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diff --git a/35289-8.txt b/35289-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..929d58d --- /dev/null +++ b/35289-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1944 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hospital Sketches, by Robert Swain Peabody + +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: Hospital Sketches + +Author: Robert Swain Peabody + +Release Date: February 15, 2011 [EBook #35289] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOSPITAL SKETCHES *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + +HOSPITAL SKETCHES + +1916 + + + + +HOSPITAL SKETCHES + +BY + +ROBERT SWAIN PEABODY + + + BOSTON & NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + _The Riverside Press Cambridge_ + 1916 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY ROBERT SWAIN PEABODY + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + _Published December 1916_ + + + "_Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, + Enwrought with golden and silver light, + The blue and the dim and the dark cloths + Of night and light and the half light; + I would spread the cloths under your feet: + But I, being poor, have only my dreams; + I have spread my dreams under your feet; + Tread softly because you tread on my dreams._" + W. B. YEATS. + + + + +NOTE + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENTS are made to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for +permission to use a passage from Edith Wharton's _Fighting France_ and +to The Macmillan Company for the use of the poem "Aedh wishes for the +Cloths of Heaven," by W. B. Yeats. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION ix + + VIEW FROM THE HOSPITAL TERRACE 1 + + UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + I. The Minster and the Meadows 3 + II. The Church Yard 7 + III. The Village 11 + IV. The Hall 15 + V. Trong's Almshouses 19 + + RANCONEZZO + VI. The Town and the Lake 23 + VII. Piazza Garibaldi 27 + VIII. Piazza Cavour 31 + IX. North Door of the Duomo 35 + X. Interior of the Duomo 39 + XI. The Villa of the Cardinal Schalchi-Visconti 43 + XII. Santa Prassede, the Cardinal's Church 47 + XIII. The Cloisters of Sta Prassede 51 + XIV. The Tomb of the Cardinal in Sta Prassede 55 + + ROCHER-ST.-POL + XV. The Town and the River Merle 59 + XVI. La Grande Rue and La Place de la République 63 + XVII. L'escalier de Jacob 67 + XVIII. Le Parvis de Ste Frédigonde 71 + XIX. Interior of the Church of Ste Frédigonde 75 + XX. Sacristy Steps in the Church of Ste Frédigonde 79 + XXI. The Château Beaumesnil 83 + XXII. La Tour de la Dame Blanche 87 + + AEGINASSOS + XXIII. The Temple and the Forum 91 + XXIV. The Temple and the Forum 95 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + + JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL, + BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, + _December, 1915._ + +ONE of my good friends, a stanch upholder of what to him is "The +Catholic Church," looks back to the thirteenth century as marking the +highest tide of Christian civilization. He longs for a restoration (but +under other rule) of that monastic life which then gave shelter to Art, +Science, Learning, and Religion. It does not appear that this longing is +coupled with any regret for the exceptionally happy domestic life with +which he personally has been blessed. Probably his hopes are that even +if he establishes, others will maintain, that monastic life and +discipline which, duly purified from Ultramontane tendencies, he thinks +would be so uplifting and beneficial to our times. + +However that may be, if he is ever immured for many weeks in a great +hospital, he will be surprised to find how many are the similarities +between its life, its discipline and its atmosphere, and those of the +great monasteries. I mean those mediæval houses which spread from the +parent at Monte Cassino to Citeaux and Cluny and Vezelay and thence to +far-away parts of Europe, and which were even more abundant in England +where the ruins of the Yorkshire Abbeys still attest to their former +power. When the time is ripe for the change longed for by our friend he +will find that very slight additions to a modern hospital will give him +what he wants in great perfection. + +Grateful though I am to them--deeply grateful--yet I know little of the +personal history of the founder of this great hospital which now +shelters me, or of that "Diamond Jim Brady" who built and endowed this +noble wing. Still, I feel sure that in many ways these benefactors to +their race made their gifts under much the same conditions as those +barons and nobles of old who, led by some deep feeling, devoted their +wealth to the saving, not only of their own souls, but of the souls and +bodies of their fellow men. + +Moreover, if the benefactors who founded and endowed this hospital +resembled the men and women who made possible the powerful monasteries +of the Middle Ages, there is also a resemblance to be found between the +service that the monks rendered in their day to humanity and knowledge +and that devotion which to-day inspires the staff of a great modern +hospital. In this very building are housed and in constant attendance a +large number of doctors, surgeons and orderlies. Their quarters, though +in many ways like those in a modern club, are almost equally like the +cells of a great monastery. There probably is not one of the staff who +was not turned to his profession in some degree by the thought that it +would make him of service to mankind. In another wing live several +hundred nurses. The strength and health and happiness which appear in +the faces of these young women attest to the good effect for women as +well as for men of discipline and regular attention to duty. What a +shining example is theirs of faithful and altruistic service to +suffering humanity! Indeed a generous, helpful and encouraging spirit +pervades all the men and women who form the staff of the hospital. +Theirs is a single-minded and unwearying attention which no monks could +have excelled, nor could the monasteries ever have offered a wider +charity than that which makes white and colored, Hebrew and Gentile, +poor and rich all objects of the kindly help of a skilful and devoted +company. + +I know that the kernel and very centre of the monastery was the lighted +altar in the chapel where daily the sacred mysteries were enacted. That +is what our friend will need to add to his perfected institution;--and +yet--and yet--I doubt if the atmosphere will be very different when that +is done. Although this place is world-famous as a centre of scientific +research and of applied science,--though, in general, religion here is +worked out in terms of service,--yet there are signs that the spirit has +recognition as well as the physical body. To-day, in the great entrance +rotunda stands a colossal and impressive statue of Christ, his hands +outstretched welcoming the weary and the heavy-laden. The several +hundred nurses have daily prayers together before they begin their +unselfish work. At the dawn of Christmas morning, the doctors, nurses +and orderlies make the halls resound with the carols suited to the day; +and we hear how one convalescent who was praising his doctor's power +over his ailments was surprised by the reply, "It was another power than +mine that did it!" Perhaps he meant that miraculous servant Radium; +perhaps he meant Nature herself; perhaps he meant something beyond +these. He did not explain. + +This devotion with which the staff is consecrated to altruistic labor is +met by a spirit of buoyant gratitude from those on whom they minister. +Our ward is vibrant with it. Perhaps this is not true at the very first. +The patient arrives in misery. For a few days he is perhaps made even +more miserable. But during this time he is in seclusion and not visible +to his comrades. Soon he rallies. In bed or wheel chair he joins other +convalescents on the roof terrace. They compare notes over their +operations. They settle among themselves all those great pending +questions which have been engrossing the active outside world and, +looking forward to returning health and strength, a very joyous spirit +pervades the group. These not too inviting surroundings abound, +therefore, in a hearty thankfulness--a thankfulness abundant and +sincere, and not unlike what it would be if it were offered amid solemn +rites and with majestic music before the glowing altar of a monastery. + +But in these early days of seclusion the lonely patient has opportunity +for much thinking. Lying in bed in a room which, as a recent writer +described it, is richly decorated with a white ceiling, four white +walls, a door, a window and a floor, he has indeed time for thought and +for thought without distraction. + +Surrounded as he is by the sick and the maimed, perhaps one of the first +subjects on which he is led to ponder is the mystery of Pain. What does +it all mean that a God otherwise beneficent should impose on the +creatures he has brought into the world illness and suffering? Even +Prince Siddartha wondered at it: + + "Since if, all powerful, he leaves it so, + He is not good; and if not powerful, + He is not God?" + +In better mood the patient may wonder whether his personal share of pain +is in any sense a penance or atonement for his own past sins. This is a +thought which is natural and acceptable perhaps to most minds. But the +Saints and Martyrs testifying to their faith went farther and not only +submitted to but gladly sought pain and suffering. Now pain and agony +well endured undoubtedly strengthen character. Have we not a vivid +example of this before us in the catastrophe of the European war; a war +which is saved from being wholly evil and dreadful because out of it has +come the spiritual regeneration of the allied nations who are engulfed +in it? Still it can hardly be expected that ordinary flesh and blood +should in this world, so full of love and beauty, invite and seek out +suffering and disaster even in order to bear them bravely. Enough for +most of us that if doomed to walk with them we + + "Turn the necessity to glorious gain." + +But all the same it must be a happy thing for a sufferer if he can hope +with the Martyrs that pain borne with fortitude may be offered as a +sacrifice and atonement. + +In these dull and lonely moments also one inevitably asks whether it is +true that people exist who are stolid to pain? One may consecrate it +before it comes and after it goes, but to most of us feeble folk pain +when present occupies the whole limelight and leaves the rest of the +stage in darkness! The only inmate of the hospital who stirred my temper +was a patient who on making a rapid recovery from what he described as +a very severe operation said he had refused ether and did not mind pain. +I regained my equanimity when an orderly confided to me that the +operation had been slight! + +In health one is apt to think that Love is the great motive power of +humanity. In illness and suffering Pain seems the great and pressing +problem. They often go hand in hand and perhaps it is true that without +them both life has not rendered its full wealth or its perfect +discipline. "The ennobling depths of pain" need also "the purifying fire +of love" to round out a perfect character. + + "Incomprehensibly Love's will doth move + Through this blind world in ways we cannot see, + Death giving birth to life. So does deep sorrow + Give birth to rarer joy on some glad morrow." + +These and many such questions can be as solemn, as perplexing and as +engrossing as any that exercised the inmates of the Monastery to which +we here find so much resemblance. As a contrast to such heart-searching +thoughts the patient can wonder at the properties of that radium by +which he may have been treated. How astonishing is it that this atom of +matter should constantly emit rays which search out and destroy evil +tissues and leave unharmed the good; and that they do this without any +perceptible diminution of energy! How contrary this is to all we have +hitherto known of the conservation of energy and of the impossibility +of obtaining perpetual motion or continued power! What is so contrary to +our preconceived ideas proves itself, however, by experience efficient +in an almost supernatural or miraculous manner. Perhaps fatigued by +these thoughts the patient can turn from them and closing his eyes begin +to count "The flock of sheep that leisurely pass by one after one" and +by happy chance submit himself to sleep. + +The roof terrace has a wide view over the City of Baltimore, as well as +of the heavens which encompass it. We sit there in our wheel chairs or +lie tucked up in our rolling beds and talk flows freely. We watch the +flocks of pigeons making endless circles in the upper air; the black and +solemn buzzards hanging above us unmoved though the gale blow ever so +fiercely; the cloud shadows moving over the panorama; the haze of mist +and steam and smoke floating over the City; the ever-changing pageant of +fleeting clouds and blue sky and blazing sunsets. At one time-- + + "And when the wind from place to place + Doth the unmoored cloud galleons chase"-- + +we follow the white fleets as they sail away towards the south, ever +replaced by new armadas surging up and over the northern horizon. At +another time in range beyond range of snowy clouds, we see rise before +us the Delectable Mountains beyond which is the Land of Beulah where the +shining ones go to and fro as messengers to the Celestial City. + +It is said that an eye unused to the telescope cannot see the canals on +the planet Mars, but that through the same instrument they are plainly +visible to an eye trained to such observation. Sometimes, when the +clouds have hung in white masses over the city, I have been eager to see +what was hidden by those luminous walls, but my untrained eyes could not +pierce them. Day after day, however, I became more familiar with them. +Others before now, without journeying like Columbus to prove the truth +of his visions, have, even by their own firesides, enjoyed Castles in +the Air and Châteaux and great possessions in Spain. In like manner as +the breeze moved the silver edges of the clouds, I had unexpectedly +through the rifts views of strange lands and fair cities which I had +never before seen or heard of. As they were indeed lovely, in all haste +I tried to make rapid notes of them to prove the truth of my strange +experience. + +Far to the north over Homewood, a pile of mountainous clouds was rent +for a short space by the breeze, and disclosed a Minster in a meadow +land. Its name seemed to be Upthorpe-cum-Regis. Its tower rose before me +over the busy life of the town and looked down on the mansion of the +Squire and the house of the Dean. Close around the walls of the Minster, +indeed within sound of its prayers and anthems, were clustered the +graves of the dead,--the former generations who had made the life of the +town and who built the church and worshipped at its altar. It was a town +in which the characters described by Trollope or George Eliot or Jane +Austen would have felt themselves at home. + +Again when a sunset was filling the western sky with "the incomparable +pomp of eve," a break in the clouds above the gilded towers of Cardinal +Gibbons's Cathedral disclosed an Italian town on a lovely lake shore. +Boats with colored sails lined the Riva of Ranconezzo. Two piazzas +teeming with life surrounded the Duomo or Cathedral and from them there +were wide views over lake and mountain scenery. It appears that in the +long ago, the Cardinal Schalchi-Visconti was the benefactor of this +town, and there on the hillside, tree embowered, was his villa with its +little port for the lake boats. His tomb I also saw, not in the Duomo, +but in the Bramantesque Church of Santa Prassede, a building resembling +the many small churches in northern Italy due to the refined influence +of Bramante. In my dreaming I entered the church, and found that the +great Cardinal lies beneath a tomb carved by Mino da Fiesole on the +north side of Santa Prassede. + +Then on a cool and crisp day when clouds were scudding through the sky, +between them there was revealed to me a French town that seemed to bear +the name of Rocher-St.-Pol. There was the river Merle winding its way +through meadow and woodland. A range of hills bounded the horizon and +from the plain rose the Rock. Not far away the ruined castle of "La Dame +Blanche" crowned a steep hill, and close to the town was the Château +Beaumesnil, beetling over the wooded hillside and bristling with conical +towers and burnished girouettes. The Grande Rue of Rocher-St.-Pol I saw +winding between gabled and half-timbered houses towards the church on +the summit, and finally a long flight of stairs called by the people +Jacob's ladder brings the pilgrim to the terrace in front of the church +door. The interior of Ste. Frédigonde showed me the same period of +French Gothic which marks the cathedrals of Notre Dame at Paris and +Rheims. Coming out from Jacob's ladder upon the Parvis, there was a wide +view over the meadows and the river. At the moment when the cathedral +door was disclosed to me, a procession of clergy bearing sacred relics +emerged from the church. It passed between the ranks of prophets and +martyrs whose effigies flank the portal, and vanished with its banners +and vestments down the long incline of Jacob's ladder towards the old +town. + +And finally came a dismal day, at the end of which the west was lined +with long streaks of red, and, just before sunset, through a lengthened +break in the gray, I seemed to see an Island in the far Ægean. I think +it must have been somewhere between the Ægina that looks across the +waters to the Athenian Acropolis and the Assos which my friends in their +youth dug from its grave. Let us call it Æginassos. Its buildings as I +dimly saw them are in a remarkable condition of preservation. The white +temple stood out on a promontory over the sea, and brought back to +memory the temple-crowned headland at Sunium. Higher on the +mountain-side was the Forum with its terraces and long colonnades. Steep +and winding paths descended to the ancient port, and far across the +water rose the heights of the Isles of Greece. + +Here are the records of what I was privileged to see from the roof +terrace of the Hospital. Made in bed or wheel chair and depending on the +passing imagination of an invalid, the sketches are of necessity crude. +Would that instead they were like the work of Claude or Turner, who were +the great experts at seeing visions in the clouds and in transferring +them to their paper! These drawings will, however, be a reminder that +idle hours can be passed happily even during a long captivity! Opposite +each drawing I have placed some quotations from various writers. +Although these do not describe with exactness the places which no eye +but mine has seen, yet they do picture others very like those which I +saw from the hospital terrace. + +A day at last arrived when the patient was suddenly released. After +being the object of tender care for many weeks the outer world seemed +very large and very hustling. It was with a certain timidity and almost +with reluctance that facing it all he left the peaceful quiet of the +Johns Hopkins Hospital. + + + SKETCHES + AT + THE + JOHNS HOPKINS + HOSPITAL + +[Illustration: + + "So shall the drudge in dusty frock + Spy behind the city clock + Retinues of airy things + Troops of angels, starry wings, + His fathers shining in bright fables + His children fed at heavenly tables." + OCTOBER 1915] + + + + +UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + + +THE RIVER + +IT was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down +together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them; +they would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would be always +like the holiday; they would always live together and be fond of each +other. And the mill with its booming--the great chestnut tree under +which they played at house--their own little river, the Ripple, where +the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing water-rats while +Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds which she forgot, and +dropped afterwards--above all, the great Floss, along which they +wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing spring-tide, the +awful Eagre, come up like a hungry monster, or to see the Great Ash +which had once wailed and groaned like a man--these things would always +be just the same to them. Tom thought people were at a disadvantage who +lived in any other spot of the globe; and Maggie when she read about +Christiana passing "the river over which there is no bridge," always saw +the Floss between the green pastures by the Great Ash. + + GEORGE ELIOT. + +[Illustration: I + +UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + +_The Minster and the Meadows_] + + +THE MINSTER + + STRONG as time, and as faith sublime,--clothed round with + shadows of hopes and fears, + Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion + of prayers and tears,-- + Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing + and waning years. + Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season + that blooms and glows, + Wall and roof of it tempest proof, and equal even to suns + and snows, + Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as + a straight stem grows. + A. SWINBURNE. + + +ELEGY + + NOW fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, + And all the air a solemn stillness holds, + Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, + And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; + + * * * * * + + Beneath these rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade + Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap + Each in his narrow cell forever laid, + The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. + + * * * * * + + The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, + The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, + The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, + No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. + GRAY. + + +THE CHURCHYARD + +IT was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the +cawing of the rooks who had built their nest among the branches of some +tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the air. +First one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung and +dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it would +seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to himself. +Another answered, and he called again, but louder than before; then +another spoke and then another; and each time the first, aggravated by +contradiction, insisted on his case more strongly. Other voices, silent +till now, struck in from boughs lower down and higher up and midway, and +to the right and left, and from the tree-tops; and others arriving +hastily from the grey church turrets and old belfry window, joined the +clamour which rose and fell, and swelled and dropped again, and still +went on; and all this noisy contention amidst a skimming to and fro, and +lighting on fresh branches, and frequent changes of place, which +satirized the old restlessness of those who lay so still beneath the +moss and turf below, and the useless strife in which they had worn away +their lives. + + CHARLES DICKENS. + + +[Illustration: II + +UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + +_The Church Yard_] + + +THE PARSON + +AS I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good +man whom I have just now mentioned? and without staying for my answer +told me, that he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at +his own table; for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at +the university to find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than +much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, +if possible, a man that understood a little of backgammon. "My friend," +says Sir Roger, found me out this gentleman, who, besides the endowments +required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though he does not +show it. I have given him the parsonage of the parish; and because I +know his value, have settled on him a good annuity for life. . . . + +At his first settling with me, I made him a present of all the good +sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that +every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly +he has digested them into such a series, that they follow one another +naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity. + +As Sir Roger was going on in his story, the gentleman we were talking of +came up to us, and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to-morrow, +for it was Saturday night, told us, the bishop of St. Asaph in the +morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then showed us his list of +preachers for the whole year, where I saw with a great deal of pleasure, +Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Calamy, with +several living authors who have published discourses of practical +divinity. + + ADDISON. + + +THE SWAN INN + +LAST night I lay at the Swan Inn in Lathbury town. A sad night I had of +it! My chamber was warmed fair enough by a fire of sea coal. There was a +sweet smell of lavender in the sheets which a hot warming pan had also +made comfortable. All this promised well, but Polly had forgot to put my +silk night cap into my saddlebags! That vexed me sore! All night I felt +I was taking a rheum. Some clodhoppers roystering in the tap room +forbade sleep at first and as I am not wont to hear the quarters +stricken the Abbey bells roused me at frequent intervals and made me +swear roundly. About midnight the Royal Mail rolled over the bridge with +a noise fit to wake the Seven Sleepers! The hoof beats of its cattle +echoed on the stone walls of the houses like a salute by His Majesty's +Footguards! How I ached for my quiet chambers in the Temple. At length I +fell to sleep and so sound that when I waked the sun had long been +shining through my lattice. I was late in meeting the Squire and the +Vicar, and that too after making express this arduous ride. Indeed I was +vexed--and I showed it. + + SWAIN'S _Old Salop._ + + +THE Swan is a venerable and rambling building, stretching itself lazily +with outspread arms; one of those inns (long may they be preserved from +the rebuilders!) on which one stumbles up or down into every room, and +where eggs and bacon have an appropriateness that make them a more +desirable food than ambrosia. The little parlor is wainscotted with the +votive paintings--a village Diploma Gallery--of artists who have made +the Swan their home. + + E. V. LUCAS. + +[Illustration: III + +UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + +_The Village_] + + +ONE almost expects to see a fine green moss all over an inhabitant of +Steyning. One day as I passed through the town I saw a man painting a +new sign over a shop, a proceeding that so aroused my curiosity that I +stood for a minute or two to look on. The painter filled in one letter, +gave a huge yawn, looked up and down two or three times as if he had +lost something, and finally descended from his perch and disappeared. +Five weeks later I passed that way again, and it is a fact that the same +man was at work on the same sign. Perhaps when the reader takes the walk +I am about to recommend to his attention--a walk which comprises some of +the finest scenery in Sussex--that sign will be finished, and the +accomplished artist will have begun another; but I doubt it. There is +plenty of time for everything in Steyning. + + LOUIS JENNINGS. + + +THE OLD COUNTRY HOUSE + +IF our old English folk could not get an arched roof, then they loved +to have it pointed, with polished timber beams on which the eye rested +as on looking upwards through a tree. Their rooms they liked of many +shapes, and not at right angles on the corners, nor all on the same +dead level of flooring. You had to go up a step into one, and down a +step into another, and along a winding passage into a third, so that +each part of the house had its individuality. To these houses life +fitted itself and grew to them; they were not mere walls, but became +part of existence. A man's house was not only his castle, a man's +house was himself. He could not tear himself away from his house, it +was like tearing up the shrieking mandrake by the root, almost death +itself. . . . Dark beams inlaid in the walls support the gables; the +slight curve of the great beam adds, I think, to the interest of the old +place, for it is a curve that has grown and was not premeditated; it has +grown like the bough of a tree, not from any set human design. This too +is the character of the house. It is not large, not overburdened with +gables, not ornamented, not what is called striking, in any way, but +simply an old English house, genuine and true. The warm sunlight falls +on the old red tiles, the dark beams look the darker for the glow of +light, the shapely cone of the hop-oust rises at the end; there are +swallows and flowers and ricks and horses, and so it is beautiful +because it is natural and honest. It is the simplicity that makes it so +touching, like the words of an old ballad . . . why even a tall +chanticleer makes a home look homely. I do like to see a tall proud +chanticleer strutting in the yard and barely giving way as I advance, +almost ready to do battle with a stranger like a mastiff. + + JEFFRIES, _Buckhurst Park._ + +[Illustration: IV + +UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + +_The Hall_] + + +THE BEDESMEN + +THERE he lies, Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the +great Examination Day. . . . Yonder sit some threescore old gentlemen +pensioners of the hospital, listening to the prayers and the psalms. You +hear them coughing feebly in the twilight,--the old reverend blackgowns. +. . . How solemn the well-remembered prayers are, here uttered again in +the place where in childhood we used to hear them! How beautiful, and +decorous the rite; how noble the ancient words of the supplications +which the priest utters, and to which generations of fresh children and +troops of bygone seniors have cried Amen! under those arches! The +service for Founder's Day is a special one; one of the psalms selected +being the thirty-seventh and we hear-- + +23. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth +in his way-- + +24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord +upholdeth him with his hand. + +25. I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous +forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. + + W. M. THACKERAY. + + +HIRAM'S HOSPITAL + +HIRAM'S HOSPITAL, as the retreat is called, is a picturesque building +enough, and shows the correct taste with which the ecclesiastical +architects of those days were imbued. It stands on the banks of the +little river, which flows nearly round the cathedral close, being on the +side furthest from the town. The London road crosses the river by a +pretty one-arched bridge, and looking from this bridge, the stranger +will see the windows of the old men's rooms, each pair of windows +separated by a small buttress. A broad gravel walk runs between the +building and the river, which is always trim and cared for; and at the +end of the walk, under the parapet of the approach to the bridge, is a +large and well-worn seat, on which, in mild weather three or four of +Hiram's bedesmen are sure to be seen seated. Beyond this row of +buttresses, and further from the bridge and also further from the water +which here suddenly bends, are the pretty oriel windows of Mr. Harding's +house, and his well mown lawn. The entrance to the hospital is from the +London road and is made through a ponderous gateway under a heavy stone +arch, unnecessary, one would suppose, at any time, for the protection of +twelve old men, but greatly conducive to the good appearance of Hiram's +charity. On passing through this portal, never closed to any one from +six A.M. till ten P.M., and never open afterwards, except on application +to a huge, intricately hung mediæval bell, the handle of which no +un-initiated intruder can possibly find, the six doors of the old men's +abodes are seen, and beyond them is a slight iron screen, through which +the more happy portion of the Barchester élite pass into the Elysium of +Mr. Harding's dwelling. + + ANTHONY TROLLOPE, _The Warden._ + +[Illustration: V + +UPTHORPE-CUM-REGIS + +_Trong's Almshouses_] + + + + +RANCONEZZO + + +SIRMIONE + + ROW us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row! + So they row'd, and there we landed--"O venusta Sirmio!" + There to me thro' all the groves of olive in the summer glow, + There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow, + Came that "Ave atque Vale" of the Poet's hopeless woe, + Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago, + "Frater Ave atque Vale"--as we wandered to and fro + Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda lake below + Sweet Catullus's all-but-island, olive silvery Sirmio. + ALFRED TENNYSON. + +[Illustration: VI + +RANCONEZZO + +_The Town and the Lake_] + + +THE ITALIAN LAKES + +HE who loves immense space, cloud shadows sailing over purple slopes, +island gardens, distant glimpses of snow-capped mountains, breadth, air, +immensity, and flooding sunlight, will choose Maggiore. But scarcely has +he cast his vote for this, the Juno of the divine rivals, when he +remembers the triple lovelinesses of the Larian Aphrodite, disclosed in +all their placid grace from Villa Serbelloni;--the green blue of the +waters, clear as glass, opaque through depth; the _millefleurs_ roses +clambering into cypresses by Cadenabbia; the laburnums hanging their +yellow clusters from the clefts of Sasso Rancio; the oleander arcades of +Varenna; the wild white limestone crags of San Martino, which he has +climbed to feast his eyes with the perspective, magical, serene, +Leonardesquely perfect, of the distant gates of Adda. Then while this +modern Paris is yet doubting, perhaps a thought may cross his mind of +sterner solitary Lake Iseo--the Pallas of the three. She offers her own +attractions. The sublimity of Monte Adamello, dominating Lovere and all +the lowland like Hesiod's hill of Virtue reared aloft above the plain of +common life, has charms to tempt heroic lovers. + + SYMONDS, _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece._ + + +PIAZZA GARIBALDI + +THE painter may transfer its campanile, glittering like dragon's scales, +to his canvas. The lover of the picturesque will wander through its +aisle at mass-time, watching the sunlight play upon those upturned +Southern faces with their ardent eyes; and happy is he who sees young +men and maidens on Whit Sunday crowding round the chancel rails, to +catch the marigolds and gillyflowers scattered from baskets which the +priest has blessed. + + SYMONDS, _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece._ + + +DOWN IN THE CITY + + IS it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and + splash! + In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows + flash + On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle + and pash + Round the lady atop in the conch--fifty gazers do not abash, + Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a + sort of a sash! + + Ere opening your eyes in the city the blessed church-bells begin: + No sooner the bells leave off, than the diligence rattles in: + You get the picks of the news, and it costs you never a pin. + By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, + draws teeth; + Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. + At the post-office such a scene-picture--the new play, piping hot! + And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were + shot. + + * * * * * + + Noon strikes,--here sweeps the procession! Our lady borne smiling + and smart + With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her + heart! + _Bang, whang, whang_, goes the drum; _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife; + Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! + ROBERT BROWNING. + +[Illustration: VII + +RANCONEZZO + +_Piazza Garibaldi_] + + +PIAZZA CAVOUR + +THE changes of scene upon this tiny square are so frequent as to remind +one of a theatre. Looking down from the inn-balcony, between the glazy +green pots gay with scarlet amaryllis-bloom, we are inclined to fancy +that the whole has been prepared for our amusement. In the morning the +cover for the macaroni-flour, after being washed, is spread out on the +bricks to dry. In the afternoon the fishermen bring their nets for the +same purpose. In the evening the city magnates promenade and whisper. +Dark-eyed women, with orange or crimson kerchiefs for headgear, cross +and re-cross, bearing baskets on their shoulders. Great lazy large +limbed fellows, girt with scarlet sashes and finished off with dark blue +night-caps (for a contrast to their saffron-colored shirts, white +breeches and sunburnt calves), slouch about or sleep face downwards on +the parapets. + + SYMONDS, _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece._ + +[Illustration: VIII + +RANCONEZZO + +_Piazza Cavour_] + + +A ROMANESQUE DOORWAY + + * * * * * + +HOW the hand of Time has mellowed the ruddy brick and the marble's +whiteness until ivory and rose blend and are in harmony with those +stained and faded frescoes which still remain in the panels of the upper +walls. Columns of veined marble stand in ranks on either side of the +entrance. They are mounted on the backs of stiff-maned lions. Fit +supporters are these for the arches of the Sanctuary as, at its very +door, with claw and tooth they tear to pieces the bestial forms of vice +and ignorance. Above rise the moulded archivolts, tier on tier, clothed +with vine and tendril and peopled with bird and beast. These may be +uncouth in form, but the rude hands that fashioned them learned their +lesson at the feet of Nature. What there is of convention in arrangement +or in pattern has flowed hither through the East from the original +fountains of Greece and Rome but now at last all moves in freedom and +without restraint. As in the short nights of the North sunrise follows +fast upon the setting of the sun, so here though we see in this work the +sunset of the Antique yet it is already aglow with light from the coming +dawn of Mediæval Art. + + ROBERTS, _Italian Sketches._ + +[Illustration: IX + +RANCONEZZO + +_North Door of Duomo_] + + +LEAVES FROM MY JOURNAL + +FLORENCE is more noisy; indeed, I think it the noisiest town I was ever +in. What with the continual jangling of its bells, the rattle of +Austrian drums, and the street cries, _Ancora mi raccapriccio_. The +Italians are a vociferous people, and most so among them the +Florentines. Walking through a back street one day, I saw an old woman +higgling with a peripatetic dealer, who, at every interval afforded him +by the remarks of his veteran antagonist, would tip his head on one +side, and shout, with a kind of wondering enthusiasm, as if he could +hardly trust the evidence of his own senses to such loveliness, _O, che +bellezza! che belle-e-ezza!_ The two had been contending as obstinately +as the Greeks and Trojans over the body of Patroclus, and I was curious +to know what was the object of so much desire on the one side and +admiration on the other. It was a half dozen of weazeny baked pears, +beggarly remnant of the day's traffic. . . . It never struck me before +what a quiet people Americans are. + + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + +WITHIN THE DUOMO + +THE semi-dome of the eastern apse above the high altar is entirely +filled with a gigantic half-length figure of Christ. He raises His right +hand to bless and with His left holds an open book on which is written +in Greek and Latin, "I am the Light of the world." . . . Below him on a +smaller scale are ranged the archangels and the mother of the Lord, who +holds the child upon her knees. Thus Christ appears twice upon this +wall, once as the Omnipotent Wisdom, the Word by whom all things were +made, and once as God deigning to assume a shape of flesh and dwell with +men. The magnificent image of supreme Deity seems to fill with a single +influence and to dominate the whole building. The house with all its +glory is his. He dwells there like Pallas in her Parthenon or Zeus in +his Olympian temple. To left and right over every square inch of the +cathedral blaze mosaics, which portray the story of God's dealings with +the human race from the Creation downwards, together with those angelic +beings and saints who symbolize each in his own degree some special +virtue granted to mankind. The walls of the fane are therefore an open +book of history, theology and ethics for all men to read. + + SYMONDS, _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece._ + +[Illustration: X + +RANCONEZZO + +_Interior of the Duomo_] + + +FROM "A LEGEND OF BRITTANY" + + DEEPER and deeper shudders shook the air, + As the huge bass kept gathering heavily, + Like thunder when it rouses in its lair, + And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky, + It grew up like a darkness everywhere, + Filling the vast cathedral;--suddenly + From the dense mass a boy's clear treble broke + Like lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke. + + Through gorgeous windows shone the sun aslant, + Brimming the church with gold and purple mist. + Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant, + Where fifty voices in one strand did twist + Their varicolored tones and left no want + To the delighted soul, which sank abyssed + In the warm music cloud, while, far below, + The organ heaved its surges to and fro. + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + +THE VILLA + + OUR villa . . . + . . . lies on the slope of the Alban hill; + Lifting its white face, sunny and still, + Out of the olives' pale gray green, + That, far away as the eye can go, + Stretch up behind it, row upon row. + There in the garden the cypresses, stirred + By the sifting winds, half musing talk, + And the cool, fresh, constant voice is heard + Of the fountain's spilling in every walk. + There stately the oleanders grow, + And one long gray wall is aglow + With golden oranges burning between + Their dark stiff leaves of sombre green. + And there are hedges all clipped and square, + As carven from blocks of malachite, + Where fountains keep spinning their threads of light + And statues whiten the shadow there. + And if the sun too fiercely shine, + And one would creep from its noonday glare, + There are galleries dark, where ilexes twine + Their branchy roofs above the head. + W. W. STORY. + +[Illustration: XI + +RANCONEZZO + +_The Villa of the Cardinal Schalchi-Visconti_] + + +TRULY everything here has a dramatic character. The smallness and grace +of this little church gleaming with colour, its chapels and grottoes +like a spiritual vision, such as I have never found elsewhere in the +whole field of religious conception. It is an illustrated picture-book +of poetical legends, which are bloodless and painless, though fantastic, +like the lives of pious anchorites in the wilderness, and amid the birds +of the field. Here Religion treads on the borders of fairy-land, and +brings an indescribable atmosphere away from thence. + + GREGOROVIUS. + + +BRAMANTE + + FEW words record Bramante's great command, + As from some mountain silence set apart, + He blazed a trail along the way of art, + Upheld the torch and led his little band. + + He spoke alone to those who understand, + Not cheapening words within the public mart, + Living withdrawn, a high and humble heart, + Creating loveliness for his loved land. + + Though he dwelt cloistered in his northern home, + When he strode forth it was with unveiled face, + To rear a fabric that may crumble never. + + They called him "Master" when he wrought in Rome + And with earth's greatest ones shall labor ever + The hand that gave to Lombardy her grace. + MARION MONKS CHASE. + +[Illustration: XII + +RANCONEZZO + +_Santa Prassede, the Cardinal's Church_] + + +IL PENSEROSO + + BUT let my due feet never fail + To walk the studious cloister's pale, + And love the high embowèd roof, + With antick pillars massy proof, + And storied windows richly dight, + Casting a dim religious light. + There let the pealing organ blow + To the full-voiced Quire below, + In service high and anthems clear, + As may with sweetness, through mine ear, + Dissolve me into ecstacies, + And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. + MILTON. + +[Illustration: XIII + +RANCONEZZO + +_The Cloisters of Santa Prassede_] + + +THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB IN SANTA PRASSEDE + + YET still my niche is not so cramped but thence + One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side + And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, + And up into the aery dome, where live + The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk; + And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, + And neath my tabernacle take my rest, + With those nine columns round me, two and two, + The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands; + Peach blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe + As fresh poured red wine of a mighty pulse. + Old Gandolph with his paltry onion-stone + Put me where I may look at him! True peach, + Rosy and faultless: . . . + + * * * * * + + Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black + 'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else + Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? + The bas-relief in bronze you promised me, + Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance + Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, + The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, + Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan + Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, + And Moses with the tables,--but I know + Ye mark me not! + ROBERT BROWNING. + +[Illustration: XIV + +RANCONEZZO + +_The Tomb of Cardinal Schalchi-Visconti in Santa Prassede_] + + + + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + + +FRENCH TOWNS + +IT is a drowsy little Burgundian town, very old and ripe, with crooked +streets, vistas always oblique, and steep moss-covered roofs. . . . I +carried away from Beaune the impression of something autumnal,--something +rusty yet kindly, like the taste of a sweet russet pear. + + * * * * * + +At Le Mans as at Bourges, my first business was with the cathedral, to +which I lost no time in directing my steps. . . . It stands on the edge +of the eminence of the town, which falls straight away on two sides of +it, and makes a striking mass, bristling behind, as you see it from +below, with rather small but singularly numerous flying buttresses. On +my way to it I happened to walk through the one street which contains a +few ancient and curious houses,--a very crooked and untidy lane, of +really mediæval aspect, honored with the denomination of the Grand Rue. +Here is the house of Queen Berengaria. . . . The structure in +question--very sketchable, if the sketcher could get far enough away +from it--is an elaborate little dusky façade, overhanging the street, +ornamented with panels of stone, which are covered with delicate +Renaissance sculpture. A fat old woman, standing in the door of a small +grocer's shop next to it,--a most gracious old woman, with a +bristling moustache and a charming manner,--told me what the house +was. + + * * * * * + +This admirable house, in the centre of the town, gabled, elaborately +timbered, and much restored, is a really imposing monument. The basement +is occupied by a linen-draper, who flourishes under the auspicious sign +of the Mère de Famille; and above her shop the tall front rises in five +overhanging stories. As the house occupies the angle of a little +_place_, the front is double, and carved and interlaced, has a high +picturesqueness. The Maison d'Adam is quite in the grand style, and I am +sorry to say I failed to learn what history attaches to its name. + + * * * * * + +I remember going around to the church, after I had left the good +sisters, and to a little quiet terrace, which stands in front of it, +ornamented with a few small trees and bordered with a wall, breast high, +over which you look down steep hillsides, off into the air, and all +about the neighboring country. I remember saying to myself that this +little terrace was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist of +taste keeps in his mind as a picture. + + HENRY JAMES, _A Little Tour in France._ + + +[Illustration: XV + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_The Town and the River Merle_] + + +A COUNTRY TOWN + +THEY wake you early in this hilly town. It was hardly light this morning +when up and down through all its highways went a vigorous drum beat. +Reluctantly peeking from the window to see the troops enter our square I +was disappointed to find that one regimental drummer, marching +unaccompanied and lonely, had done all this mischief. What useful +purpose did he serve? After a brief respite and repose the noise of +another commotion came in with the morning air; a murmur which grew and +became a chatter and at last a din! The next journey to the window +showed that the morning market was in full swing. Piles of fresh greens +and rich-colored vegetables were tended by gnarled old peasant women +sitting under widespread umbrellas of faded colors. But what a pleasant +air it was that came through the opened sash; a mountain air with just +that faint flavor of garlic tinging it which presages something +satisfying to be found later. Strengthened for a time by our coffee and +rolls we wandered through these winding streets. We saw the +weather-beaten, leaden flèche of the cathedral high on the hill, but for +the time were satisfied to study the many ancient houses which still +remain. Their fronts framed in dark oak with a filling of amber-colored +plaster topple over the public ways until they almost meet. Here and +there the oak beams are carved, and grinning man or snarling monster +regards you from corbel or boss. In places too there are bits of old +Gothic detail and one doorway of true Flamboyant work. There is the true +poetry of architecture! In England the Decorated Period gives you what +is handsome, the Perpendicular what is stately. In France the +cathedrals of Paris and of Rheims are splendidly serious and correct; +but if in Gothic work you seek imaginative, unrestrained, carelessly +free poetry it is to be found in the flowing lines and exuberant fancy +of the work of the Flamboyant period. + +[Illustration: XVI + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_La Grande Rue and La Place de la République_] + +We found much needed restoration in the hors-d'oeuvres, the omelette, +the cutlet, the salads and the cheese of déjeuner,--and then followed +coffee under the awning of the café. Here we looked out on the Grand +Place which had now become sleepy, all signs of the market and its +business having disappeared. On it front the Mairie, the Bureau des +Postes, the Hôtel du Lion d'Or and various centres of local commerce. We +watched our neighbors in the café; the colonel with clanking sword in +vigorous discussion with a local magnate; the retired bourgeois who +played a desultory game of billiards or a deeply thought out match at +dominoes. A quiet square it was now, and, in the shade of its plane +trees, comfortable and at peace with the world, we fell asleep and made +up for the wakefulness of our earlier hours. + + ROBERTS, _Letters from France._ + + +OUR LADY OF THE ROCKS + + HIGH throned above th' encircling meadows fair + Our Lady of the Rocks holds queenly sway! + Bright kerchiefed peasants daily wend their way + With clattering sabots up the winding stair, + Pausing at each rude rock-hewn station, there + To bend the knee and many an Ave say. + Up, up they climb, their voices echoing gay + Till by the Virgin's shrine they kneel in prayer. + + This is that "Jacob's Ladder" famed afar + To which the Kings of France made pilgrimage + Asking for favors both in Peace and War. + Well named!--for Heavenwards the way is tending, + And all these happy, pious folk presage + Angels of God ascending and descending. + H. L. P. + + + BUT, when so sad thou canst no sadder, + Cry, and upon thy so sore loss + Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder + Pitched between heaven and Charing Cross. + + So in the night my soul, my daughter, + Cry, clinging heaven by the hems, + And lo! Christ walking on the water + Not of Gennesaret but Thames. + FRANCIS THOMPSON. + +[Illustration: XVII + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_L'escalier de Jacob_] + + + OFT have I seen at some cathedral door + A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, + Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet + Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor + Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; + Far off the noises of the world retreat; + The loud vociferations of the street + Become an undistinguishable roar. + So as I enter here from day to day, + And leave my burden at this minster gate, + Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, + The tumult of the time disconsolate + To inarticulate murmurs dies away, + While the eternal ages watch and wait. + + How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! + This crowd of statues, on whose folded sleeves + Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves + Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers + And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! + But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves + Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, + And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! + Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, + What exultations trampling on despair, + What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, + What passionate outcry of the soul in pain + Uprose this poem of the earth and air, + This mediæval miracle of song! + H. W. LONGFELLOW. + +[Illustration: XVIII + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_Le Parvis de Ste Frédigonde_] + + +THE CATHEDRAL + + LOOKING up suddenly, I found mine eyes + Confronted with the minster's vast repose. + Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff + Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat. + + * * * * * + + It rose before me, patiently remote + From the great tides of life it breasted once, + Hearing the noise of men as in a dream + I stood before the triple northern port, + Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings, + Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch, + Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say, + _Ye come and go incessant; we remain + Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; + Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, + Of faith so nobly realized as this._ + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + +CHARTRES + +ALL day the sky had been banked with thunderclouds, but by the time we +reached Chartres, toward four o'clock, they had rolled away under the +horizon, and the town was so saturated with sunlight that to pass into +the cathedral was like entering the dense obscurity of a church in +Spain. At first all detail was imperceptible: we were in a hollow night. +Then, as the shadows gradually thinned and gathered themselves up into +pier and vault and ribbing, there burst out of them great sheets and +showers of color. Framed by such depths of darkness, and steeped in a +blaze of mid-summer sun, the familiar windows seemed singularly remote +and yet overpoweringly vivid. Now they widened into dark-shored pools +splashed with sunset, now glittered and menaced like the shields of +fighting angels. Some were cataracts of sapphires, others roses dropped +from a saint's tunic, others great carven platters strewn with heavenly +regalia, others the sails of galleons bound for the Purple Islands; and +in the western wall the scattered fires of the rose window hung like a +constellation in an African night. When one dropped one's eyes from +these ethereal harmonies, the dark masses of masonry below them, all +veiled and muffled in a mist pricked by a few altar lights, seemed to +symbolize the life on earth, with its shadows, its heavy distances and +its little islands of illusions. All that a great cathedral can be, all +the meanings it can express, all the tranquillizing power it can breathe +upon the soul, all the richness of detail it can fuse into a large +utterance of strength and beauty, the cathedral of Chartres gave us in +that perfect hour. + + EDITH WHARTON, _Fighting France._ + +[Illustration: XIX + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_Interior of the Church of Ste Frédigonde_] + + +AT HIGH MASS + + THOU Who hast made this world so wondrous fair;-- + The pomp of clouds; the glory of the sea; + Music of water; songbirds' melody; + The organ of Thy thunder in the air; + Breath of the rose; and beauty everywhere-- + Lord, take this stately service done to Thee, + The grave enactment of Thy Calvary + In jewelled pomp and splendor pictured there! + + Lord, take the sounds and sights; the silk and gold; + The white and scarlet; take the reverent grace + Of ordered step; window and glowing wall-- + Prophet and Prelate, holy men of old; + And teach us children of the Holy Place + Who love Thy Courts, to love Thee best of all. + ROBERT HUGH BENSON. + + +THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE + +ALL else for which the builders sacrificed, has passed away--all their +living interests, and aims, and achievements. We know not for what they +labored, and we see no evidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, +authority, happiness--all have departed, though bought by many a bitter +sacrifice. But of them, and their life and their toil upon the earth, +one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those gray heaps of +deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them to the grave their powers, +their honors, and their errors; but they have left us their adoration. + + JOHN RUSKIN. + +[Illustration: XX + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_Sacristy Steps in the Church of Ste Frédigonde_] + + +HUNTING THE STAG + +WE spent yesterday in the Forêt de C----. As the Emperor had guests we +were not admitted at the Château, but we tramped for long through the +woods. The grassy roads run beneath the embowering beeches straight from +carrefour to carrefour. The gnarled and twisted trunks give to each tree +a personal character and make it a master-piece of Nature. Of a sudden +we came on the Imperial hunt winding in gay procession through the +forest to its rendezvous. Hunting horns in triple rings of brass +encircled the leading horsemen. From time to time we heard from them the +familiar strains which echo through the Latin Quarter at Mi-Carême. Then +followed in brilliant liveries a troop of lackeys, grooms, and other +servants, and the pack of staghounds held in leash but sniffing and +yelping. Next came the hunters themselves on high-bred mounts and in +court costumes of ancient design. Lastly there were barouches and +landaus carrying the ladies of the Court "en grande tenue." The sunlight +flickering through the beech branches enlivened this brilliant train as +it wound through the forest glades and disappeared down a green allée. + +We had continued our walk for scarce a mile when, but a short distance +from us, a stag crossed our path--stood startled--with head erect,--and +then with confident leaps vanished in the forest just as the distant +hounds became aware of him and joined in a wild chorus. In a few moments +the pack came in a rush across our path. Up the different allées rode +the horsemen in haste--asking of us news of the stag. We on foot joined +in the pursuit,--but at last the forest swallowed one after the +other, stag, and hounds, and hunters, and the sound of dog and horn. + +[Illustration: XXI + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_The Château Beaumesnil_] + +On leaving the forest we passed the small Château. Its conical turret +roofs and lofty chimneys, and its flashing finials and girouettes make a +brave show above the forest trees. The terraces overlook wide meadow +lands through which the river winds until it is lost in the hazy +distance. + + ROBERTS, _Letters from France._ + +CLOTILDE + + IN Geraudun were brothers three, + They had one sister dear; + The cruel Baron her lord must be, + And the fellest and fiercest knight is he + In the country far or near. + + He beat that lovely lady sore + With a staff of the apple green, + Till her blood flowed down on the castle floor, + And from head to foot the crimson gore + On her milk-white robe was seen. + + * * * * * + + Her robe was stained with the ruby tide + Once pure as the fleece so white; + And she hied her to the river-side + To wash in the waters bright. + + While there she stood three knights so gay + Came riding bold and free. + "Ho! tell us young serving maiden, pray + Where yon castle's lady may be?" + + "Alas! no serving maid am I, + But the lady of yonder castle high!" + + "O sister, sister, truly tell + Who did this wrong to thee?" + + "Dear brothers it was the husband fell + To whom you married me." + + * * * * * + + The brothers spurred their steeds in haste + And the castle soon they gained. + From chamber to chamber they swiftly passed + Nor paused till they reached the tower at last + Where the felon knight remained: + + They drew their swords so sharp and bright + They thought on their sister sweet; + They struck together the felon knight, + And his head rolled at their feet! + _Translated by_ LOUIS S. COSTELLO. + +[Illustration: XXII + +ROCHER-ST.-POL + +_La Tour de la Dame Blanche_] + + + + +AEGINASSOS + + +THE ISLES OF GREECE + + THE isles of Greece! The isles of Greece! + Where burning Sappho loved and sung,-- + Where grew the arts of war and peace,-- + Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung! + Eternal summer gilds them yet + But all, except their sun, is set. + BYRON. + + +THE ODYSSEY + + AS one that for a weary space has lain + Lull'd by the song of Circe and her wine + In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, + Where the Ægean isle forgets the main, + And only the low lutes of love complain, + And only shadows of wan lovers pine,-- + As such an one were glad to know the brine + Salt on his lips, and the large air again,-- + So gladly from the songs of modern speech + Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free + Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers, + And through the music of the languid hours + They hear, like Ocean on a western beach, + The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. + ANDREW LANG. + +[Illustration: XXIII + +AEGINASSOS + +_The Temple and the Forum_] + + +ULYSSES + + * * * * * + + THERE lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; + There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, + Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me-- + That ever with a frolic welcome took + The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed + Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old; + Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; + Death closes all; but something ere the end, + Some work of noble note, may yet be done, + Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. + The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; + The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs: the deep + Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, + 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. + Push off, and sitting well in order smite + The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds + To sail beyond the sunset, and the paths + Of all the western stars, until I die. + It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; + It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, + And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. + Though much is taken, much abides; and though + We are not now that strength which in old days + Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; + One equal temper of heroic hearts, + Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will + To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. + ALFRED TENNYSON. + +[Illustration: XXIV + +AEGINASSOS + +_The Temple and the Forum_] + + + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS + U . S . A + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Text uses both Aeginossis and Æginassos. + +Page 25, "Leornardesquely" changed to "Leonardesquely" (Leonardesquely +perfect, of) + +Page 65, "hors-oeuvres" changed to "hors d'oeuvres" (in the +hors-d'oeuvres) + +Page 65, "d'éjeuner" changed to "déjeuner" (cheese of déjeuner) + +Page 90, "Ææan" changed to "Ægean" (the Ægean isle) + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Hospital Sketches, by Robert Swain Peabody + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOSPITAL SKETCHES *** + +***** This file should be named 35289-8.txt or 35289-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/8/35289/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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