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diff --git a/old/whvan10.txt b/old/whvan10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff4413b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whvan10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,745 @@ +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Notes of a Vanished Summer*** +#27 in our series by William Dean Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer + +by William Dean Howells + + + + +STACCATO NOTES OF A VANISHED SUMMER + + +Monday afternoon the storm which had been beating up against the +southeasterly wind nearly all day thickened, fold upon fold, in the +northwest. The gale increased, and blackened the harbor and whitened the +open sea beyond, where sail after sail appeared round the reef of +Whaleback Light, and ran in a wild scamper for the safe anchorages +within. + +Since noon cautious coasters of all sorts had been dropping in with a +casual air; the coal schooners and barges had rocked and nodded knowingly +to one another, with their taper and truncated masts, on the breast of +the invisible swell; and the flock of little yachts and pleasure-boats +which always fleck the bay huddled together in the safe waters. The +craft that came scurrying in just before nightfall were mackerel seiners +from Gloucester. They were all of one graceful shape and one size; they +came with all sail set, taking the waning light like sunshine on their +flying-jibs, and trailing each two dories behind them, with their seines +piled in black heaps between the thwarts. As soon as they came inside +their jibs weakened and fell, and the anchor-chains rattled from their +bows. Before the dark hid them we could have counted sixty or seventy +ships in the harbor, and as the night fell they improvised a little +Venice under the hill with their lights, which twinkled rhythmically, +like the lamps in the basin of St. Mark, between the Maine and New +Hampshire coasts. + +There was a dash of rain, and we thought the storm had begun; but that +ended it, as so many times this summer a dash of rain has ended a storm. +The morning came veiled in a fog that kept the shipping at anchor through +the day; but the next night the weather cleared. We woke to the clucking +of tackle, and saw the whole fleet standing dreamily out to sea. When +they were fairly gone, the summer, which had held aloof in dismay of the +sudden cold, seemed to return and possess the land again; and the +succession of silver days and crystal nights resumed the tranquil round +which we thought had ceased. + + + + +I. + +One says of every summer, when it is drawing near its end, "There never +was such a summer"; but if the summer is one of those which slip from the +feeble hold of elderly hands, when the days of the years may be reckoned +with the scientific logic of the insurance tables and the sad conviction +of the psalmist, one sees it go with a passionate prescience of never +seeing its like again such as the younger witness cannot know. Each new +summer of the few left must be shorter and swifter than the last: its +Junes will be thirty days long, and its Julys and Augusts thirty-one, in +compliance with the almanac; but the days will be of so small a compass +that fourteen of them will rattle round in a week of the old size like +shrivelled peas in a pod. + +To be sure they swell somewhat in the retrospect, like the same peas put +to soak; and I am aware now of some June days of those which we first +spent at Kittery Point this year, which were nearly twenty-four hours +long. Even the days of declining years linger a little here, where there +is nothing to hurry them, and where it is pleasant to loiter, and muse +beside the sea and shore, which are so netted together at Kittery Point +that they hardly know themselves apart. The days, whatever their length, +are divided, not into hours, but into mails. They begin, without regard +to the sun, at eight o'clock, when the first mail comes with a few +letters and papers which had forgotten themselves the night before. At +half-past eleven the great mid-day mail arrives; at four o'clock there is +another indifferent and scattering post, much like that at eight in the +morning; and at seven the last mail arrives with the Boston evening +papers and the New York morning papers, to make you forget any letters +you were looking for. The opening of the mid-day mail is that which most +throngs with summer folks the little postoffice under the elms, opposite +the weather-beaten mansion of Sir William Pepperrell; but the evening +mail attracts a large and mainly disinterested circle of natives. The +day's work on land and sea is then over, and the village leisure, perched +upon fences and stayed against house walls, is of a picturesqueness which +we should prize if we saw it abroad, and which I am not willing to slight +on our own ground. + + + + +II. + +The type is mostly of a seafaring brown, a complexion which seems to be +inherited rather than personally acquired; for the commerce of Kittery +Point perished long ago, and the fishing fleets that used to fit out from +her wharves have almost as long ago passed to Gloucester. All that is +left of the fishing interest is the weir outside which supplies, fitfully +and uncertainly, the fish shipped fresh to the nearest markets. But in +spite of this the tint taken from the suns and winds of the sea lingers +on the local complexion; and the local manner is that freer and easier +manner of people who have known other coasts, and are in some sort +citizens of the world. It is very different from the inland New England +manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the +clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the +heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the +deck in it. + +Nothing could be better suited to progress through the long village, +which rises and sinks beside the shore like a landscape with its sea-legs +on; and nothing could be more charming and friendly than this village. +It is quite untainted as yet by the summer cottages which have covered so +much of the coast, and made it look as if the aesthetic suburbs of New +York and Boston had gone ashore upon it. There are two or three old- +fashioned summer hotels; but the summer life distinctly fails to +characterize the place. The people live where their forefathers have +lived for two hundred and fifty years; and for the century since the +baronial domain of Sir William was broken up and his possessions +confiscated by the young Republic, they have dwelt in small red or white +houses on their small holdings along the slopes and levels of the low +hills beside the water, where a man may pass with the least inconvenience +and delay from his threshold to his gunwale. Not all the houses are +small; some are spacious and ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns; but +most are simple and homelike. Their gardens, following the example of +Sir William's vanished pleasaunce, drop southward to the shore, where the +lobster-traps and the hen-coops meet in unembarrassed promiscuity. But +the fish-flakes which once gave these inclines the effect of terraced +vineyards have passed as utterly as the proud parterres of the old +baronet; and Kittery Point no longer "makes" a cod or a haddock for the +market. + +Three groceries, a butcher shop, and a small variety store study the few +native wants; and with a little money one may live in as great real +comfort here as for much in a larger place. The street takes care of +itself; the seafaring housekeeping of New England is not of the +insatiable Dutch type which will not spare the stones of the highway; but +within the houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. The other day I +found myself in a kitchen where the stove shone like oxidized silver; the +pump and sink were clad in oilcloth as with blue tiles; the walls were +papered; the stainless floor was strewn with home-made hooked and braided +rugs; and I felt the place so altogether too good for me that I pleaded +to stay there for the transaction of my business, lest a sharper sense of +my unfitness should await me in the parlor. + +The village, with scarcely an interval of farm-lands, stretches four +miles along the water-side to Portsmouth; but it seems to me that just at +the point where our lines have fallen there is the greatest concentration +of its character. This has apparently not been weakened, it has been +accented, by the trolley-line which passes through its whole length, with +gayly freighted cars coming and going every half-hour. I suppose they +are not longer than other trolley-cars, but they each affect me like a +procession. They are cheerful presences by day, and by night they light +up the dim, winding street with the flare of their electric bulbs, and +bring to the country a vision of city splendor upon terms that do not +humiliate or disquiet. During July and August they are mostly filled +with summer folks from a great summer resort beyond us, and their lights +reveal the pretty fashions of hats and gowns in all the charm of the +latest lines and tints. But there is an increasing democracy in these +splendors, and one might easily mistake a passing excursionist from some +neighboring inland town, or even a local native with the instinct of +clothes, for a social leader from York Harbor. + +With the falling leaf, the barge-like open cars close up into well-warmed +saloons, and falter to hourly intervals in their course. But we are +still far from the falling leaf; we are hardly come to the blushing or +fading leaf. Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn; +the ancient Pepperrell elms fling down showers of the baronet's fairy +gold in the September gusts; the sumacs and the blackberry vines are +ablaze along the tumbling black stone walls; but it is still summer, it +is still summer: I cannot allow otherwise! + + + + +III. + +The other day I visited for the first time (in the opulent indifference +of one who could see it any time) the stately tomb of the first +Pepperrell, who came from Cornwall to these coasts, and settled finally +at Kittery Point. He laid there the foundations of the greatest fortune +in colonial New England, which revolutionary New England seized and +dispersed, as I cannot but feel, a little ruthlessly. In my personal +quality I am of course averse to all great fortunes; and in my civic +capacity I am a patriot. But still I feel a sort of grace in wealth a +century old, and if I could now have my way, I would not have had their +possessions reft from those kindly Pepperrells, who could hardly help +being loyal to the fountain of their baronial honors. Sir William, +indeed; had helped, more than any other man, to bring the people who +despoiled him to a national consciousness. If he did not imagine, he +mainly managed the plucky New England expedition against Louisbourg at +Cape Breton a half century before the War of Independence; and his +splendid success in rending that stronghold from the French taught the +colonists that they were Americans, and need be Englishmen no longer than +they liked. His soldiers were of the stamp of all succeeding American +armies, and his leadership was of the neighborly and fatherly sort +natural to an amiable man who knew most of them personally. He was +already the richest man in America, and his grateful king made him a +baronet; but he came contentedly back to Kittery, and took up his old +life in a region where he had the comfortable consideration of an +unrivalled magnate. He built himself the dignified mansion which still +stands across the way from the post-office on Kittery Point, within an +easy stone's cast of the far older house, where his father wedded Margery +Bray, when he came, a thrifty young Welsh fisherman, from the Isles of +Shoals, and established his family on Kittery. The Bray house had been +the finest in the region a hundred years before the Pepperrell mansion +was built; it still remembers its consequence in the panelling and +wainscoting of the large, square parlor where the young people were +married and in the elaborate staircase cramped into the little, square +hall; and the Bray fortune helped materially to swell the wealth of the +Pepperrells. + +I do not know that I should care now to have a man able to ride thirty +miles on his own land; but I do not mind Sir William's having done it +here a hundred and fifty years ago; and I wish the confiscations had left +his family, say, about a mile of it. They could now, indeed, enjoy it +only in the collateral branches, for all Sir William's line is extinct. +The splendid mansion which he built his daughter is in alien hands, and +the fine old house which Lady Pepperrell built herself after his death +belongs to the remotest of kinsmen. A group of these, the descendants of +a prolific sister of the baronet, meets every year at Kittery Point as +the Pepperrell Association, and, in a tent hard by the little grove of +drooping spruces which shade the admirable renaissance cenotaph of Sir +William's father, cherishes the family memories with due American +"proceedings." + + + + +IV. + +The meeting of the Pepperrell Association was by no means the chief +excitement of our summer. In fact, I do not know that it was an +excitement at all; and I am sure it was not comparable to the presence of +our naval squadron, when for four days the mighty dragon and kraken +shapes of steel, which had crumbled the decrepit pride of Spain in the +fight at Santiago, weltered in our peaceful waters, almost under my +window. + +I try now to dignify them with handsome epithets; but while they were +here I had moments of thinking they looked like a lot of whited +locomotives, which had broken through from some trestle, in a recent +accident, and were waiting the offices of a wrecking-train. The poetry +of the man-of-war still clings to the "three-decker out of the foam" of +the past; it is too soon yet for it to have cast a mischievous halo about +the modern battle-ship; and I looked at the New York and the Texas and +the Brooklyn and the rest, and thought, "Ah, but for you, and our need of +proving your dire efficiency, perhaps we could have got on with the +wickedness of Spanish rule in Cuba, and there had been no war!" Under my +reluctant eyes the great, dreadful spectacle of the Santiago fight +displayed itself in peaceful Kittery Harbor. I saw the Spanish ships +drive upon the reef where a man from Dover, New Hampshire, was camping in +a little wooden shanty unconscious; and I heard the dying screams of the +Spanish sailors, seethed and scalded within the steel walls of their own +wicked war-kettles. + +As for the guns, battle or no battle, our ships, like "kind Lieutenant +Belay of the 'Hot Cross-Bun'," seemed to be "banging away the whole day +long." They set a bad example to the dreamy old fort on the Newcastle +shore, which, till they came, only recollected itself to salute the +sunrise and sunset with a single gun; but which, under provocation of the +squadron, formed a habit of firing twenty or thirty times at noon. + +Other martial shows and noises were not so bad. I rather liked seeing +the morning drill of the marines and the bluejackets on the iron decks, +with the lively music that went with it. The bugle calls and the bells +were charming; the week's wash hung out to dry had its picturesqueness by +day, and by night the spectral play of the search-lights along the waves +and shores, and against the startled skies, was even more impressive. +There was a band which gave us every evening the airs of the latest coon- +songs, and the national anthems which we have borrowed from various +nations; and yes, I remember the white squadron kindly, though I was so +glad to have it go, and let us lapse back into our summer silence and +calm. It was (I do not mind saying now) a majestic sight to see those +grotesque monsters gather themselves together, and go wallowing, one +after another, out of the harbor, and drop behind the ledge of Whaleback +Light, as if they had sunk into the sea. + + +V. + +A deep peace fell upon us when they went, and it must have been at this +most receptive moment, when all our sympathies were adjusted in a mood of +hospitable expectation, that Jim appeared. + +Jim was, and still is, and I hope will long be, a cat; but unless one has +lived at Kittery Point, and realized, from observation and experience, +what a leading part cats may play in society, one cannot feel the full +import of this fact. Not only has every house in Kittery its cat, but +every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and +young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a +whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a +kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in +supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of +Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it +plainly, and they prefer to have the bones taken out for them, though +they do not insist upon that point. + +At least, Jim never did so from the time when he first scented the odor +of delicate young mackerel in the evening air about our kitchen, and +dropped in upon the maids there with a fine casual effect of being merely +out for a walk, and feeling it a neighborly thing to call. He had on a +silver collar, engraved with his name and surname, which offered itself +for introduction like a visiting-card. He was too polite to ask himself +to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed to the family +circle, he formed the habit of finding himself with us at breakfast and +supper, when he sauntered in like one who should say, "Did I smell fish?" +but would not go further in the way of hinting. + +He had no need to do so. He was made at home, and freely invited to our +best not only in fish, but in chicken, for which he showed a nice taste, +and in sweetcorn, for which he revealed a most surprising fondness when +it was cut from the cob for him. After he had breakfasted or supped he +gracefully suggested that he was thirsty by climbing to the table where +the water-pitcher stood and stretching his fine feline head towards it. +When he had lapped up his saucer of water; he marched into the parlor, +and riveted the chains upon our fondness by taking the best chair and +going to sleep in it in attitudes of Egyptian, of Assyrian majesty. +His arts were few or none; he rather disdained to practise any; he +completed our conquest by maintaining himself simply a fascinating +presence; and perhaps we spoiled Jim. It is certain that he came under +my window at two o'clock one night, and tried the kitchen door. It +resisted his efforts to get in, and then Jim began to use language which +I had never heard from the lips of a cat before, and seldom from the lips +of a man. I will not repeat it; enough that it carried to the listener +the conviction that Jim was not sober. Where he could have got his +liquor in the totally abstinent State of Maine I could not positively +say, but probably of some sailor who had brought it from the neighboring +New Hampshire coast. There could be no doubt, however, that Jim was +drunk; and a dash from the water-pitcher seemed the only thing for him. +The water did not touch him, but he started back in surprise and grief, +and vanished into the night without a word. + +His feelings must have been deeply wounded, for it was almost a week +before he came near us again; and then I think that nothing but young +lobster would have brought him. He forgave us finally, and made us of +his party in the quarrel he began gradually to have with the large yellow +cat of a next-door neighbor. This culminated one afternoon, after a long +exchange of mediaeval defiance and insult, in a battle upon a bed of rag- +weed, with wild shrieks of rage, and prodigious feats of ground and lofty +tumbling. It seemed to our anxious eyes that Jim was getting the worst +of it; but when we afterwards visited the battle-field and picked up +several tufts of blond fur, we were in a doubt which was afterwards +heightened by Jim's invasion of the yellow cat's territory, where he +stretched himself defiantly upon the grass and seemed to be challenging +the yellow cat to come out and try to put him off the premises. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn . . . . . . . . +Houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Leading part cats may play in society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Picturesqueness which we should prize if we saw it abroad. . . . . . . . +Has the lurch and the sway of the deck in it.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Notes of a Vanished Summer, +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/whvan10.zip b/old/whvan10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f3d171 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whvan10.zip diff --git a/old/whvan11.txt b/old/whvan11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fba01c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whvan11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,745 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Notes of a Vanished Summer, by Howells +#27 in our series by William Dean Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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The gale increased, and blackened the harbor and whitened the +open sea beyond, where sail after sail appeared round the reef of +Whaleback Light, and ran in a wild scamper for the safe anchorages +within. + +Since noon cautious coasters of all sorts had been dropping in with a +casual air; the coal schooners and barges had rocked and nodded knowingly +to one another, with their taper and truncated masts, on the breast of +the invisible swell; and the flock of little yachts and pleasure-boats +which always fleck the bay huddled together in the safe waters. The +craft that came scurrying in just before nightfall were mackerel seiners +from Gloucester. They were all of one graceful shape and one size; they +came with all sail set, taking the waning light like sunshine on their +flying-jibs, and trailing each two dories behind them, with their seines +piled in black heaps between the thwarts. As soon as they came inside +their jibs weakened and fell, and the anchor-chains rattled from their +bows. Before the dark hid them we could have counted sixty or seventy +ships in the harbor, and as the night fell they improvised a little +Venice under the hill with their lights, which twinkled rhythmically, +like the lamps in the basin of St. Mark, between the Maine and New +Hampshire coasts. + +There was a dash of rain, and we thought the storm had begun; but that +ended it, as so many times this summer a dash of rain has ended a storm. +The morning came veiled in a fog that kept the shipping at anchor through +the day; but the next night the weather cleared. We woke to the clucking +of tackle, and saw the whole fleet standing dreamily out to sea. When +they were fairly gone, the summer, which had held aloof in dismay of the +sudden cold, seemed to return and possess the land again; and the +succession of silver days and crystal nights resumed the tranquil round +which we thought had ceased. + + + + +I. + +One says of every summer, when it is drawing near its end, "There never +was such a summer"; but if the summer is one of those which slip from the +feeble hold of elderly hands, when the days of the years may be reckoned +with the scientific logic of the insurance tables and the sad conviction +of the psalmist, one sees it go with a passionate prescience of never +seeing its like again such as the younger witness cannot know. Each new +summer of the few left must be shorter and swifter than the last: its +Junes will be thirty days long, and its Julys and Augusts thirty-one, in +compliance with the almanac; but the days will be of so small a compass +that fourteen of them will rattle round in a week of the old size like +shrivelled peas in a pod. + +To be sure they swell somewhat in the retrospect, like the same peas put +to soak; and I am aware now of some June days of those which we first +spent at Kittery Point this year, which were nearly twenty-four hours +long. Even the days of declining years linger a little here, where there +is nothing to hurry them, and where it is pleasant to loiter, and muse +beside the sea and shore, which are so netted together at Kittery Point +that they hardly know themselves apart. The days, whatever their length, +are divided, not into hours, but into mails. They begin, without regard +to the sun, at eight o'clock, when the first mail comes with a few +letters and papers which had forgotten themselves the night before. At +half-past eleven the great mid-day mail arrives; at four o'clock there is +another indifferent and scattering post, much like that at eight in the +morning; and at seven the last mail arrives with the Boston evening +papers and the New York morning papers, to make you forget any letters +you were looking for. The opening of the mid-day mail is that which most +throngs with summer folks the little postoffice under the elms, opposite +the weather-beaten mansion of Sir William Pepperrell; but the evening +mail attracts a large and mainly disinterested circle of natives. The +day's work on land and sea is then over, and the village leisure, perched +upon fences and stayed against house walls, is of a picturesqueness which +we should prize if we saw it abroad, and which I am not willing to slight +on our own ground. + + + + +II. + +The type is mostly of a seafaring brown, a complexion which seems to be +inherited rather than personally acquired; for the commerce of Kittery +Point perished long ago, and the fishing fleets that used to fit out from +her wharves have almost as long ago passed to Gloucester. All that is +left of the fishing interest is the weir outside which supplies, fitfully +and uncertainly, the fish shipped fresh to the nearest markets. But in +spite of this the tint taken from the suns and winds of the sea lingers +on the local complexion; and the local manner is that freer and easier +manner of people who have known other coasts, and are in some sort +citizens of the world. It is very different from the inland New England +manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the +clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the +heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the +deck in it. + +Nothing could be better suited to progress through the long village, +which rises and sinks beside the shore like a landscape with its sea-legs +on; and nothing could be more charming and friendly than this village. +It is quite untainted as yet by the summer cottages which have covered so +much of the coast, and made it look as if the aesthetic suburbs of New +York and Boston had gone ashore upon it. There are two or three old- +fashioned summer hotels; but the summer life distinctly fails to +characterize the place. The people live where their forefathers have +lived for two hundred and fifty years; and for the century since the +baronial domain of Sir William was broken up and his possessions +confiscated by the young Republic, they have dwelt in small red or white +houses on their small holdings along the slopes and levels of the low +hills beside the water, where a man may pass with the least inconvenience +and delay from his threshold to his gunwale. Not all the houses are +small; some are spacious and ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns; but +most are simple and homelike. Their gardens, following the example of +Sir William's vanished pleasaunce, drop southward to the shore, where the +lobster-traps and the hen-coops meet in unembarrassed promiscuity. But +the fish-flakes which once gave these inclines the effect of terraced +vineyards have passed as utterly as the proud parterres of the old +baronet; and Kittery Point no longer "makes" a cod or a haddock for the +market. + +Three groceries, a butcher shop, and a small variety store study the few +native wants; and with a little money one may live in as great real +comfort here as for much in a larger place. The street takes care of +itself; the seafaring housekeeping of New England is not of the +insatiable Dutch type which will not spare the stones of the highway; but +within the houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness. The other day I +found myself in a kitchen where the stove shone like oxidized silver; the +pump and sink were clad in oilcloth as with blue tiles; the walls were +papered; the stainless floor was strewn with home-made hooked and braided +rugs; and I felt the place so altogether too good for me that I pleaded +to stay there for the transaction of my business, lest a sharper sense of +my unfitness should await me in the parlor. + +The village, with scarcely an interval of farm-lands, stretches four +miles along the water-side to Portsmouth; but it seems to me that just at +the point where our lines have fallen there is the greatest concentration +of its character. This has apparently not been weakened, it has been +accented, by the trolley-line which passes through its whole length, with +gayly freighted cars coming and going every half-hour. I suppose they +are not longer than other trolley-cars, but they each affect me like a +procession. They are cheerful presences by day, and by night they light +up the dim, winding street with the flare of their electric bulbs, and +bring to the country a vision of city splendor upon terms that do not +humiliate or disquiet. During July and August they are mostly filled +with summer folks from a great summer resort beyond us, and their lights +reveal the pretty fashions of hats and gowns in all the charm of the +latest lines and tints. But there is an increasing democracy in these +splendors, and one might easily mistake a passing excursionist from some +neighboring inland town, or even a local native with the instinct of +clothes, for a social leader from York Harbor. + +With the falling leaf, the barge-like open cars close up into well-warmed +saloons, and falter to hourly intervals in their course. But we are +still far from the falling leaf; we are hardly come to the blushing or +fading leaf. Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn; +the ancient Pepperrell elms fling down showers of the baronet's fairy +gold in the September gusts; the sumacs and the blackberry vines are +ablaze along the tumbling black stone walls; but it is still summer, it +is still summer: I cannot allow otherwise! + + + + +III. + +The other day I visited for the first time (in the opulent indifference +of one who could see it any time) the stately tomb of the first +Pepperrell, who came from Cornwall to these coasts, and settled finally +at Kittery Point. He laid there the foundations of the greatest fortune +in colonial New England, which revolutionary New England seized and +dispersed, as I cannot but feel, a little ruthlessly. In my personal +quality I am of course averse to all great fortunes; and in my civic +capacity I am a patriot. But still I feel a sort of grace in wealth a +century old, and if I could now have my way, I would not have had their +possessions reft from those kindly Pepperrells, who could hardly help +being loyal to the fountain of their baronial honors. Sir William, +indeed; had helped, more than any other man, to bring the people who +despoiled him to a national consciousness. If he did not imagine, he +mainly managed the plucky New England expedition against Louisbourg at +Cape Breton a half century before the War of Independence; and his +splendid success in rending that stronghold from the French taught the +colonists that they were Americans, and need be Englishmen no longer than +they liked. His soldiers were of the stamp of all succeeding American +armies, and his leadership was of the neighborly and fatherly sort +natural to an amiable man who knew most of them personally. He was +already the richest man in America, and his grateful king made him a +baronet; but he came contentedly back to Kittery, and took up his old +life in a region where he had the comfortable consideration of an +unrivalled magnate. He built himself the dignified mansion which still +stands across the way from the post-office on Kittery Point, within an +easy stone's cast of the far older house, where his father wedded Margery +Bray, when he came, a thrifty young Welsh fisherman, from the Isles of +Shoals, and established his family on Kittery. The Bray house had been +the finest in the region a hundred years before the Pepperrell mansion +was built; it still remembers its consequence in the panelling and +wainscoting of the large, square parlor where the young people were +married and in the elaborate staircase cramped into the little, square +hall; and the Bray fortune helped materially to swell the wealth of the +Pepperrells. + +I do not know that I should care now to have a man able to ride thirty +miles on his own land; but I do not mind Sir William's having done it +here a hundred and fifty years ago; and I wish the confiscations had left +his family, say, about a mile of it. They could now, indeed, enjoy it +only in the collateral branches, for all Sir William's line is extinct. +The splendid mansion which he built his daughter is in alien hands, and +the fine old house which Lady Pepperrell built herself after his death +belongs to the remotest of kinsmen. A group of these, the descendants of +a prolific sister of the baronet, meets every year at Kittery Point as +the Pepperrell Association, and, in a tent hard by the little grove of +drooping spruces which shade the admirable renaissance cenotaph of Sir +William's father, cherishes the family memories with due American +"proceedings." + + + + +IV. + +The meeting of the Pepperrell Association was by no means the chief +excitement of our summer. In fact, I do not know that it was an +excitement at all; and I am sure it was not comparable to the presence of +our naval squadron, when for four days the mighty dragon and kraken +shapes of steel, which had crumbled the decrepit pride of Spain in the +fight at Santiago, weltered in our peaceful waters, almost under my +window. + +I try now to dignify them with handsome epithets; but while they were +here I had moments of thinking they looked like a lot of whited +locomotives, which had broken through from some trestle, in a recent +accident, and were waiting the offices of a wrecking-train. The poetry +of the man-of-war still clings to the "three-decker out of the foam" of +the past; it is too soon yet for it to have cast a mischievous halo about +the modern battle-ship; and I looked at the New York and the Texas and +the Brooklyn and the rest, and thought, "Ah, but for you, and our need of +proving your dire efficiency, perhaps we could have got on with the +wickedness of Spanish rule in Cuba, and there had been no war!" Under my +reluctant eyes the great, dreadful spectacle of the Santiago fight +displayed itself in peaceful Kittery Harbor. I saw the Spanish ships +drive upon the reef where a man from Dover, New Hampshire, was camping in +a little wooden shanty unconscious; and I heard the dying screams of the +Spanish sailors, seethed and scalded within the steel walls of their own +wicked war-kettles. + +As for the guns, battle or no battle, our ships, like "kind Lieutenant +Belay of the 'Hot Cross-Bun'," seemed to be "banging away the whole day +long." They set a bad example to the dreamy old fort on the Newcastle +shore, which, till they came, only recollected itself to salute the +sunrise and sunset with a single gun; but which, under provocation of the +squadron, formed a habit of firing twenty or thirty times at noon. + +Other martial shows and noises were not so bad. I rather liked seeing +the morning drill of the marines and the bluejackets on the iron decks, +with the lively music that went with it. The bugle calls and the bells +were charming; the week's wash hung out to dry had its picturesqueness by +day, and by night the spectral play of the search-lights along the waves +and shores, and against the startled skies, was even more impressive. +There was a band which gave us every evening the airs of the latest coon- +songs, and the national anthems which we have borrowed from various +nations; and yes, I remember the white squadron kindly, though I was so +glad to have it go, and let us lapse back into our summer silence and +calm. It was (I do not mind saying now) a majestic sight to see those +grotesque monsters gather themselves together, and go wallowing, one +after another, out of the harbor, and drop behind the ledge of Whaleback +Light, as if they had sunk into the sea. + + +V. + +A deep peace fell upon us when they went, and it must have been at this +most receptive moment, when all our sympathies were adjusted in a mood of +hospitable expectation, that Jim appeared. + +Jim was, and still is, and I hope will long be, a cat; but unless one has +lived at Kittery Point, and realized, from observation and experience, +what a leading part cats may play in society, one cannot feel the full +import of this fact. Not only has every house in Kittery its cat, but +every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and +young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a +whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a +kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in +supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of +Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it +plainly, and they prefer to have the bones taken out for them, though +they do not insist upon that point. + +At least, Jim never did so from the time when he first scented the odor +of delicate young mackerel in the evening air about our kitchen, and +dropped in upon the maids there with a fine casual effect of being merely +out for a walk, and feeling it a neighborly thing to call. He had on a +silver collar, engraved with his name and surname, which offered itself +for introduction like a visiting-card. He was too polite to ask himself +to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed to the family +circle, he formed the habit of finding himself with us at breakfast and +supper, when he sauntered in like one who should say, "Did I smell fish?" +but would not go further in the way of hinting. + +He had no need to do so. He was made at home, and freely invited to our +best not only in fish, but in chicken, for which he showed a nice taste, +and in sweetcorn, for which he revealed a most surprising fondness when +it was cut from the cob for him. After he had breakfasted or supped he +gracefully suggested that he was thirsty by climbing to the table where +the water-pitcher stood and stretching his fine feline head towards it. +When he had lapped up his saucer of water; he marched into the parlor, +and riveted the chains upon our fondness by taking the best chair and +going to sleep in it in attitudes of Egyptian, of Assyrian majesty. +His arts were few or none; he rather disdained to practise any; he +completed our conquest by maintaining himself simply a fascinating +presence; and perhaps we spoiled Jim. It is certain that he came under +my window at two o'clock one night, and tried the kitchen door. It +resisted his efforts to get in, and then Jim began to use language which +I had never heard from the lips of a cat before, and seldom from the lips +of a man. I will not repeat it; enough that it carried to the listener +the conviction that Jim was not sober. Where he could have got his +liquor in the totally abstinent State of Maine I could not positively +say, but probably of some sailor who had brought it from the neighboring +New Hampshire coast. There could be no doubt, however, that Jim was +drunk; and a dash from the water-pitcher seemed the only thing for him. +The water did not touch him, but he started back in surprise and grief, +and vanished into the night without a word. + +His feelings must have been deeply wounded, for it was almost a week +before he came near us again; and then I think that nothing but young +lobster would have brought him. He forgave us finally, and made us of +his party in the quarrel he began gradually to have with the large yellow +cat of a next-door neighbor. This culminated one afternoon, after a long +exchange of mediaeval defiance and insult, in a battle upon a bed of rag- +weed, with wild shrieks of rage, and prodigious feats of ground and lofty +tumbling. It seemed to our anxious eyes that Jim was getting the worst +of it; but when we afterwards visited the battle-field and picked up +several tufts of blond fur, we were in a doubt which was afterwards +heightened by Jim's invasion of the yellow cat's territory, where he +stretched himself defiantly upon the grass and seemed to be challenging +the yellow cat to come out and try to put him off the premises. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ambitious to be of ugly modern patterns +Here and there an impassioned maple confesses the autumn +Houses are of almost terrifying cleanliness +Leading part cats may play in society +Picturesqueness which we should prize if we saw it abroad +Has the lurch and the sway of the deck in it + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Notes of a Vanished Summer +by William Dean Howells + diff --git a/old/whvan11.zip b/old/whvan11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c0c395 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whvan11.zip |