had the effect
+of silencing whatever else was on his tongue. He thought no more of the
+sugar, but sat at the table and drank his self-brewed coffee without it.
+When he had finished it he lighted a cigarette, at which he puffed away
+till the room was full of smoke. As I lay and looked at him, I fell into
+that peaceful state in which dreaming and reality are so much mixed that
+it is hard to distinguish between them. And then Balder disappeared in
+clouds of smoke, and I heard and saw no more. I was awakened again by a
+light being held near my face. Balder was standing at my bedside with
+the candle in his hand. "Ah! I'm glad you've been asleep again!" he
+said, as I half-opened my eyes and looked at him. "I want to make a poem
+to my Spaniard. Have you got a rhyming dictionary anywhere about?"
+
+"There, on the lowest shelf of the bookcase, but _do_ be quiet."
+
+He got the book without knocking anything down; refilled his coffee-cup,
+and leant back in his chair, and murmured--
+
+    "Where shall I meet thee?
+      On the Guadelquiver?
+    "On the Sequara? On the
+      fair Zucar?
+    "Or any other far-off
+      Spanish river....."
+
+Sleep again overpowered me, and I knew nothing till I was awakened by a
+noisy discussion taking place close to me. Balder stood with his face to
+the door, engaged in a hot dispute with my neighbours.
+
+"The devil himself couldn't collect his thoughts with that coughing
+going on," he was saying as I woke up.
+
+"I was coughing to make you quiet, that endless murmuring made me so
+nervous!" cried Fräulein Lieschen, her voice trembling with annoyance.
+
+[Illustration: "I'M GLAD YOU'VE BEEN ASLEEP."]
+
+"I'm writing a poem, I tell you, and when one is composing a poem one
+must murmur. If you can't sleep through it, you can't be healthy. You
+must have eaten too much supper, or something. You can congratulate
+yourself that you've got such a lodger as Reif. Do you understand me? If
+you had me I'd teach you----"
+
+Again and again, in as persuasive a voice as I could assume, I begged
+the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering
+on his views of a landlady's duties towards her tenants. At length my
+patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of
+authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the
+light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was
+trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was
+due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his manuscript
+carefully into my dressing-gown pocket; cast one last fiery glance at
+the door, and retired to bed.
+
+I do not know if he saw the daughter of sunny Spain, with her
+gazelle-like eyes in his dreams, but I do know that he snored as if he
+were dreaming of a saw-mill.
+
+About three hours later, the winter daylight struggled into the room.
+Balder got up and dressed himself as quietly as a mouse. He seemed as
+though he was trying to make up for the disturbance he had made in the
+night, or, rather, in the morning. He excused himself most politely for
+waking me up, but said that he felt that he could not leave without
+saying good-bye, and thanking me for my kind hospitality. Then he left
+the room, closing the door softly behind him. At the same moment, I
+heard the door of my landlady's room open. Half a minute's dead silence
+followed, and then Balder fell back into my room like one stunned.
+
+[Illustration: "IN A HOT DISPUTE."]
+
+"Who is that girl that came out of the next room?" he asked
+breathlessly.
+
+"Fräulein Lieschen, of course, the daughter of my landlady, to whom you
+were kind enough to deliver a lecture in the middle of the night----"
+
+"She is my Spanish girl!" he gasped, grinding his teeth, and shaking his
+head disconsolately. He took a long time to recover himself. He sat down
+again on the side of my bed, as he had done on his return from the
+ball. But in what a different mood! He made me swear to him that I would
+never reveal his name to Fräulein Lieschen, but that I would excuse him
+without giving any clue to his identity, for the disturbance he had
+caused in the night. This duty I willingly undertook.
+
+Fräulein Lieschen, who was a good-natured girl, looked at the matter
+from the comical side, and readily accepted my unknown friend's apology;
+and whenever we met on the stairs after that, she would say jokingly,
+"Please remember me to your funny friend!"
+
+[Illustration: "REMEMBER ME TO YOUR FUNNY FRIEND!"]
+
+
+
+
+"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."
+
+V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.
+
+BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
+
+(_PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAFAYETTE, OF DUBLIN, AND BYRNE, OF
+RICHMOND._)
+
+[Illustration: THE HON. MRS ARTHUR HENNIKER.]
+
+
+The Lord Lieutenant's sister, Mrs. Arthur Henniker, who is helping him
+to do the honours of the Castle, and whom I had known in London, Mr.
+Fulke Greville, and I, were wandering round the curious old-fashioned
+buildings and courtyards that constitute the domain of Dublin Castle one
+bright breezy day in early spring. A military band was playing opposite
+the principal entrance, whilst the guard was being mounted in precisely
+the same manner as at the guard mounting at St. James's. The scene was
+brilliant and inspiriting in the extreme. As we passed through an
+archway we came somewhat suddenly upon the massive Round Tower, from the
+top of which floated the Union Jack, and which dates back to a period
+not later than that of King John. Close to the Round Tower, which bears
+so curious a resemblance to the still more magnificent tower of the same
+name at Windsor, is the Chapel Royal. Here we found the guardian, a
+quaint, and garrulous and most obliging old person, waiting to show us
+over the handsome, albeit somewhat gloomy, building. Very exact and
+particular was our _cicerone_ in pointing out to us the old fourteenth
+century painted windows, the special pews reserved for His Excellency,
+and the ladies and gentlemen of the court; the coats of arms belonging
+to the various Governors of Ireland, extending over a period of many
+hundreds of years--all these, I say, he carefully pointed out, drawing
+especial attention to one over which, at the moment, a thin ray of
+golden sunlight was falling, and which, he informed me, was the coat of
+arms of the Earl of Rochester--poor Rochester, the gay, the witty, the
+wicked, and the repentant. On quitting the chapel we began to ascend,
+under the auspices of another guide, a tremendously steep staircase,
+which is cut inside the fifteen-feet stone wall which leads to the
+chamber in the Round Tower wherein the Ulster King-at-Arms preserves the
+ancient records of the Castle. On our pilgrimage up this weary flight of
+stairs the guide drew our attention to a gloomy little dungeon, cut out
+of the thickness of the wall, in which there is but little light, and
+wherein the musty smell of ages is plainly discernible. "This,"
+whispered Mr. Greville in my ear, "reminds me of Mark Twain's 'Innocents
+Abroad.'" After a glance at the record chamber, which was crammed with
+documents, we passed, with a sense of relief, into the bright sunny air
+and the large courtyard, round which are built the handsome lofty
+stables in which the Castle horses--of which there are an immense
+number--are kept, and which stables, Colonel Forster, the Master of the
+Horse, told me, are upwards of two hundred years old.
+
+[Illustration: THE CASTLE.]
+
+[Illustration: CASTLE YARD. BAND PLAYING.]
+
+"And now, Mr. Blathwayt," said Mrs. Henniker, as we passed the two
+sentries on guard at the entrance to the great hall, and proceeded up a
+staircase lined with rifles and through long sunlit corridors, "you must
+come with me to my own special sanctum, and rest yourself, after the
+object lessons in history which we have been giving you this morning."
+Here, in a lofty, white-panelled room, with long windows looking down
+upon the private gardens of the Castle in which His Excellency and
+Captain Streatfield, one of the A.D.C.'s, were walking up and down, Mrs.
+Henniker and I sat talking of the past almost more than we did of the
+actual present. For, though my hostess is quite a young woman, yet as a
+daughter of the celebrated Richard Monckton Milnes, the first Lord
+Houghton, she cannot fail to have the most delightful reminiscences of
+the many celebrities with whom her father was so fond of filling his
+house.
+
+[Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE, DUBLIN CASTLE.]
+
+"But," said she, "proud as I am of my father, I am quite as proud of my
+grandfather, Richard Pemberton Milnes, for he was only twenty-two years
+of age when he refused the choice of a seat in the Cabinet, either as
+Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary at War. My grandmother, Mrs.
+Pemberton Milnes, in her diary for 1809, says that one morning, while we
+were at breakfast, a king's messenger drove up in a post-chaise and four
+with a despatch from Mr. Perceval, offering my husband the choice of a
+seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Milnes immediately said, 'Oh, no, I will not
+accept either; with my temperament I should be dead in a year.' And
+nothing could induce him to do so either," continued Mrs. Henniker, "nor
+could he be induced to accept the Peerage which was offered him by Lord
+Palmerston in 1856."
+
+"But your father was not so rigid in his views as your grandfather, was
+he, Mrs. Henniker?" said I.
+
+[Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY LORD HOUGHTON IN HIS STUDY.]
+
+"No," she replied, "certainly he was not, although I don't think that he
+quitted the House of Commons, which he always loved, without a pang of
+real regret. Amongst the many kind congratulations he received--for no
+man ever had more friends--was a very pretty one from his old friend,
+Mrs. Proctor, in which she said:
+
+    "'He enters from the common air
+    Into that temple dim;
+    He learns among those ermined Peers
+    The diplomatic hymn.
+    His Peers? Alas! when will they learn
+    To grow up Peers to him?'"
+
+"You must have met many interesting people at your father's house?" I
+observed, during the course of our conversation.
+
+[Illustration: THE HON. MRS. HENNIKER IN HER BOUDOIR.]
+
+"Why, yes," replied she, with an amused smile, "don't you know the
+ridiculous story that Mr. Wemyss Reid, in his charming biography of my
+father, tells, and which, indeed, I believe was first told by Sir Henry
+Taylor, in his autobiography? I will tell it you. You know my father was
+acquainted with everybody, and his greatest pleasure in life was to
+introduce the notoriety of the moment to the leading members of English
+Society. On the particular occasion on which this story was told, it is
+alleged that somebody asked whether a certain murderer--it was
+Courvoisier, I think, the valet who killed his master--had been hanged
+that morning, and my aunt immediately answered, 'I hope so, or Richard
+will have him to his breakfast party next Thursday.' But this story, Mr.
+Blathwayt, is really absolutely without foundation. I have here,"
+continued Mrs. Henniker, "a very interesting book of autographs, which I
+have kept for as far back as I can remember, and in which everybody who
+came to our house had to write their names," and as she spoke she placed
+in my hands a large volume, on every page of which was a photograph and
+an autograph. There was Lecky, the historian; and Trench, the late
+Archbishop of Dublin; Sir Richard Burton, the traveller; and Owen
+Meredith, the poet. There was a portrait of Swinburne when quite a young
+man, together with his autograph. "I have known Mr. Swinburne all my
+life," remarked Mrs. Henniker. "I used to play croquet with him when I
+was quite a little girl, and laugh at him because he used to get in such
+a passion when I won the game." There was John Bright's signature, there
+was that of Philippe d'Orléans and General Chanzy, and last, but not
+least, there was that of Charles Dickens.
+
+[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM, DUBLIN CASTLE.]
+
+"My father," explained Mrs. Henniker, "was a very old friend of Dickens,
+and, curiously enough, his grandmother was a housekeeper at Crewe Hall,
+where my mother was born, and I have often heard her say that the
+greatest treat that could be given her and her brother and sister was an
+afternoon in the housekeeper's room at Crewe, for Mrs. Dickens was a
+splendid story-teller, and used to love to gather the children round her
+and tell them fairy stories. And so it was only natural that my mother
+should feel a special interest in Charles Dickens, when she came to know
+him in after life. I believe that the very last time that he ever dined
+out was at my father's house, when a dinner was specially arranged to
+enable the Prince of Wales and the King of the Belgians to make his
+acquaintance. Even at that time, poor man, he was suffering so much from
+rheumatic gout that he had to remain in the dining room until the guests
+had assembled, so that he was introduced to the Prince at the dinner
+table. I might mention that Dean Stanley wrote to my father, asking him
+to be one of those who should place before him the proposal that Charles
+Dickens should be buried in the Abbey."
+
+[Illustration: THRONE ROOM, DUBLIN CASTLE.]
+
+Amongst the many interesting letters and papers that Mrs. Henniker
+showed me was one from Mr. Gladstone to herself congratulating her on
+her first novel "Sir George," for Mrs. Henniker, notwithstanding the
+rather unfortunate fact that she has many social duties to attend to,
+which must necessarily hinder her in what would otherwise be a brilliant
+literary career, is a remarkably fine writer of a certain class of
+fiction, and notably of what may be termed the Society novel. But almost
+better than her novels, of which she has produced some two or three
+within the last few years, are her short stories, of which she published
+one, a singularly able study of lower middle-class life, in an early
+number of the "Speaker," and which many of the readers of that journal
+will remember under the title of a "Bank Holiday." With reference to
+"Sir George," Mr. Gladstone, who is a very old friend of her family,
+wrote: "My dear Mrs. Henniker,--It is, I admit, with fear and trembling
+that I commonly open a novel which is presented to me." He then goes on
+to speak in strong terms of eulogy of the book which she had sent to
+him. The letter was not without a special interest as giving one a
+glimpse into the mind of the G.O.M. on what must be one of the most
+arduous duties of his hardworking life. Referring to the publication of
+her most recent novel, "Foiled," which is a depiction of Society life as
+it actually is, and not, as is so frequently the case, of the writer's
+imagination as to what Society is or should be, I asked Mrs. Henniker if
+she wrote her stories from life.
+
+[Illustration: THE PICTURE GALLERY.]
+
+"Well," she replied, "of course there is a general idea in my stories
+which is taken from the life I see around me, but, as a rule, I draw
+from my own imagination. I am a very quick writer, and I wrote 'Sir
+George' in one summer holiday. Mr. T. P. O'Connor wanted me to write a
+novel to start the new edition of his Sunday paper with, but,
+unfortunately, I had none ready. I find myself that, for character
+sketching, next to studying people from life, the best thing is to
+carefully go through the writings of such people as Alfred de Musset,
+whose little _caprices_ are so delicate. I think that the best Society
+novelists at present, who write with a real knowledge of the people they
+are describing, are W. E. Norris, Julian Sturgis, and Rhoda Broughton."
+We continued in conversation for some time longer, until the time came
+for afternoon tea, when Mrs. Henniker suggested that we should join the
+rest of the party in the drawing room.
+
+Here we found a number of the A.D.C.'s engaged in merry conversation;
+most of them are quite young men, immensely popular in the Dublin
+Society and on the hunting field, where even in that great sporting
+country they are usually to be found well in the first flight. We sat
+talking for a few minutes, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall,
+singularly handsome, well-groomed young man, in morning dress, entered
+the room. Upon his appearance, Mrs. Henniker and her sister, Lady
+Fitzgerald, and the remaining ladies and gentlemen present, rose to
+their feet, for this was His Excellency the Viceroy of Ireland. It will
+interest my American readers to learn that, not only do Mrs. Henniker
+and Lady Fitzgerald always rise upon their brother's entrance into the
+room, but it is further their custom, as it is the bounden duty of every
+lady, to curtsey to him profoundly on leaving the luncheon or dinner
+table. His Excellency at once joined in our conversation. We were
+discussing parodies at the moment, and somebody had stated--indeed I
+think it was myself--that a certain parody which had been quoted, and
+over which we had been laughing very heartily, was by the well-known
+Cambridge lyrist, C. C. Calverley.
+
+[Illustration: LADY FITZGERALD.]
+
+"No," said Lord Houghton, "it is not by Calverley, it is by----. But,"
+said he, "the funniest thing I ever heard was this," and he repeated,
+with immense humour, and with wonderful vivacity, a set of lines which
+threw us all into fits of laughter. I regret I am unable to recall them.
+The conversation drifting to memories of some of his father's celebrated
+friends, His Excellency told me a delightful story of Carlyle. It
+appeared that the grim old Chelsea hermit had once, when a child, saved
+in a teacup three bright halfpence. But a poor old Shetland beggar with
+a bad arm came to the door one day. Carlyle gave him all his treasure at
+once. In after life, in referring to the incident, he used to say: "The
+feeling of happiness was most intense; I would give £100 now to have
+that feeling for one moment back again."
+
+Mrs. Henniker and the Lord Lieutenant and myself drifted into quiet
+conversation, whilst the general talk buzzed around us. She had told me
+that her brother had written a prize poem at Harrow, and that his recent
+publications, "Stray Verses," had all been done in a year.
+
+"His verses are curiously unlike those of my father," she said. "He is
+very catholic in his tastes; my father's were more poems of
+reflection--they were full of the sentiment of his day. He was much
+influenced by Mathew Arnold and his school. My brother's are much more
+lyrical.
+
+[Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S HALL.]
+
+"It is a curious thing," continued Mrs. Henniker, "that one or two of my
+father's poems, which were thought least of at the time, have really
+become the most popular and the best known. There is a story concerning
+one of them which he often used to tell. He was visiting some friends
+here in Ireland, and the beat of the horses' feet upon the road as he
+drove to the house seemed to hammer out in his head certain rhythmical
+ideas which quickly formed themselves into rhyme. As soon as he got to
+the house he went to his room and wrote the words straight out. It was
+the well-known song beginning--
+
+  "'I wandered by the brookside,'
+
+And having the refrain--
+
+  "'But the beating of my own heart
+    Was all the sound I heard.'
+
+"When he came down to dinner he showed these verses to his friends. They
+all declared that they were unworthy of him, and advised him to throw
+them into the fire. However, he did not take their advice; the moment
+they were published, they caught the ear of the public, they were set to
+music, and they were to be heard wherever one went. Indeed, a friend of
+his who was sailing down a river in the Southern States of North
+America, about a year afterwards, heard the slaves, as they hoed in the
+plantations, keeping time by singing a parody of the lines which had by
+then become universally familiar. And one day, in later years, my father
+was walking in London with a friend; they were passing the end of a
+street when they heard a man singing--he stopped and listened, and then
+rushed after the man. He came back a few moments afterwards, bearing a
+roughly printed paper in his hands."
+
+[Illustration: RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, FIRST LORD HOUGHTON.]
+
+"'I knew it was my song that he was singing,' he said, and he was
+perfectly right. He was much delighted.
+
+"'It's a curious fact,' observed the Lord Lieutenant to me, 'and one
+which Wemyss Reid specially notes in his biography, that my father
+produced the greater part of his poetry between 1830 and 1840, just when
+he was going most into Society.'"
+
+"And you've gone in a good deal for writing verses yourself, following
+in your father's footsteps, have you not, Mrs. Henniker?" said I. "Oh,"
+she replied, "I began writing verses very early in my life, and the most
+amusing part of it is that, though I was a perfect little imp, I began
+with writing hymns. In fact," said she, as she showed me a letter which
+her father had written to a friend when she was seven years of age, "my
+father had to check my early attempts in that direction." I read with
+some amusement what Lord Houghton had written about his little daughter,
+and I transcribe his words the more readily that they appear to me to
+give a glimpse into the mind of the poet and of his ideas on the origin
+and making of poetry. He writes:
+
+[Illustration: GROUP OF A.D.C.'S.]
+
+"The second little girl has developed into a verse writer of a very
+curious ability. She began theologically and wrote hymns, which I soon
+checked on observing that she put together words and sentences out of
+the sacred verse she knew, and set her to write about things she saw and
+observed. What she now produces is very like the verse of William Blake,
+and containing many images that she could never have read of. She
+cannot write, but she dictates them to her elder sister, who is
+astonished at the phenomenon. We, of course, do not let her see that it
+is anything surprising, and the chances are that it goes off as she gets
+older and knows more. The lyrical faculty in many nations seems to
+belong to a childish condition of mind, and to disappear with experience
+and knowledge."
+
+[Illustration: DEBUTANTES ARRIVING.]
+
+The conversation drifted into a discussion on the present system of
+interviewing, and Mrs. Henniker told me, with much amusement, of a
+reporter of the _St. Louis Republic_ who called upon her father when he
+visited America, who, indeed, would not be denied, but forced his way
+into Lord Houghton's bedroom, where he found him actually in bed, and
+who, in relating what had passed between them, expressed his pleasure at
+having seen "a real live lord," and recorded his opinion that he was
+"as easy and plain as an old shoe!"
+
+[Illustration: ASCENDING THE STAIRCASE.]
+
+Lord Houghton must have been a welcome guest in a country where humour
+and the capacity for after-dinner speeches are so warmly appreciated as
+in America. No more brilliant after-dinner speaker ever existed than
+Richard Monckton Milnes, and the capacity for public speech, which was
+such a characteristic of the first Lord Houghton, exists no less
+gracefully in his poetic and now Vice-Regal son; but it was, perhaps, as
+a humorist that the father specially excelled, and in glancing through
+the many letters and papers which his daughter showed me I soon
+discovered this. Writing to his wife many years ago, he said: "Have you
+heard the last argument in favour of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill?
+It is unanswerable--if you marry two sisters, you've only one
+mother-in-law." And again, on another occasion, in writing to his
+sister, he quaintly remarks: "I left Alfred Tennyson in our rooms at the
+hotel; he is strictly _incognito_, and known by everybody except T., who
+asked him if he was a Southerner, assuming that he was an American."
+
+[Illustration: "WAITING."]
+
+[Illustration: "TO BE PRESENTED."]
+
+We sat talking long, revolving many memories, until the shades of
+evening darkened down upon the beautiful room, and broke up the party. I
+joined the A.D.C.'s in their own special sanctum. There are nine on the
+Staff, of whom two are always on duty. Their names are as
+follows:--Capt. H. Streatfield, Capt. A. B. Ridley, Capt. M. O. Little,
+Capt. C. W. M. Fielden, Capt. Hon. H. F. White, Lieut. F. Douglas-Pennant,
+Lieut. A. P. M. Burke, Lieut. S. J. Meyrick, Lieut. C. P. Foley, and the
+Hon. C. B. Fulke-Greville. From what they told me I judged that the life
+at the Castle must be singularly pleasant and interesting. Capt.
+Streatfield, who is a very _doyen_ among A.D.C.'s, has in that capacity
+led a life full of interest and variety, for he told me that for some
+years he was A.D.C. to the Governor-General of Canada, and that later on
+in life he accompanied the late Duke of Clarence as his A.D.C. in India.
+
+The evening drifted on until it was time to dress for dinner, and we
+assembled, a large party of men and women, many of whom were in
+uniform, and some of whom displayed the pale Vice-Regal blue of the
+household facings in the long drawing room next to that room in which we
+had had afternoon tea. As His Excellency appeared, preceded by the State
+Steward, Capt. the Hon. H. White, and followed by Lord Charlemont, the
+Comptroller, we all passed through the rooms to St. Patrick's Hall,
+while the band played some well-known tunes. Capt. Streatfield had
+cleverly sketched for me in the afternoon the curious device formed by
+the tables, which was originally designed by Lord Charlemont himself,
+the whole giving the exact effect of a St. Andrew's Cross. Two huge
+spreading palms, placed in the hollows of the cross, overshadowed the
+Vice-Regal party, which, together with the beautiful music, the grouped
+banners upon the lofty walls, and the subdued lights, and the excellent
+dinner, all went towards the making of a very delightful evening indeed.
+
+[Illustration: THE ORDEAL.]
+
+A little later on that night--and dinner upon this occasion was
+specially early--His Excellency held a "Drawing room." The scene upon
+this occasion was particularly brilliant; the long perspectives, the
+subdued lighting of the rooms, and the artistic grouping of rare exotics
+and most exquisite plants and flowers constituting a _tout ensemble_,
+the beauty of which will never fade from my memory. The ceremony itself
+was a singularly stately and graceful one. His Excellency, clad in Court
+dress, stood in the middle of the throne room, surrounded by the great
+officers of State in their robes of office. The _aides-de-camp_ stood in
+a semicircle between the doorway and the dais. The first ladies to be
+presented were His Excellency's own sisters. It was specially
+interesting to notice the entry of the _débutantes_, many of whom were
+very beautiful, and almost all of whom were very graceful. Each young
+girl carried her train, properly arranged, upon her left arm during her
+progress through the corridor, drawing-room, and ante-room, until she
+passed the barrier and reached the entrance to the presence chamber;
+there a slight touch from the first A.D.C. in waiting released it from
+her arm, and two ushers, who were standing opposite, spread it carefully
+upon the floor. I noticed that the A.D.C. was careful not to let the
+ladies follow one another too quickly, which was evidently a trial to
+some of them. At the right moment he would take the card which each lady
+bore in her hand, pass it on to the semicircle of _aides_ who stood
+within the room, who in their turn passed it on to the Chamberlain, who
+stood at the Lord Lieutenant's right hand. He having received it, then
+read it aloud, and presented her to the Viceroy. The Viceroy took her by
+the right hand, which was always ungloved, kissed her lightly on the
+cheek, whilst the lady curtsied low to him; then, gracefully backing,
+she retired, always with her face to the dais, from the Vice-Regal
+presence. The gentlemen attending the drawing room were not, of course,
+presented. They simply passed through the throne room, several at a
+time, bowing two or three times to the Viceroy, and so joined their
+party waiting for them in the long gallery.
+
+At the end of the "Drawing room," the Lord Lieutenant and the ladies and
+gentlemen of the household, and some of the State officials, formed a
+procession, and marched with no little grace and stateliness round the
+magnificent hall of St. Patrick, whilst the strains of the National
+Anthem re-echoed down the long corridors and out into the star-lit windy
+night.
+
+[Illustration: CREWE HALL.]
+
+
+
+
+THE FEAR OF IT.
+
+BY ROBERT BARR.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.
+
+
+The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but
+exhaustion came at last, and, realising the futility of further
+fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that
+roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took
+him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the
+sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand,
+and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon
+the sandy beach.
+
+Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that
+make towards the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that
+bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn back
+into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he had been
+turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have pressed into
+the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his back with
+arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving sand in
+one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but he lay
+there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the sky.
+
+Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it.
+When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time
+had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather
+than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world
+they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His interest,
+however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English tongue. He
+was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember that he was
+cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But the purport
+of the words startled him.
+
+"Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead." This was said in a tone of
+infinite satisfaction.
+
+There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those
+who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering
+what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive
+stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him, but
+his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner of it,
+he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the face--at
+least so it seemed to Stanford at the time--was the most beautiful he
+had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness upon it until
+her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a look of dismay
+took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in fear, and tears
+filled her eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "HE IS UNDOUBTEDLY DEAD."]
+
+"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live." She covered her face with her
+hands, and sobbed.
+
+Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to
+himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost
+consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found
+himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through
+an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the
+falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had
+passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real,
+but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision
+resulting from his condition.
+
+[Illustration: "A PLACID-FACED NURSE STOOD BY HIS BED."]
+
+A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a
+placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.
+
+"I don't know. I am at least alive."
+
+The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said
+nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that
+perhaps he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was
+considered preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not
+in pain, but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the
+less the victim feels it at first.
+
+"Are--are any of my--my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.
+
+"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."
+
+"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added, with
+sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on the
+beach?"
+
+"There were several."
+
+"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a
+halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."
+
+"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse,
+severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."
+
+Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.
+
+"We must be temperate in speech," replied the nurse.
+
+"We may be temperate without being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow,
+indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought
+that they--but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you
+happen to know if any others were saved?"
+
+"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."
+
+Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with
+sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his
+pillow.
+
+"Leave the room," he cried feebly. "Leave me--leave me." He turned his
+face toward the wall, while the woman left silently as she had entered.
+
+[Illustration: "HE NOTICED THAT THE DOOR HAD NO FASTENING."]
+
+When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way
+to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him
+dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw that he was going to
+recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no
+fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The
+furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made.
+He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the
+disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had
+formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of
+small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was
+apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses
+opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What
+astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of
+the street--a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American
+settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in
+the houses.
+
+"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to
+himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong--either to
+England or the United States, I imagine--yet in all my travels I never
+heard of such a colony."
+
+There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know
+how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged
+them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When
+he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants,
+both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away.
+Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand.
+She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon
+she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward
+man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by
+saying:
+
+"I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered."
+
+The young man's speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled on his
+brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess, Ruth
+hastened to amend matters by adding:
+
+"Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry."
+
+"Sorry that I live?"
+
+"Most heartily am I."
+
+"It is hard to credit such a statement from one so--from you."
+
+"Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you
+were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she
+does."
+
+The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not
+what to answer. Finally he said:
+
+"There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our
+words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down,
+Ruth, I want to ask you some questions."
+
+Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something
+about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on
+the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the
+sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself
+further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.
+
+Ruth's eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied herself
+in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them together.
+Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he apparently forgot
+his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with merely looking at
+her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she lifted her eyes for
+one brief moment, and then asked the first question herself.
+
+"From what land do you come?"
+
+"From England."
+
+"Ah! that also is an island, is it not?"
+
+He laughed at the "also," and remembered that he had some questions to
+ask.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LIFTED HER EYES FOR ONE BRIEF MOMENT."]
+
+"Yes, it is an island--also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of
+it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man is
+cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has
+escaped death."
+
+Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.
+
+"Is there, then, no religion in England?"
+
+"Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the
+earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship
+in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries
+to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church."
+
+"I fear, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said that
+the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or rejoice
+when one of their number died."
+
+"They do fear death, and they do not rejoice when it comes. Far from it.
+From the peer to the beggar, everyone fights death as long as he can;
+the oldest cling to life as eagerly as the youngest. Not a man but will
+spend his last gold piece to ward off the inevitable even for an hour."
+
+"Gold piece--what is that?"
+
+Stanford plunged his hand into his pocket.
+
+"Ah!" he said, "there are some coins left. Here is a gold piece."
+
+The girl took it, and looked at it with keen interest.
+
+"Isn't it pretty?" she said, holding the yellow coin on her pink palm,
+and glancing up at him.
+
+"That is the general opinion. To accumulate coins like that, men will
+lie, and cheat, and steal--yes, and work. Although they will give their
+last sovereign to prolong their lives, yet will they risk life itself to
+accumulate gold. Every business in England is formed merely for the
+gathering together of bits of metal like that in your hand; huge
+companies of men are formed so that it may be piled up in greater
+quantities. The man who has most gold has most power, and is generally
+the most respected; the company which makes most money is the one people
+are most anxious to belong to."
+
+Ruth listened to him with wonder and dismay in her eyes. As he talked
+she shuddered, and allowed the yellow coin to slip from her hand to the
+ground.
+
+"No wonder such a people fears death."
+
+"Do you not fear death?"
+
+"How can we, when we believe in heaven?"
+
+"But would you not be sorry if someone died whom you loved?"
+
+"How could we be so selfish? Would you be sorry if your brother, or
+someone you loved, became possessed of whatever you value in England--a
+large quantity of this gold, for instance?"
+
+"Certainly not. But then you see--well, it isn't exactly the same thing.
+If one you care for dies you are separated from him, and----"
+
+"But only for a short time, and that gives but another reason for
+welcoming death. It seems impossible that Christian people should fear
+to enter Heaven. Now I begin to understand why our forefathers left
+England, and why our teachers will never tell us anything about the
+people there. I wonder why missionaries are not sent to England to teach
+them the truth, and try to civilise the people?"
+
+"That would, indeed, be coals to Newcastle. But here comes one of the
+workers."
+
+"It is my father," cried the girl, rising. "I fear I have been
+loitering. I never did such a thing before."
+
+The man who approached was stern of countenance.
+
+"Ruth," he said, "the workers are athirst."
+
+The girl, without reply, picked up her pails and departed.
+
+"I have been receiving," said the young man, colouring slightly, "some
+instruction regarding your belief. I had been puzzled by several remarks
+I heard, and wished to make inquiries regarding them."
+
+"It is more fitting," said the man, coldly, "that you should receive
+instruction from me or from some of the elders than from one of the
+youngest in the community. When you are so far recovered as to be able
+to listen to an exposition of our views, I hope to be able to put forth
+such arguments as will convince you that they are the true views. If it
+should so happen that my arguments are not convincing, then I must
+request that you will hold no communication with our younger members.
+They must not be contaminated by the heresies of the outside world."
+
+[Illustration: "RUTH AT THE WELL."]
+
+Stanford looked at Ruth standing beside the village well.
+
+"Sir," he said, "you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger
+members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not
+recall to you. I am already convinced."
+
+[Illustration: POLITICAL EXILES EN ROUTE FOR SIBERIA]
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.
+
+BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+BY MRS. MONA CAIRD.
+
+
+In giving to the world her exciting and terrible story, "Mademoiselle
+Sophie" has also conveyed incidentally some idea of her remarkable
+character. As I had the privilege of hearing from her own lips all that
+she relates in this series of papers, I can supplement her unintentional
+self-portraiture by recording the impression that she made upon me at
+our first meeting.
+
+I had always taken a strong interest in the political movements of
+Russia and in the Slavonic races whose character and temperament have
+something more or less mysterious to the Western mind. The Russian novel
+presents rather than explains this mystery. It is perhaps to the Tartar
+blood that we must attribute the incomprehensible element. Between the
+East and the West, there is, psychologically speaking, a great gulf
+fixed.
+
+There are times when the reader of Russian fiction begins to wonder
+whether he or the author is not a little off his mental balance, so
+fantastic, so inconsequent, yet so insanely logical (so to put it) are
+the beings with whom he finds himself surrounded--beings, however,
+evidently and bewilderingly human, so that though they may appear
+scarcely in their right minds (as we should judge our compatriots), they
+can never be mistaken for mere figures of sawdust and plaster such as
+people extensive realms of Western fiction. It is the reality of the
+characters, coupled with their eccentric demeanour (the most humdrum
+Slav appears wildly original to the inexperienced Anglo-Saxon), that
+stirs anxiety.
+
+Would "Mademoiselle Sophie" be like one of these erratic creations, or
+would she resemble the heroines of Russian political history whose
+marvellous courage and endurance excite the wonder of all who can even
+dimly realise what it must be to live from moment to moment in imminent
+peril of life and limb, and in ceaseless anxiety as to the fate of
+relatives and friends? Of all the trials that "Mademoiselle Sophie" went
+through, this last, she told me, was the worst. The absolute silence,
+the absolute ignorance in which she had to pass her days, seemed to have
+broken her wonderful spirit more than any other hardship.
+
+It is not every day in the Nineteenth century that one comes in contact
+with a human being who has had to submit to the "ordeal by fire" in this
+literal mediæval fashion; who has endured perils, insults, physical
+privations and torments, coupled with intense and ceaseless anxiety for
+years; and this in extreme youth before the troubles and difficulties of
+life have more gradually and gently taught the lessons of endurance and
+silent courage that probably have to be learnt by all who are destined
+to develop and gather force as they go, and not to dwindle and weaken,
+as seems to be the lot of those less fortunate in circumstance or less
+well-equipped at birth for the struggles that in one form or another
+present themselves in every career.
+
+Russia is a nation that may almost be said to have preserved to this day
+the conditions of the Middle Ages. It affords, therefore, to the curious
+an opportunity for the study of the effect upon human character of these
+conditions. Here are still retained, to all intents and purposes, the
+thumbscrew and the rack; indeed, this is the case in a literal sense,
+for "Mademoiselle Sophie" told me that it was certain that prisoners
+were sometimes tortured in secret, after the good old-fashioned methods,
+not exactly officially (since the matter was kept more or less dark),
+but nevertheless by men in the employment of the Government who were
+able to take advantage of the powers bestowed by their office to
+practise despotism even to this extreme.
+
+Many of the so-called Nihilists or Revolutionists (as "Mademoiselle
+Sophie" insisted on styling the more moderate party to which she
+belongs) seem to stand in the position of the early Protestants, when
+they protested against the abuses of the Catholic Church while retaining
+their reverence for the institution itself.
+
+It is not against the Government, so much as against the illegal and
+tyrannous cruelty practised by many of its officials, that a certain
+section of the "Revolutionists" raise a remonstrance. It is astonishing
+how conservative some of these terrible "Revolutionists" appear to be.
+Many of them still look to the Tzar with a pathetic conviction that all
+would be well, if only the cry of his distressed children could reach
+his paternal ears. They ask so little; they would be thankful for such
+small mercies; yet there is apparently slight hope that the Tzar will be
+allowed to hear or would listen to the appeal of his much-enduring
+people!
+
+"Mademoiselle Sophie" had promised to take tea with me on a particular
+afternoon, and to give me an account of her imprisonment. I had heard
+the general outlines before, but was anxious to hear her tell the tale
+in her own words. I may mention here that "Mademoiselle Sophie's"
+acquaintance had been _sought_, and that the idea of writing her story
+for publication in England did not emanate from her. Of her veracity
+there is not the faintest question; moreover, there was, evidently, no
+motive for deception.
+
+Though I had heard that "Mademoiselle Sophie" had been a mere girl when
+she was first sent to face the rigours of a Russian prison, I was
+scarcely prepared to see anyone so young and fragile-looking as the lady
+in black who entered the room, with a quiet, reserved manner, courteous
+and dignified. I felt something like a thrill of dismay when I realised
+that it was an extremely sensitive woman who had gone through the scenes
+that she describes in these pages. She had been the more ill-prepared
+for the hardships of prison-life from having passed her childhood amidst
+every care and comfort.
+
+[Illustration: MRS. MONA CAIRD.]
+
+She was singularly reticent and self-possessed. In speaking, there was
+no emotional emphasis, whatever she might be saying. The only comment on
+her narrative that one could detect was an occasional touch of cold
+scorn or irony. The more terrible the incident that she related, the
+more quiet became her tones.
+
+It seemed as if the flame of indignation had burnt itself out in the
+years of suffering that she had passed through. The traces of those
+years were in her face. Its very stillness and pallor seemed to tell
+the tale of pain endured silently and in solitude for so long. It was
+written, too, in the steadfast quality that expressed itself
+in her whole bearing, and in the entire absence of any petty
+self-consciousness. In spite of the awful nervous strain that she had
+endured she had no little restless habits or movements of any kind.
+
+One felt in her a vast reserve force and a dauntless courage. It was
+courage of a kind that is almost terrible, for it accompanied a highly
+organised and imaginative temperament, a nervous temperament, be it
+observed, which implies _controlled_ and _ordered_, not _uncontrolled_
+and _disordered_ nervous power. The half-hysterical persons who class
+themselves among the possessors of this temperament are apt to overlook
+that important distinction.
+
+"Mademoiselle Sophie" gained none of her courage from insensitiveness.
+Her whole life was dedicated to the cause of her country, and the
+personal elements had been sacrificed to this object beyond herself: the
+forlorn hope which has already claimed so many of the noblest and
+bravest spirits in all the Tzar's dominions.
+
+After "Mademoiselle Sophie" left that afternoon, I could not help
+placing her in imagination beside the average woman that our own
+civilisation has produced (not a fair comparison doubtless); and the
+latter seemed painfully small in aim and motive, pitifully petty and
+fussy and lacking in repose and dignity when compared with the calm
+heroine of this Russian romance.
+
+But human beings are the creations of their circumstances, and the
+circumstances of a Western woman's life are not favourable to the
+development of the grander qualities, though, indeed, they are often
+harassing and bewildering, and cruel enough to demand heroism as great
+even as that of "Mademoiselle Sophie." I think it would be salutary for
+all of us--men as well as women of the West--to come more often within
+the influence of such natures as this; natures that command the tribute
+of admiration and the reverence that one must instantly yield to great
+moral strength and nobility.
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.
+
+BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.
+
+
+I.
+
+DEAR MESSIEURS,
+
+You have asked me for a few reminiscences of the time when I took a more
+or less active part in the Revolutionary Movement in Russia--a sort of
+autobiographical sketch, to be published in English. As I never had the
+good fortune to render any really important service to my country, I
+have no right to draw public attention upon myself, and no wish to do
+so. But my experiences, of which I have told you a good deal by word of
+mouth, have been, save for sundry personal details, very like those of
+thousands of other young Russians, who, unwilling and unable to accept
+quietly the order of things that weighs so heavily upon their country,
+have devoted all their strength and all their faculties to the great
+struggle for freedom, which you of Western Europe call the Nihilistic
+Movement. In your opinion, it is just because of its simplicity and its
+likeness to many others, that the story of my life may possess some
+value; and perhaps you are right. At any rate, since to interest if but
+a small number of people in the lot of those who serve "the cause," will
+be to serve the cause still further--and it is, for the rest, the cause
+of common humanity and justice--I herewith put at your disposition such
+of my souvenirs as I am at liberty to make public, at the same time
+reminding you of your promise to preserve my incognito intact.
+
+And now for my facts:
+
+It was the year 188-. My brother had been arrested during the winter.
+At the beginning of the spring I went to X----, to the house of my uncle
+and aunt, to pass the summer, and to rest after the emotional strain I
+had been under. At least, such was the explanation of my leaving St.
+Petersburg which I gave to the police of that city, when I asked them
+for a passport for the interior of the Empire. As a matter of fact, I
+was anxious to see certain of my brother's friends at X----, with the
+object of trying, with their assistance, to destroy the traces of his
+last visit there--traces which, if discovered by the police, might be
+extremely detrimental to Serge's interests. On my arrival in the
+town--where, by the way, it was my habit to pass all my holidays--I
+found the Nihilist community, many of whose members were old friends of
+mine, in serious trouble. The police had just been making a terrible
+raid among them. Many had been arrested. The others, under strict
+surveillance, were daily expecting to be arrested in their turn.
+
+[Illustration: "SERGE WAS ARRESTED."]
+
+[Illustration: "TEACHING THEM TO READ AND WRITE."]
+
+This circumstance, apart from the regret it caused me, had a
+considerable influence upon my relations with the local revolutionary
+organisation. The centre of this organisation was a group of young men
+and women, who, besides the revolutionary agitation that they were
+carrying on, were in correspondence with other groups of the same sort,
+for the purpose of exchanging books, helping comrades to escape from
+prison and fly the country, and so forth. X---- is a big town, chiefly
+given up to manufactures; and at the time of which I speak there was
+gathered around this central group a sort of duplex association,
+composed, on the one hand, of well-educated young folks, and, on the
+other, of working men. As a precautionary measure, the association as a
+whole was split up into a number of small circles, or clubs, that met
+separately, and knew nothing of one another. It was especially in these
+smaller clubs that the members of the central group carried on their
+propaganda, the aim of which was then, as it is to-day, to alter the
+present method of government, to rid the country of the despotism that
+bears so heavily upon it, and stops its development, and thus to make
+possible at once an improvement in the condition of the labouring
+classes, and a reconstruction of Russian society upon a more rational
+and a more humane basis. With the working people, however, the
+revolutionists were often forced to begin by teaching them to read and
+write. Outside of all these clubs, there were in the town a good many
+people who, while taking no direct part in the movement, sympathised
+with it, and did what they could to aid and abet it by gifts of money,
+and by providing refuge for such of the active members as were hiding
+from the police. With these very useful friends the revolutionists kept
+up more or less continuous relations.
+
+The programme of the group at X---- needed for its accomplishment a
+large force of devoted and trustworthy workers; and the arrests that had
+been made just before my arrival had considerably thinned their ranks.
+This circumstance, as I have said, changed the nature of my own
+relations with the revolutionary organisation. Hitherto my visits to the
+town had been short, only to spend my school holidays in fact. Very
+young, moreover, I had never belonged to any of the clubs; and my
+friendships with their members had been purely personal. Now, however, I
+was older, and I had come to stop at X---- for several months. In the
+face of the gaps the late arrests had made in the little army of
+revolutionists, I felt that I must enlist. I offered my services, and
+they were accepted.
+
+Towards the middle of the summer, my uncle and aunt went to Moroznoië, a
+little village near the town where their property lay. Leaving St.
+Petersburg before the end of the University year, I, a student of
+medicine, had been obliged to put off my examinations until the autumn.
+These examinations, or rather, my necessity to work and prepare for
+them, coupled with the presence of a fine public library at X----, gave
+me the pretext I needed to stay behind during the family villegiatura.
+After some opposition, and a good deal of talk about the superiority of
+country air, my uncle and aunt consented--the more easily, perhaps,
+because, after all, I was not to be alone; my Aunt Vera and two servants
+were to remain in the town house. Besides, my uncle and his wife were
+often coming back for a day or two at a time, and I promised to pass all
+my Sundays with them. This arrangement suited me perfectly. My Aunt
+Vera, my dead father's sister, was the sweetest and gentlest of women,
+an invalid, with an infinite tenderness for Serge and myself, the
+orphans of her favourite brother. The servants also, an old nurse and a
+gardener, were entirely devoted to my family and to me. I was therefore
+free, mistress of the house, of my time, of myself. Divided between my
+studies, a few visits paid and received, and my weekly trip to
+Moroznoië, my life flowed peacefully, monotonously enough--on the
+surface.
+
+[Illustration: "WE ARE BETRAYED!"]
+
+Down deep, alas! it was not the same. Our revolutionary group was being
+harried by the police, and their arrests and domiciliary visits were
+conducted with so much skill and certainty, we were forced to believe
+at last that we were betrayed by a traitor or a spy among our own
+numbers. Strictly watched by the police, who kept us "moving on,"
+avoided on that account by some of our friends, and knowing perfectly
+well that a single false step might bring ruin not only upon ourselves,
+but upon many others, we were obliged to be extremely cautious, and not
+to meet too often. A few furtive interviews now and again for the
+interchange of news, a few sparsely attended rendezvous for the purpose
+of keeping the threads of our organisation together, were pretty nearly
+all that we thought safe to permit ourselves. This mode of life--so
+tranquil to outward appearance, but in reality so full of anxiety for
+each and all; a life without a to-morrow, so that when we parted we did
+not know whether we should ever meet again, and it became our habit to
+say _Adieu_ instead of _Au revoir_--lasted for me about five months.
+Melancholy enough, indeed, it had notwithstanding a charm of its own, a
+charm that sprang partly, perhaps, from the consciousness of dangers
+incurred for a noble object, and from the feeling of grave moral
+responsibility that we all had. A few episodes of that time are deeply
+fixed in my memory. A meeting we held one evening at twilight in a rich
+park near the town, a park that belonged to a high personage at the
+Imperial Court, whose son was one of us. There we met and whispered, and
+the murmur of the leaves overhead and the deepening shadows of the
+nightfall lent an intense colour of poetry to the situation. And then
+another meeting, in the poor little lodging of a factory-operative--a
+special meeting, called because our suspicions of treason within our own
+ranks had centred now upon a certain individual, a student, a college
+friend of my cousins, a constant visitor at our house. At this meeting a
+plan was adopted to test our suspect, and prove whether or not he was
+the guilty man. I, the next time he called, was to put him on a false
+scent; I was to tell him that a reunion of Nihilists would be held at a
+given place and a given time; and then we would await developments. I
+was also to draw him out, if possible, and make him convict himself from
+his own mouth. But this I could not do. I put him on the false scent;
+but I couldn't draw him out. It is terrible to hold the life of a human
+being between your hands, even though that human being be the basest of
+cowards and traitors.
+
+Well, at the time and place that I told him of, surely enough, the
+police turned up, and naturally they found nobody there. But during the
+two following nights twenty fresh arrests took place; and I was one of
+those arrested. My cousins' friend, feeling himself discovered and
+menaced, had made haste to deliver us into the hands of our enemies!
+
+[Illustration: "I WAITED A MOMENT TO TAKE BREATH."]
+
+That evening I had come home rather late, and had then sat and chatted
+for a long while with aunt Vera, so that it was well towards midnight
+before I started to go to bed. Half-way upstairs, I was stopped by a
+noise; footsteps and stifled voices, mingled with the clang of spurs and
+sabres. I waited a moment, to take breath, which had failed me
+suddenly; then I went back downstairs. A violent pull at the bell, an
+imperative pull, sounded at the garden gate; and in a moment was
+followed by another at the door of the house. It woke the old nurse, and
+brought my aunt Vera from her room. Having been a little forewarned by
+me of the possibility of such a visit as this, she questioned me with a
+frightened glance. I answered "Yes," by a sign of the head, and begged
+her under my breath to delay "them" as long as possible before letting
+"them" come in. The idea of being able to render me a service, perhaps
+the last, gave her strength and courage; and while slowly, very slowly,
+she moved towards the door, where the nocturnal visitors were getting
+impatient and trying to force the lock, I went into the dining-room. A
+moment later I heard her sweet trembling voice assuring Monsieur le
+Colonel de Gendarmerie that there was no one in the house; all the
+family were at Moroznoië; my uncle had been in town on Monday, but had
+left again on Tuesday, and wouldn't return till the end of next week;
+and there was no one here but herself, the speaker, and a young lady
+visiting her. In this little respite, which I had arranged for myself
+without too well knowing why, I remained inert in the room, lighted
+feebly by a single candle, and tried to gather my thoughts together:
+they were slow enough to respond to my efforts. My first notion was that
+of flight, and, automatically, I opened a window. Close at hand, behind
+some shrubbery, I perceived the glitter of a gendarme's uniform. There
+would surely be others in the garden and in the courtyard; and for the
+rest, fly--? How, and whither? I shut the window, and coming back to the
+middle of the room, I caught a glimpse of myself in the chimney-glass. I
+was very pale. Was I going to be a coward? This question, and that pale
+face in the mirror, awoke in me other thoughts, brought back to my
+memory other faces: that of my brother, who, a few months before, had
+gone so bravely from his home, to which he would never return, to the
+prison that he would perhaps never leave; those of friends lately
+arrested; those of so many, many noble men and women. Was I going to be
+a coward? So the examples set by these others turned my attention from
+myself, calmed me, gave me strength. I could hear the voice of Colonel
+P----, who, impatient of my aunt's parleying, briefly bade her hold her
+tongue, and conduct him to the presence of her niece, Mademoiselle
+Sophie. That voice, rude and gross, had the effect of changing the moral
+depression which I had felt a moment ago into a sort of intense nervous
+excitement; and at the moment when the Colonel, followed by his men,
+appeared upon the threshold of the dining-room, honouring me with the
+very least respectful of bows, I, instead of saluting him in return, met
+him with a gaze as fixed and haughty as his own.
+
+[Illustration: "MET HIM WITH A GAZE AS FIXED AND HAUGHTY AS HIS OWN."]
+
+A minute later the Colonel was installed at the dinner-table, with the
+whole household arraigned before him, and everybody forbidden to leave
+the room. He asked my aunt Vera for the keys of the house, and the
+search began. The gendarmes scattered themselves through all the rooms,
+through the garden, the courtyard, the offices, and turned everything
+upside down, emptying wardrobes and cupboards, unmaking the beds, moving
+the articles of furniture to see that nothing was hidden behind them,
+and trying the screws to discover if there were any secret drawers. In
+my bedroom, which was of course the object of a very particular
+attention, a spy dressed in civilian's costume got up on the tables and
+chairs, and tapped on the walls. Another drew the ashes, still hot, from
+the stove, and examined them by the light of a lamp, held by a big
+gendarme. From time to time these men would come back to the
+dining-room, bringing armfuls of books, and school papers belonging to
+my cousins, which they would deposit upon the table before Colonel
+P----. After looking them over, he would throw them aside with such
+manifest ill humour, that I, who by this time had myself completely
+under control, couldn't let the occasion pass to condole with him on the
+sad nature of his trade. The whole search was a useless and odious
+farce, for I knew that there was nothing in the house of the kind they
+were looking for. Still I wasn't sorry to let them prolong it, for that
+gave me more time to stay there at home, beside my aunt Vera, who,
+smaller and feebler and paler than ever, turned her dear eyes, full of
+fear and tenderness, upon my face, and kept stroking my hand with her
+two trembling ones.
+
+[Illustration: "A LAMP HELD BY A BIG GENDARME."]
+
+The search was nearly over, when a gendarme came in from the stable with
+a great parcel of books, done up in green cloth, which he laid before
+the Colonel. Opened, the parcel proved to contain not books only, but
+_forbidden_ books--books by Herbert Spencer, by Mr. Ruskin, by Monsieur
+Renan! I was astonished at seeing them, and my first thought was that
+they belonged to my brother, who might have forgotten them there in the
+stable, or to my cousins, who, without being revolutionists, were
+interested in forbidden literature just because it was forbidden. So
+when the Colonel, having finished his inspection of them, asked me whom
+they belonged to, I answered quietly, "To me." My aunt Vera, to whom I
+had always promised never to bring "forbidden" things into the house,
+looked at me sadly, reproachfully. Ah! my dear aunt, I lied in saying
+they were mine; but in my situation a few forbidden books couldn't
+matter much; whereas for the others, for my innocent cousins--who knows
+what serious trouble they might have got them into?
+
+The Colonel demanded, "Where do these books come from?"
+
+"From the people who had them last."
+
+"Their names?"
+
+"What, Colonel! You, the chief of the secret police of X----, you don't
+know!"
+
+This answer kindled a light of anger in his little Chinese eyes. For my
+part, I had spoken very slowly, looking steadily at him, and smiling as
+if it were a jest; but it wasn't exactly a jest. While the Colonel had
+been questioning me, I had reflected. It was impossible that my cousins
+should have had books of this sort in their possession without speaking
+to me about them; and it was most unlikely that they could have belonged
+to Serge, who, always very careful, made it a strict rule never to bring
+anything of a compromising nature to our uncle's house. But I had often
+heard that the political police, to create evidence against people whom
+they strongly suspected, but who were too prudent for their taste, and
+also to make their arrests appear less arbitrary in the eyes of the
+public, had a pleasant habit of bringing "forbidden" things with them to
+the houses where they made their perquisitions, for the sake of
+supplying what they might not be able to find. Was this what had
+happened now? Had I been caught in such a trap?
+
+That was what I asked the Colonel in the form of a little jest.
+
+Did he understand? He answered with a piece of advice: that I should be
+less gay. For the rest, he was in a hurry; he looked at his watch;
+announced that all was over, and that I was under arrest; and called for
+witnesses to sign the _procès-verbal_. Our gardener ran out to find
+somebody. He came back with two people who had been attracted to our
+house by the lights and the noise. One was a cabman, the other was Dr.
+A----, a neighbour who had recently come to live at X----, and whom we
+knew only by sight. These men stared at me with surprise and curiosity.
+I scarcely saw them. The words "Under arrest" had completely upset my
+Aunt Vera, who, till then so calm, was now crying bitterly, covering me
+with kisses, and repeating, "My child! My child!" The old nurse also was
+crying, sobbing, and muttering to herself. Just when I feel that I
+myself am about to give way, and cry too--that which I am anxious, most
+anxious, not to do--she, the old nurse, throws herself at the Colonel's
+feet, and begs grace for me, telling him that I am too young, too frail,
+to go to prison, that I have been coughing these many days, that I may
+die there! This makes the Colonel smile. For me, I tell the old nurse to
+get up. I scold her. Stupefied, trembling, she sinks to the floor in a
+corner of the room, and weeps for me as the Russian peasants weep for
+their dead, mingling with her sobs memories of our common past, praises
+of my good qualities, and so forth. All this, uttered in a low
+sing-song, is like a sort of funeral dirge.
+
+[Illustration: "THROWS HERSELF AT THE COLONEL'S FEET."]
+
+I hear it still at the moment when the Colonel shuts me into a cab, with
+two gendarmes facing me, and another on the box beside the driver, to
+whom the order is given, "The fortress!"
+
+Sophie Wassilieff.
+
+(_To be continued._)
+
+
+
+
+PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.
+
+BY SCOTT RANKIN.
+
+BRET HARTE.
+
+
+"'When a man is interviewed he, consciously or unconsciously, prepares
+himself for it and isn't at all natural. Suppose, for instance, you
+found your man in a railway car, and entered casually into conversation
+with him. Then you would probably get his real thoughts--the man as he
+is. But, of course, when a man is asked questions, and sees the answers
+taken down in shorthand, it is a very different thing.'"--Bret Harte.
+
+
+
+
+MY SERVANT JOHN.
+
+BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC VILLIERS.
+
+
+Goa is a forlorn and decayed settlement on the west coast of Hindustan,
+the last remaining relic of the once wide dominions of the Portuguese in
+India. Its inhabitants are of the Roman Catholic faith, ever since in
+the 16th century St. Francis Xavier, the colleague of Loyola in the
+foundation of the Society of Jesus, baptised the Goanese in a mass. Its
+once splendid capital is now a miasmatic wreck, its cathedrals and
+churches are ruined and roofless, and only a few black nuns remain to
+keep alight the sacred fire before a crumbling altar. Of all European
+nations the Portuguese have intermingled most freely with the dusky
+races over which they held dominion, with the curious result that the
+offspring of the cross is darker in hue than the original coloured
+population. To-day, the adult males of Goa, such of them as have any
+enterprise, emigrate into less dull and dead regions of India, and are
+found everywhere as cooks, ship-stewards, messengers, and in similar
+menial capacities. They all call themselves Portuguese, and own
+high-sounding Portuguese surnames. Domingo de Gonsalvez de Soto will
+cook your curry, and Pedro de Guiterraz is content to act as dry nurse
+to your wife's babies. The vice of those dusky noblemen is their
+addiction to drink.
+
+[Illustration: "JOHN."]
+
+The better sort of these self-expatriated Goanese are eager to serve as
+travelling servants, and when you have the luck to chance on a
+reasonably sober fellow, no better servant can be found anywhere. Being
+a Christian, he has no caste, and has no religious scruples preventing
+him from wiping your razor after you have shaved, or from eating his
+dinner after your shadow has happened to fall across the table. In
+Bombay there is a regular club or society of these Goanese travelling
+servants, and when the transient wayfarer lands in that city from the
+Peninsular and Oriental mail boat, one of the first things he is advised
+to do is to send round to the "Goa Club" and desire the secretary to
+send him a travelling servant. The result is a lottery. The man arrives,
+mostly a good-looking fellow, tall and slight, of very dark olive
+complexion, with smooth glossy hair, large soft eyes, and well-cut
+features. He produces a packet of chafed and dingy testimonials of
+character from previous employers, all full of commendation, and not one
+of which is worth the paper it is written on, because the good-natured
+previous employer was too soft of heart to speak his mind on paper. If
+by chance a stern and ruthless person has characterised Bartolomeo de
+Braganza as drunken, lazy, and dishonest, Bartolomeo, who has learnt to
+read English, promptly destroys the "chit," and the stern man's object
+is thus frustrated. But you must take the Goa man as he comes, for it is
+a law of the society that its members are offered in strict succession
+as available, and that no picking and choosing is to be allowed. When
+with the Prince of Wales during his tour in India, the man who fell to
+me, good, steady, honest Francis, was simply a dusky jewel. My comrade,
+Mr. Henty, the well-known author of so many boys' books, rather crowed
+over me because Domingo, his man, seemed more spry and smart than did my
+Francis. But Francis had often to attend on Henty as well as myself,
+when Domingo the quick-witted was lying blind drunk at the back of the
+tent, and once and again I have seen Henty carrying down on his back to
+the departing train the unconscious servant on whom at the beginning he
+had congratulated himself.
+
+[Illustration: "THE OLD AMEER."]
+
+In the summer of 1876, Shere Ali, the old Ameer of Afghanistan, took it
+into his head to pick a quarrel with the Viceroy of British India. Lord
+Lytton was always spoiling for a fight himself, and thus there was every
+prospect of a lively little war. If war should occur, it was my duty to
+be in the thick of it, and I reached Bombay well in time to see the
+opening of the campaign. Knowing the ropes, within an hour of landing I
+sent to the "Goa Club" for a servant, begging that, if possible, I might
+have worthy Francis, who had fully satisfied me during the tour of the
+Prince. Francis was not available, and there was sent me a tall,
+prepossessing-looking young man, who presented himself as "John Assissis
+de Compostella de Crucis," but was quite content to answer to the name
+of "John."
+
+John seemed a capable man, but was occasionally muzzy. After visiting
+Simla, the headquarters of the Viceroy, I started for the frontier,
+where the army was mustering. On the way down I spent a couple of days
+at Umballa, to buy kit and saddlery. The train by which I was going to
+travel up-country was due at Umballa about midnight. I instructed John
+to have everything at the depôt in good time, and went to dine at the
+mess of the Carbineers. In due time I reached the station, accompanied
+by several officers of that fine regiment. The train was at the
+platform; my belongings I found in a chaotic heap, crowned by John fast
+asleep, who, when awakened, proved to be extremely drunk. I could not
+dispense with the man; I had to cure him. There was but one chance of
+doing this. I gave him then and there a severe beating. A fatigue party
+of Carbineers pitched my kit into the baggage car, and threw John in
+after it. Next day he was sore, but penitent. There was no need to send
+him to Dwight, even if that establishment had been in the Punjaub
+instead of in Illinois. John was redeemed without resorting to the
+chloride of gold cure, and in his case at least, I was quite as
+successful a practitioner as any Dr. Keeley could have been. John de
+Compostella, &c., was a dead sober man during my subsequent experience
+of him, at least till close on the time we parted.
+
+[Illustration: "EXTREMELY DRUNK."]
+
+And, once cured of fuddling, he turned out a most worthy and efficient
+fellow. He lacked the dash of Andreas, but he was as true as steel. In
+the attack on Ali Musjid, in the throat of the Khyber Pass, the native
+groom, who was leading my horse behind me, became demoralised by the
+rather heavy fire of big cannon balls from the fort, and skulked to the
+rear with the horse. John had no call to come under fire, since the
+groom was specially paid for doing so; but abusing the latter for a
+coward in the expressive vernacular of India, he laid hold of the reins,
+and was up right at my back just as the close musketry fighting began.
+He took his chances through it manfully, had my pack pony up within half
+an hour after the fighting was over, and before the darkness fell had
+cooked a capital little dinner for myself and a comrade, whose
+commissariat had gone astray. Next morning the fort was found evacuated.
+I determined to ride back down the pass to the field telegraph post at
+its mouth. The General wrote in my notebook a telegram announcing the
+good news to the Commander-in-Chief; and poor Cavagnari, the political
+officer, who was afterwards massacred at Cabul, wrote another message to
+the same effect to the Viceroy. I expected to have to walk some distance
+to our bivouac of the night; but lo! as I turned to go, there was John
+with my horse, close up.
+
+[Illustration: "JUST AS THE CLOSE MUSKETRY FIGHTING BEGAN."]
+
+In one of the hill expeditions, the advanced section of the force I
+accompanied had to penetrate a narrow and gloomy pass which was beset on
+either side by swarms of Afghans, who slated us severely with their
+long-range jezails. With this leading detachment there somehow was no
+surgeon, and as men were going down and something had to be done, it
+devolved upon me, as having some experience in this kind of work in
+previous campaigns, to undertake a spell of amateur surgery. John
+behaved magnificently as my assistant. With his light touch and long
+lissom hands, the fellow seemed to have a natural instinct for
+successful bandaging. I was glad that we could do no more than bandage,
+and that we had no instruments, else I believe that John would not have
+hesitated to undertake a capital operation. As for the Afghan bullets,
+he did not shrink as they splashed on the stones around him; he did not
+treat them with disdain; he simply ignored them. The soldiers swore that
+he ought to have the war medal for the good and plucky work he was
+doing; and a Major protested that if his full titles, which John always
+gave in full when his name was asked, had not been so confoundedly long,
+he would have asked the General to mention the Goa man in despatches.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WAS JOHN WITH MY HORSE."]
+
+John liked war, but he was not fond of the rapid changes of temperature
+up on the "roof of the world" in Afghanistan. During one twenty-four
+hours at Jellalabad, we had one man killed by a sunstroke, and another
+frozen to death on sentry duty in the night. On Christmas morning, when
+I rose at sunrise, the thermometer was far below freezing point; the
+water in the brass basin in my tent was frozen solid, and I was glad to
+wrap myself in furs. At noon the thermometer was over a hundred in the
+shade, and we were all so hot as to wish with Sydney Smith that we could
+take off our flesh and sit in our bones. John was delighted when, as
+there seemed no immediate prospect of further hostilities in
+Afghanistan, I departed therefrom to pay a visit to King Thebaw, of
+Burmah, who has since been disestablished. When in his capital of
+Mandalay, there came to me a telegram from England informing me of the
+massacre by the Zulus of a thousand British soldiers at Isandlwana, in
+South Africa, and instructing me to hurry thither with all possible
+speed. John had none of the Hindoo dislike to cross the "dark water,"
+and he accompanied me to Aden, where we made connection with a potty
+little steamer, which called into every paltry and fever-smelling
+Portuguese port all along the east coast of Africa, and at length
+dropped us at Durban, the seaport of the British colony of Natal, in
+South Africa, and the base of the warlike operations against the Zulus.
+
+[Illustration: "POOR CAVAGNARI."]
+
+There are many Hindoos engaged on the Natal sugar plantations, and in
+that particularly one-horse Colony, every native of India is known
+indiscriminately by the term of "coolie." John, it is true, was a native
+of India, but he was no "coolie"; he could read, write, and speak
+English, and was altogether a superior person. I would not take him up
+country to be bullied and demeaned as a "coolie," and I made for him an
+arrangement with the proprietor of my hotel that during my absence John
+should help to wait in his restaurant. During the Zulu campaign I was
+abominably served by a lazy Africander and a lazier St. Helena boy. When
+Ulundi was fought, and Cetewayo's kraal was burned, I was glad to return
+to Durban, and take passage for India. John, I found, had during my
+absence become one of the prominent inhabitants of Durban. He had now
+the full charge of the hotel restaurant--he was the centurion of the
+dinner-table, with men under him, to whom he said "do this," and they
+did it. His skill in dishes new to Natal, especially in curries, had
+crowded the restaurant, and the landlord had taken the opportunity of
+raising his tariff. He came to me privily, and said frankly that John
+was making his fortune for him, that he was willing to give him a share
+in his business in a year's time if he would but stay, and meantime was
+ready to pay him a stipend of twenty dollars a week. The wages at which
+John served me, and I had been told I was paying him extravagantly, was
+eleven dollars a month. I told the landlord that I should not think of
+standing in the way of my man's prosperity, but would rather influence
+him in favour of an opportunity so promising. Then I sent for John,
+explained to him the hotel-keeper's proposal, and suggested that he
+should take time to think the matter over. John wept. "I no stay here,
+master, not if it was hundred rupees a day! I go with master; I no stop
+in Durban!" Nothing would shake his resolve, and so John and I came to
+England together.
+
+[Illustration: "JOHN BEHAVED MAGNIFICENTLY."]
+
+The only thing John did not like in England was that the street boys
+insisted on regarding him as a Zulu, and treating him contumeliously
+accordingly. His great delight was when I went on a round of visits to
+country houses, and took him with me as valet. Then he was the hero of
+the servants' hall. I will not say that he lied, but from anecdotes of
+him that occasionally came to my ears, it would seem he created the
+impression that he habitually waded in knee-deep gore, and that he was
+in the habit of contemplating with equanimity battle-fields littered
+with the slaughtered combatants. John was quite the small lion of the
+hour. He had very graceful ways, and great skill in making tasteful
+bouquets. These he would present to the ladies of the household when
+they came downstairs of a morning, with a graceful salaam, and the
+expression of a hope that they had slept well. The spectacle of John,
+seen from the drawing-room windows of Chevening, Lord Stanhope's seat in
+Kent, as he swaggered across the park to church one Sunday morning in
+frock coat and silk hat, with a buxom cook on one arm and a tall and
+lean lady's maid on the other, will never be effaced from the
+recollection of those who witnessed it with shrieks of laughter.
+
+[Illustration: "A BUXOM COOK ON ONE ARM AND LEAN LADY'S MAID ON THE
+OTHER."]
+
+In those days I lived in a flat, my modest establishment consisting of
+an old female housekeeper and John. For the most part my two domestics
+were good friends, but there were periods of estrangement during which
+they were not on speaking terms; and then they sat on opposite sides of
+the kitchen table, and communicated with each other exclusively by
+written notes of an excessively formal character, passed across the
+table. This stiffness of etiquette had its amusing side, but was
+occasionally embarrassing, since neither was uniformly intelligible with
+the pen. The result was that sometimes I got no dinner at all, and at
+other times, when I was dining alone, the board groaned with the
+profusion, and when I had company there would not be enough to go round;
+these awkwardnesses arising from the absence of a good understanding
+between my two domestics. I could not part with the old female servant,
+and I began rather to tire of John, whose head had become considerably
+swollen because of the notice which had been taken of him. It was all
+very well to be in a position to gratify ladies who were giving dinner
+parties, and who wrote me little notes asking for the loan for a few
+hours of John, to make that wonderful prawn curry of which he had the
+sole recipe. But John used to return from that culinary operation very
+late, and with indications that his beverage during his exertions had
+not been wholly confined to water. To my knowledge he had a wife in Goa,
+yet I feared he had his flirtations here in London. Once I charged him
+with inconstancy to the lady in Goa, but he repudiated the aspersion
+with the quaint denial: "No, master, many ladies are loving me, but I
+don't love no ladies!"
+
+However, I had in view to spend a winter in the States, and resolved to
+send John home. He wept copiously when I told him of this resolve, and
+professed his anxiety to die in my service. But I remained firm, and
+reminded him that he had not seen his wife in Goa for nearly three
+years. That argument appeared to carry little weight with him; but he
+tearfully submitted to the inevitable. I made him a good present, and
+obtained for him from the Peninsular and Oriental people a free passage
+to Bombay, and wages besides in the capacity of a saloon steward. I saw
+him off from Southampton; at the moment of parting he emitted lugubrious
+howls. He never fulfilled his promise of writing to me, and I gave up
+the expectation of hearing of him any more.
+
+Some two years later, I went to Australia by way of San Francisco and
+New Zealand. At Auckland I found letters and newspapers awaiting me from
+Sydney and Melbourne. Among the papers was a Melbourne illustrated
+journal, on a page of which I found a full-length portrait of the
+redoubtable John, his many-syllabled name given at full length, with a
+memoir of his military experiences, affixed to which was a fac-simile of
+the certificate of character which I had given him when we parted. It
+was further stated that "Mr. Compostella de Crucis" was for the present
+serving in the capacity of butler to a financial magnate in one of the
+suburbs of Melbourne, but that it was his intention to purchase the
+goodwill of a thriving restaurant named. Among the first to greet me on
+the Melbourne jetty was John, radiant with delight, and eager to
+accompany me throughout my projected lecture tour. I dissuaded him in
+his own interest from doing so; and when I finally quitted the pleasant
+city by the shore of Hobson's Bay, John was running with success the
+"Maison Doré" in Burke Street. I fear, if she is alive, that his wife in
+Goa is a "grass widow" to this day.
+
+[Illustration: The Idler's Club Subject for Discussion The Artistic
+Temperament.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dr. Parker says It depends upon the health of the artist.]
+
+
+Is the artistic temperament a blessing or a curse? We should first
+decide what the artistic temperament means. Artistic is a large word. It
+includes painting, acting, poetry, music, literature, preaching. Whether
+the temperament is a blessing or a curse largely depends upon the health
+of the artist. If De Quincey was an artist, the artistic temperament was
+a curse. So also with Thomas Carlyle. So also with Charles Lamb. The
+artistic temperament is creative, sympathetic, responsive; it sees
+everything, feels everything, realises everything, on a scale of
+exaggeration. It is in quest of ideals, and all ideals are more or less
+in the clouds, and not seldom at the tip-top of the rainbow. Those who
+undertake such long journeys are subject to disappointment and fatigue
+by the way; if ever they do come to the end of their journey it is
+probably in a temper of fretfulness and exasperation. A sudden knock at
+the door may drive an artist into hysterics. He is always working at the
+end of his tether. There is nothing more tantalising than an eternal
+quest after the ideal; like the horizon, it recedes from the traveller;
+like the mirage, it vanishes before the claims of hunger and thirst. On
+the other hand, it has enjoyments all its own. The idealist is always
+face to face with a great expectation. Perhaps to-night he may realise
+it; certainly in the morning it will be much nearer; and as for the
+third day, it will be realised in some great festival of delight. There
+is, too, a subtle selfishness in this quest after the ideal--the Holy
+Grail of the imagination. The artist keeps the secret from his brother
+artists until he can startle them with some gracious surprise. He almost
+pities them, as he thinks of the revelation that is about to dawn upon
+unsuspecting and slumberous minds. Postponement of this surprise is a
+torment to the mind which had planned its dazzling disclosure. The
+greatest pain of all to the artistic temperament is that it lives in the
+world of the Impossible and the Unattainable. That arm must be very
+weary which for a lifetime has been stretched out towards the horizon.
+Then think of the cross-lights, the mingled colours, the uncalculated
+relations which enter into the composition of the dreamer's life, and
+say whether that life is not more of a chaos than a cosmos. If the
+artistic temperament came within the range of our own choice and will,
+possibly we could do something with it; but inasmuch as it is ours by
+heredity, and not by adoption, we must do the best we can with the
+stubborn fatality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Lynn Linton thinks it depends upon ourselves.]
+
+If to feel keenly be a nobler state than to drone with blunt edges
+through that thicket of myrtle and nightshade we call life, then is the
+artistic temperament a blessing. If the oyster be more enviable than the
+nightingale, then is it a curse. It all depends on our angle, and the
+colours we most prefer in the prism. He who has the artistic temperament
+knows depths and heights such as Those Others cannot even imagine. The
+feet that spring into the courts of heaven by a look or a word--by the
+glory of the starry night or the radiance of the dawn--stray down into
+the deepest abysses of hell, when Love has died or Nature forgets to
+smile. To the artistic temperament there is but little of the mean of
+things. The "Mezzo Cammin" is a line too narrow for their eager steps.
+Proportion is the one quality in emotional geometry which is left out of
+their lesson of life. Their grammar deals only with superlatives; and
+the positive seems to them inelastic, dead and common-place. Imaginative
+sympathy colours and transforms the whole picture of existence. By this
+sympathy the artistic of temperament knows the secrets of souls, and
+understands all where Those Others see nothing. And herein lies one
+source of those waters of bitterness which so often flood his heart.
+Feeling for and with his kind, as accurately as the mirror reflects the
+object held before it, he finds none to share the pain, the joy, the
+indignation he endures by this sympathy, which is reflection. He visits
+the Grundyite, who says "Shocking," "Not nice," when human nature
+writhes in its agony and cries aloud for that drop of water which he,
+the virtuous conformist, refuses. He goes to the flat-footed and
+broad-waisted; those who plod along the beaten highway, and turn neither
+to the right hand nor to the left, neither to the hills nor the hollows.
+But he speaks a foreign language, and they heed him not. The iron-bound
+care nought. Does that cry of suffering raise the price of stocks or
+lower that of grain? Tush! let it pass. To each back its own burden. So
+he carries the piteous tale whereby his heart is aching for sympathy,
+and Those Others give him stones for bread and a serpent for a fish.
+Then he looks up to heaven, and asks if there be indeed a God to suffer
+all this wrong; or if there be, How long, O Lord, how long! The artistic
+temperament is not merely artistic perception, with which it is so often
+confounded. You may be steeped to the lips in that temperament, and yet
+not be able to arrange flowers with deftness, draw a volute, or strike a
+true chord. And you may be able to do all these, and yet be dead in
+heart and cold in brain--a mere curly-wigged poodle doing its clever
+tricks with dexterity, and obedient to the hand that feeds it. The
+artistic temperament is not this, but something far different. Would you
+know what it is, and what it brings? It is the Key of Life, without
+which no one can understand the mysteries nor hear the secret music; and
+it plants a dagger in the flesh, with the handle outward. And at this
+handle, the careless, the brutal, the malicious, and the dense
+witted--all Those Others--lunge, pull, and twist by turns. But they do
+not see the blood trickling from the wound; and they would neither care
+nor yet desist if they did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Rutland Barrington regards it as a mixed blessing.]
+
+The artistic temperament is a most decidedly "mixed" blessing, and the
+more artistic the more mixed! This is strongly demonstrated to me
+personally in the person of a _friend_ of my school days who has become
+in later years an _acquaintance_ only; a falling away, due entirely to
+the abnormal development of his artistic temperament, which will not
+allow him to see any good in anything or anybody that does not come up
+to his ideal, the artistic temperament in _his_ case taking the form of
+a kind of mental yellow jaundice! Of course, I consider that I myself
+possess this temperament, and am willing to admit that the natural
+friction caused by the meeting with a less highly developed temperament
+(?) than his own may have led to the feeling of mental and artistic
+superiority which has convinced _one_ of us that association with the
+_other_ is undesirable! I fancy that the two classes most strongly
+influenced by this temperament are the painters and the actors, who
+display characteristics of remarkable resemblance, as, for instance, all
+painters (I use the word "painters" because "artists" is applied equally
+to both classes) are fully alive to the beauties of Nature in all her
+varied moods, but, when those beauties are depicted on the canvasses of
+_others_, are somewhat prone to discover a comprehension of those
+beauties inferior to their own! So, too, with actors, the majority of
+whom possess the feeling, though they may not always express it, that,
+although Mr. Garrick Siddons's efforts were distinctly _good_, there
+_are_ people, not a hundred miles off, who _might_ have shone to more
+advantage in the part! There is no doubt that the artistic temperament
+magnifies all the pleasures of one's life by the infusion of a keener
+zest for enjoyment, the natural outcome of such temperament, but the
+reverse of the medal is equally well cut, and the misfortunes and
+disappointments of life are the more keenly felt in consequence of the
+possession of this temperament! Whether the balance is equally
+maintained or not is a question only to be answered by the individual,
+but I incline to the belief that life is smoother to the phlegmatic than
+the artistic temperament!--though I should not believe it would be
+possible to find any person possessing the latter who would be willing
+to renounce it, in spite of its disadvantages, so I must perforce
+conclude it to be a blessing! _Q.E.D._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Miss Helen Mathers looks upon it as a curse.]
+
+If the artistic temperament will enable a man to be rendered profoundly
+happy by one of those trifles that Nature strews each day in our
+path--say a salmon-pink sunset seen through the lacing of tall black
+boles of leafless trees, or a flower, happed upon unexpectedly, that
+reads you a half-forgotten lesson in "country art"--that same man will
+be reduced to abject misery and real suffering by a dirty tablecloth, a
+vulgar, uncongenial companion, or even the presence of a bright blue
+gown in a chamber subdued to utmost harmonies in gold and yellow. The
+curse with him follows all too swiftly on the blessing of enjoyment--and
+lasts longer. And in matters of love, the artistic temperament is a
+doubtful blessing. The shape of a man's nose will turn a woman's eyes
+away from the goodness of his character, and a badly-fitting coat so
+outrage her beauty-loving propensities, that she is provoked into
+mistaking her mind's approval for real heart affection, and she chooses
+the artistic man, only to find, probably, that, like the O'Flaherty, one
+cannot comfortably worship a lily, without a considerable amount of
+mutton chops as well--and in the end she may sigh for the tasteless man
+who yet had the taste to love her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: We worship the "beautiful" too much.]
+
+I think most of us carry this tendency to worship the beautiful too far,
+and our scorn for the physically unsatisfactory is one of our cruellest
+and most glaring latter-day faults. It is true we are equally cordially
+hard on ourselves, and hate our vile bodies, when their aches and pains
+intrude themselves between us and our soul's delight--for it is from the
+Pagan, not the Christian, point of view that most lovers of beauty
+regard life. And if a man's taste require costly gratification of it,
+say by pictures, by marbles, by the thousand and one sumptuous trifles
+that go to make the modern house beautiful, then that man is not
+possessed of true taste, and he will be poorer in his palace than if he
+dwelt ragged in Nature's lap, with all her riches, and those of his own
+mind, at his disposal. For the true artistic sense impels one to work
+always--and always to better and not worsen, what it touches. The
+artistic sense that lazes, and lets other people work to gratify it, is
+a bastard one, more, it is immoral, and neither bestows, nor receives,
+grace. It cannot be fashioned, it may not be bought, this strange sense
+of the inward beauty of things; nor a man's wife, nor his own soul, nor
+his beautiful house shall teach it him, and he will never be one with
+the Universe, with God, understanding all indeed, but not by written
+word or speech, but by what was born in him. And though he may suffer
+through it too, though to the ugly, the deaf, and the afflicted, such a
+gift may seem bestowed in cruellest irony, still when all is said and
+done I can think of no better summary of the whole than that given by
+Philip Sydney's immortal lines on love. You all know them--
+
+  "He who for love hath undergone
+  The worst that can befall
+  Is happier thousandfold than he
+  Who ne'er hath loved at all ...
+  For in his soul a grace hath reigned
+  That nothing else could bring."
+
+[Sidenote: Alfred C. Calmour is doubtful.]
+
+The artistic temperament is both a blessing and a curse. It is a
+blessing when it lifts a man's soul out of the slough of vulgar
+commonplace, and turns his thoughts to the contemplation of noble
+things, while at the same time it enables him to give something to the
+world which it would not willingly lose, and for which he can obtain
+adequate remuneration. But it (the artistic temperament) is a curse when
+it tempts a man from that honest employment which provides him with
+bread and butter, and leaves him a defeated, disappointed, and
+heartbroken wretch, unable to return to that humble course of life which
+had happily supplied his daily wants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Mrs. Panton considers it a fantastic demon.]
+
+Personally speaking, I consider the possession of the artistic
+temperament a distinct curse to those unfortunate folk who have to live
+with the owner of this fantastic demon; while if the possessor knows how
+to deal with his old Man of the Sea he has a most powerful engine at his
+command: for once let the world at large know that the "artistic
+temperament" has entered into him, his strangest freaks become more than
+put-up-able with, and the brighter he is in company, and the more
+irritable and offensive he is at home, the more law is given him, and
+the less work, and, may I add, decency, is expected of him, until he
+appears to agree with his compeers or followers, and begins to be as
+eccentric as he likes. Commencing with long hair touching his shoulders,
+and with an absence of the use of Someone's soap, he passes on through
+mystic moonlight glances to a still more artistic appreciation of the
+charms of Nature at her simplest, until Mrs. Grundy looks askance, and
+duchesses and other leaders of Society squabble over him, and try one
+against the other for the honour and pleasure of his society. So far,
+then, the artistic temperament is for its possessor a fine thing, for it
+cannot put up with indifferent fare and lodging: it can only prove its
+existence by the manner in which it annexes all that is richest, most
+beautiful, and, to use a byegone slang word, most Precious. For it is
+reserved the luxurious Chesterfield or Divan, heaped with rainbow-like
+cushions, and placed in the most becoming light, until the quick,
+unhappy day dawns when another "artistic temperament" comes to the fore,
+and the first retires perforce, if not a better, certainly a sadder,
+man, for all that has been happening unto him. Now comes the time when
+one sees the slow-witted creature sinking gradually into the mere
+haunter of the Gaiety bar: when the sacred lamp burns brightly, and
+causes him to recollect, sadly indeed, the days that are no more. Or we
+find the man who has learned his bitter lesson, and recognising that
+_he_ still exists--albeit the beast is dead--turns to the work he was
+meant to do, and does that nobly, though the mad and beautiful days of
+his youth have done, and all that caused life to be lovely has faded
+slowly into the _ewigkeit_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: But that, if true, it must often be a delight.]
+
+If the "artistic temperament" is true and not a sham, to the owner at
+least it must often be a sheer delight, for the elf or "troll" which
+goes by this name takes such possession of the owner that under his
+guidance he sees "What man may never see, the star that travels far."
+"The light" that the poet declares shone on sea or shore, shines for him
+always, if for no one else: he walks with Beatrice in Paradise, not in
+the "other place;" and his delight in the mere rapture of existence is
+such that he hardly cares to speak for joy, and for the certainty that
+not one living creature on earth would understand him if he did. For
+even if he recognised another elf or troll, peeping out of the eyes of a
+friend, it would not be his own familiar spirit, and, in consequence, he
+would not understand the other, because no two of these fantastic
+creatures ever speak entirely alike. But if we mention those who have to
+exist with the owner of this fantastic Will-o'-the-wisp--for he is as
+often absent as present--this makes the whole thing a matter of
+speculation. I feel as if I could not do justice to the idea, for I,
+too, have lived once on a time with these others; and I would rather not
+repeat the experiment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton declares it to be the choicest gift of all.]
+
+_Punch's_ illustration of Lord Beaconsfield's announcement that he was
+"on the side of the angels" casts somewhat of a shadow over the
+sentiment; yet I feel constrained to quote it, as representing my own
+feelings in regard to the question whether the artistic temperament is a
+curse or a blessing. Shakespeare had it; Dickens had it; and Thackeray
+confessed that he would have been glad to black Shakespeare's boots. One
+may well be convinced that it is a blessing by the penalties which
+Heaven exacts from its possessors. It means the capacity to enjoy and
+appreciate the beautiful; with the great poets and novelists it means
+the power to express the beautiful and describe it "in thoughts that
+breathe and words that burn." On the other hand, it means experiencing a
+keener sense of pain than those are capable of who do not possess tender
+susceptibilities. But in the spirit of "better fifty years of Europe
+than a cycle of Cathy" the miseries that belong to the poetic
+temperament are better than the pleasures that go with its opposite. To
+feel the full glory of the sun, the joy of the Western wind, to hear the
+aphonous whisperings of the flowers, to be fancifully cognisant of "the
+music of the spheres"; better this with only a garret for your
+environment, than to be a wealthy Peter Bell in a palace, or a lord of
+many acres who sees nothing beyond its intrinsic value in a Turner, and
+finds Shelley poor stuff and Tennyson only a rhymster. It is the
+artistic temperament that lives up to the glories of Nature, and
+understands the parables; and you need not be a writing poet to have it.
+There is many a poet who never wrote a line, many a romancist who never
+contributed to a magazine. The ploughboy whistling behind his team, the
+gardener lovingly pruning his vines, the angler sitting in the shade of
+summer trees, even the playgoer craning his neck over the gallery and
+failing to catch the last words of Hamlet on the stage, may be blessed
+with something of "the divine afflatus," to be born utterly without
+which is to require at the Maker's hands a compensation. Thus He gives
+in a lower form the trick of money-making, the rank of birthright, the
+cheap distinction of a high place in society; with poverty He joins the
+peace of humble content, a solid faith in the bliss of a future state,
+and the rough enjoyment of perfect health. But the poetic temperament is
+the choicest gift of all; it may have occasional glimpses of the
+bottomless pit, but it can make its own heaven, and paint its own
+rainbow upon "the storms of life."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Angelina wants to concentrate genius.]
+
+The artistic temperament implies genius--and "there's the rub," for we
+others don't understand genius. The Almighty bestowed the blessing; we
+have superadded the curse of an ignorant reception. The Genius is the
+child of his century. _We_ persist in relegating him to his family. He
+asks for materials and room to create. We answer him, "Go to--thou art
+idle. Put money in thy purse." We bind him with cords of
+conventionality, and deliver him into the hands of the Philistines. We
+declare him to be a rational animal who could pay his bills if he
+chose--and we County Court him if he does not. We build and maintain
+stately edifices for the accommodation of paupers, criminals, and
+idiots; but for the Genius there is not even the smallest parish
+allowance made to his relatives to pay for a keeper. How _can_ he expand
+under present conditions? "_Es bildet ein Talent sich in der stille_,"
+says Goethe, and I think you will admit that there is precious little of
+"_der stille_" to be found either in ordinary domestic life, or that
+refuge of the desperate, a garret in Bloomsbury. Picture to yourself
+Orpheus executing frenzied violin _obbligati_ to the family baby
+(teething)--or Apollo hastily descending the slopes of Olympus to argue
+with a tax collector, or irate landlady! Alas! few survive this sort of
+thing. What I would propose is a Grand National Society for the
+Prevention of Cruelty to Genius--including a National Asylum for its
+reception and maintenance. Geniuses would be fed and clothed, and have
+their hair cut by the State, who would adopt and cherish them during
+life, and bequeath them to posterity at death. In this blissful retreat
+they would be preserved from the chilling influences of the outer world,
+liberally supplied with foolscap, musical instruments, and padded cells,
+and protected from all that had hitherto oppressed them--including cats,
+organ-grinders, creditors, and matrimony. Worshippers of the opposite
+sex would be allowed to express their appreciation sensibly, by
+contributions to the box at the door. Just think of the enormous
+advantage which would be gained by thus concentrating our Genius as we
+do our other illuminating forces; the saving of brain power by avoiding
+outside friction. Why there need be absolutely _no_ waste! Genius could
+be "laid on," at a fixed rate, and "lions" supplied by annual
+subscription.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Florence Marryat believes it to be a blessing.]
+
+Surely--without a manner of doubt--a Blessing--the greatest blessing
+ever bestowed by Heaven on Man--the best panacea for the troubles of
+this life--the magic wand that, for the time being, opens the door of a
+Paradise of our own creation. And in order to procure this enjoyment, it
+is not necessary that the artist should be successful. Disappointment
+may be the issue of his attempt, but the attempt itself--the knowledge
+that he _can_ attempt--is so delightful. The work may never reach the
+artistic ideal--it seldom does--but no artist believes in failure,
+whilst the child of his brain is germinating. It looks so promising--it
+grows so fast--the ideas which are to render it immortal press so
+quickly one upon the other, that he has hardly time to grasp
+them--whilst his breast heaves and his eye sparkles, and his whole frame
+quivers with the sense of power to conceive and to bring to the birth.
+No fear enters his mind then that his offspring will prove to be
+stunted, deformed, or weakly. It is his own--no man has begot it before
+him--and he can take no interest in anything else, until it is
+completed. Is this not true of the Painter, as he stands with his
+charcoal in hand thinking out his picture for next year's Academy?--of
+the Composer, seated before his piano and running his fingers with
+apparent want of design over the keys?--of the Author, as he walks to
+and fro and plans the details of his new plot?--of the Poet, as he gazes
+up into the skies and hears the rhythm of his lines in the "music of the
+stars?" True, that the finely-organised and sensitive temperament of the
+Artist suffers keenly when jarred by the discord of the world--that it
+amounts almost to a curse to be interrupted when in the throes of a new
+conception (just thought of and hardly grasped) by someone who has no
+more notion of what he is undergoing than a deal table would have, and
+pulls him back roughly from his Paradise to the sordid details of Life,
+putting all his airy fancies to flight, perhaps, by the process. But
+neither this materialistic world, nor all the fools that inhabit it, can
+ever really rob the Artist of the joy--in which "no stranger
+intermeddleth"--of the Realm of fancy which is his own domain, inherited
+by right of his genius. Though he may pass through Life unappreciated
+and unsuccessful, let him still thank God for the Divine power which has
+been given him--the power to create! It will tide him over the loss of
+things, which other men cut their throats for--it will stand him in
+stead of wife and child--in stead of friends and companionship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: And that the true artist is never alone.]
+
+Is the true Artist ever alone? Do not the creatures of his brain walk
+beside him wherever he may go? Do they not lie down with him and rise up
+with him, and even when he is old and grey, his heart still keeps fresh,
+from association with the Young and Beautiful, with the blossoms of
+Womanhood and of Spring, that have bloomed upon his canvas--with the
+notes of the birds and the sounds of falling water that his fingers have
+conjured to life upon his instrument--with the fair maidens and noble
+youths that he has accompanied through so many trials and conducted to
+such a blissful termination in his pages. And beyond all this--beyond
+the joy of conception and the pride of fruition--there is an added
+blessing on the artistic temperament. Surely the minds which are always
+striving after the ideally Perfect must be, in a measure, refined and
+purified by the height of the summit they try to reach. "We needs must
+love the highest, when we see it." It is a Blessing to have the desire
+to reach the highest, even though we fail, and our natures are raised by
+the mere contemplation of it. So that the Artist may well forget the
+rebuffs and cold douches which he receives from those who cannot
+sympathise with him, and thank Heaven that he can walk out of their
+world into his own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Zangwill draweth a distinction.]
+
+There are two aspects of the artistic temperament--the active or
+creative side, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to
+possess the power of creation without possessing also the power of
+appreciation; but it is quite possible to be very susceptible to
+artistic influences while dowered with little or no faculty of
+origination. On the one hand is the artist--poet, musician, or
+painter--on the other, the artistic person to whom the artist appeals.
+Between the two, in some arts, stands the artistic interpreter--the
+actor who embodies the aëry conceptions of the poet, the violinist or
+pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the musician. But in so
+far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness in his field, in so
+far he will be found soaring above the middle ground, away from the
+artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or creator. Joachim
+and De Reszke, Paderewski and Irving, put something of themselves into
+their work; apart from the fact that they could all do (in some cases
+have done) creative work on their own account. So that when the
+interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in the
+creative category. Limiting ourselves then to these two main varieties
+of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I should say
+that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed curse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: He speaketh of ye curse.]
+
+What, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good æsthetic
+faculties--to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This
+artistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other
+animals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind
+is the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality, who has
+every temptation to enjoy, and none to create. He is the idle heir to
+treasures greater than India's mines can yield; the bee who sucks at
+every flower, and is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing,
+and painters paint, and composers write. "_O fortunatos nimium_," who
+not seldom yearn for the fatal gift of genius! For _this_ artistic
+temperament is a curse--a curse that lights on the noblest and best of
+mankind! From the day of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate
+it has been a curse
+
+  "To vary from the kindly race of men,"
+
+and the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's
+benefactors. All great and high art is purchased by suffering--it is not
+the mechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of
+the meaning of that mysterious _Master Builder_ of Ibsen's. "Then I saw
+plainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I
+should have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and
+happiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder--nothing
+else." And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes
+are most in danger of being overstrung.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: And its compensations.]
+
+But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale
+of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified
+oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be
+tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal
+has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist
+over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the
+primitive curse--labour--there are many who would welcome it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _i.e._, Gambled at Faro.
+
+[2] See the writer's _Life of David Gray_.
+
+[3] I have given a detailed account of Peacock in my "Look Round
+Literature."
+
+[4] O those "Tendencies of one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms,
+conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How
+many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered
+into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of Beautiful Ideas!--R.B.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IDLER MAGAZINE, VOL III. ***
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