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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lure of the Camera, by Charles S. Olcott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lure of the Camera
+
+Author: Charles S. Olcott
+
+Release Date: April 25, 2011 [EBook #35960]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LURE OF THE CAMERA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Greg Bergquist and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+The following typographical errors have been corrected:
+
+    Page 75: "It was to this charming valley that Walter Scott came,
+      with his young wife, in the first year of their wedded life." 'to'
+      amended from 'to to'.
+
+    Page 108: "We believe that many changes in the conditions of life
+      and labour are needed, and are coming to pass ..." 'needed' amended
+      from 'neeeded'.
+
+    Page 114: "At sight of this group of buildings one almost expects
+      to catch a glimpse of the well-meaning but not over-wise Mrs.
+      Thornburgh ..." 'buildings' amended from 'buidings'.
+
+    Page 249: "... everything that makes us see across our poor lives a
+      splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of
+      simplicity, those who have made another object of their desires
+      than the passing satisfaction and vanity ..." 'splendid' amended
+      from 'spendid'.
+
+
+
+
+  By Charles S. Olcott
+
+
+  THE LURE OF THE CAMERA. Illustrated.
+
+  THE COUNTRY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Illustrated.
+
+
+  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+  THE LURE OF THE CAMERA
+
+
+  [Illustration: THE STEPPING STONES]
+
+
+
+
+  THE LURE OF THE CAMERA
+
+          BY
+  CHARLES S. OLCOTT
+
+  _Author of "George Eliot: Scenes and People of
+  her Novels" and "The Country
+  of Sir Walter Scott"_
+
+  ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
+  BY THE AUTHOR
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+      BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+    HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+  The Riverside Press Cambridge
+             1914
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY CHARLES S. OLCOTT
+
+          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+      _Published September 1914_
+
+
+
+
+          TO MY BOYS
+   GAGE, CHARLES, AND HOWARD
+  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY
+           DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The difference between a ramble and a journey is about the same as that
+between pleasure and business. When you go anywhere for a serious
+purpose, you make a journey; but if you go for pleasure (and don't take
+the pleasure too seriously, as many do) you only ramble.
+
+The sketches in this volume, which takes its name from the first
+chapter, are based upon "rambles," which were for the most part merely
+incidental excursions, made possible by various "journeys" undertaken
+for more serious purposes. It has been the practice of the author for
+many years to carry a camera on his travels, so that, if chance should
+take him within easy distance of some place of literary, historic, or
+scenic interest, he might not miss the opportunity to pursue his
+favorite avocation.
+
+If the reader is asked to make long flights, as from Scotland to Italy,
+then back, across the Atlantic, to New England, and thence overland to
+Wyoming and Arizona, he must remember that ramblers take no account of
+distance or direction. In this case they must take no account of time,
+for these rambles are but the chance happenings that have occurred at
+intervals in a period of more than a dozen years.
+
+People who are in a hurry, and those who in traveling seek to "do" the
+largest number of places in the shortest number of days, are advised not
+to travel with an amateur photographer. Not only must he have leisure to
+find and study his subjects, but he is likely to wander away from the
+well-worn paths and use up his time in making inquiries, in a fashion
+quite exasperating to the tourist absorbed in his itinerary.
+
+The rambles here chronicled could not possibly be organized into an
+itinerary or moulded into a guidebook. The author simply invites those
+who have inclinations similar to his own, to wander with him, away from
+the customary paths of travel, and into the homes of certain
+distinguished authors or the scenes of their writings, and to visit with
+him various places of historic interest or natural beauty, without a
+thought of maps, distances, time-tables, or the toil and dust of travel.
+This is the real essence of rambling.
+
+The chapter on "The Country of Mrs. Humphry Ward" was published
+originally in _The Outlook_ in 1909, and "A Day in Wordsworth's
+Country," in the same magazine in 1910.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     I. THE LURE OF THE CAMERA                         1
+
+    II. LITERARY RAMBLES IN GREAT BRITAIN             15
+
+       English Courtesy--The George Eliot
+       Country--Experiences in Rural England.
+       Overcoming Obstacles--A London
+       "Bobby"--Carlyle's Birthplace--The Country of
+       Scott and Burns
+
+   III. A DAY IN WORDSWORTH'S COUNTRY                49
+
+    IV. FROM HAWTHORNDEN TO ROSLIN GLEN              73
+
+     V. THE COUNTRY OF MRS. HUMPHRY WARD             93
+
+        I. MRS. WARD AND HER WORK                    95
+
+       II. THE REAL ROBERT ELSMERE                  110
+
+      III. OTHER PEOPLE AND SCENERY                 128
+
+    VI. A TOUR OF THE ITALIAN LAKES                 147
+
+   VII. LITERARY LANDMARKS OF NEW ENGLAND           175
+
+       I. CONCORD                                   179
+
+      II. SALEM                                     196
+
+     III. PORTSMOUTH                                207
+
+      IV. THE ISLES OF SHOALS                       222
+
+  VIII. A DAY WITH JOHN BURROUGHS                   233
+
+    IX. GLIMPSES OF THE YELLOWSTONE                 251
+
+     X. THE GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA                  271
+
+  INDEX      297
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  THE STEPPING STONES                                     _Frontispiece_
+
+    On the River Rothay, near Ambleside, England, and below Fox How,
+    the home of Thomas Arnold of Rugby, grandfather of Mrs. Humphry
+    Ward. One of the scenes in "Robert Elsmere" was suggested by
+    these stones.
+
+  A PATH IN BRETTON WOODS                                             10
+
+    White Mountains, N.H.
+
+  PROFILE LAKE                                                        12
+
+    Showing the Old Man of the Mountains.
+
+    In the Franconia Notch, White Mountains, N.H. The profile
+    suggested to Hawthorne the tale of "The Great Stone Face."
+
+  THE GRAND SALOON, ARBURY HALL                                       22
+
+    Near Nuneaton, England. The original of Cheverel Manor, in
+    George Eliot's "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story."
+
+  A SCHOOL IN NUNEATON                                                30
+
+    Where George Eliot attended school in her eighth or ninth year.
+
+  THE BROMLEY-DAVENPORT ARMS                                          34
+
+    In Ellastone, England, the original of the "Donnithorne Arms" of
+    "Adam Bede."
+
+  THE BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT BURNS                                      40
+
+    In Ayrshire, Scotland. The poet was born here January 25, 1759.
+    The left of the building is the cottage of two rooms where the
+    family lived. Adjoining, on the right, is the "byre," or
+    cow-house.
+
+  THE BURNS MONUMENT, AYRSHIRE                                        44
+
+    The monument was built in 1820. It is sixty feet high, and
+    almost an exact duplicate of the monument in Edinburgh.
+
+  THE BRIG O' DOON, AYRSHIRE                                          48
+
+    The bridge over which Tam o' Shanter rode to escape the witches.
+
+  GRASMERE LAKE                                                       60
+
+    "For rest of body perfect was the spot."
+
+  DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE                                              64
+
+    Wordsworth's home for eight years. The view is from the garden
+    in the rear of the cottage.
+
+  WORDSWORTH'S WELL                                                   68
+
+    In the garden of Dove Cottage, where the poet placed "bright
+    gowan and marsh marigold" brought from the border of the lake.
+
+  HAWTHORNDEN                                                         76
+
+    The home of the Drummond family, on the banks of the Esk,
+    Scotland.
+
+  THE SYCAMORE                                                        80
+
+    The tree at Hawthornden under which William Drummond met Ben
+    Jonson.
+
+  RUINS OF ROSLIN CASTLE                                              86
+
+    In Roslin Glen overlooking the Esk.
+
+  MRS. HUMPHRY WARD AND MISS DOROTHY WARD                             96
+
+    At the villa in Cadenabbia, overlooking Lake Como, where Mrs.
+    Ward wrote "Lady Rose's Daughter."
+
+  "UNDER LOUGHRIGG"                                                  100
+
+    The view from the study window of Thomas Arnold at Fox How.
+
+  THE PASSMORE EDWARDS SETTLEMENT HOUSE                              104
+
+    Tavistock Place, London.
+
+  THE LIME WALK                                                      110
+
+    In the garden of Trinity College, Oxford. Referred to in "Robert
+    Elsmere."
+
+  COTTAGE OF "MARY BACKHOUSE"                                        114
+
+    At Sad Gill, Long Sleddale. The barns and storehouses, on either
+    end, give the small cottage an attenuated appearance.
+
+  THE RECTORY OF PEPER HAROW                                         118
+
+    In Surrey, England. The original of Murewell Rectory, the house
+    of "Robert Elsmere."
+
+  THE ROTHAY AND NAB SCAR                                            130
+
+    From Pelter Bridge, Ambleside, England.
+
+  LAKE COMO                                                          138
+
+    From "the path that led to the woods overhanging the Villa
+    Carlotta."
+
+  STOCKS                                                             144
+
+    The home of Mrs. Humphry Ward, near Tring, England.
+
+  LAKE MAGGIORE, ITALY                                               150
+
+    According to Ruskin the most beautiful of the Italian Lakes.
+
+  ISOLA BELLA, LAKE MAGGIORE                                         154
+
+    The costly summer home of Count Vitaliano Borromeo in the
+    Seventeenth Century.
+
+  THE ATRIUM OF THE VILLA MARIA                                      170
+
+    At Cadenabbia, Lake Como.
+
+  "I CALL THIS MY J. M. W. TURNER"                                   174
+
+    View from the dining-room window of the Villa Maria.
+
+  THE OLD MANSE                                                      180
+
+    In Concord, where Emerson wrote "Nature" and Hawthorne lived for
+    three years.
+
+  WALDEN WOODS                                                       184
+
+    The cairn marks the site of Thoreau's hut and "Thoreau's Cove"
+    is seen in the distance.
+
+  HOUSE OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON                                       190
+
+    Concord, Massachusetts.
+
+  THE WAYSIDE                                                        194
+
+    House in Concord, where Hawthorne lived in the latest years of
+    his life.
+
+  THE MALL STREET HOUSE                                              200
+
+    Salem, Mass. The room in which Hawthorne wrote "The Scarlet
+    Letter" is in the third floor, front, on the left.
+
+  THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES                                      204
+
+    The house in Turner Street, Salem, Mass., built in 1669, and
+    owned by the Ingersoll family.
+
+  THE BAILEY HOUSE                                                   208
+
+    The house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of Thomas Bailey
+    Aldrich's grandfather, known as "Captain Nutter" in "The Story
+    of a Bad Boy."
+
+  "AUNT ABIGAIL'S" ROOM                                              212
+
+    In the "Nutter" House.
+
+  AN OLD WHARF                                                       216
+
+    On the Piscataqua River, Portsmouth, where Aldrich often played
+    in his boyhood.
+
+  CELIA THAXTER'S COTTAGE                                            224
+
+    On Appledore, where the poet maintained her famous "Island
+    Garden."
+
+  APPLEDORE                                                          232
+
+    Trap-dike, on Appledore, the largest of the "Isles of Shoals."
+
+  JOHN BURROUGHS AT WOODCHUCK LODGE                                  238
+
+    The summer home of Mr. Burroughs is near Roxbury, New York, in
+    the Catskill Mountains. When not at work he enjoys "the peace of
+    the hills."
+
+  JOHN BURROUGHS AT WORK                                             244
+
+    The "study" is a barn, where the naturalist sits facing the
+    open doors. He looks out upon a stone wall where the birds and
+    small animals come to "talk with him." The "desk" is an old
+    hen-coop, with straw in the bottom, to keep his feet warm.
+
+  HYMEN TERRACE                                                      254
+
+    At Mammoth Hot Springs in the Yellowstone National Park.
+
+  PULPIT TERRACE                                                     258
+
+    A part of Jupiter Terrace, the largest of the formations at
+    Mammoth Hot Springs.
+
+  OLD FAITHFUL                                                       264
+
+    The famous geyser in the Upper Geyser Basin of the Yellowstone
+    National Park. It plays a stream about one hundred and fifty
+    feet high every sixty-five minutes, with but slight variations.
+
+  THE GROTTO GEYSER                                                  266
+
+    A geyser in the Yellowstone National Park notable for its
+    fantastic crater.
+
+  THE CANON OF THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER                                 268
+
+    The view from Inspiration Point.
+
+  THE TRAIL, GRAND CANON                                             278
+
+    The view shows the upper part of Bright Angels' Trail, as it
+    appears when the ground is covered with snow.
+
+  THE GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA                                         290
+
+    The view from Bright Angels'. The plateau over which the trail
+    leads to the edge of the river is partly covered by a deep
+    shadow. The great formation in the left foreground is known as
+    the "Battleship."
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE LURE OF THE CAMERA
+
+
+
+
+THE LURE OF THE CAMERA
+
+I
+
+
+Two pictures, each about the size of a large postage-stamp, are among my
+treasured possessions. In the first, a curly-headed boy of two, in a
+white dress, is vigorously kicking a football. The second depicts a
+human wheelbarrow, the body composed of a sturdy lad of seven, whose two
+plump arms serve admirably the purpose of a wheel, his stout legs making
+an excellent pair of handles, while the motive power is supplied by an
+equally robust lad of eight, who grasps his younger brother firmly by
+the ankles.
+
+These two photographs, taken with a camera so small that in operation it
+was completely concealed between the palms of my hands, revealed to me
+for the first time the fascination of amateur photography. The discovery
+meant that whatever interested me, even if no more than the antics of my
+children, might be instantly recorded. I had no idea of artistic
+composition, nor of the proper manipulation of plates, films, and
+printing papers. Still less did I foresee that the tiny little black box
+contained the germ of an indefinable impulse, which, expanding and
+growing more powerful year by year, was to lead me into fields which I
+had never dreamed of exploring, into habits of observation never before
+a part of my nature, and into a knowledge of countless places of
+historic and literary interest as well as natural beauty and grandeur,
+which would never have been mine but for the lure of the camera.
+
+The spell began to make itself felt almost immediately. I determined to
+buy a camera of my own,--for the two infinitesimal pictures were taken
+with a borrowed instrument,--and was soon the possessor of a much larger
+black box capable of making pictures three and a quarter inches square.
+The film which came with it was quickly "shot off," and then came the
+impulse to go somewhere. My wife and I decided to spend a day at a
+pretty little inland lake, a few hours' ride from our home. I hastened
+to the druggist's to buy another film, and without waiting to insert it
+in the camera, off we started. Arrived on the scene, our first duty was
+to "load" the new machine. The roll puzzled us a little. Somehow the
+directions did not seem to fit. But we got it in place finally and began
+to enjoy the pleasures of photography.
+
+Our first view was a general survey of the lake, which is nearly twelve
+miles long, with many bays and indentations in the shore-line, making a
+rather large subject for a picture only three and a quarter inches
+square. But such difficulties did not seem formidable. The directions
+clearly intimated that if we would only "press the button" somebody
+would "do the rest," and we expected the intangible somebody to perform
+his part of the contract as faithfully as we were doing ours. Years
+afterward, chancing to pass by the British Museum, which stretches its
+huge bulk through Great Russell Street a distance of nearly four hundred
+feet, we saw a little girl taking its picture with a "Brownie" camera.
+"That reminds me of 'Dignity and Impudence,'" said my wife, referring to
+Landseer's well-known painting which we had seen at the National Gallery
+that afternoon. This is the mistake which all amateurs make at
+first--that of expecting the little instrument to perform impossible
+feats.
+
+But to resume my story. We spent a remarkably pleasant day composing
+beautiful views. We shot at the bays and the rocks, at the steamers and
+the sail-boats and at everything else in sight except the huge
+ice-houses which disfigure what would otherwise be one of the prettiest
+lakes in America. We posed for each other in picturesque attitudes on
+the rocks and in a little rowboat which we had hired. We had a
+delightful outing and only regretted when, all too soon, the last film
+was exposed. But we felt unusually happy to think that we had a
+wonderful record of the day's proceedings to show to our family and
+friends.
+
+That night I developed the roll, laboriously cutting off one exposure at
+a time, and putting it through the developer according to directions.
+Number one was blank! Something wrong with the shutter, I thought, and
+tried the next. Number two was also blank!! What can this mean? Perhaps
+I haven't developed it long enough. So into the fluid went another one,
+and this one stayed a long time. To my dismay number three was as vacant
+as the others, and so were all the rest of the twelve. Early the next
+morning I was at the drug store demanding an explanation. The druggist
+confessed that the film-roll he had sold me was intended for another
+camera, but "It ought to have worked on yours," he said. Subsequent
+investigation proved that on my camera the film was to be inserted on
+the left, while on the other kind it went in on the right. This
+difference seemed insignificant until I discovered that in turning the
+roll to insert it on the opposite side from what was intended, I had
+brought the strip of black paper to the front of the film, thus
+preventing any exposure at all! Thus I learned the first principle of
+amateur photography:--_Know exactly what you are doing_ and take no
+chances with your apparatus. A young lady, to whom I once attempted to
+explain the use of the various "stops" on her camera, impatiently
+interrupted me with the remark, "Well, that's the way it was set when I
+got it and I'm not going to bother to change it. If the pictures are no
+good, I'll send it back." It is such people who continually complain of
+"bad luck" with their films.
+
+It was two or three years after the complete failure of my first
+expedition before the camera again exerted its spell, except that
+meanwhile it was faithfully recording various performances of the
+family, especially in the vacation season. It was in the autumn of 1898.
+The victorious American fleet had returned from Santiago and all the
+famous battleships and cruisers were triumphantly floating their ensigns
+in the breezes of New York Harbor. "Here is a rare opportunity. Come!"
+said the camera. Taking passage on a steamer, I found a quiet spot by
+the lifeboats, outside the rail, where the view would be unobstructed.
+We passed in succession all the vessels, from the doughty Texas,
+commanded by the lamented Captain Philip, to the proud Oregon, with the
+laurels of her long cruise around Cape Horn to join in the fight. One by
+one I photographed them all. Here, at last, I thought, are some pictures
+worth while. I had been in the habit of doing my own developing--with
+indifferent success, it must be confessed. These exposures, made under
+ideal conditions, were too precious to be risked, so I took the roll to
+a prominent firm of dealers in photographic goods, for developing and
+printing. Every one was spoiled! Not a good print could be found in the
+lot. Impure chemicals and careless handling had left yellow spots and
+finger-marks on every negative! Subsequent investigation revealed the
+fact that a negro janitor had been entrusted with the work. Here, then,
+was maxim number two for the amateur--_Do your own developing_, and be
+sure to master the details of the operation. The old adage, "If you want
+a thing well done, do it yourself," applies with peculiar force to
+photography.
+
+Another experience, which happened soon after, came near ending forever
+all further attempts in photography. This time I lost, not only the
+negatives, but the camera itself. Having accomplished very little, I
+resolved to try no more. But a year or two later a friend offered to
+sell me his 4 x 5 plate camera, with tripod, focusing-cloth and all, at
+a ridiculously low price, and enough of the old fever remained to make
+me an easy--victim, shall I say? No! How can I ever thank him enough? I
+put my head under the focusing-cloth and for the first time looked at
+the inverted image of a beautiful landscape, reflected in all its colors
+upon the ground glass. At that moment began my real experience in
+photography. The hand camera is only a toy. A child can use it as well
+as an expert. It has its limitations like the stone walls of a prison
+yard, and beyond them one cannot go. All is guesswork. Luck is the
+biggest factor of success. Artistic work is practically impossible. It
+is not until you begin to compose your pictures on the ground glass that
+art in photography becomes a real thing. Then it is amazing to see how
+many variations of the same scene may be obtained, how many different
+effects of light and shade, and how much depends upon the point of view.
+Then, too, one becomes more independent of the weather, for by a proper
+use of the "stop" and careful application of the principles of correct
+exposure, it is possible to overcome many adverse conditions.
+
+An acquaintance once expressed surprise that I was willing to spend day
+after day of my vacation walking about with a heavy camera case, full of
+plate-holders in one hand, and a bulky tripod slung over my shoulder. I
+replied that it was no heavier than a bagful of golf-sticks, that the
+walk took me through an endless variety of beautiful scenery, and that
+the game itself was fascinating. Of course, my friend could not
+appreciate my point of view, for he had never paused on the shore of
+some sparkling lake to study the ripple of the waters, the varying
+shades of green in the trees of the nearest bank, the pebbly beach with
+smooth flat stones whitening in the sun, but looking cooler and darker
+where seen through the transparent cover of the shallow water, the deep
+purple of the undulating hills in the distance, and above it all the
+canopy of filmy, foamy cumulus clouds, with flat bases and rounded
+outlines, and here and there a glimpse of the loveliest cerulean blue.
+He had never looked upon such scenes as these with the exhilarating
+thought that something of the marvelous beauty which nature daily
+spreads before us can be captured and taken home as a permanent reminder
+of what we have seen.
+
+To catch the charm of such a scene is no child's play. It requires the
+use of the best of lenses and other appliances, skill derivable only
+from long study and experience, and a natural appreciation of the
+artistic point of view. It requires even more, for the plate must be
+developed and the prints made, both operations calling for skill and a
+sense of the artistic.
+
+The underlying pleasure in nearly all sports and in many forms of
+recreation is the overcoming of obstacles. The football team must defeat
+a heavy opposing force to gain any sense of satisfaction. If the
+opponents are "easy," there is no fun in the game. The hunter who incurs
+no hardship complains that the sport is tame. A fisherman would rather
+land one big black bass after a long struggle than catch a hundred perch
+which almost jump into your boat without an invitation.
+
+[Illustration: A PATH IN BRETTON WOODS]
+
+Photography as a sport possesses this element in perfection. Those who
+love danger may find plenty of it in taking snap-shots of charging
+rhinoceroses, or flash-light pictures of lions and tigers in the jungle.
+Those who like hunting may find more genuine enjoyment in stalking deer
+for the purpose of taking the animal's picture than they would get if
+they took his life. Those who care only to hunt landscapes--and in this
+class I include myself--can find all the sport they want in the less
+strenuous pursuit. There is not only the exhilaration of searching out
+the attractive scenes,--the rugged mountain-peak; the woodland brook;
+the shady lane, with perhaps a border of white birches; the ruined
+castle; the seaside cliffs; the well-concealed cascade; or the scene of
+some noteworthy historical event,--but the art of photography itself
+presents its own problems at every turn. To solve all these; to select
+the right point of view; to secure an artistic "balance" in all parts of
+the picture; to avoid the ugly things that sometimes persist in getting
+in the way; to make due allowance for the effect of wind or motion; to
+catch the full beauty of the drifting clouds; to obtain the desired
+transparency in the shadows,--these and a hundred other considerations
+give sufficient exercise to the most alert mind and add to the
+never-ending fascination of the game.
+
+I have noticed that the camera does not lure one into the beaten tracks
+which tourists most frequent. It is helpless on the top of a crowded
+coach or in a swiftly flying motor-car. It gets nervous when too many
+people are around, especially if they are in a hurry, and fails to do
+its work. It must be allowed to choose its own paths and to proceed with
+leisure and calmness. It is a charming guide to follow. I have always
+felt a sense of relief when able to escape the interminable jargon of
+the professional guides who conduct tourists through the various show
+places of Europe, and so far as it has been my fortune to visit such
+places, have usually left with a vague feeling of disappointment. On the
+other hand, when, acting under the spell of the camera, I have sought an
+acquaintance with the owner of some famous house and have proceeded at
+leisure to photograph the rooms and objects of interest, I have left not
+only with a sense of complete satisfaction, but with a new friendship to
+add to the pleasure of future memories.
+
+[Illustration: PROFILE LAKE]
+
+To visit the places made famous by their associations with literature
+and with history; to seek the wonders of nature, whether sublime and
+awe-inspiring, like the mountain-peaks of Switzerland and the vast
+depths of the Grand Canon, or restful in their sweet simplicity like the
+quiet hills and valleys of Westmoreland; to see the people in their
+homes, whether stately palaces or humble cottages; to find new beauty
+daily, whether at home or abroad, in the shady woodland path, in the
+sweep of the hills and the ever-changing panorama of the clouds; to gain
+that relief from the cares of business or professional life which comes
+from opening the mind to a free and full contemplation of the
+picturesque and beautiful,--these are the possibilities offered by
+amateur photography to those who will follow the lure of the camera.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+LITERARY RAMBLES IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+LITERARY RAMBLES IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+I
+
+Emerson said of the English people, "Every one of these islanders is an
+island himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable," and that "It is almost
+an affront to look a man in the face without being introduced." Holmes,
+on the contrary, records that he and his daughter were "received with
+nothing but the most overflowing hospitality and the most considerate
+kindness." Lowell found the average Briton likely to regard himself as
+"the only real thing in a wilderness of shams," and thought his
+patronage "divertingly insufferable." On the other hand, he praised the
+genuineness of the better men of England, as "so manly-tender, so brave,
+so true, so warranted to wear, they make us proud to feel that blood is
+thicker than water." Longfellow met at dinner on two successive days
+what he called "the two opposite poles of English character." One of
+them was "taciturn, reserved, fastidious" and without "power of
+enjoyment"; the other was "expansive, hilarious, talking incessantly,
+laughing loud and long." All of this suggests that in attempting to
+write one's impressions of the English or any other people, one must
+remember, what I once heard a Western schoolmaster declare with great
+emphasis--"some people are not all alike!"
+
+I have but one impression to record, namely, that, almost without
+exception, the people whom we met, both in England and Scotland,
+manifested a spirit of helpfulness that made our photographic work
+delightful and led to the accomplishment of results not otherwise
+obtainable. They not only showed an unexpected interest in our work, but
+seemed to feel some sense of obligation to assist. This was true even of
+the policeman at the gate of the Tower of London, who, according to his
+orders, deprived me of my camera before I could enter. But upon my
+protesting, he referred me to another guardian of the place, and he to
+another, until, continuing to pass "higher up," I was at last
+photographing everything of interest, including the "Beef-Eater" who
+obligingly carried my case of plates. Whenever difficulties arose, these
+helpful people always seemed ready with suggestions. It seemed to be
+more than courtesy. It was rather a friendly sympathy, a desire that I
+might have what I came for, and a kind of personal anxiety that I should
+not be disappointed.
+
+An incident which happened at the very outset of our photographic
+experiences in England, and one which was responsible in large measure
+for much of the success of that undertaking, will serve as an example
+of the genial and sympathetic spirit which seemed to be everywhere
+prevalent. We had started to discover and to photograph, so far as
+possible, the scenes of George Eliot's writings, and on the day of our
+arrival in London, my wife had found in the British Museum a
+particularly interesting portrait of George Henry Lewes. She learned
+that permission to copy it must be obtained from the Keeper of the
+Prints, and accordingly, on the following morning I appeared in the
+great room of the Museum where thousands of rare prints are carefully
+preserved.
+
+Sir Sidney Colvin, the distinguished biographer of Robert Louis
+Stevenson, and the head of this department, was not in, but a polite
+assistant made note of my name and message, making at the same time an
+appointment for the next day. At the precise hour named I was present
+again, revolving in my mind the briefest possible method of requesting
+permission to copy the Lewes picture. Presently I was informed that Mr.
+Colvin wished to see me, and I followed the guide, mechanically
+repeating to myself the little formula or speech I intended to make, and
+wondering what luck I should have. The formula disappeared instantly as
+a pleasant-faced gentleman advanced with outstretched hand and genial
+smile, calling me by name and saying, "I have something I want to show
+you, if you would care to see it." Considerably surprised, I saw him
+touch a button as he resumed,--"It's a picture of George Eliot,--at
+least we think it is, but we are not sure,--we bought it from the
+executor of the estate of Sir Frederic Burton, the artist." Here the
+attendant appeared and was instructed to get the portrait. It proved to
+be a large painting in water-colors of a woman's face, with remarkably
+strong, almost masculine features and a pair of eyes that seemed to say,
+"If any woman in the world can do a man's thinking, I'm that person." A
+letter received subsequently, in answer to my inquiry, from Sir Theodore
+Martin, who was a lifelong friend of the novelist as well as the
+painter, definitely established the fact that the newly discovered
+portrait was a "study" for the authorized portrait which Sir Frederic
+Burton painted. No doubt the artist came to realize more of the true
+womanliness of George Eliot's character, for he certainly softened the
+expression of those determined-looking eyes.
+
+After we had discussed the picture at some length, my new-found friend
+inquired about my plans. I told him I meant to visit, so far as
+possible, the scenes of George Eliot's novels and to photograph all the
+various places of interest. "Of course you'll go to Nuneaton?" he asked.
+"Yes," I replied, in a tone of assurance; "I expect to visit Arbury
+Hall, the original of Cheverel Manor." "I suppose, then, you are
+acquainted with Mr. Newdegate," said he, inquiringly. I had to confess
+that I did not know the gentleman. Mr. Colvin looked at me in surprise.
+"Why, you can't get in if you don't know him. Arbury is a private
+estate." This remark struck me with stunning force. I had supposed I
+could go anywhere. The game was a new one to me, and here at the very
+beginning appeared to be an insurmountable barrier. Of course, I could
+not expect to walk into private houses and grounds to make photographs,
+and how was I to make the acquaintance of these people? Mr. Colvin
+seemed to read my thought and promptly solved the problem. "I happen to
+know Mr. Newdegate well. He was a classmate at Oxford. I'll give you a
+letter of introduction.--No, I'll do better. I'll write and tell him
+you're coming."
+
+This courtesy, from a gentleman to whom I was a complete stranger, was
+as welcome as it was unexpected, and nearly caused me to forget the
+original purpose of my call. But Mr. Colvin did not forget. As I was
+about to leave, he asked if I wished a copy of the Eliot portrait and
+added, "Of course, you will have permission to copy the Lewes picture";
+and the interview ended with his promise to have the official
+photographer make me copies of both. I returned to the hotel to report
+that the Lewes picture had been obtained without even asking for it, and
+the next morning received a message from the owner of Arbury Hall
+cordially inviting us to visit him.
+
+Of Arbury itself I knew little, but I had read, somewhere, that the
+full-length portraits of Sir Christopher Cheverel and his lady by Sir
+Joshua Reynolds, which George Eliot describes as hanging side by side in
+the great saloon of Cheverel Manor, might still be seen at Arbury. I
+was, therefore, eager to find them.
+
+We lost no time in proceeding to Nuneaton, where we passed the night at
+the veritable tavern which was the scene of Lawyer Dempster's
+conviviality. Readers of "Janet's Repentance" will recall that the great
+"man of deeds" addressed the mob in the street from an upper window of
+the "Red Lion," protesting against the "temptation to vice" involved in
+the proposition to hold Sunday evening lectures in the church. He
+brought the meeting to a close by calling for "Three cheers for True
+Religion"; then retiring with a party of friends to the parlor of the
+inn, he caused "the most capacious punch-bowl" to be brought out and
+continued the festivities until after midnight, "when several friends of
+sound religion were conveyed home with some difficulty, one of them
+showing a dogged determination to seat himself in the gutter."
+
+[Illustration: THE GRAND SALOON, ARBURY HALL]
+
+The old tavern, one of the few which still retain the old-fashioned
+arched doorways through which the coaches used to enter to change
+horses, boasts of having entertained guests no less distinguished
+than Oliver Cromwell and the immortal Shakespeare. My wife said she was
+sure this was true, for the house smelled as if it had not been swept
+since Shakespeare's time.
+
+In the morning we drove to Arbury Hall, the private grounds of which
+make a beautifully wooded park of three hundred acres. The mansion is
+seen to the best advantage from the opposite side of a little pool,
+where the surrounding trees and shrubbery are pleasantly reflected in
+the still water, where marsh-grass and rushes are waving gently in the
+summer air, and the pond-lilies spread their round green leaves to make
+a richer, deeper background for their blossoms of purest white. On a
+green knoll behind this charming foreground stands a gray stone mansion
+of rectangular shape, its sharp corners softened with ivy and by the
+foliage at either end. Three great gothic windows in the center, flanked
+on both ends by slightly projecting wings, each with a double-storied
+oriel, and a multitude of pinnacles surmounting the walls on every side,
+give a distinguished air to the building, as though it were a part of
+some great cathedral. This Gothic aspect was imparted to the mansion
+something over a hundred years ago by Sir Roger Newdigate, who was the
+prototype of George Eliot's Sir Christopher Cheverel, and the novelist
+describes the place as if in the process of remodeling.
+
+We were cordially welcomed by the present owner, Mr. Newdegate, whose
+hospitality doubly confirmed our first impressions of British courtesy.
+After some preliminary conversation we rose to begin a tour of
+inspection. Our host threw open a door and instantly we were face to
+face with the two full-length portraits of Sir Christopher and Lady
+Cheverel, which for so long had stood in my mind as the only known
+objects of interest at Arbury. They are the work, by the way, not of Sir
+Joshua Reynolds, but of George Romney. George Eliot wrote from memory,
+probably a full score of years after her last visit to the place, and
+this is one of several slight mistakes. These fine portraits, really
+representing Sir Roger Newdigate and his lady, hang at the end of a
+large and sumptuously furnished room, with high vaulted ceiling in the
+richest Gothic style, suggesting in the intricate delicacy of its
+tracery the famous Chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey. The saloon,
+as the apartment is called, is lighted chiefly by a large bay window,
+the very one through which Sir Christopher stepped into the room and
+found various members of his household "examining the progress of the
+unfinished ceiling."
+
+Looking out through these windows, our host noticed some gathering
+clouds and suggested a drive through the park before the shower. Soon
+his pony-cart was at the door, drawn by a dainty little horse
+appropriately named "Lightheart," for no animal with so fond a master
+could possibly have a care in the world. We stopped for a few minutes at
+Astley Castle, the "Knebley Abbey" of George Eliot, an old but
+picturesque mansion, once the residence of the famous Lord Seymour and
+his ill-fated protegee, Lady Jane Grey. Then, after a brief pause at the
+parson's cottage, we proceeded to Astley Church, a stone building with a
+square tower such as one sees throughout England.
+
+A flock of sheep pasturing in the inclosure suggested George Eliot's
+bucolic parson, the Reverend Mr. Gilfil, who smoked his pipe with the
+farmers and talked of "short-horns" and "sharrags" and "yowes" during
+the week, and on Sunday after Sunday repeated the same old sermons to
+the ever-increasing satisfaction of his parishioners. We photographed
+this ancient temple on the inside as well as outside, for it contains
+some curious frescoes representing the saints holding ribbons with
+mottoes from which one is expected to obtain excellent moral lessons.
+
+Our next objective was the birthplace of George Eliot, a small cottage
+standing in one corner of the park. We were driving rapidly along one of
+the smooth roads leading to the place, when the pony made a sudden turn
+to the right. I was sitting on the rear seat, facing backward, camera
+and tripod in hand. The cart went down a steep embankment, then up
+again, and the next instant I was sprawled ignominiously on the ground,
+while near by lay the tripod, broken into a hundred splinters.
+Scrambling to my feet, I saw the pony-cart stuck tight in the mud of a
+ditch not far away, my wife and our host still on the seat, and nobody
+the worse for the accident except poor Lightheart, who was almost
+overcome with excitement. He had encountered some men on the road
+leading a bull, and quickly resolved not to face what, to one of his
+gentle breeding, seemed a deadly peril.
+
+Leading the trembling Lightheart, we walked back to the house, and in
+due season sat down to luncheon beneath the high vaulted ceiling of that
+splendid dining-room, which George Eliot thought "looked less like a
+place to dine in than a piece of space inclosed simply for the sake of
+beautiful outline." A cathedral-like aspect is given to the room by the
+great Gothic windows which form the distinguishing architectural feature
+of the building. These open into an alcove, large enough in itself, but
+small when compared with the main part of the room. The ecclesiastical
+effect is heightened by the rich Gothic ornamentation of the canopies
+built over various niches in the walls, or rather it would be, were it
+not for the fact that the latter are filled with life-size statues in
+white marble, of a distinctly classical character. Opposite the windows
+is a mantel of generous proportions, in pure white, the rich decorations
+of which would not be inappropriate for some fine altar-piece; but Cupid
+and Psyche, standing in a carved niche above, instantly dissipate any
+churchly thoughts, though they seem to be having a heavenly time.
+
+After luncheon we sat for a time in the library, in the left wing of the
+building, examining a first folio Shakespeare, while our host busied
+himself with various notes of introduction and other memoranda for our
+benefit. As we sat in the oriel window of this room,--the same in which
+Sir Christopher received the Widow Hartopp,--we noticed what appeared to
+be magazines, fans, and other articles on the chairs and sofas. They
+proved to be embroidered in the upholstery. It is related that Sir Roger
+Newdigate--"Sir Christopher Cheverel," it will be remembered--used to
+remonstrate with his lady for leaving her belongings scattered over his
+library. She--good woman--was not only obedient, but possessed a sense
+of humor as well, for she promptly removed the articles, but later took
+advantage of her lord's absence to leave their "counterfeit presentment"
+in such permanent form that there they have remained for more than a
+century.
+
+The opposite wing of the mansion contains the drawing-room, adjoining
+the saloon. It is lighted by an oriel window corresponding to that in
+the library. The walls are decorated with a series of long narrow
+panels, united at the top by intricate combinations of graceful pointed
+arches, in keeping with the Gothic style of the whole building. It was
+curious to note how well George Eliot remembered it, for here was the
+full-length portrait of Sir Anthony Cheverel "standing with one arm
+akimbo," exactly as described. How did the novelist happen to remember
+that "arm akimbo," if, as is quite likely, she had not seen the room for
+more than twenty years?
+
+It was in this room that Catarina sat down to the harpsichord and poured
+out her emotions in the deep rich tones of a fine contralto voice. The
+harpsichord upon which the real Catarina played--her name was Sally
+Shilton--is now upstairs in the long gallery, and here we saw not only
+that interesting instrument, but also the "queer old family portraits
+... of faded, pink-faced ladies, with rudimentary features and highly
+developed head-dresses--of gallant gentlemen, with high hips, high
+shoulders, and red pointed beards."
+
+Mr. Newdegate, with that fine spirit of helpfulness that we had met in
+his friend Mr. Colvin, informed us that he had invited the Reverend
+Frederick R. Evans, Canon of Bedworth, a nephew of George Eliot, to meet
+us at luncheon, but an engagement had interfered. We were invited,
+however, to visit the rectory at Bedworth, and later did so, receiving
+a cordial welcome. Mrs. Evans took great delight in showing various
+mementoes of her husband's distinguished relative, including a lace cap
+worn by George Eliot and a pipe that once belonged to the Countess
+Czerlaski of "The Sad Fortune of the Reverend Amos Barton." I can still
+hear the ring of her hearty laugh as she took us into the parlor, and
+pointing to a painting on the wall, exclaimed, "And here is Aunt Glegg!"
+There she was, sure enough, with the "fuzzy front of curls" which were
+always "economized" by not wearing them until after 10.30 A.M. At this
+point the canon suddenly asked, "Have you seen the stone table?" I had
+been looking for this table. It is the one where Mr. Casaubon sat when
+Dorothea found him, apparently asleep, but really dead, as dramatically
+told in "Middlemarch." I had expected to find it at Griff House, near
+Nuneaton, the home of George Eliot's girlhood, but the arbor at the end
+of the Yew Tree Walk was empty. We were quite pleased, therefore, when
+Mr. Evans took us into his garden and there showed us the original table
+of stone which the novelist had in mind when she wrote the incident.
+
+Among the other things Mr. Newdegate had busied himself in writing,
+while we sat in his library, was a message to a friend in Nuneaton, Dr.
+N----, who, he said, knew more about George Eliot than any one else in
+the neighborhood. We accordingly stopped our little coupe at the
+doctor's door, as we drove back to town. He insisted upon showing us the
+landmarks, and as there was no room in our vehicle, mounted his bicycle
+and told the driver to follow. In this way we were able to identify
+nearly all the localities of "Amos Barton" and "Janet's Repentance." He
+also pointed out the schoolhouse where Mary Ann Evans was a pupil in her
+eighth or ninth year. We arrived just as school was dismissed and a
+crowd of modern school children insisted upon adding their bright rosy
+faces to our picture. They looked so fresh and interesting that I made
+no objection.
+
+[Illustration: A SCHOOL IN NUNEATON]
+
+On the next evening we were entertained by the doctor and his wife at
+their home. A picture of Nuneaton fifty years ago attracted my notice.
+The doctor explained that the artist, when a young girl, had known
+George Eliot's father and mother, and had been interested to paint
+various scenes of the earlier stories. He advised us not to call,
+because the old lady was very feeble. What was my astonishment when,
+upon returning to London a few weeks later, I found a letter from this
+same good lady, expressing regret that she had not met us, and stating
+that she was sending me twenty-five of her water-color sketches. Among
+them were sketches of John and Emma Gwyther, the original Amos and Milly
+Barton, drawn from life many years ago. Later she sent me a portrait
+of Nanny, the housemaid who drove away the bogus countess. These dear
+people seemed determined to make our quest a success.
+
+We now turned our attention to "Adam Bede," traveling into Staffordshire
+and Derbyshire, where Robert Evans, the novelist's father and the
+prototype of Adam Bede, was born and spent the years of his young
+manhood. Here again we were assisted by good-natured English people. The
+first was a station agent. Just as the twilight was dissolving into a
+jet-black night we alighted from the train at the little hamlet of
+Norbury, with a steamer trunk, several pieces of hand-baggage, a camera,
+and an assortment of umbrellas. We expected to go to Ellastone, two
+miles away, the original of Hayslope, the home of Adam Bede, and the
+real home, a century ago, of Robert Evans. After the train left, the
+only person in sight was the station agent, who looked with some
+surprise at the pile of luggage.
+
+In reply to our question, he recommended walking as the best and only
+way to reach Ellastone. A stroll of two miles, over an unknown and muddy
+road, in inky darkness, with two or three hundred pounds of luggage to
+carry, did not appeal to us, particularly as it was now beginning to
+rain. We suggested a carriage, but there was none. Hotel? Norbury
+boasted no such conveniences. It began to look as though we might be
+obliged to camp out in the rain on the station platform. But the
+good-natured agent, whose day's work was now done, and who was anxious
+to go home to his supper, placed the ticket-office, where there was a
+fire, at our disposal, and a boy was found who was willing to go to
+Ellastone on his bicycle and learn whether the inn was open (the agent
+thought not), and if so, whether any one there would send a carriage for
+us. A long wait of an hour ensued, during which we congratulated
+ourselves that if we had to sleep on the floor of the ticket-office, it
+would at least be dryer than the platform. At last the boy returned with
+the news that the inn was _not_ open, but that a carriage would be sent
+for us! After another seemingly interminable delay, we finally heard the
+welcome sound of wheels on the gravel. Our carriage had arrived! It was
+a butcher's cart. When the baggage was thrown in, there was but one seat
+left--the one beside the driver. Small chance for two fairly good-sized
+passengers, but there was only one solution. I climbed in and took the
+only remaining seat, while my knees automatically formed another one
+which my companion in misery promptly appropriated, and away we went,
+twisting and turning through a wet and muddy lane, so dark that the only
+visible part of the horse was his tail, the mud flying into our faces
+from one direction and the rain from another, but happy in the hope and
+expectation that if the cart did not turn over and throw us into the
+hedges, we should soon find a better place for a night's lodging than a
+country railway station.
+
+In due time we reached the inn, the very one before which Mr. Casson,
+the landlord, stood and invited Adam Bede to "step in an' tek
+somethink." We were greeted with equal hospitality by the landlord's
+wife, who ushered us into the "best parlor," kindled a rousing fire in
+the grate (English fires are not usually "rousing"), and asked what we
+would have for supper. By the time the mud had dried in nice hard
+lozenges on our clothing, an excellent meal was on the table. It
+disappeared with such promptness as to bring tears of gratitude to the
+eyes of the cook--none other than the hospitable landlady herself. We
+then found ourselves settled for the night in a large, airy, and
+particularly clean bedroom, the best chamber in the house. "Oh, no, sir,
+the inn is not open," explained our good Samaritan, "but we 're always
+glad to make strangers comfortable." These words indicate the spirit of
+the remark, which we comprehended because helped by the good lady's
+eyes, her smile, and her gestures. I cannot set down the exact words for
+the reasons set forth by Mr. Casson, George Eliot's landlord of the
+Donnithorne Arms, who said to Adam: "They 're cur'ous talkers i' this
+country; the gentry's hard work to hunderstand 'em; I was brought hup
+among the gentry, sir, an' got the turn o' their tongue when I was a
+bye. Why, what do you think the folks here says for 'hev n't you'?--the
+gentry, you know, says, 'hev n't you'--well, the people about here says,
+'hanna yey.' It's what they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir."
+
+[Illustration: THE BROMLEY-DAVENPORT ARMS]
+
+It was curious to note, when we explored the village the next morning,
+that Ellastone is even now apparently just the same little hamlet it was
+in the time of George Eliot's father. I had never expected to find the
+real Hayslope. I supposed, of course, that it would be swallowed up by
+some big manufacturing town. But here it was exactly as
+represented--except that Adam Bede's cottage has been enlarged and
+repainted and a few small houses now occupy the village green where
+Dinah Morris preached. The parish church, with its square stone tower
+and clock of orthodox style, still remains the chief landmark of the
+village as it was on the day in 1801 when Robert Evans married his first
+wife, Harriet Poynton, a servant in the Newdigate family, by whom the
+young man was also employed as a carpenter. Mr. Francis Newdigate, the
+great-grandfather of our friend at Arbury, lived in Wootton Hall and was
+the original of the old squire in "Adam Bede." This fine old estate was
+the Donnithorne Chase of the novel, and therefore we found it worthy of
+a visit. We found the fine old "hoaks" there, which Mr. Casson
+mentioned to Adam, and with them some equally fine elms and a profusion
+of flowers, the latter tastefully arranged about a series of broad stone
+terraces, stained with age and partly covered with ivy, which gave the
+place the dignified aspect of some ancient palace of the nobility. Much
+to our regret the owner was not at home, but the gardener maintained the
+hitherto unbroken chain of courtesy by showing us the beauties of the
+place from all the best points of view.
+
+It has not been my intention to follow in detail the events of our
+exploration of the country of George Eliot, nor to describe the many
+scenes of varied interest which were gradually unfolded to us. I have
+sought rather to suggest what is likely to happen to an amateur
+photographer in search of pictures, and how such a quest becomes a real
+pleasure when the people one meets manifest a genuine interest and a
+spirit of friendly helpfulness such as we experienced almost invariably.
+
+
+II
+
+There were some occasions upon which the chain of courtesy, to which I
+have previously referred, if not actually broken, received some
+dangerous strains, when great care had to be taken lest it snap asunder.
+There are surly butlers and keepers in England as elsewhere, and we
+encountered one of the species in the Lake District. I had called at
+the country residence of Captain ----, a wealthy gentleman and a member
+of Parliament. The place was celebrated for its wonderful gardens and is
+described in one of the novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward. His
+High-and-Mightiness, the Butler, was suffering from a severe attack of
+the Grouch, resulting in a stiffening of the muscles of the back and
+shoulders. He would do nothing except inform me that his Master was "not
+at 'ome." I could only leave a message and say I would return. The next
+day I was greeted by the same Resplendent Person, his visage suffused
+with smiles and his spinal column oscillating like an inverted pendulum.
+"Captain ---- is ex-_treme_-ly sorry he cawnt meet you, sir. He's
+_obliged_ to be in Lunnun to-day, sir, but he _towld_ me to _sai_ to
+you, sir, that you're to _taik_ everythink in the 'ouse you _want_,
+sir." And then the Important One gave me full possession while I
+photographed the most interesting rooms, coming back occasionally to
+inquire whether I wished him to move "hany harticles of furniture,"
+afterward hunting up the gardener, who in turn conducted me through the
+sacred precincts of his own particular domain.
+
+At another time, also in connection with Mrs. Ward's novels, I came
+dangerously near to another break. It was down in Surrey, whither we had
+gone to visit the scenery of "Robert Elsmere." I knocked at the door of
+a little stone cottage celebrated in the novel, and was shown into the
+presence of a very old gentleman, who looked suspiciously, first at my
+card, and then at me, finally demanding to know what I wanted. I
+explained that I was an American and had come to take a picture of his
+house. He looked puzzled, and after some further scrutiny of my face, my
+clothes, my shoes, and my hat, said slowly, "Well, you people in America
+must be crazy to come all the way over here to photograph this house. I
+have always said it's the ugliest house in England, owned by the ugliest
+landlord that ever lived, and occupied by the ugliest tenant in the
+parish." Fortunately he was not possessed of the Oriental delusion that
+a photograph causes some of the virtue of an individual (or of a house)
+to pass out into the picture, and upon further reflection concluded that
+if a harmless lunatic wanted to make a picture of his ugly old house, it
+wouldn't matter much after all.
+
+Not infrequently it happened that the keepers in charge of certain
+places of public interest, while desiring to be courteous themselves,
+were bound by strict instructions from their superiors. In the year when
+we were exploring the length and breadth of England and Scotland in
+search of the scenes of Sir Walter Scott's writings, we came one day to
+a famous hall, generously thrown open to the public by the Duke of ----,
+who owned it. Here we found a rule that the use of "stands" or tripods
+would not be permitted in the building. Snap-shots with hand-cameras
+were freely allowed, but these are always more or less dependent on
+chance, and for interior views, requiring a long time-exposure, are
+worthless. The duke, apparently, did not mind poor pictures, but was
+afraid of good ones. I felt that I really must have views of the famous
+rooms of that house, and we pleaded earnestly with the keeper. But
+orders were orders and he remained inflexible, but always courteous. He
+wanted to help, however, and finally conducted me to a cottage near by
+where I was presented to his immediate superior, a good-looking and
+good-natured woman. She, too, was willing and even anxious to oblige,
+but the duke's orders were imperative. Finally a thought struck me. "You
+say stands are forbidden--would it be an infraction of the rules if I
+were to rest my camera on a table or chair?" "Oh, no, indeed!" she
+quickly replied; then, calling to the keeper, said, "John, I want you to
+do everything you can for this gentleman." John seemed pleased. He first
+performed his duty to the duke by locking up the dangerous tripod where
+it could do no harm. Then taking charge of us, he conducted us through
+the well-worn rooms, meanwhile instructing his daughter to look after
+other visitors and keep them out of our way. I rested my camera on
+ancient chairs and tables so precious that the visitors were not
+permitted to touch them, John kindly removing the protecting ropes. We
+were taken to parts of the house and garden not usually shown to
+visitors, so anxious was our guide to assist in our purpose. At last we
+came to a great ballroom, with richly carved woodwork, but absolutely
+bare of furniture. Here the forbidden "stand" was sorely needed. My
+companion promptly came to the rescue. "I'll be the tripod," said she.
+The hint was a good one, so, resting the camera upon her shoulder, I
+soon had my picture composed and in focus. Then, placing the camera on a
+convenient window-ledge just above my head, and making allowance for the
+increased elevation, I gave the plate a long exposure and the result was
+as good an "interior" as I ever made.
+
+This is one of the best parts of the game--the overcoming of obstacles.
+Without it, photography would be poor fun, something like the game of
+checkers I once played with a village rustic. He swept off all my men in
+half a dozen moves and then went away disgusted. I was too easy. A
+picture that is not worth taking a little trouble to get is usually not
+worth having. I have even been known to take pictures I really did not
+need, just because some unexpected difficulties arose.
+
+Another part of the pursuit, which I have always enjoyed, is the quiet
+amusement one can often derive from unexpected situations. One day in
+London, when the streets were pretty well crowded with Coronation
+visitors, we decided to take a picture of the new Victoria Monument in
+front of Buckingham Palace. I had taken the precaution to secure a
+permit, so, without asking any questions, proceeded to spread out my
+tripod and compose my picture. Just as I inserted the plate-holder, a
+"Bobby," by which name the London policeman is generally known,
+appeared, advancing with an air that plainly said, "I'll soon stop
+_that_ game, my fine fellow!" I expressed my surprise and said I had a
+permit, at the same time drawing the slide--an action which, not being a
+photographer, he did not consider significant. He looked scornfully at
+the permit, and said it was not good after 10 A.M. Here, again, the
+assistant photographer of our expedition came to the rescue. She
+exercised the woman's privilege of asking "Why?" and "Bobby" moved from
+in front of the camera to explain. "Click" went the shutter, in went the
+slide, out came the plate-holder, and into the case went the camera.
+"Bobby" politely apologized for interfering, and expressed his deep
+regret at being obliged to disappoint us. I solemnly assured him that it
+was all right, that he had only done his duty and that I did not blame
+him in the least! But I neglected to inform him that the Victoria
+Monument was already mine.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT BURNS]
+
+One of the pleasures of rambling with a camera is that it takes you
+to so many out-of-the-way places, which you would not otherwise be
+likely to visit. Dorothy Wordsworth in her "Recollections of a Tour in
+Scotland" complains that all the roads and taverns in Scotland are bad.
+Dorothy ought to have known, for she and William walked most of the way
+to save their bones from dislocation by the jolting of their little
+cart, and their limited resources compelled them to seek the shelter and
+food of the poorest inns. The modern tourist, on the contrary, will find
+excellent roads and for the most part hotel accommodations where he can
+be fairly comfortable. It was something of a rarity, therefore, when, as
+occasionally happened, we could find nothing but an inn of the kind that
+flourished a century ago.
+
+On a very rainy morning in May we alighted from the train at the little
+village of Ecclefechan, known to the world only as the birthplace of
+Thomas Carlyle. A farmer at the station, of whom we inquired the
+location of a good hotel, answered in a Scotch dialect so broad that we
+could not compass it. By chance a carriage stood near by, and as it
+afforded the only escape from the pouring rain, we stepped in and
+trusted to luck. The vehicle presently drew up before the door of a very
+ancient hotel, from which the landlady, whom we have ever since called
+"Mrs. Ecclefechan," came out to meet us. She was a frail little woman,
+well along in years, with thin features, sharp eyes, and a bald head,
+the last of which she endeavored to conceal beneath a sort of peaked
+black bonnet, tied with strings beneath her chin, and suggesting the
+rather curious spectacle of a bishop's miter above a female face. Her
+dress was looped up by pinning the bottom of it around her waist,
+exposing a gray-and-white striped petticoat that came down halfway
+between the knees and the ankles, beneath which were a pair of coarse
+woolen stockings and some heavy shoes. A burlap apron completed the
+costume.
+
+Our hostess, who seemed to be proprietor, clerk, porter, cook,
+chambermaid, waitress, barmaid, and bootblack of the establishment, was
+possessed of a kind heart, and she made us as comfortable as her limited
+facilities would permit. We were taken into the public-room, a space
+about twelve feet square, with a small open fire at one end, benches
+around the walls and a table occupying nearly all the remaining space.
+Across a narrow passage was the kitchen, where the landlady baked her
+oatmeal cake and served the regulars who came for a "penny'orth o' rum"
+and a bit of gossip. In front was another tiny room where were served
+fastidious guests who did not care to eat in the kitchen. At noon we sat
+down to a luncheon, which might have been worse, and at five were
+summoned into the little room again. We thought it curious to serve hard
+boiled eggs with afternoon tea, and thinking supper would soon be
+ready, declined them. This proved a sad mistake for Americans with big,
+healthy appetites, for the supper never came. The eggs were it.
+
+We spent the evening in the public-room sitting near the fire. One by
+one the villagers dropped in, each man ordering his toddy and spending
+an hour or two over a very small glass. The evenings had been spent in
+that way in that place for a hundred years. We seemed to be in the
+atmosphere of "long ago." A middle-aged Scotchman, whose name was
+pronounced, very broadly, "Fronk," seemed to feel the responsibility of
+entertaining us. He sang, very sweetly I thought, a song by Lady Nairne,
+"The Auld Hoose," and recited with fine appreciation the lines of
+Burns's "Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn," "To a Mouse," "To a
+Louse," and other poems. He related how Burns once helped a friend out
+of a dilemma. Three women had been buried side by side. The son of one
+of them wished to put an inscription on his mother's tombstone, but the
+sexton could not remember which grave was hers. Burns solved the problem
+by suggesting these lines:--
+
+  "Here, or there, or thereaboots,
+      Lies the body of Janet Coutts,
+   But here, or there, or whereaboots,
+        Nane can tell
+   Till Janet rises and tells hersel."
+
+Our landlady assured us that Fronk "had the bluid o' Douglas in his
+veins," but he was now only a poor "ne'er-do-weel," picking up "a bit
+shillin'" now and then. But he loved Bobbie Burns.
+
+After the evening's entertainment we were shown to a tiny bedroom. Over
+the horrors upstairs I must draw the veil of charity, only remarking
+that if I ever go to Ecclefechan again I shall seek out a nice soft pile
+of old scrap-iron for a couch, rather than risk another night on one of
+those beds.
+
+Of course we visited the birthplace of Carlyle, which is now one of the
+"restored" show places, and an interesting one. We also went to the
+graveyard to see the tomb of Carlyle. Here we were conducted by an old
+woman, nearly ninety years of age, very poor and feeble, who had lived
+in the village all her days. We asked if she had ever seen Carlyle. "Oh,
+yes," she replied, wearily, "I hae seen 'im. He was a coo-rious mon."
+Then brightening she added, with a smile that revealed her heart of
+hearts, "But we a' _love_ Bobbie Burns." And so we found it throughout
+Scotland. The feeble old woman and the dissipated wanderer shared with
+the intelligent and cultivated classes a deep-seated and genuine love
+for their own peasant poet, whom they invariably called, affectionately,
+"Bobbie."
+
+[Illustration: THE BURNS MONUMENT, AYRSHIRE]
+
+It was not long after this that we had occasion to visit the land of
+Burns, for a trip through Scotland, even when undertaken primarily for
+the sake of Scott landmarks, as ours was, would scarcely be possible
+without many glimpses of the places made famous by the elder and less
+cultured but not less beloved poet. Scott's intimacy with Adam Ferguson,
+the son of the distinguished Dr. Adam Ferguson, was the means of his
+introduction to the best literary society in Edinburgh, and it was at
+the house of the latter, that Scott, then a boy of fifteen, met Burns
+for the first and only time. He attracted the notice of the elder poet
+by promptly naming the author of a poem which Burns had quoted, when no
+one else in the room could give the information. It is a far cry from
+the aristocratic quarters of Dr. Ferguson to the tavern in the Canongate
+where the "Crochallan Fencibles" used to meet, but here the lines
+crossed again, for to this resort for convivial souls Burns came to
+enjoy the bacchanalian revels known as "High Jinks," in the same way as
+did Andrew Crosbie, the original of Scott's fictitious Paulus Pleydell.
+
+We went to the old town of Dumfries to see a number of places described
+by Scott in "Guy Mannering," "Redgauntlet," and other novels, and found
+ourselves in the very heart of the Burns country. In the center of High
+Street stands the old Midsteeple in one room of which the original Effie
+Deans, whose real name was Isabel Walker, was tried for child murder.
+Here the real Jeanie Deans refused to tell a lie to save her sister's
+life, afterward walking to London to secure her pardon. Almost around
+the corner is the house where Burns's Jean lived, and where "Bobbie"
+died. In the same town is the churchyard of St. Michaels where Burns
+lies buried in a handsome "muselum," as one of the natives informed us.
+
+Out on the road toward the old church of Kirkpatrick Irongray, where
+Scott erected a monument to Helen Walker, the prototype of Jeanie Deans,
+is a small remnant of the house once occupied by that heroine. In the
+same general direction but a little farther to the north, on the banks
+of the river Nith, is Ellisland, where Burns attempted to manage a farm,
+attend to the duties of an excise officer, and write poetry, all at the
+same time. Out of the last came "Tam o' Shanter," but the other two
+"attempts" were failures.
+
+We traveled down to Ayrshire to see the coast of Carrick and what is
+left of the ancestral home of Robert Bruce, where the Scottish hero
+landed, with the guidance of supernatural fires, as graphically related
+by Scott in "The Lord of the Isles." Here again we were in Burns's own
+country. In the city of Ayr we saw the "Twa Brigs" and the very tavern
+which Tam o' Shanter may be supposed to have frequented,--
+
+  "And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
+   His ancient, trusty, drouthy cronie."
+
+Of course we drove to Burns's birthplace, about three miles to the
+south, a long, narrow cottage with a thatched roof, one end of which was
+dwelling-house and the other end stable. It was built by the poet's
+father, with his own hands, and when Robert was born there in the winter
+of 1759 probably looked a great deal less respectable than it does now.
+
+Continuing southward, we stopped at Alloway Kirk for a view of the old
+church where Tam o' Shanter first saw the midnight dancing of the
+witches and started on his famous ride. The keeper felt personally
+aggrieved because I preferred to utilize my limited time to make a
+picture of the church, rather than listen to his repetition of a tale
+which I already knew by heart. We traveled over Tam's route and soon had
+a fine view of the old "Brig o' Doon," where Tam at length escaped the
+witches at the expense of his poor nag's tail. I have made few pictures
+that pleased me more than that of the "auld brig," which I was able to
+get by placing my camera on the new bridge near by. Here the memory of
+Burns is again accentuated by a graceful memorial, in the form of a
+Grecian temple and very similar to the one on Calton Hill, Edinburgh,
+but far more beautifully situated. It is surrounded by a garden of
+well-trimmed yews, shrubbery of various kinds, and a wealth of brightly
+blooming flowers, and best of all, stands well above the "banks and
+braes o' bonnie Doon," where the poet himself would have been happy to
+stand and look upon his beloved river.
+
+[Illustration: THE BRIG O' DOON, AYRSHIRE]
+
+Whatever may have been "Bobbie's" faults, and, poor fellow, they were
+many and grievous, there is nothing more beautiful than the mantle of
+love beneath which they have been concealed and forgotten. He touched
+the hearts of his countrymen as none other ever did, and out of the
+sordid earth of his shortcomings have sprung beautiful flowers, laid out
+along well-ordered and graceful paths, a delight and solace to his
+fellow-men, like the brilliant blossoms that brighten the lovely garden
+at the base of his memorial overlooking the Doon.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A DAY IN WORDSWORTH'S COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A DAY IN WORDSWORTH'S COUNTRY
+
+
+Our arrival on Saturday evening at the village of Windermere was like
+the sudden and unexpected realization of a dream. On many a winter
+night, under the light of our library lamp at home, we had talked of
+that vague, distant "sometime" when we should visit the English Lakes.
+And now--by what curious combination of circumstances we did not try to
+analyze--here we were with the whole beautiful panorama, in all its
+evening splendors, spread out before us. Through our minds passed, as in
+a vision, the whole company of poets who are inseparably associated with
+these scenes: Wordsworth, whose abiding influence upon the spirit of
+poetry will endure as long as the mountains and vales which taught him
+to love and reverence nature; Southey, who, himself without the
+appreciation of nature, was the first to recognize Wordsworth's rare
+power of interpreting her true meaning; Coleridge, the most intimate
+friend of the greater poet, whom Wordsworth declared to be the most
+wonderful man he ever met, and who, in spite of those shortcomings which
+caused his life to end in worldly failure, nevertheless possessed a
+native eloquence and alluring personality.
+
+Nor should we forget De Quincey, who spent twenty of the happiest years
+of his life at Dove Cottage, as the successor of the Wordsworths. His
+most intimate companion was the famous Professor Wilson of Edinburgh,
+known to all readers of "Blackwood's Magazine" as "Christopher North."
+Attracted partly by the beauty of the Lake Country, but more by his
+desire to cultivate the intimacy of Wordsworth, whose genius he greatly
+admired, Professor Wilson bought a pretty place in Cumberland, where he
+lived for several years. He enjoyed the companionship of the friendly
+group of poets, but, we are told, occasionally sought a different kind
+of pleasure in measuring his strength with some of the native wrestlers,
+one of the most famous of whom has testified that he found him "a very
+bad un to lick."
+
+At a later time, Dr. Arnold of Rugby found himself drawn to the Lakes by
+the same double attraction, and built the charming cottage at Fox How on
+the River Rothay, where his youngest daughter still resides. He wrote in
+1832: "Our intercourse with the Wordsworths was one of the brightest
+spots of all; nothing could exceed their friendliness, and my almost
+daily walks with him were things not to be forgotten."
+
+It was not alone the beauty of the Westmoreland scenery that had
+attracted this group of famous men. There are lovelier lakes in Scotland
+and more majestic mountains in Switzerland. But Wordsworth was here, in
+the midst of those charming displays of Nature in her most cheerful as
+well as most soothing moods. Nature's best interpreter and Nature
+herself could be seen together. For a hundred years this same influence
+has continued to exercise its spell upon travelers, and we are bound to
+recognize the fact that this, and nothing else, had drawn us away from
+our prearranged path, that we might enjoy the pleasure of a Sunday in
+the country of Wordsworth.
+
+The morning dawned, bright and beautiful, suggesting that splendid day
+when Wordsworth, then a youth of eighteen, found himself possessed of an
+irresistible desire to devote his life to poetry:
+
+                          "Magnificent
+  The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
+  Glorious as e'er I had beheld--in front,
+  The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
+  The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
+  Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
+  And in the meadows and the lower grounds
+  Was all the sweetness of a common dawn--
+  Dews, vapors, and the melody of birds,
+  And laborers going forth to till the fields.
+  Ah! need I say, dear Friend, that to the brim
+  My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
+  Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
+  Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
+  A dedicated spirit."
+
+We resolved that the whole of this beautiful day should be devoted to
+catching something of that indefinable spirit of the Westmoreland hills
+which had made a poet of Wordsworth, and through him taught the love of
+Nature to countless thousands. A few steps took us away from the town,
+the inn, and the other tourists, into a quiet woodland path leading
+toward the lake, at the end of which we stood
+
+  "On long Winander's eastern shore."
+
+"Winander" is the old form of Windermere. The lake was the scene of many
+of Wordsworth's boyhood experiences.
+
+               "When summer came,
+  Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays,
+  To sweep along the plain of Windermere
+  With rival oars; and the selected bourne
+  Was now an Island musical with birds
+  That sang and ceased not; now a Sister Isle
+  Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert, sown
+  With lilies of the valley like a field;
+  And now a third small Island, where survived
+  In solitude the ruins of a shrine
+  Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served
+  Daily with chaunted rites. In such a race,
+  So ended, disappointment could be none,
+  Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy:
+  We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,
+  Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength,
+  And the vainglory of superior skill,
+  Were tempered."
+
+Wordsworth's boyhood was probably very much like that of other boys. He
+tells us that he was "stiff, moody, and of a violent temper"--so much so
+that he went up into his grandfather's attic one day, while under the
+resentment of some indignity, determined to destroy himself. But his
+heart failed. On another occasion he relates that while at his
+grandfather's house in Penrith, he and his eldest brother Richard were
+whipping tops in the large drawing-room. "The walls were hung round with
+family pictures, and I said to my brother, 'Dare you strike your whip
+through that old lady's petticoat?' He replied, 'No, I won't.' 'Then,'
+said I, 'here goes!' and I struck my lash through her hooped petticoat;
+for which, no doubt, though I have forgotten it, I was properly
+punished. But, possibly from some want of judgment in the punishments
+inflicted, I had become perverse and obstinate in defying chastisement,
+and rather proud of it than otherwise." Lowell remarks upon this
+incident: "Just so do we find him afterward striking his defiant lash
+through the hooped petticoat of the artificial style of poetry, and
+proudly unsubdued by the punishment of the Reviewers." When scarcely ten
+years old, it was his joy
+
+  "To range the open heights where woodcocks run."
+
+He would spend half the night "scudding away from snare to snare,"
+sometimes yielding to the temptation to take the birds caught in the
+snare of some other lad. He felt the average boy's terror inspired by a
+guilty conscience, for he says:--
+
+         "And when the deed was done,
+  I heard among the solitary hills
+  Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
+  Of undistinguishable motion, steps
+  Almost as silent as the turf they trod."
+
+Across the lake from where we stood, and over beyond the hills on the
+other side, is the quaint old town of Hawkshead, where Wordsworth was
+sent to school at the age of nine years. The little schoolhouse may
+still be seen, but it is of small import. The real scenes of
+Wordsworth's early education were the woods and vales, the solitary
+cliffs, the rocks and pools, and the Lake of Esthwaite, five miles
+round, which he was fond of encircling in his early morning walks, that
+he might sit
+
+  "Alone upon some jutting eminence,
+   At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Vale,
+   Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude."
+
+In winter-time "a noisy crew" made merry upon the icy surface of the
+lake.
+
+             "All shod with steel,
+  We hissed along the polished ice in games
+  Confederate, imitative of the chase
+  And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn,
+  The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
+  So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
+  And not a voice was idle."
+
+Nor were the pleasures of social life lacking. Dances, feasts, public
+revelry, and
+
+                         "A swarm
+  Of heady schemes, jostling each other,"
+
+all seemed for a time to conspire to lure his mind away from the paths
+of "books and nature," which he would have preferred. But, curiously
+enough, it was after one of these nights of revelry that, on his way
+home, Wordsworth was so much impressed with the beauties of the dawn
+that he felt the impulse, previously mentioned, to devote himself to
+poetry.
+
+No other poet ever gave such an account of the development of his own
+mind as Wordsworth gives in the "Prelude." And while he recounts enough
+incidents like the snaring of woodcock, the fishing for trout in the
+quiet pools and the cascades of the mountain brooks, the flying of kites
+on the hilltops, the nutting expeditions, the rowing on the lake, and in
+the winter-time the skating and dancing, to convince us that he was
+really a boy, yet he continually shows that beneath it all there was a
+deeper feeling--a prophecy of the man who was even then developing. No
+ordinary boy would have been conscious of "a sense of pain" at beholding
+the mutilated hazel boughs which he had broken in his search for nuts.
+No ordinary lad of ten would be able to hold
+
+        "Unconscious intercourse with beauty
+  Old as creation, drinking in a pure
+  Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths
+  Of curling mist, or from the level plain
+  Of waters colored by impending clouds."
+
+Even at that early age, in the midst of all his pleasures he felt
+
+  "Gleams like the flashing of a shield;--the earth
+   And common face of Nature spake to me
+   Rememberable things."
+
+The secret of Wordsworth's power lay in the fact that, throughout a long
+life, nature was to him a vital, living Presence--one capable of
+uplifting mankind to loftier aspirations, of teaching noble truths, and
+at the same time providing tranquillity and rest to the soul. As a boy
+he had felt for nature
+
+                 "A feeling and a love
+  That had no need of a remoter charm."
+
+But manhood brought a deeper joy.
+
+                 "For I have learned
+  To look on nature, not as in the hour
+  Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
+  The still, sad music of humanity,
+  Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
+  To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
+  A presence that disturbs me with the joy
+  Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of
+  Something far more deeply interfused,
+  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
+  And the round ocean, and the living air,
+  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
+  A motion and a spirit, that impels
+  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
+  And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
+  A lover of the meadows and the woods
+  And mountains, and of all that we behold
+  From this green earth; of all the mighty world
+  Of eye and ear--both what they half create,
+  And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
+  In nature and the language of the sense,
+  The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
+  The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
+  Of all my moral being."
+
+In these noble lines we reach the very summit of Wordsworth's
+intellectual power and poetic genius.
+
+We must now retrace our steps to the village and find a carriage to take
+us on our journey. For we are not like our English friends, who are good
+walkers, nor do we care to emulate the pedestrian attainments of our
+poet, who, De Quincey thought, must have traversed a distance of one
+hundred and seventy-five thousand to one hundred and eighty thousand
+English miles. So a comfortable landau takes us on our way, skirting the
+upper margin of the lake, then winding along the river Brathay, pausing
+for a moment to view the charming little cascade of Skelwith Force, then
+on again until Red Bank is reached, overlooking the vale of Grasmere.
+The first glimpse of this placid little lake, "with its one green
+island," its shores well fringed with the budding foliage of spring, the
+gently undulating hills forming as it were a graceful frame to the
+mirror of the waters, in which the reflection of the blue sky and fleecy
+white clouds seemed even more beautiful than their original
+overhead--the first glimpse could scarcely fail to arouse the emotions
+of the most apathetic and stir up a poetic feeling in the most unpoetic
+of natures.
+
+To a mind like Wordsworth's, such a scene was an inspiration, a
+revelation of Nature's charms such as could arouse an almost ecstatic
+enthusiasm in the heart of one who, all his life, had lived amid scenes
+of beauty and possessed the eyes to see them. He came here first "a
+roving schoolboy," on a "golden summer holiday," and even then said,
+with a sigh,--
+
+  "What happy fortune were it here to live!"
+
+He had no thought, nor even hope, that he would ever realize such good
+fortune, but only
+
+  "A fancy in the heart of what might be
+   The lot of others never could be his."
+
+[Illustration: GRASMERE LAKE]
+
+Possibly he may have stood on this very knoll where we were enjoying our
+first view:--
+
+  "The station whence we looked was soft and green,
+   Not giddy, yet aerial, with a depth
+   Of vale below, a height of hills above.
+   For rest of body perfect was the spot,
+   All that luxurious nature could desire;
+   But stirring to the spirit; who could gaze
+   And not feel motions there?"
+
+Many years later, in the summer of 1799, Wordsworth and Coleridge were
+walking together over the hills and valleys of Westmoreland and
+Cumberland, hoping to find, each for himself, a home where they might
+dwell as neighbors. Since receiving his degree at Cambridge in 1791
+Wordsworth had wandered about in a somewhat aimless way, living for a
+time in London and in France, visiting Germany, and finally attempting
+to find a home in the south of England. A small legacy left him in 1795
+had given a feeling of independence, and his one consuming desire at
+this time was to establish a home where his beloved sister Dorothy might
+be with him and he could devote his entire time to poetry.
+
+A little cottage in a quiet spot just outside the village of Grasmere
+attracted his eye. It had been a public-house, and bore the sign "The
+Dove and the Olive Bough." He called it "Dove Cottage," and for eight
+years it became his home. We found the custodian, a little old lady, in
+a penny shop across the street, and she was glad to show us through the
+tiny, low-ceilinged rooms. The cottage looks best from the little garden
+in the rear. The ivy and the roses soften all the harsh angles of the
+eaves and convert even the chimney-pots into things of beauty. A tangled
+mass of foliage covers the small back portico and makes a shady nook,
+where a little bench is invitingly placed. A few yards up the garden
+walk, over stone steps put in place by Wordsworth and Hartley
+Coleridge, is the rocky well, or spring, where the poet placed "bright
+gowan and marsh marigold" brought from the borders of the lake. At the
+farthest end is the little summer-house, the poet's favorite retreat.
+How well he loved this garden is shown in the poem written when he left
+Grasmere to bring home his bride in 1802:--
+
+  "Sweet garden orchard, eminently fair,
+   The loveliest spot that man hath ever found."
+
+Seating ourselves in this garden, we tried to think of the three
+interesting personages who had made the place their home. Coleridge
+said, "His is the happiest family I ever saw." They had one common
+object--to work together to develop a rare poetic gift. They were poor,
+for Wordsworth had only the income of a very small legacy, and the
+public had not yet come to recognize his genius; the returns from his
+literary work were therefore extremely meager. They got along with
+frugal living and poor clothing, but as they made no pretensions they
+were never ashamed of their poverty. Visitors came and went, and at the
+cost of many little sacrifices were hospitably entertained.
+
+Perhaps the world will never know how much Wordsworth really owed to the
+two women of his household. They lived together with no sign of jealousy
+or distrust. The husband and brother was the object of their untiring
+and sympathetic devotion. They walked with him, read with him, cared for
+him. Mrs. Wordsworth seems to have been a plain country-woman of simple
+manners, yet possessed of a graciousness and tact which made everything
+in the household go smoothly. De Quincey declared that, "without being
+handsome or even comely," she exercised "all the practical fascination
+of beauty, through the mere compensating charms of sweetness all but
+angelic, of simplicity the most entire, womanly self-respect and purity
+of heart speaking through all her looks, acts, and movements."
+Wordsworth was never more sincere than when he sang,--
+
+  "She was a phantom of delight,"
+
+and closed the poem with that splendid tribute to a most excellent
+wife:--
+
+  "A perfect woman, nobly planned,
+   To warn, to comfort, and command;
+   And yet a spirit still, and bright
+   With something of angelic light."
+
+He recognized her unusual poetic instinct by giving her full credit for
+the best two lines in one of his most beautiful poems, "The
+Daffodils":--
+
+  "They flash upon that inward eye
+   Which is the bliss of solitude."
+
+To the other member of that household, his sister Dorothy, Wordsworth
+gave from early boyhood the full measure of his affection. She was his
+constant companion in his walks, at all hours and in all kinds of
+weather. She cheerfully performed the irksome task of writing out his
+verses from dictation. Her observations of nature were as keen as his,
+and the poet was indebted to Dorothy's notebook for many a good
+suggestion. He has been most generous in his acknowledgments of his
+obligation to her:--
+
+  "She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
+   And humble cares, and delicate fears,
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    And love, and thought, and joy."
+
+In the early days when he was overwhelmed with adverse criticism and
+brought almost to the verge of despair, it was Dorothy's helping hand
+that brought him back to his own.
+
+  "She whispered still that brightness would return;
+   She, in the midst of all, preserved me still
+   A poet, made me seek beneath that name,
+   And that alone, my office upon earth."
+
+[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE]
+
+But it is De Quincey who gives the best statement of the world's
+obligation to Dorothy. Said he:--
+
+  Whereas the intellect of Wordsworth was, by its original tendency, too
+  stern, too austere, too much enamored of an ascetic harsh sublimity,
+  she it was--the lady who paced by his side continually through sylvan
+  and mountain tracks, in Highland glens, and in the dim recesses of
+  German charcoal-burners--that first couched his eye to the sense of
+  beauty, humanized him by the gentler charities, and engrafted, with
+  her delicate female touch, those graces upon the ruder growths of
+  nature which have since clothed the forest of his genius with a
+  foliage corresponding in loveliness and beauty to the strength of its
+  boughs and the massiveness of its trunks.
+
+Nearly all of Wordsworth's best poetry was written in this little
+cottage, or, to speak more accurately, it was composed while he was
+living here. For it was never his way to write verses while seated at a
+desk, pen in hand. His study was out of doors. He could compose a long
+poem while walking, and remember it all afterward when ready to dictate.
+Thousands of verses, he said, were composed on the banks of the brook
+running through Easedale, just north of Grasmere Lake. The tall figure
+of the poet was a familiar sight to farmers for miles around, as he
+paced the woods or mountain paths, his head bent down, and his lips
+moving with audible if not distinguishable sounds. One of his neighbors
+has left on record an impression of how he seemed when he was "making a
+poem."
+
+  He would set his head a bit forward, and put his hands behind his
+  back. And then he would start in bumming, and it was bum, bum, bum,
+  stop; and then he'd set down, and git a bit o' paper out, and write a
+  bit. However, his lips were always goan' whoole time he was upon
+  gress[1] walk. He was a kind mon, there's no two words about that; and
+  if any one was sick i' the place, he wad be off to see til' 'em.
+
+In personal appearance--about which, by the way, he cared little--he was
+not unlike the dalesmen about him. Nearly six feet high, he looked
+strong and hardy enough to be a farmer himself. Carlyle speaks of him as
+"businesslike, sedately confident, no discourtesy, yet no anxiety about
+being courteous; a fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain
+breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran and on all he said or did."
+
+On our return from Grasmere we took the road along the north shore of
+Rydal Water--a small lake with all the characteristic beauty of this
+fascinating region, and yet not so different from hundreds of others
+that it would ever attract more than passing notice. But the name of
+Rydal is linked with that of Grasmere, and the two are visited by
+thousands of tourists year after year. For fifty years the shores of
+these two lakes and the hills and valleys surrounding them were the
+scenes of Wordsworth's daily walks. As we passed we heard the
+cuckoo--its mysterious sound seeming to come across the lake--and as our
+own thoughts were on Wordsworth, "the wandering Voice" seemed
+appropriate. If we could have heard the skylark at that moment, our
+sense of satisfaction would have been quite complete, and no doubt we
+should have cried out, with the poet,--
+
+  "Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
+       For thy song, Lark, is strong;
+   Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
+       Singing, singing,
+   With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
+       Lift me, guide me till I find
+   That spot which seems so to thy mind."
+
+Just north of the eastern end of the lake, beneath the shadow of Nab
+Scar, is Rydal Mount, where the poet came to live in 1813, remaining
+until his death, thirty-seven years later. Increasing prosperity enabled
+him to take this far more pretentious house. It stands on a hill, a
+little off the main road, and quite out of sight of the tourists who
+pass through in coaches and _chars-a-bancs_. The drivers usually jerk
+their thumbs in the general direction and say, "There is Rydal Mount,"
+etc., and the tourists, who have seen only a farmhouse--not
+Wordsworth's--are left to imagine that they have seen the house of the
+poet.
+
+It is an old house, but some recent changes in doors and windows give it
+a more modern aspect. The unaltered portion is thickly covered with ivy.
+The ground in front is well planted with a profusion of rhododendrons. A
+very old stone stairway descends from the plaza in front of the house to
+a kind of mound or rather a double mound, the smaller resting upon a
+larger one. From this point the house is seen to the best advantage. In
+the opposite direction is a landscape of rare natural beauty. Far away
+in the distance lies Lake Windermere glistening like a shield of
+polished silver, while on the left Wansfell and on the right Nab Scar
+stand guard over the valley. In the foreground the spire of the little
+church of Rydal peeps out over the trees.
+
+At the right of the house is a long terrace which formed one of
+Wordsworth's favorite walks, where he composed thousands of verses. From
+here one may see both Windermere and Rydal Water, with mountains in the
+distance. Passing through the garden we came to a gate leading to Dora's
+Field. Here is the little pool where Wordsworth and Dora put the little
+goldfishes, that they might enjoy a greater liberty. Here is the stone
+which Wordsworth saved from destruction by the builders of a stone wall.
+A little flight of stone steps leads down to another boulder containing
+the following inscription, carved by the poet's own hand:--
+
+  Wouldst thou be gathered to Christ's chosen flock
+  Shun the broad way too easily explored
+  And let thy path be hewn out of the rock
+  The living Rock of God's eternal WORD
+
+    1838
+
+[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S WELL]
+
+Dora's field is thickly covered in spring-time with the beautiful golden
+daffodils, planted by the poet himself. No sight is more fascinating
+at this season than a field of these bright yellow flowers. We
+Americans, who only see them planted in gardens, cannot realize what
+daffodils mean to the English eye, unless we chance to visit England
+during the early spring. What Wordsworth called a "crowd" of daffodils,
+growing in thick profusion along the margin of a lake, beneath the
+trees, ten thousand to be seen at a glance, all nodding their golden
+heads beside the dancing and foaming waves, is a sight well worth
+seeing.
+
+  "The waves beside them danced; but they
+   Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
+   A poet could not but be gay
+   In such a jocund company:
+   I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
+   What wealth the show to me had brought:
+
+   For oft, when on my couch I lie
+   In vacant or in pensive mood,
+   They flash upon that inward eye
+   Which is the bliss of solitude:
+   And then my heart with pleasure fills,
+   And dances with the daffodils."
+
+But now the time had come to return to Windermere, and reluctantly we
+turned our backs upon these scenes, so full of pleasant memories. The
+day, however, was not yet done, for after supper we climbed to the top
+of Orrest-Head, a little hill behind the village. No more charming spot
+could have been chosen in which to spend the closing hours of this
+peaceful day. Far below lay the quiet waters of the lake, only glimpses
+of its long and narrow surface appearing here and there, like "burnished
+mirrors" set by Nature for the sole purpose of reflecting a magnificent
+golden sky. It was "an evening of extraordinary, splendor," like that
+one which Wordsworth saw from Rydal Mount:--
+
+  "No sound is uttered,--but a deep
+   And solemn harmony pervades
+   The hollow vale from steep to steep,
+   And penetrates the glades."
+
+As we stood watching the splendid sunset, the village church rang out
+its chimes, as if to accompany the inspiring scene with sweet and holy
+music.
+
+  "How pleasant, when the sun declines, to view
+   The spacious landscape change in form and hue!
+   Here vanish, as in mist, before a flood
+   Of bright obscurity, hill, lawn, and wood;
+   Their objects, by the searching beams betrayed,
+   Come forth and here retire in purple shade;
+   Even the white stems of birch, the cottage white,
+   Soften their glare before the mellow light."
+
+The shadows which had been slowly falling upon the scene had now so far
+enveloped the mountain-side that the narrow roadways and stone fences
+marking the boundaries of the fields were barely visible. Suddenly in
+the distance we saw a moving object, a mere speck upon the hillside. It
+darted first in one direction and then another, like some frightened
+being uncertain which way to turn. Then a darker speck appeared, and
+with rapid movement circled to the rear of the whiter one, the latter
+moving on ahead. Another sudden movement, and a second white speck
+appeared in another spot. The black speck as quickly moved to the rear
+of this second bit of white, driving it in the same direction as the
+first. The white specks then began to seem more numerous. We tried to
+count--one--two--three--ten--a dozen--perhaps even twenty. There was but
+one black speck, and he seemed to be the master of all the others, for,
+darting here and there after the stragglers, he kept them all together.
+He drove them along the narrow road. Then, coming to an opening in the
+fence, he hurried along to the front of the procession; then, facing
+about, deftly turned the whole flock through the gate into a large
+field. Through this pasture, with the skill of a military leader, he
+marshaled his troop, rushing backwards and forwards, allowing none to
+fall behind nor to stray away from the proper path, finally bringing
+them up in a compact body to another opening in the opposite end of the
+field. On he went, driving his small battalion along the road, then at
+right angles into another road, until the whole flock of sheep and the
+little black dog who commanded them disappeared for the night among the
+out-buildings of a far distant farm.
+
+The twilight had almost gone, and in the growing darkness we retraced
+our steps to the village, well content that, through communion with the
+Spirit of Wordsworth in the presence of that "mighty Being" who to him
+was the great Teacher and Inspirer of mankind, our own love of nature
+had been reawakened, and our time well spent on this peaceful,
+never-to-be-forgotten day at Windermere.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+  [1] Grass.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FROM HAWTHORNDEN TO ROSLIN GLEN
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FROM HAWTHORNDEN TO ROSLIN GLEN
+
+
+  "Roslin's towers and braes are bonnie--
+     Craigs and water! woods and glen!
+   Roslin's banks! unpeered by ony,
+     Save the Muse's Hawthornden."
+
+The vale of the Esk is unrivaled, even in Scotland, for beauty and
+romantic interest. From its source to where it enters the Firth of
+Forth, the little river winds its way past ancient castles with their
+romantic legends, famed in poetry and song, and the picturesque homes of
+barons and lairds, poets and philosophers, forming as it goes, with
+rocks and cliffs, tall trees and overhanging vines, a bewildering
+succession of beautiful scenes.
+
+It was to this charming valley that Walter Scott came, with his young
+wife, in the first year of their wedded life. A young man of imaginative
+and romantic temperament, though as yet unknown to fame, he found the
+place an inspiration and delight. A pretty little cottage, with thatched
+roof, and a garden commanding a beautiful view, made the home where many
+happy summers were spent. This was at Lasswade, a village which took its
+striking name from the fact--let us hope it was a fact--that here a
+sturdy lass was wont to wade the stream, carrying travelers on her
+back,--a ferry service sufficiently romantic to make up for its
+uncertainty.
+
+Lockhart tells us that "it was amidst these delicious solitudes" that
+Walter Scott "laid the imperishable foundation of all his fame. It was
+here that when his warm heart was beating with young and happy love, and
+his whole mind and spirit were nerved by new motives for exertion--it
+was here that in the ripened glow of manhood he seems to have first felt
+something of his real strength, and poured himself out in those splendid
+original ballads which were at once to fix his name."
+
+  "Sweet are the paths, O passing sweet!
+     By Esk's fair streams that run,
+   O'er airy steep through copsewood deep,
+     Impervious to the sun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   Who knows not Melville's beechy grove
+     And Roslin's rocky glen,
+   Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
+     And classic Hawthornden?"
+
+[Illustration: HAWTHORNDEN]
+
+The visitor who would see "Roslin's rocky glen" may take a coach in
+Edinburgh and soon reach the spot after a pleasant drive over a
+well-kept road. But if he would see "classic Hawthornden" in the same
+day, he must go there first. For the gate which separates the two opens
+out from Hawthornden and the traveler cannot pass in the opposite
+direction. We therefore took the train from Edinburgh, and after half
+an hour alighted at a little station, from which we walked a few hundred
+yards along a quiet country road, until we reached a lodge marking the
+entrance to a large estate. Entering here, a few steps brought us to the
+house of the gardener, who first conducted us to the place that
+interests him the most--a large and well-kept garden, full of fruits and
+vegetables, beautiful flowers and well-trained vines. His pride
+satisfied by our sincere admiration of his handiwork, our guide was
+ready to reveal to us the glory of Hawthornden, and conducted us to the
+edge of a precipice known as John Knox's Pulpit. In front is a deep
+ravine of stupendous rocks partly bare and partly covered with bushes
+and pendent creepers. The tall trees on the border, the wooded hill in
+the distance, and the grand sweep of the river far below, form a scene
+of majestic grandeur as nearly perfect as one could wish. To the left,
+on the very edge of a perpendicular rock, is a strong, well-built
+mansion, so situated that the windows of its principal rooms command a
+view of the wondrous vale. On the other side of the house are the
+ivy-covered ruins of an older castle, dating back many centuries.
+
+Since the middle of the sixteenth century, Hawthornden has been the home
+of a family of Drummonds--a famous Scottish name. William Drummond, the
+most distinguished of them all, whose name is inseparably associated
+with the place, was born in 1585. His father was a gentleman-usher at
+the court of King James VI, and through his association with the
+Scottish royalty had acquired the Hawthornden property. The boy grew up
+amid such surroundings, was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and
+traveled on the Continent for three years before settling down to his
+life-work, which he then thought would be the practice of law. But
+scarcely had he returned to Edinburgh for this purpose, when his father
+died, and young Drummond, at the age of twenty-four, found himself
+master of Hawthornden with ample means at his command. All thought of
+the law was abandoned forthwith. The quiet of Hawthornden and the beauty
+of its natural scenery fitted his temperament exactly. He had already
+acquired a scholar's tastes, had read extensively, and possessed a large
+library in which the Latin classics predominated, though there were many
+books in Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, French, and English. He
+retired to his delightful home to live among his books, and if he found
+that such surroundings became a tacit invitation from the Muses to keep
+them company, who could wonder? "Content with my books and the use of my
+eyes," he said, "I learnt even from my boyhood to live beneath my
+fortune; and, dwelling by myself as much as I can, I neither sigh for
+nor seek aught that is outside me."
+
+It has been said that Drummond's three stars were Philosophy,
+Friendship, and Love. Some three or four years after the poet began his
+contented life at Hawthornden, the latter star began to shine so
+brightly as to eclipse the other two. In 1614 he met an attractive girl
+of seventeen or eighteen, the daughter of Alexander Cunningham, of
+Barns, a country-seat on a little stream known as the Ore, in Fifeshire,
+on the opposite side of the Firth of Forth. His poems began at once to
+reveal the extent to which the loveliness of the fair Euphame had taken
+possession of him:--
+
+  "Vaunt not, fair Heavens, of your two glorious lights,
+   Which, though most bright, yet see not when they shine,
+   And shining cannot show their beams divine
+   Both in one place, but part by days and nights;
+   Earth, vaunt not of those treasures ye enshrine,
+   Held only dear because hid from our sights,
+   Your pure and burnished gold your diamonds fine,
+   Snow-passing ivory that the eye delights;
+   Nor, Seas, of those dear wares are in you found;
+   Vaunt not rich pearl, red coral, which do stir
+   A fond desire in fools to plunge your ground.
+   Those all more fair are to be had in her:
+   Pearl, ivory, coral, diamond, suns, gold,
+   Teeth, neck, lips, heart, eyes, hair, are to behold."
+
+On seeing her in a boat on the Forth he declared her perfection:--
+
+  "Slide soft, fair Forth, and make a crystal plain;
+   Cut your white locks, and on your foaming face
+   Let not a wrinkle be, when you embrace
+   The boat that earth's perfections doth contain."
+
+The river Ore, on the banks of which he first met his lady-love, became
+to Drummond the greatest river in the world. In one sonnet he compares
+the tiny stream with every famous river from the Arno to the Nile; and
+finds that none of them
+
+  "Have ever had so rare a cause of praise."
+
+Unfortunately, his happiness was of brief duration, for on the very eve
+of the marriage, the young lady died. Drummond's grief was intense. One
+can almost imagine him mournfully gazing down the beautiful glen, which
+she might have enjoyed with him, and exclaiming--
+
+  "Trees, happier far than I,
+   That have the grace to heave your heads so high,
+   And overlook those plains;
+   Grow till your branches kiss that lofty sky
+   Which her sweet self contains.
+   Then make her know my endless love and pains
+   And how those tears, which from mine eyes do fall
+   Helpt you to rise so tall.
+   Tell her, as once I for her sake loved breath
+   So, for her sake, I now court lingering death."
+
+[Illustration: THE SYCAMORE]
+
+For some years after her death, Euphame was to Drummond what Beatrice
+was to Dante--the inspirer of all that was good in him. Later in life
+he married Elizabeth Logan, a lady who was said to resemble Euphame
+Cunningham, and she became the mother of his five sons and four
+daughters.
+
+In front of the mansion of Hawthornden is a venerable sycamore, said to
+be five hundred years old. In the month of January, 1619, according to a
+favorite and oft-told story, Drummond was sitting beneath this tree,
+when he saw and recognized the huge form of Ben Jonson, as that
+rollicking hero sauntered toward him along the private road. Jonson had
+walked all the way from London to see what could be seen in Scotland,
+and one of the attractions had been an invitation from Drummond, who was
+now beginning to be known in England, to spend two or three weeks at his
+home. As he approached, Drummond arose and greeted him heartily,
+saying,--
+
+  "Welcome, welcome, royal Ben!"
+
+To which Jonson quickly replied replied--
+
+  "Thankee, thankee, Hawthornden!"
+
+Upon which they both laughed and felt well acquainted at once.
+
+The contrast between these two men, as they stood under the old
+sycamore, must have been strongly marked. Drummond, quiet, reserved, and
+gentle in manner--Jonson, boisterous and offensively vulgar: Drummond,
+well dressed and refined in appearance--Jonson, fat, coarse, and
+slovenly; Drummond, a country gentleman, accustomed to live well, but
+always within his means, caring little for society, a man of correct
+habits and strict piety, and later in life a loving husband and a tender
+father--Jonson, the dictator of literary London, who waved his scepter
+in the "Devil Tavern" in Fleet Street, egotistical and quarrelsome,
+self-assertive, a bully in disposition, his life a perpetual round of
+dissipation and debt, his means of livelihood dependent on luck or
+favor, and his greatest enjoyment centering in association with those
+who, like himself, were most at home in the theaters and taverns of the
+great bustling city.
+
+Yet both were poets and men of genius, though in different ways. In
+spite of his peculiarities, Drummond found "rare Ben Jonson" a most
+interesting companion. He kept a close record of the conversations which
+passed between them, and might well be called the father of modern
+interviewing. But unlike the interviewer of to-day, Drummond did not
+rush to the nearest telegraph station to get his story "on the wire" and
+"scoop" his contemporaries. There were no telegraphs nor newspapers to
+call for such effort, and Drummond had too much respect for the courtesy
+due a guest to think of publishing their private talks. But a portion of
+the material was published in 1711, long after Drummond's death, and
+probably the whole of it in 1832. These conversations with one who knew
+intimately most of the literary leaders of his time have proved
+invaluable. They contain Ben's opinions of nearly everybody--Queen
+Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, King James, Spenser, Raleigh,
+Shakespeare, Bacon, Drayton, Beaumont, Chapman, Fletcher, and many other
+contemporaries. Most of all they contain his opinion of himself and his
+writings, which needless to say is quite exalted.
+
+With no thought of his notes being published, Drummond allowed himself
+perfect frankness in writing about his guest. His summary of the
+impression made by Ben's visit is as follows:--
+
+  He is a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and scorner of
+  others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every
+  word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is
+  one of the elements in which he liveth); a dissembler of ill parts
+  which reign in him, a bragger of some good that he wanteth; thinketh
+  nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and
+  countrymen hath said or done: he is passionately kind and angry;
+  careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if he be well
+  answered, at himself. For any religion, as being versed in both.
+  Interpreted best sayings and deeds often to the worst. Oppressed with
+  phantasy which hath ever mastered his reason, a general disease in
+  many poets.... He was in his personal character the very reverse of
+  Shakespeare, as surly, ill-natured, proud and disagreeable as
+  Shakespeare, with ten times his merit, was gentle, good-natured, easy,
+  and amiable.
+
+Jonson expressed with equal frankness his opinion of Drummond, to whom
+he said that he "was too good and simple, and that oft a man's modesty
+made a fool of his wit."
+
+Drummond as a poet was classed by Robert Southey and Thomas Campbell in
+the highest rank of the British poets who appeared before Milton. His
+sonnets, which are remarkable for their exquisite delicacy and
+tenderness, won for him the title of "the Scottish Petrarch." It has
+been said that they come as near to perfection as any others of this
+kind of writing and that as a sonneteer Drummond is surpassed only by
+Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth among the poets who have written in
+English.
+
+Before taking leave of the Scottish poet and his picturesque home, we
+paused for a few minutes to visit the wondrous caverns, cut out of the
+solid rock upon which the house is built. Antiquarians have insisted
+that these caves date back to the time of the Picts, at least as far as
+the ninth or tenth century.
+
+This, too, was the popular understanding before the scientists offered
+their opinion. In a curious old volume, published in 1753,[2] we are
+told:--
+
+  Underneath [the house of Drummond] are the noted Caverns of
+  _Hawthorn-Den_, by Dr. _Stuckely_ in his _Itinerarium-Curiosa_, said
+  to have been the King of _Pictlands_ Castle or Palace; which nothing
+  can shew the Doctor's Credulity more than by suffering himself to be
+  imposed upon by the Tattle of the Vulgar, who in all things they
+  cannot account for, are ascribed to the _Picts_, without the least
+  Foundation. For those caves, instead of having been a Castle or
+  Palace, I take them either to have been a Receptacle for Robbers, or
+  Places to secure the People and their Effects in, during the
+  destructive Wars between the _Picts_ and _English_, and _Scots_ and
+  _English_.
+
+During the contests between Bruce and Baliol for the Scottish crown,
+these caves became a place of refuge for Bruce and his friends, and one
+of the rooms is still pointed out as Bruce's bedchamber.
+
+  "Here, too, are labyrinthine paths
+     To caverns dark and low,
+   Wherein they say King Robert Bruce
+     Found refuge from his foe."
+
+In the walls are many square holes, from twelve to eighteen inches deep,
+supposed to have been used as cupboards. On a rough table near one of
+the openings is a rude and very much damaged desk, said to have been the
+property of John Knox.
+
+Leaving these gloomy resorts of ancient heroes--perhaps of ancient
+robbers--we sought a brighter and more cheerful scene. Descending the
+path we reached a bridge over the Esk on which is a gate that permitted
+us to leave Hawthornden, although it does not allow wanderers on the
+other side to enter. The bridge gave a fine opportunity for a farewell
+view of the grand old mansion, high in the air at the top of the cliff,
+which we were now viewing from below.
+
+A delightful stroll along the left bank of the stream for about two
+miles brought us to Roslin Castle, situated on a rocky promontory high
+above the river. At the point of the peninsula the river is narrowed by
+a large mass of reddish sandstone over which it falls. When flooded this
+becomes a beautiful cascade,--whence the name, "Ross," a Gaelic word
+meaning promontory or jutting rock, and "Lyn," a waterfall,--the "Rock
+of the Waterfall." The Esk, where it forms the cascade, is still called
+"the Lynn." The view from the promontory is one of the most delightful
+to be imagined. The banks are precipitous and covered with a luxurious
+growth of natural wood. The vale seems to be crowded with every possible
+combination of trees and cliffs, foliage and sparkling stream, that
+nature can put together to form a region of romantic suggestion.
+
+[Illustration: RUINS OF ROSLIN CASTLE]
+
+Little now remains of the ancient castle of Roslin, which was formerly
+two hundred feet long and ninety feet wide. A few ivy-covered walls and
+towers may still be seen, in the midst of which is a more modern
+dwelling rebuilt in 1653. The ancient foundation walls, nine feet thick,
+still visible below the surface, and the almost inaccessible location of
+the castle tell the story of its original purpose. A huge kitchen,
+with the fireplace alone occupying as much space as the entire kitchen
+of one of our modern houses, suggests the lavish scale upon which the
+establishment was once conducted.
+
+The castle was built by a family of St. Clairs, whose ancestor,
+Waldernus de St. Clair, came over with the Conqueror. William St. Clair,
+Baron of Roslin, Earl of Caithness and Prince of the Orkneys, who
+flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century, was one of the most
+famous of these barons. He lived in the magnificence of royal state.
+
+  He kept a great court and was royally served at his own table in
+  vessels of gold and silver.... He had his halls and other apartments
+  richly adorned with embroidered hangings. His princess, Elizabeth
+  Douglas, was served by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three
+  were daughters of noblemen, all clothed in velvet and silks, with
+  their chains of gold, and other ornaments; and was attended by two
+  hundred riding gentlemen in all her journeys; and if it happened to be
+  dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her lodgings were at the foot
+  of the Black Friar's Wynd, eighty lighted torches were carried before
+  her.[3]
+
+The castle was accidentally set on fire in 1447 and badly damaged, and
+was leveled to the ground by English forces under the Earl of Hertford,
+in 1544, who was sent to Scotland by Henry VIII to seek to enforce the
+marriage of his son Edward to the infant Mary of Scotland, the daughter
+of James V. In 1650 it was again destroyed, during Cromwell's campaign
+in Scotland, by General Monk, and rising again, suffered severely at the
+hands of a mob from Edinburgh in 1688.
+
+It was William St. Clair, the feudal baron above referred to, who built
+the exquisitely beautiful chapel which stands not far from the castle.
+The same ancient manuscript, previously quoted, informs us that
+
+  His age creeping on him made him consider how he had spent his time
+  past, and how to spend that which was to come. Therefore to the end he
+  might not seem altogether unthankfull to God for the benefices
+  receaved from Him, it came in his minde to build a house for God's
+  service of most curious work, the which, that it might be done with
+  greater glory and splendour he caused artificers to be brought from
+  other regions and forraigne kingdoms and caused dayly to be abundance
+  of all kinde of workemen present, etc., etc.
+
+The foundation of Roslin Chapel was laid in 1446. It was originally
+intended to be a cruciform structure with a high central tower. The
+existing chapel is, therefore, really only a small part of what the
+church was meant to be. Its style is called "florid Gothic," but this is
+probably for want of a better name. There is no other piece of
+architecture like it in the world. It is a medley of all architectures,
+the Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, and Saracenic being intermingled with all
+kinds of decorations and designs, some exquisitely beautiful and others
+quaint and even grotesque. There are thirteen different varieties of the
+arch. The owner, who possessed great wealth, desired novelty. He secured
+it by engaging architects and builders from all parts of Europe. The
+most beautiful feature of the interior is known as the "'Prentice's
+Pillar." It is a column with richly carved spiral wreaths of beautiful
+foliage twined about from floor to ceiling. It is said that the
+master-builder, when he came to erect this column, found himself unable
+to carry out the design, and traveled to Rome to see a column of similar
+description there. When he returned he found that his apprentice had
+studied the plans in his absence and with greater genius than his own,
+had overcome the difficulties and fashioned a pillar more beautiful than
+any ever before dreamed of. The master, stung with jealous rage, struck
+the apprentice with his mallet, killing him instantly. This, at least,
+is the accepted legend.
+
+The barons of Roslin were buried beneath the chapel side by side,
+encased in their full suits of armor. There was a curious superstition
+that when one of the family died, the chapel was enveloped in flames,
+but not consumed. This and the "uncoffined chiefs" are referred to by
+Scott in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." The lady is lost in the storm
+while crossing the Firth on her way to Roslin:--
+
+  "O'er Roslin all that dreary night
+     A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
+   'Twas broader than the watch-fire light,
+     And redder than the bright moonbeam.
+
+  "It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
+     It ruddied all the copsewood glen;
+   'Twas seen from Dreyden's groves of oak,
+     And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
+
+  "Seemed all on fire that chapel proud
+     Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
+   Each baron, for a sable shroud,
+     Sheathed in his iron panoply.
+
+  "Seemed all on fire within, around,
+     Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
+   Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
+     And glimmered all the dead men's mail.
+
+  "Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
+     Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair--
+   So still they blaze when fate is nigh
+     The lordly line of high St. Clair.
+
+  "There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
+     Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
+   Each one the holy vault doth hold--
+     But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle."
+
+Commemorated by a tablet in the chapel is another interesting legend.
+Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, in following the chase on Pentland Hills
+near Roslin, had often started "a white faunch deer" which invariably
+escaped from his hounds. In his vexation he asked his nobles whether any
+of them had hounds which would likely be more successful. All hesitated
+for fear that the mere suggestion of possessing dogs superior to those
+of the king might be an offense. But Sir William St. Clair (one of the
+predecessors of the builder of the chapel) boldly and unceremoniously
+came forward and said he would wager his head that his two favorite dogs
+Hold and Help would kill the deer before it could cross the March burn.
+The king promptly accepted the rash wager, and betted the forest of
+Pentland Moor.
+
+  The hunters reach the heathern steeps and Sir William, posting himself
+  in the best situation for slipping his dogs, prayed devoutly to
+  Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. Katherine. The deer is started, the
+  hounds are slipped; when Sir William spurs his gallant steed and
+  cheers the dogs. The deer reaches the middle of the March-burn brook,
+  the hounds are still in the rear, and our hero's life is at its
+  crisis. An awful moment; the hunter threw himself from his horse in
+  despair and Fate seemed to sport with his feelings. At the critical
+  moment Hold fastened on the game, and Help coming up, turned the deer
+  back and killed it close by Sir William's side. The generous monarch
+  embraced the knight and bestowed on him the lands of Kirktown, Logan
+  House, Earnsham, etc., in free forestrie.[4]
+
+The grateful Sir William erected a chapel to St. Katherine, at the spot,
+to commemorate the saint's intervention.
+
+One more tale of Roslin remains to be told. Not far away, on Roslin
+Moor, occurred one of the famous battles of Scottish history. There were
+really three battles, all fought in one day, the 24th of February, 1303.
+Three divisions of the English army, consisting of thirty thousand men,
+were successively attacked by the valiant Scots with only ten thousand
+men, who, after overpowering the first division, attacked the second,
+and then the third, defeating all three in the same day.
+
+And so, with history and legend, poetry and romance, real life and
+fiction, the glory of nature's art and the achievements of human
+handicraft all happily intermingled in our thought and blended into one
+pleasant memory, we brought to its close our walk through the valley of
+the Esk, from Hawthornden to Roslin Glen.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [2] Maitland's _History of Scotland_.
+
+  [3] From an old manuscript, in the Advocates' Library, collection of
+    Richard Augustine Hay.
+
+  [4] Britton's _Architectural Antiquities_.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE COUNTRY OF MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE COUNTRY OF MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
+
+
+I
+
+MRS. WARD AND HER WORK
+
+"'Why does any one stay in England who _can_ make the trip to Paradise?'
+said the duchess, as she leaned lazily back in the corner of the boat
+and trailed her fingers in the waters of Como."
+
+These words from "Lady Rose's Daughter" came to mind as we glided
+swiftly in a little motor-boat, late in the afternoon of a perfect April
+day, over the smooth waters of Como and into the arm of the lake known
+as Lecco, where we were to enjoy our cup of tea in a little _latteria_
+high up on a rocky crag. In the stern sat Mrs. Ward, looking the picture
+of contentment, a light summer hat with simple trimmings giving an
+almost girlish aspect to a face in which strong intellectuality and
+depth of moral purpose were clearly the predominating features. A day's
+work done,--for Mrs. Ward goes to Como for work, not play,--this little
+trip across the lake was one of her favorite recreations, in which, for
+the time, we were hospitably permitted to share. About us were the
+scenes "enchanted, incomparable," which are best described in the words
+of Mrs. Ward herself:--
+
+  When Spring descends upon the shores of the Lago di Como, she brings
+  with her all the graces, all the beauties, all the fine, delicate, and
+  temperate delights of which earth and sky are capable, and she pours
+  them forth upon a land of perfect loveliness. Around the shores of
+  other lakes--Maggiore, Lugano, Garda--blue mountains rise and the
+  vineyards spread their green and dazzling terraces to the sun. Only
+  Como can show in unmatched union a main composition, incomparably
+  grand and harmonious, combined with every jeweled or glowing or
+  exquisite detail. Nowhere do the mountains lean towards each other in
+  such an ordered splendor as that which bends around the northern
+  shores of Como. Nowhere do buttressed masses rise behind each other,
+  to right and left of a blue waterway, in lines statelier or more noble
+  than those kept by the mountains of Lecco Lake as they marshal
+  themselves on either hand, along the approaches to Lombardy and
+  Venetia.
+
+  [Illustration: MRS. HUMPHRY WARD AND MISS DOROTHY WARD]
+
+  ... And within this divine framework, between the glistening snows
+  which still, in April, crown and glorify the heights, and those
+  reflections of them which lie encalmed in the deep bosom of the lake,
+  there's not a foot of pasture, not a shelf of vineyard, not a slope of
+  forest, where the spring is not at work, dyeing the turf with
+  gentians, starring it with narcissuses, or drawing across it the first
+  golden network of the chestnut leaves; where the mere emerald of the
+  grass is not in itself a thing to refresh the very springs of being;
+  where the peach-blossom and the wild cherry and the olive are not
+  perpetually weaving patterns on the blue which ravish the very heart
+  out of your breast. And already the roses are beginning to pour over
+  the wall; the wistaria is climbing up the cypresses; a pomp of
+  camellias and azaleas is in all the gardens; while in the glassy bays
+  that run up into the hills the primrose banks still keep their sweet
+  austerity, and the triumph of spring over the just banished winter is
+  still sharp and new.
+
+It was in a garden such as this, with a wild cherry tree and olives
+"perpetually weaving patterns" against the blue sky, that we first met
+Mrs. Ward. It was a balmy April morning. The scent of spring was in the
+air, and the birds were adding their melody to the beauty of the
+landscape. The villa stands well up the slope of a high hill and is
+reached by a winding path through fragrant trees. A little below the
+level of the house is a shady nook, well sheltered from the sun, from
+which the high mountains of the north and the blue glimmer of the lake
+beneath can be plainly seen. Here we were greeted by the novelist in
+terms of cordiality that instantly made us "feel at home." There was no
+posing, none of that condescension which some writers had led us to
+expect. We were simply welcomed as friends, with a perfect hospitality
+that seemed to be born of the tranquil beauty all about us.
+
+Mrs. Ward is a woman of rather more than medium height and of erect and
+graceful carriage. Her manner is dignified, but it is the dignity of
+one properly conscious of her own strength and is never repellent. One
+cannot help feeling that he is in the presence of a distinguished
+person--one who has justly earned a world-wide fame--and yet one in whom
+the attributes of true womanliness reign supreme. You are proud of the
+honor of her friendship, and yet you cannot help thinking what an
+excellent neighbor she would be.
+
+The instinct which impels Mrs. Ward to seek such scenes of beauty as
+Lake Como in which to do her writing came to her naturally, for her
+childhood was spent in one of the most beautiful parts of all England,
+Westmoreland, the home of Wordsworth and of Ruskin. Here "Arnold of
+Rugby" made his home in a charmingly situated cottage known as Fox How.
+"Fox," in the language of Westmoreland, means "fairy," and "how" is
+"hill." A "fairy hill" indeed it must have seemed to Dr. Arnold's little
+granddaughter Mary, when as a child of five she was brought there by her
+father from far-away Tasmania, where she was born. The English Lakes are
+famous for their beauty, but there is no more delightful spot in all the
+region than the valley "under Loughrigg," and no lovelier river than the
+Rothay, rippling over the smooth pebbles from Wordsworth's beloved Rydal
+Water down to the more pretentious grandeur of Lake Windermere. The
+impressions of her childhood created in the future novelist an intense
+love of these streams and mountains, which only increased with her
+absence and the enlargement of her field of vision. When she was the
+mother of a little girl of seven and a boy of four, she determined to
+give to them the same impressions which had delighted her own childhood,
+and the family made an ever-memorable visit from Oxford, where they were
+then living, to the vicinity of Fox How--a visit which all children may
+enjoy who will read the pretty little story of "Milly and Olly."
+
+Mary Augusta Arnold was born in Tasmania on the 11th of June, 1851. Her
+father, Thomas Arnold, second son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby and brother of
+Matthew Arnold, was at that time Inspector of Schools in the far-away
+island. He had married the granddaughter of Colonel Sorell, a former
+Governor of Tasmania, and no doubt intended to remain there permanently.
+But, becoming interested, even at that distance, in the so-called
+"Oxford Movement" of the middle of the last century, he determined to
+return to England, where he followed Newman and others into the Roman
+Catholic Church, accepting a professorship of English Literature in the
+Catholic University of Dublin. His daughter Mary, the eldest of six, was
+sent to Ambleside to be educated. In 1865, having renounced the Catholic
+faith, Mr. Arnold took up his residence at Oxford. Here his eldest
+daughter, at the age of fourteen, came under the influence of the
+friendships and associations which were to have so potent an influence
+upon her future career. The most important of these were Professor Mark
+Pattison and the Bodleian Library. Professor Pattison strongly urged her
+to specialize her studies, and acting upon his suggestion, she learned
+the Spanish language and began a course of study in Spanish literature
+and history, in which she found the facilities of the Bodleian Library
+invaluable. In 1872 she became the wife of Mr. Thomas Humphry Ward, then
+a fellow and tutor in Brasenose College. During the ensuing ten or
+eleven years Mrs. Ward assisted her husband in his literary work and
+contributed largely to the "Pall Mall Gazette," the "Saturday Review,"
+the "Academy," and other magazines, besides publishing the little book
+for children already referred to, "Milly and Olly."
+
+[Illustration: "UNDER LOUGHRIGG"]
+
+In 1881 Mr. Ward accepted a position on the staff of the "Times," and
+the family removed to London. For several years they occupied a house in
+Russell Square, which Mrs. Ward still regards with fond memories, later
+removing to their present town house, No. 25 Grosvenor Place. But Mrs.
+Ward's love of nature is too intense for an uninterrupted residence in
+London, and she possesses an ideal country home some thirty miles away,
+near the little village of Aldbury, known as "Stocks." This large and
+beautiful estate is ancient enough to be mentioned in "Domesday Book."
+Its name does not come from the old "stocks" used as an instrument of
+punishment, which may still be seen in the village, although this is a
+common supposition. "Stocks" is derived from the German "stock," meaning
+stick or tree, and refers to the magnificent grove by which the house is
+surrounded.
+
+Before Stocks became a possibility, Mrs. Ward usually managed to choose
+a summer home in the country, and these choices are most interestingly
+reflected in her novels. During the Oxford residence Surrey was a
+favorite resort for seven years, its atmosphere entering largely into
+the composition of "Miss Bretherton" and "Robert Elsmere." Two nights
+spent at a farm on the Kinderscout gave ample material for the opening
+chapter of the "History of David Grieve." The lease for a season of
+Hampden House, in Buckinghamshire, gave the original for Mellor Park in
+"Marcella," and a visit near Crewe fixed the scenes of "Sir George
+Tressady." "Helbeck of Bannisdale" was the result of a summer spent in
+the delightful home of Captain Bagot, of Levens Hall, near Kendal.
+Summers in Italy and Switzerland gave most charming scenery for "Lady
+Rose's Daughter" and "Eleanor," and, to a less degree, "The Marriage of
+William Ashe." The cottage of her youngest daughter, Dorothy, near the
+Langdale Pikes, suggested the home of Fenwick, while Diana Mallory found
+her home in Stocks itself. Thus the creatures of Mrs. Ward's fancy have
+simply lived in the places which she knew the best. They are all scenes
+of beauty, for Mrs. Ward loves the beautiful in nature, and has spent
+her life where this yearning could be most fully gratified.
+
+But if Mrs. Ward seeks the country as the best place for literary work,
+she is not idle when in the city. If any one imagines her to be merely a
+society woman with a genius for literature, he is making a serious
+mistake. Outside of society and literature she is a busy woman, bent on
+the accomplishment of a task which few would have the courage to assume.
+Her ideal is best expressed in the closing words of "Robert Elsmere":--
+
+  The New Brotherhood still exists, and grows. There are many who
+  imagined that, as it had been raised out of the earth by Elsmere's
+  genius, so it would sink with him. Not so! He would have fought the
+  struggle to victory with surpassing force, with a brilliancy and
+  rapidity none after him could rival. But the struggle was not his. His
+  effort was but a fraction of the effort of the race. In that effort,
+  and in the Divine force behind it, is our trust, as was his.
+
+These words, written nearly a quarter of a century ago, were truly
+prophetic. For Mrs. Ward not only possesses the kind of genius from
+which an Elsmere could be created, but is gifted with a rare capacity
+for business, which has enabled her to crystallize the ideals of her
+work of fiction into a substantial and permanent institution for
+practical benevolence. She was already interested in "settlement" work
+among the poor of London during the writing of the novel. But in 1891,
+after the storm of criticism which the book aroused had subsided, its
+suggestions began to take definite shape in the organization of the
+Passmore Edwards Settlement, in University Hall, in Gordon Square. In
+1898 the work was moved to its present quarters in Tavistock Place,
+where, under the leadership of Mrs. Ward and through the generosity of
+herself and the friends whom she had been able to influence, a large and
+substantial building was erected. Directly in the rear of the building
+is a large garden owned by the Duke of Bedford, who recently placed it
+at the disposal of the Settlement, keeping it in order at his own
+expense, resowing the grass every year to keep it fresh and thick. Here
+in the vacation season one thousand children daily enjoy the luxury of
+sitting and walking on the grass, and that in the heart of central
+London. The garden occupies the site of Dickens's Tavistock House. One
+cannot help imagining the author of Little Nell sitting there in spirit
+while troops of happy London children pass in review. The land here
+placed entirely at the disposal of Mrs. Ward and the warden of the
+Settlement is worth not less than half a million dollars. Twenty-seven
+teachers, under the direction of a competent supervisor, give
+instruction in organized out-of-door exercises.
+
+This was the first of the recreation schools or play centers. Handwork
+occupations, such as cooking--both for girls and boys--sewing, knitting,
+basket-work, carpentering, cobbling, clay modeling, painting and
+drawing; dancing combined with old English songs and nursery rhymes;
+musical drill and gymnastics; quiet games and singing games; acting; and
+a children's library of story-books and picture-books--these are the
+provisions which have been made for the fortunate children of that
+locality.
+
+[Illustration: THE PASSMORE EDWARDS SETTLEMENT HOUSE]
+
+The entire purpose of such play centers is to rescue the children of the
+poor from the demoralization that results from being turned out to play
+after school hours in the streets and alleyways, where they are
+subjected to every kind of vile association and influence. The effects
+already noted by those in charge of the centers are improvement in
+manners, in thoughtfulness for the little ones, and in unselfishness;
+increase in regard for truth and honesty; the development of the
+instinct in all children to "make something"; the teaching that it is
+more enjoyable to play together in harmony than when obedience to a
+leader is refused. The success of this first experiment was so marked
+that gradually other centers were started in different parts of
+London. Liberal sums of money were placed in the hands of Mrs. Ward, who
+enlisted the support of the County Council to the extent of securing
+facilities in the public school buildings. The work has so far
+progressed that the total attendance last year[5] reached an aggregate
+of six hundred thousand. It is difficult to estimate from these figures
+how many children were affected, but, taking--at a guess--fifty times as
+the average attendance of each, this would mean that the lives of at
+least twelve thousand poor children were directly lifted up by this
+practical charity, and that as many more hard-working and anxious
+parents were indirectly benefited.
+
+But Mrs. Ward will not be satisfied until the entire school population
+of London has been made to feel the influence of these play centers.
+Private beneficence, as she has plainly pointed out, can never solve the
+problem. "Private effort," said she in a well-known letter to the London
+"Times," "cannot deal with seven hundred and fifty thousand children, or
+even with three hundred thousand. If there is a serious and urgent need,
+if both the physique and the morale of our town children are largely at
+stake, and if private persons can only touch a fraction of the problem,
+what remains but to appeal to the public conscience?"
+
+This is Mrs. Ward's way of "doing things." She does not appeal to public
+authority to accomplish an ideal without first finding a way and proving
+that it can be done. But, having clearly demonstrated her proposition at
+private expense, she does not rest content with the results so obtained,
+but pushes steadily forward toward the larger ideal, which can be
+realized only through public support.
+
+But the recreation school is only a part of the work of the Passmore
+Edwards Settlement. During the daytime many of the rooms are used by the
+"Cripple Schools." Children who are suffering from spinal diseases,
+heart trouble, and deformities of various kinds which prevent attendance
+at the regular schools are daily brought to the Settlement in
+ambulances. Here the little ones do all kinds of kindergarten work,
+while the older ones are instructed in drawing, sewing, bent-iron work,
+and other suitable tasks. As an outgrowth of this school twenty-three
+cripple schools are now in operation in London.
+
+But it is in the evening that the Passmore Edwards Settlement is seen to
+best advantage. There is a large library containing some three thousand
+volumes, which are kept in active use. On Monday nights two tables in
+this room are the centers of busy groups. These represent the "coal
+club," a businesslike charity of a very practical kind. The club buys a
+large quantity of coal in the summer-time, when it can be obtained
+cheapest. As a large consumer, it usually gets every possible
+concession. The members of this club can buy the coal in small
+quantities as wanted, or as they are able to pay for it, at any time
+during the year, at the summer price of one shilling one and a half
+pence per hundred weight (twenty-seven cents). If bought during the
+winter in the ordinary way, they would have to pay perhaps five or six
+pence more--a very substantial saving. Thrift is encouraged by allowing
+members to deposit small sums in the summer to apply against their
+winter purchases. Last year the club transacted a business equal to
+about $4300.
+
+"The Poor Man's Lawyer" is another practical part of the work. Once each
+week free legal advice is given to all who ask it, and considerable
+money has been saved to people who, from ignorance and poverty, might
+have been imposed upon. The "Men's Club," the "Boys' Club," the "Factory
+Girls' Club," and the "Women's Club" are all actively engaged in
+performing the usual functions of such organizations. There is a
+gymnasium where boys and girls, men and women, all have their regular
+turns of systematic instruction.
+
+An orchestra of a dozen pieces and a choral society of forty members,
+together with a dramatic society, give opportunity for many to take part
+in numerous concerts and entertainments. A large hall is the scene
+nearly every night of some kind of social amusement. The room is
+decorated with many pictures, all reproductions of the best works of
+art, while around the walls are placed busts in marble of Emerson, James
+Martineau, Dickens, Matthew Arnold, Benjamin Jowett, and Sir William
+Herschel--the gift of Mr. Passmore Edwards. There is a large stage for
+dramatic performances, drills, etc., with a piano and a good organ.
+There are tables where the members may play cards, smoke, or have light
+refreshments. On Sunday nights there are concerts or lectures. The whole
+atmosphere of the place is attractive to the men and women who frequent
+it. There is no obtrusive piety, no patronizing air, nothing to offend
+the pride of the poor man who values his self-esteem, yet all the
+influences of the place are elevating.
+
+The whole spirit of the Settlement is expressed in these words,
+displayed in a framed notice at the entrance to the social hall:--
+
+  We believe that many changes in the conditions of life and labour are
+  needed, and are coming to pass; but we believe also that men, without
+  any change except in themselves and in their feelings towards one
+  another, might make this world a better and a happier place.
+
+  Therefore, with the same sympathies but different experiences of life,
+  we meet to exchange ideas and to discuss social questions, in the hope
+  that, as we learn to know one another better, a feeling of fellowship
+  may arise among us.
+
+  To these ends we have a Library, Clubs, Lectures, Classes,
+  Entertainments, etc., and we endeavour to make the Settlement a centre
+  where we may unite our several resources in a social and intellectual
+  home.
+
+In all this work Mrs. Humphry Ward is the inspiration, and a moving,
+active spirit. Her name stands next to that of the wealthy Duke of
+Bedford as the most liberal contributor. She is the Honorable Secretary
+of the Council, a member of the Finance Committee, president of the
+Women's Club, etc. But these are only her official positions. Her
+directing hand is manifest in every branch of the work, and, from the
+warden down to the humblest member of the Girls' Club, her name is
+accorded a respect amounting almost to reverence.
+
+But, as with the play centers, Mrs. Ward is not content with the work of
+this one institution, splendid as it is. To her it is only the means of
+ascertaining the way. She feels that she is dealing with a great
+problem, and her method is to ascertain, first of all, the best
+solution, and then to use her large influence to induce others to take
+up the work. Thus the "New Brotherhood" of Robert Elsmere has not only
+continued to exist for a quarter of a century, but has in it the
+elements of growth which will make it a vital power in human society
+long after the real Robert Elsmere, in the person of Mrs. Ward, has
+ceased to be the directing force.
+
+
+II
+
+THE REAL ROBERT ELSMERE
+
+In seeking to point out the real persons and places of Mrs. Ward's
+novels, it is only fair to the author to begin with her own statement as
+to the story-teller's method of procedure:--
+
+  An idea, a situation, is suggested to him by real life, he takes
+  traits and peculiarities from this or that person whom he has known or
+  seen, but that is all. When he comes to write ... the mere necessities
+  of an imaginative effort oblige him to cut himself adrift from
+  reality. His characters become to him the creatures of a dream, as
+  vivid often as his waking life, but still a dream. And the only
+  portraits he is drawing are portraits of phantoms, of which the germs
+  were present in reality, but to which he himself has given voice,
+  garb, and action.
+
+[Illustration: THE LIME WALK]
+
+It is my purpose to point out some of these "germs of reality" in Mrs.
+Ward's work, relying for the essential facts, at least, upon information
+given me personally by the novelist herself. For Mrs. Ward does not
+hesitate to admit that certain characters were drawn from real life; but
+she insists upon a proper understanding of the exact sense in which this
+is true. Because "Miss Bretherton" was suggested by the career of Mary
+Anderson it does not follow that all that is said of the former is true
+of the latter. There is a vast difference between a "suggestion" and
+a "portrait." The thoughts and feelings or the personal characteristics
+of a certain individual may suggest a character who in his physical
+aspects, his environment, and the events of his career may be conceived
+as an individual totally different. Mrs. Ward's novels contain no
+portraits and no history. But they abound in characters suggested by
+people whom she has known, in incidents and reminiscences of real life,
+and in vivid word-pictures of scenes which she has learned to love or of
+places with which she is personally familiar.
+
+A study of the scenery of these novels properly begins in the County of
+Surrey. About four miles southwest of Godalming is Borough Farm, an
+old-fashioned brick house, which we reached by a drive over country that
+seemed in places almost like a desert--so wild and forsaken that one
+could scarcely believe it to be within a few miles of some of the
+busiest suburbs of London. But it has a splendid beauty of its own. The
+thick gorse with its golden blossoms everywhere waves a welcome. There
+are now and then great oaks to greet you, and graceful patches of white
+birch. And everywhere is a delightfully exhilarating sense of freedom
+and fresh air such as only this kind of open country can suggest. Here
+Mrs. Ward lived for seven summers, finding in the country round about
+some of the most interesting of the scenes of her first novel, "Miss
+Bretherton," and of "Robert Elsmere."
+
+"Miss Bretherton" was published in 1884. Mary Anderson was at that time
+the reigning success on the London stage, while Sarah Bernhardt, in
+Paris, was startling the world with an art of a totally different
+character. The beauty of the young American actress was the one subject
+of conversation. Was it her beauty that attracted the crowds to the
+theater, and that alone? Was she totally lacking in that consummate art
+which the great Frenchwoman admittedly possessed? These questions
+suggested to Mrs. Ward the theme of her first attempt at fiction. The
+beautiful Miss Bretherton is taken in hand by a party of friends
+representing the highest types of culture. In their effort to give her
+mind and body much-needed rest from the exactions of London society she
+is carried away on two notable excursions. The first is to Surrey, the
+real scene of this outing being a place near Borough Farm called "Forked
+Pond," well known to Mrs. Ward and her family while residents at the
+farm. The other is to Oxford, where, after admiring the colleges, which
+brought many happy recollections to the gentlemen of the party, Miss
+Bretherton is taken to Nuneham Park, a beautiful place on the river
+where a small rustic bridge enhances the romantic character of the
+surroundings. This, of course, was familiar ground to the author, who
+spent sixteen happy years in that vicinity as a resident of Oxford.
+Through the kindness of these friends, and particularly by the influence
+of Kendal, who becomes her lover, Miss Bretherton is made to take a new
+view of her art, and is transformed into an actress of real dramatic
+power.
+
+Although a charming story, "Miss Bretherton" did not prove successful
+and had little part in making the reputation of the novelist, who is
+likely to be known as "the author of 'Robert Elsmere,'" so long as her
+fame shall endure. For this great book created a sensation throughout
+the English-speaking world when it appeared, and aroused controversies
+which did not subside for many years.
+
+The scenery of "Robert Elsmere" combines the Westmoreland which Mrs.
+Ward learned to love in her childhood with the Oxford of her girlhood
+and early married life, and the Surrey where so many pleasant summers
+were spent. Not wishing, for fear of recognition, to describe the
+country near Ambleside, with which she was most familiar, Mrs. Ward
+placed the scenes of the opening chapters in the neighboring valley of
+Long Sleddale, giving it the name of Long Whindale. Whinborough is the
+city of Kendal, and the village of Shanmoor is Kentmere. Burwood Farm,
+where the Leyburns lived, is a house far up the valley, which still
+"peeps through the trees" at the passer-by just as it did in the days
+when Robert Elsmere first met the saintly Catherine there. A few
+hundred yards down the stream is a little stone church across the road
+from a small stone schoolhouse, and next to the school a gray stone
+vicarage, standing high above the little river, all three bearing the
+date 1863. At sight of this group of buildings one almost expects to
+catch a glimpse of the well-meaning but not over-wise Mrs. Thornburgh,
+sitting in the shade of the vicarage, awaiting the coming of old John
+Backhouse, the carrier, with the anxiously expected consignment of "airy
+and appetizing trifles" from the confectioner's.
+
+[Illustration: COTTAGE OF "MARY BACKHOUSE"]
+
+At the extreme end of the valley the road abruptly comes to an end. A
+stone bridge leads off to the left to a group of three small farms. In
+front no sign of human habitation meets the eye. The hills seem to come
+together, forming a kind of bowl, and there is no sound to break the
+stillness save the ripple of the river. It was to this lonely spot that
+Catherine was in the habit of walking, quite alone, to visit the dying
+Mary Backhouse. The house of John and Jim Backhouse where Mary died may
+still be seen. It is the oldest of the three farms above mentioned. A
+very small cottage, it is wedged between a stable on one side and a sort
+of barn or storehouse on the other, so that from the road before
+crossing the bridge it seems to be quite pretentious. The house dates
+back to 1670. Mary Backhouse never existed except in imagination, but
+Mrs. Ward, upon seeing the photograph of the house, exclaimed with much
+satisfaction, "Yes, that is the very house where Mary Backhouse died."
+So real to her are the events described in her novels that Mrs. Ward
+frequently refers to the scenes in this way. Behind the house is a very
+steep hill, covered with trees and rough stones. It was over this hill
+that Robert and Catherine walked on the night of Mary Backhouse's death.
+Readers of "Robert Elsmere" will remember that poor Mary was the victim
+of a strange hallucination. On the night of Midsummer Day, one year
+before, she had seen the ghost or "bogle" of "Bleacliff Tarn." To see
+the ghost was terror enough, but to be spoken to by it was the sign of
+death within a year. And Mary had both seen and been spoken to by the
+ghost. Her mind, so far as she had one, for she was really half-insane,
+was concentrated on the one horrible thought--that on Midsummer Night
+she must die. The night had at last arrived, and Catherine, true to her
+charitable impulses, was there to comfort the dying girl.
+
+The weather was growing darker and stormier; the wind shook the house in
+gusts, and the farther shoulder of High Fell was almost hidden by the
+trailing rain-clouds. But Catherine feared nothing when a human soul was
+in need, and, hoping to pacify the poor woman, volunteered to go out to
+the top of the Fell and over the very track of the ghost at the precise
+hour when she was supposed to walk, to prove that there was nothing near
+"but the dear old hills and the power of God." As she opened the door of
+the kitchen, Catherine was surprised to find Robert Elsmere there, and
+together they set out, over the rough, stony path, facing the wind and
+rain as they climbed the distant fell-side. There Robert pleaded his
+love against Catherine's stern sense of duty, and won.
+
+When Robert and Catherine were married, they went to live at the Rectory
+of Murewell, in Surrey. This old house is at Peper Harow, three miles
+west of Godalming and a mile or so from Borough Farm. It was leased for
+one summer by Mrs. Ward. A plain, square house of stone, much discolored
+by the weather, it could hardly be called attractive in itself. But
+stepping back to the road, with its picturesque stone wall surmounted by
+foliage, and viewing the house as it appears from there, flanked on the
+left by a fine spreading elm and on the right by a tall, pointed fir and
+a cluster of oaks, with a little flower garden under the windows and the
+gracefully curving walk leading past the door in a semicircle stretching
+from gate to gate, the ugly house is transformed into a home of beauty,
+where Robert and Catherine, one can well imagine, might have been quite
+happy and contented with their surroundings.
+
+In the rear of the house is the garden, famous for its phloxes, the
+scene of many walks and family confidences. At the farther end is the
+gate where Langham poured out the story of his life in passionate
+speech, impelled by the equally passionate sympathy of Rose, only to
+recall himself a moment later, "the critic in him making the most
+bitter, remorseless mock of all these heroics and despairs the other
+self had been indulging in."
+
+Only a short walk from the Rectory is the little church of Peper Harow,
+the scene of Robert's early clerical labors, and further on is the large
+and beautiful Peper Harow Park, the present home of Lord Middleton. This
+attractive park is the original of Squire Wendover's, but the house
+itself is not described. The fine library owned by the Squire, which so
+delighted Robert Elsmere with its many rare books, was in reality the
+famous Bodleian Library of Oxford, with which the author became familiar
+very early in life.
+
+Three characters from real life, each a man of marked individuality,
+stand out prominently in the pages of "Robert Elsmere." These are
+Professor Mark Pattison, whose strong personality and scholarly
+attainments suggested Squire Wendover; Professor Thomas H. Green, the
+original of Mr. Grey; and the melancholy Swiss philosopher, poet, and
+dreamer Amiel, who was the prototype of Langham.
+
+The theme of the novel is the development of Robert Elsmere's character
+and the gradual change of his religious views, brought about through
+many a bitter struggle. In this the principal influence was that of
+Roger Wendover, a typical English squire of large possessions, but, in
+addition, a scholar of the first rank, the possessor of a large library
+filled with rare and important volumes of history, philosophy, science,
+and religion, with the contents of which he was thoroughly familiar, and
+an author of two great books, one of which had stirred up a tremendous
+excitement in the circles of English religious thought.
+
+  The Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Gospels, St. Paul, Tradition, the
+  Fathers, Protestantism and Justification by Faith, the Eighteenth
+  Century, the Broad Church Movement, Anglican Theology--the Squire had
+  his say about them all. And while the coolness and frankness of the
+  method sent a shock of indignation and horror through the religious
+  public, the subtle and caustic style, and the epigrams with which the
+  book was strewn, forced both the religious and the irreligious public
+  to read, whether they would or no. A storm of controversy rose round
+  the volumes, and some of the keenest observers of English life had
+  said at the time, and maintained since, that the publication of the
+  book had made or marked an epoch.
+
+[Illustration: THE RECTORY OF PEPER HAROW]
+
+Against the influence of such a book, and more particularly against a
+growing intimacy with its author, Robert Elsmere felt himself as
+helpless as a child. The squire's talk "was simply the outpouring of one
+of the richest, most skeptical, and most highly trained of minds on the
+subject of Christian origins." His two books were, he said, merely an
+interlude in his life-work, which had been devoted to an "exhaustive
+examination of human records" in the preparation of a great History of
+Testimony which had required learning the Oriental languages and sifting
+and comparing the entire mass of existing records of classical
+antiquity--India, Persia, Egypt, and Judea--down to the Renaissance.
+
+Reference has already been made to the influence of Professor Mark
+Pattison upon the early life of Mrs. Ward. To create the Squire she had
+only to imagine the house in the great park of Peper Harow, equipped
+with a library like the Bodleian, and inhabited by a person who might be
+otherwise like any English squire, but in mental equipment a duplicate
+to some extent of the Rector of Lincoln. Professor Pattison's father was
+a strict evangelical. He gave his son a good education, and the boy
+early manifested a delight in literature and learning. He soon developed
+an independence of character, and, refusing to confine his reading to
+the prescribed books of orthodoxy, delved into the classics extensively
+as well as the English literature of Pope, Addison, and Swift. He was
+graduated at Oxford in 1836, and took his M.A. degree in 1840. By this
+time he had abandoned the evangelical teachings of his youth, and with
+other young men came under the influence of Newman, in whose house he
+went to live. When Newman went into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845,
+Pattison was not so much shocked as others. Indeed, he confessed that he
+"might have dropped off to Rome himself in some moment of mental and
+physical depression or under pressure of some arguing convert." But
+Pattison, who was now a Fellow at Lincoln College, was thoroughly
+devoted to his work and was fast gaining a great reputation, not only
+for his magnetic influence upon young men, but as one of the ablest of
+college tutors and lecturers. In 1861 he became Rector of Lincoln. He
+was an indefatigable writer, contributing to many magazines and to the
+"Encyclopaedia Britannica." An article on "Tendencies of Religious
+Thought in England, 1688-1750" aroused widespread comment. His literary
+work was marked by evidences of most painstaking research coupled with a
+profound scholarship and excellent judgment in the arrangement of his
+material. He devoted a lifetime to the preparation of a history of
+learning--a stupendous undertaking of which only a portion was ever
+completed. He possessed a library said to be the largest private
+collection of his time in Oxford. It numbered fourteen thousand volumes,
+and was extraordinarily complete in books on the history of learning and
+philosophy in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Of
+Professor Pattison's personality his biographer says:--
+
+  Under a singularly stiff and freezing manner to strangers and to those
+  whom he disliked he concealed a most kindly nature, full of geniality
+  and sympathy and a great love of congenial and especially of female
+  society. But it was in his intercourse with his pupils and generally
+  with those younger than himself that he was seen to most advantage.
+  His conversation was marked by a delicate irony. His words were few
+  and deliberate but pregnant with meaning and above all stimulating,
+  and their effect was heightened by perhaps too frequent and,
+  especially to undergraduates, somewhat embarrassing flashes of
+  silence.
+
+All these qualities are continually appearing in the Squire. But
+Professor Pattison's own definition of a man of learning is the best
+description of Roger Wendover:--
+
+  Learning is a peculiar compound of memory, imagination, scientific
+  habit, accurate observation, all concentrated through a prolonged
+  period on the analysis of the remains of literature. The result of
+  this sustained mental endeavor is not a book, but a man. It cannot be
+  embodied in print; it consists of the living word.
+
+The second in importance of the potent influences upon Robert Elsmere's
+character was that of Henry Grey, a tutor of St. Anselm's (Balliol
+College), Oxford. Very early in his Oxford career Elsmere was taken to
+hear a sermon by Mr. Grey, which made a deep impression on his mind. The
+substance of this sermon, which is briefly summarized in the novel, was
+taken from a volume of lay sermons by Professor Thomas Hill Green,
+entitled "The Witness of God."
+
+  The whole basis of Grey's thought was ardently idealist and Hegelian.
+  He had broken with the popular Christianity, but for him God,
+  consciousness, duty, were the only realities. None of the various
+  forms of materialist thought escaped his challenge; no genuine
+  utterance of the spiritual life of man but was sure of his sympathy.
+  It was known that, after having prepared himself for the Christian
+  ministry, he had remained a layman because it had become impossible to
+  him to accept miracle; and it was evident that the commoner type of
+  Churchmen regarded him as an antagonist all the more dangerous because
+  he was so sympathetic.
+
+All of this, like all the other references to Grey throughout the book,
+applies perfectly to Professor Green. He was the leading exponent at
+Oxford of the principles of Kant and Hegel, and attracted many
+followers. His simplicity, power, and earnestness commanded respect. He
+associated with his pupils on terms of friendly intimacy, frequently
+taking some of them with him on his vacations. He was a man of
+singularly lofty character, and those who knew him were reminded of
+Wordsworth, whom he resembled in some ways.
+
+When Elsmere is advised by his friend Newcome to solve all the problems
+of his doubt by trampling upon himself, flinging away his freedom, and
+stifling his intellect, these words of Henry Grey flash upon his mind:--
+
+  God is not wisely trusted when declared unintelligible. Such honor
+  rooted in dishonor stands; such faith unfaithful makes us falsely
+  true.
+
+  God is forever reason; and his communication, his revelation, is
+  reason.
+
+The words are taken from the same volume of Professor Green's sermons.
+
+The death of this dear friend of Robert Elsmere occurred in 1882, and is
+most touchingly described. An old Quaker aunt was sitting by his
+bedside:--
+
+  She was a beautiful old figure in her white cap and kerchief, and it
+  seemed to please him to lie and look at her. "It'll not be for long,
+  Henry," she said to him once. "I'm seventy-seven this spring. I shall
+  come to thee soon." He made no reply, and his silence seemed to
+  disturb her.... "Thou'rt not doubting the Lord's goodness, Henry?" she
+  said to him, with the tears in her eyes. "No," he said, "no, never.
+  Only it seems to be his will; we should be certain of nothing--_but
+  Himself_! I ask no more." I shall never forget the accent of these
+  words; they were the breath of his inmost life.
+
+To understand the third of the three characters from real life in
+"Robert Elsmere," it is necessary to glance at the story of Henri
+Frederic Amiel, a Swiss essayist, philosopher, and dreamer, who was born
+in 1821 and died in 1881, leaving as a legacy to his friends a "Journal
+Intime" covering the psychological observations, meditations, and inmost
+thoughts of thirty years. They represented a prodigious amount of labor,
+covering some seventeen thousand folio pages of manuscript. This
+extensive journal was translated into English by Mrs. Ward and published
+in 1883, five years before the date of "Robert Elsmere." Her long and
+exhaustive study of the life of this extraordinary man as revealed by
+himself made a deep impression upon the mind of the novelist--so much so
+that she could not refrain from introducing him in the person of the
+morbid Langham. A brief glance at some of the peculiarities of Amiel
+will prove the best interpretation of Langham, without which the latter
+must always remain a mystery.
+
+Amiel's estimate of the value of his life-work was not a high one. "This
+Journal of mine," he said, "represents the material of a good many
+volumes; what prodigious waste of thought, of strength. It will be
+useful to nobody, and even for myself it has rather helped me to shirk
+life than to practice it." And again, "Is everything I have produced
+taken together, my correspondence, these thousands of journal pages, my
+lectures, my articles, my poems, my notes of different kinds--anything
+better than withered leaves? To whom and to what have I been useful?
+Will my name survive me a single day? And will it ever mean anything to
+anybody? A life of no account! When it is all added up, nothing!"
+
+"Amiel," says Mrs. Ward, "might have been saved from despair by love and
+marriage, by paternity, by strenuous and successful literary
+production."
+
+Family life attracted him perpetually. "I cannot escape from the ideal
+of it," he said. "A companion of my life, of my work, of my thoughts, of
+my hopes; within, a common worship--towards the world outside, kindness
+and beneficence; education to undertake; the thousand and one moral
+relations which develop around the first--all these ideas intoxicate me
+sometimes."
+
+But in vain. "Reality, the present, the irreparable, the necessary,
+repel and even terrify me. I have too much imagination, conscience, and
+penetration, and not enough character. The life of thought alone seems
+to me to have enough elasticity and immensity to be free enough from the
+irreparable; practical life makes me afraid. I am distrustful of myself
+and of happiness because I know myself. The ideal poisons for me all
+imperfect possession, and I abhor all useless regrets and repentances."
+
+Mrs. Ward dramatized this strange individuality in the character of
+Langham. The love-scene in which Langham wins the hand of the beautiful
+Rose, followed by the all-night mental struggle in which he finally
+feels compelled to renounce all that he has gained, is almost tragic in
+its intensity.
+
+Poor Langham, with the prize fairly within his grasp, found that he
+lacked the courage to retain it. And so the morning after the proposal,
+instead of the pleasantly anticipated call from her accepted lover, the
+unfortunate Rose was shocked to receive a pessimistic letter announcing
+that the engagement had not survived the night. To the casual reader it
+would seem that such a man as Langham would be impossible. But that
+Amiel was just such a person his elaborate journal fully reveals. And
+Professor Mark Pattison has given his testimony that Amiel was not alone
+in his experiences, for six months after the journal was published he
+wrote, "I can vouch that there is in existence at least one other soul
+which has lived through the same struggles mental and moral as Amiel."
+
+Among the very large number of persons who come upon the stage in the
+action of this remarkable book, several besides the Squire, Grey, and
+Langham may have been suggested by persons whom the author knew. But the
+prototypes of these three are the only ones who really enter, in a vital
+way, into the actual construction of the novel. "But who was the real
+Elsmere?" one naturally asks. Many attempts have been made to identify
+this good preacher or that worthy reformer with the famous character,
+much to the annoyance of the author, who really created Elsmere out of
+the influences already described. The real Elsmere would be obviously
+one whose religious views were moulded by Mark Pattison and Thomas H.
+Green, and one who was profoundly interested in, if not influenced by,
+the strange self-distrust of Amiel. The real Elsmere would be also one
+whose religious convictions led inevitably to the desire to perform some
+practical service to mankind. Such an Elsmere exists in the person of
+Mrs. Ward herself, who is to-day regarded by the workers and associates
+of the Passmore Edwards Settlement, in Tavistock Place, London, with
+very much the same love and gratitude as Elsmere won from the people of
+Elgood Street. For this beneficent institution was a direct result of
+the novel, and owes its existence very largely to Mrs. Ward's energetic
+and influential efforts.
+
+
+III
+
+OTHER PEOPLE AND SCENERY
+
+"The History of David Grieve," Mrs. Ward's third novel, is by many
+considered, next to "Robert Elsmere," her greatest achievement. David
+and his sister Louie are the orphan children of a sturdy and high-minded
+Englishman whose wife was a French woman of somewhat doubtful character.
+Their development from early childhood to full maturity is traced with a
+power of psychological analysis seldom equaled. Both are intensely human
+and fall easy prey to the temptations of their environment, but in the
+end David overcomes the evil influences, while poor Louie, inheriting
+more of her mother's temperament, goes to her death in poverty and
+disgrace.
+
+The most attractive part of the book is the opening, where the two
+children are seen roaming the hills of the wild moorland country of
+their birth. This is the Kinderscout region, in Derbyshire, something
+over twenty miles southeast of Manchester.
+
+The visitor must take the train to Hayfield, called Clough End in the
+novel, and then, if he is fortunate enough to have permission from the
+owner, may drive a distance of four or five miles to what is now called
+Upper House, the country home of a wealthy merchant of Manchester. This
+was originally known as Marriott's Farm, and for several hundred years
+was owned by a family of that name. Here Mrs. Ward spent two days, when
+the entire house consisted of what is now the right wing. She walked
+over the moors and along the top of the Kinderscout with Mr. Marriott as
+her guide, and thus obtained the knowledge for the most perfect
+description of pastoral life to be found in any of her novels.
+
+Needham's Farm, the home of David and Louie, is the only other farm in
+the neighborhood. It is now known as the Lower House, and is owned by
+the same Manchester gentleman, but is leased to a family named Needham,
+who have occupied it for many years. It looks now just as it did when
+Mrs. Ward described it.
+
+The "Owd Smithy," where the prayer-meeting was held and Louie wickedly
+played the ghost of Jenny Crum, is now only remotely suggested by a heap
+of rocks bearing little resemblance to a building of any kind. Huge
+mill-stones, partly embedded in the earth, are scattered about here and
+there. The Downfall, which, when the water is coming over, is visible
+for miles around, is ordinarily a bare, bleak pile of rocks, for it is
+usually nearly if not quite dry. But after a heavy rain the water comes
+over in large volume, and, if the wind is strong, is blown back,
+presenting a most curious spectacle of a cascade seeming to disappear
+in the air when halfway to the bottom. Not far away is the Mermaid's
+Pool, haunted by the ghost of Jenny Crum. There is a real ghost story
+connected with this pool, which doubtless formed the basis of Mrs.
+Ward's legend. An old farmer named Tom Heys was much troubled by a
+ghost, of which he could not rid himself. He once shot at it, but
+without effect except that the bullet-mark is in the old house even now.
+An old woman once saw the ghost while shearing sheep. She threw the
+tongs at it. Instantly the room was filled with flying fleece, while the
+woman's clothes were cut to pieces and fell off her body. These were
+some of the troublesome pranks played by the ghost. At length the farmer
+discovered, somewhere on his place, an old skull, which doubtless
+belonged to His Ghostship, and carried it to the Mermaid's Pool, where
+he deposited it
+
+  "To stay as long as holly's green,
+   And rocks on Kinderscout are seen."
+
+This effectually disposed of the ghost so far as he was concerned, but
+the spirit still hovers over the Mermaid's Pool.
+
+[Illustration: THE ROTHAY AND NAB SCAR]
+
+Market Place, Manchester, where we find David after his flight from the
+old farm, looks to-day very much the same. Half Street, however, on the
+east of the cathedral, has disappeared. Purcell's shop in this street
+was described from a quaint little book-shop which actually existed at
+the time.
+
+The Parisian scenes of "David Grieve," the Louvre, the Boulevards, the
+Latin Quarter, Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain, and Barbizon, are all too
+well known to need mention here. The final scenes of the novel, where
+David's wife is brought after the beginning of her fatal illness, are in
+one of the most beautiful localities in the English Lake District.
+Lucy's house is supposed to be on the right bank of the river. The house
+is imaginary (the one on the left bank having no connection with the
+story), but the location is exactly described. This is just above Pelter
+Bridge, a mile north of Ambleside, where the river Rothay combines with
+the adjacent hills to make one of those fascinating scenes for which
+Westmoreland is famous. Nab Scar looms up before us, and off to the left
+is Loughrigg. A stroll along the river brings one to the little bridge
+at the outlet of Rydal Water, where David walked for quiet meditation
+during his wife's illness; and still farther northward the larch
+plantations on the side of Silver How add their touch of beauty to the
+landscape. This entire region has always been dear to Mrs. Ward's heart
+from the associations of her girlhood, and, if Lucy must die, she could
+think of no more lovely spot for the last sad scenes.
+
+One character in "David Grieve" is drawn from real life--Elise Delaunay,
+the French girl with whom David falls in love on his first visit to
+Paris. This is, in some respects, a portrait of Marie Bashkirtseff, a
+young native of Russia, whose brief career as an artist attracted much
+notice. Marie was born of wealthy parents in 1860. When she was only ten
+years old her mother quarreled with her husband and left him, taking the
+children with her. Marie returned to her father, with whom she traveled
+extensively. A born artist, the journey through Italy created in her a
+new and thrilling interest. She resolved to devote her life to art, and
+in 1877 entered the school of Julian in Paris. She soon showed
+astonishing capacity, and Julian assured her that her draughtsmanship
+was remarkable. One of her paintings, "Le Meeting," was exhibited in the
+Salon of 1884, and attracted much notice. Reproductions were made in all
+the leading papers, and it was finally bought by the cousin of the Czar,
+the Grand Duke Constantino Constantinowitch, a distinguished connoisseur
+and himself a painter. This picture represents half a dozen street
+gamins of the ordinary Parisian type holding a conference in the street.
+Their faces exhibit all the seriousness of a group of financiers
+consulting upon some project of vast importance.
+
+The peculiarity of Marie's character is set forth by her biographer in
+words which enable the reader of "David Grieve" instantly to recognize
+Elise Delaunay:--
+
+  She never wholly yields herself up to any fixed rule of conduct, or
+  even passion, being swayed this way or that by the intense
+  impressionability of her nature. She herself recognized this anomaly
+  in the remark, "My life can't endure; I have a deal too much of some
+  things and a deal too little of others, and a character not made to
+  last." The very intensity of her desire to see life at all points
+  seems to defeat itself, and she cannot help stealing side glances at
+  ambition during the most romantic tete-a-tete with a lover, or being
+  tortured by visions of unsatisfied love when art should have engrossed
+  all her faculties.
+
+In the last year of her life Marie achieved an admiration for
+Bastien-Lepage which, her biographer says, "has a suspicious flavour of
+love about it. It is the strongest, sweetest, most impassioned feeling
+of her existence." She died in 1884, at the early age of twenty-four,
+assured by Bastien-Lepage that no other woman had ever accomplished so
+much at her age.
+
+"Marcella" and "Sir George Tressady" are novels of English social and
+political life--a field in which Mrs. Ward is peculiarly at home, and in
+which she has no superior. Marcella, who in her final development became
+one of the most beautiful women of all Mrs. Ward's characters, was
+suggested by the personality of an intimate friend, whose name need not
+be mentioned. Mellor Park, the home of Marcella, is drawn from Hampden
+House in Buckinghamshire. It is a famous old house, some centuries old,
+now the country-seat of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, and, with its
+well-kept gardens and spacious park, is unusually attractive. Twenty
+years ago, however, it was in a state of neglect. The road leading to it
+was full of underbrush, the garden was wholly uncared-for, and the house
+itself much in need of repair. This is the state in which Mrs. Ward
+describes it--and she knew it well, for she had leased it for a season
+and made it her summer home. The murder of the gamekeeper, described as
+taking place near Mellor Park, really happened at Stocks, Mrs. Ward's
+present home near Tring.
+
+The village of Ferth, where Sir George Tressady had his home and owned
+the collieries, is a mining village ten miles from Crewe, known as "Talk
+o' the Hill." The ugly black house to which Tressady brought home his
+young wife was described from an actual house which the author visited.
+
+"Helbeck of Bannisdale" was written while the author was living at
+Levens Hall, the handsome country home of Captain Bagot, M.P., which
+Mrs. Ward leased for a summer. It is a few miles south of Kendal, in
+Westmoreland, and just on the border of the "Peat Moss" country. The
+old hall dates back to 1170, the original deed now in possession of
+Captain Bagot bearing that date. The dining-room has an inlaid design
+over the mantel with the date 1586. The entrance-hall, dining-room, and
+drawing-room contain many antique relics. But the most remarkable
+feature of Levens is the garden, containing about two hundred yews
+trained and trimmed into every conceivable shape. There is an "umbrella"
+which has required two hundred years of constant care to reach its
+present size and shape; a British lion, with perfect coronet; a peacock
+with correctly formed neck and tail feathers; a barrister's wig, a
+kaffir's hut, and so on through a long list of curious shapes. In front
+of the house the river Kent, with a bridge of two arches, makes a
+picturesque scene. This is the "bridge over the Bannisdale River" which
+marked the end of Laura's drive with Mason, where at sight of Helbeck
+the young man made his sudden and unceremonious departure. A spacious
+park skirts the river, through which runs a grassy road bounded by
+splendid oaks intertwining their branches high above. Following this
+path we reached a foot-bridge barely wide enough for one person to
+cross, on the park end of which is a rough platform apparently built for
+fishermen. Here Laura kept her clandestine appointment with Mason, and
+on her way home was mistaken for the ghost of the "Bannisdale Lady,"
+much to the terror of a poor old man who chanced to be passing, and not
+a little to her own subsequent embarrassment. A little beyond is the
+deep pool where Laura was drowned.
+
+The exterior of Bannisdale Hall is not Levens, but Sizergh Castle, some
+two or three miles nearer Kendal. At the time of the story a Catholic
+family of Stricklands owned the place, but, like Helbeck, were gradually
+selling parts of their property, and dealers from London and elsewhere
+were constantly coming to carry off furniture or paintings. The family
+finally lost the property, and it was acquired by a distant relative,
+Sir Gerald Strickland, who was recently appointed Governor of New South
+Wales, and who now owns but does not occupy it.
+
+The little chapel, high up on a hill, where Laura was buried, is at
+Cartmel Fell, in Northern Lancashire. A quaint little chapel five or six
+hundred years old, it is well worth a visit.
+
+The scenes of "Eleanor" are in Italy, and here Mrs. Ward fairly revels
+in descriptions of "Italy, the beloved and beautiful." The opening
+chapters have their setting in the Villa Barberini, on the ridge of the
+Alban Hills, south of Rome, from the balcony of which the dome of St.
+Peter's can be seen in the distance, dominating the landscape by day and
+seeming at night to be the one thing which has definite form and
+identity. There is a visit to Nemi and Egeria's Spring, after which the
+scene changes to the valley of the Paglia, beyond the hill town of
+Orvieto, "a valley with wooded hills on either side, of a bluish-green
+color, checkered with hill towns and slim campaniles and winding roads;
+and, binding it all in one, the loops and reaches of a full brown
+river."
+
+Torre Amiata--the real name of which is Torre Alfina--is a magnificent
+castle, "a place of remote and enchanting beauty." Through some Italian
+friends, Mrs. Ward met the agent of this great estate, who put his house
+at her disposal for a season. This happy opportunity gave her the
+intimate acquaintance with the surrounding country which she used with
+such excellent skill in "Eleanor," and enabled her, among other things,
+to discover the ruined convent and chapel which formed the dismal
+retreat of Lucy and Eleanor in their strange flight from Mr. Manisty.
+
+"Lady Rose's Daughter," which followed "Eleanor," likewise reflects the
+author's love of Italy. It was written, in part at least, in the
+beautiful villa at Cadenabbia, on Lake Como, from which a view of
+surpassing loveliness meets the eye in every direction. Mrs. Ward never
+tires of it, and in her leisure moments while there found great delight
+in reproducing in her sketch-book the charming colors of a landscape
+which can scarcely be equaled in any other part of the world.
+
+The setting of the novel in its earlier chapters is London. But when
+Julie Le Breton, worn out by mental anguish, the result of experiences
+which had nearly ruined her life, could be rescued and brought back to
+life only by a quiet rest amid pleasant surroundings, Lake Como was the
+place selected by her kind-hearted little friend the duchess. As her
+strength gradually returned she daily walked over the hill to the path
+that led to the woods overhanging the Villa Carlotta.
+
+  Such a path! To the left hand, and, as it seemed, steeply beneath her
+  feet, all earth and heaven--the wide lake, the purple mountains, the
+  glories of a flaming sky. On the calm spaces of water lay a shimmer of
+  crimson and gold, repeating the noble splendor of the clouds.... To
+  her right a green hillside--each blade of grass, each flower, each
+  tuft of heath, enskied, transfigured by the broad light that poured
+  across it from the hidden west. And on the very hilltop a few
+  scattered olives, peaches, and wild cherries scrawled upon the blue,
+  their bare, leaning stems, their pearly whites, their golden pinks and
+  feathery gray, all in a glory of sunset that made of them things
+  enchanted, aerial, fantastical, like a dance of Botticelli angels on
+  the height.
+
+[Illustration: LAKE COMO]
+
+The story opens with a graphic description of Lady Henry's
+salon--frequented by the most prominent people in London--where the
+chief attraction was not the great lady herself, but her maid companion,
+Julie Le Breton. Everywhere Julie was met with smiles and evidence of
+eager interest. She knew every one, and "her rule appeared to be at once
+absolute and welcome." But one evening Lady Henry was ill and gave
+orders that the guests be turned away with her apologies. As the
+carriages drove up, one by one, the footman rehearsed Lady Henry's
+excuses. But a group of men soon assembled in the inner vestibule, and
+Julie felt impelled to invite them into the library, where they were
+implored not to make any noise. The distinguished frequenters of Lady
+Henry's salon were all there. Coffee was served, and, stimulated by the
+blazing fire and a sense of excitement due to the novelty of the
+situation, an animated conversation sprang up, which continued till
+midnight and was at last suddenly interrupted by the unexpected
+appearance of Lady Henry herself.
+
+Lady Henry's awakening led to Julie's dismissal. But her friends did not
+desert her. A little cottage was found, where Julie was soon comfortably
+installed.
+
+This much of the story--and little if any more--was suggested by the
+life of Julie de Lespinasse, a Frenchwoman who figured brilliantly in
+the Paris society of the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+In 1754 the Marquise du Deffand was one of the famous women of Paris.
+Her quick intelligence and a great reputation for wit had brought to her
+drawing-room the famous authors, philosophers, and learned men of the
+day. But the great lady, now nearly sixty, was entirely blind and
+subject to a "chronic weariness that devoured her." She sought a remedy
+in the society of an extraordinarily attractive young woman, of somewhat
+doubtful parentage, named Julie de Lespinasse, whom she took into her
+home as a companion. Julie became a great social success. For ten years
+she remained with Madame du Deffand, when a bitter quarrel separated
+them. Julie's friends combined to assure her an income and a home, and
+she was soon established almost opposite the house of her former patron.
+The Marechale de Luxembourg presented her with a complete suite of
+furniture. Turgot, the famous Minister of Louis XVI, and President
+Henault were among those who provided funds. D'Alembert, distinguished
+as a philosopher, author, and geometrician, who was the cause of the
+quarrel with the marquise, became Julie's most intimate friend. When she
+founded her own salon, his official patronage and constant presence
+assured its success. Her success was, in fact, astonishingly rapid. "In
+the space of a few months," says her biographer, the Marquis de Segur,
+"the modest room with the crimson blinds was nightly filled, between
+the hours of six and ten, by a crowd of chosen visitors, courtiers and
+men of letters, soldiers and churchmen, ambassadors and great ladies,
+... each and all gayly jostling elbows as they struggled up the narrow
+wooden stairs, unregretting, and forgetting in the ardor of their talk,
+the richest houses in Paris, their suppers and balls, the opera, and the
+futile lures of the grand world."
+
+The remarkable career and unique personality of this famous woman
+furnished the suggestion for Julie Le Breton. But beyond this the
+resemblance is slight. The subsequent history of the Frenchwoman has no
+relation to the story of "Lady Rose's Daughter," and the personality of
+the two women differs in many respects.
+
+"The Marriage of William Ashe" is like "Lady Rose's Daughter" in two
+important respects: it is a story in which the author reveals an
+extraordinary knowledge of English politics and familiarity with the
+social life of the upper classes, and it is one in which a story of real
+life plays an important part. Indeed, there is far more of real life in
+this novel than in any other the author has written. William Ashe and
+his frivolous and erratic wife Kitty are portraits, considerably
+modified, it is true, but nevertheless real, of William and Caroline
+Lamb. William Lamb--known to posterity as Lord Melbourne--did not
+become a distinguished statesman until after he had entered the House of
+Lords. For twenty-five years he had been a member of the House of
+Commons, of little influence and almost unknown to the country at large.
+But soon after the death of George IV he entered the cabinet of Earl
+Grey as Home Secretary. This was in 1830. Less than four years later he
+rose suddenly to the highest position in the state. As Premier it was
+his unique privilege to instruct the young Queen, Victoria, in the
+duties of her high office--a task which he executed with commendable
+tact and skill. It is the inconsequential William Lamb of the House of
+Commons, and not the exalted Lord Melbourne, whom Mrs. Ward had in mind
+in portraying William Ashe; and it was more particularly his young wife,
+Caroline Lamb, who furnished the real motive of the novel.
+
+"Lady Caroline," we are told by Lord Melbourne's biographer, Dr.
+Dunckley, "became the mistress of many accomplishments. She acquired
+French and Latin, and had the further courage, Mr. Torrens tells us, to
+undertake the recital of an ode of Sappho. She could draw and paint, and
+had the instinct of caricature. Her mind was brimming with romance, and,
+regardless of conventionality, she followed her own tastes in
+everything. In conversation she was both vivacious and witty." Such was
+Lady Caroline Ponsonby when she married William Lamb. The marriage
+proved an extremely unhappy one. Lady Caroline's whole life was a series
+of flirtations--deliberately planned, as a matter of fact, and yet
+entered upon with such mad rushes of passion as to seem merely the
+result of some irresistible impulse. A son was born to the couple, but
+he brought no joy, for as he grew up he developed an infirmity of
+intellect amounting almost to imbecility. The life of the young people
+was "an incessant round of frivolous dissipation." The after-supper
+revels often lasted till daybreak. But this brought no happiness, and
+both husband and wife came to realize that marriage had been, for them,
+a troublesome affair. About this time Lord Byron appeared on the scene.
+"Childe Harold" had brought him sudden fame. He had traveled in the
+East, was the hero of many escapades, had been sufficiently wicked to
+win the admiration of certain ladies of romantic tendencies, and
+altogether created quite a _furor_ through the peculiar charms of his
+handsome face and dashing ways. He sought and obtained an introduction
+to Lady Caroline. He came to call the next day when she was alone, and
+for the next nine months almost lived at Melbourne House. They called
+each other by endearing names, and exchanged passionate verses. They
+were constantly together, and the intimacy caused much scandalous
+comment. It lasted until Byron became tired of it all, and announced
+his intention of marrying. The marriage to a cousin of Lady Caroline
+aroused the fierce jealousy of the latter, who proceeded to perform a
+little melodrama of her own, first trying to jump out of a window and
+then stabbing herself--not so deep that it would hurt--with a knife.
+
+Such escapades could have but one result. There came a separation, of
+course; but some traces of the early love remained in both, and when
+Lady Caroline was dying, William Lamb was summoned from Ireland. The
+final parting was not without tender affection on both sides, and
+William felt his loss deeply.
+
+In this brief sketch the reader of Mrs. Ward's novel will recognize
+Kitty Ashe in every line. The portraiture is very close. Cliffe takes
+the place of Lord Byron without being made to resemble him. But he
+serves to reveal the weakness of Kitty's character. Even Kitty's
+mischievous work in writing a book, which came near ruining her
+husband's career, was an episode in the life of Caroline Lamb. She wrote
+a novel in which Byron and herself were the principal characters, and
+their escapades were paraded before the world in a thin disguise which
+deceived nobody.
+
+[Illustration: STOCKS]
+
+Of Mrs. Ward's later books there is little to say, so far as scenes and
+"originals" are concerned. In "Fenwick's Career" the little cottage
+where the artist and his wife lived was in reality the summer home of
+Mrs. Ward's daughter Dorothy. It stands on the slope of a hill near the
+Langdale Pikes in Westmoreland, commanding a view of surpassing
+loveliness.
+
+In the "Testing of Diana Mallory" the scenery is all taken from the
+country near Stocks, the summer home of the novelist.
+
+In "Daphne," or "Marriage a la Mode," Mount Vernon, Washington, Niagara
+Falls, and an imaginary English estate supply the necessary scenery, and
+these are not described with real interest, for the author, contrary to
+her usual custom, is here writing with a fixed didactic purpose. But a
+chapter incidentally thrown in reflects the novelist's impressions of a
+visit to the White House as the guest of President Roosevelt--an
+experience which interested her greatly. In "the tall, black-haired man
+with the meditative eye, the equal, social or intellectual, of any
+Foreign Minister that Europe might pit against him, or any diplomat that
+might be sent to handle him," it is easy to recognize Mr. Root.
+Secretary Garfield is "this younger man, sparely built, with the sane
+handsome face--son of a famous father, modest, amiable, efficient."
+Secretary Taft, with whom, apparently, the distinguished author did not
+really become acquainted, is lightly referred to as "this other of huge
+bulk and height, the hope of a party, smiling already a Presidential
+smile as he passed."
+
+It has been said of this book that it does an injustice to America. But
+such was assuredly far from the author's intent. Mrs. Ward, who is one
+of the keenest observers of English and European public men, pays a high
+compliment in the remark that "America need make no excuses whatever for
+her best men.... She has evolved the leaders she wants, and Europe has
+nothing to teach them." She is attacking the laxity of the divorce laws
+in certain American States, and in doing so is actuated by motives which
+every high-minded American must applaud. The English general who berates
+American institutions is held up to ridicule, and the most agreeable
+woman in the book--perhaps the only agreeable one--is an American.
+Daphne, through whom the author condemns the evil, is not a typical
+American girl, but, with evident intent to avoid offense, is made the
+daughter of a foreigner.
+
+As a matter of fact, Mrs. Ward's feelings toward America are of the
+kindliest nature, and, whatever may be said of the merits of "Marriage a
+la Mode" as a work of fiction, in condemning an abuse which nobody can
+defend she has performed a real service.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+  [5] 1908.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A TOUR OF THE ITALIAN LAKES
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A TOUR OF THE ITALIAN LAKES
+
+
+We caught our first glimpse of Maggiore from a window in Stresa, late in
+the afternoon of a charming day in early spring. In spite of the
+lateness of the hour, with all the enthusiasm of amateurs, we proceeded
+to make a photograph of the charming scene. Ruskin was right when he
+declared Maggiore to be the most beautiful of all the Italian lakes;--at
+least, we felt willing to admit this, even though we had not yet seen
+the others. In the foreground were the green lawns and white paths of a
+well-kept park, skirting the lake; then a wide stretch of water,
+roughened by the wind so that its surface, usually smooth, was now
+dotted with whitecaps, dancing and sparkling in the afternoon sun;
+across the water to the left, the village of Pallanza, pushing itself
+far out into the lake, and thrown into strong relief by the high
+mountains at its back; far away in the distance, the white-capped summit
+of some Alpine range; and above it all, the most beautiful of blue
+Italian skies.
+
+We gazed long upon the scene, until the twilight began to deepen. Soon
+two figures appeared at the entrance to the park, one a woman in a
+green velvet gown, the other a man in a long flowing mantle of the style
+peculiar to Italy. They seemed in earnest conversation, now approaching
+each other with vigorous but graceful gestures, now falling back a step
+or two and again advancing. The man would throw his cloak over his left
+shoulder; then, when his earnestness caused it to slip away, he would
+throw it back again, repeating the movement over and over. We could
+almost fancy overhearing Lorenzo say:--
+
+              "In such a night
+  Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
+  And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
+  As far as Belmont";
+
+and hearing Jessica reply:--
+
+          "And in such a night
+  Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,
+  Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
+  And ne'er a true one."
+
+The little pantomime seemed all that was needed to complete the romance
+of the scene, while the gathering twilight lent its aid.
+
+[Illustration: LAKE MAGGIORE, ITALY]
+
+The Lago di Maggiore, known to the Romans as Lacus Verbanus, is the
+westernmost as well as the largest of three lovely lakes which lie on
+the southern slope of the Alps, in an area not greater than that of the
+State of Rhode Island. The Lago di Como, or Lacus Larius, is the
+easternmost of the group, while the Lago di Lugano, smaller, but not
+less beautiful, lies between the other two.
+
+There is a peculiar delicacy of beauty about these lakes like an
+exquisitely tinted rosebud or the perfume of apple blossoms. The
+ruggedness of aspect common to most mountain lakes is here lost in the
+soft luxuriance of the green shores, the sparkling waters, and the rich
+blue sky. The hills are lined with terraces of green vineyards,
+interspersed with the pink of peach and almond blossoms. Camellias and
+azaleas brighten the gardens. Mulberry trees, olives, and cypresses,
+mingling with their sturdy Northern companions, the spruces and pines,
+cast their varied foliage against the brown of the near-by mountains. In
+the distance the snow-clad peaks of the Alps interpose their white
+mantles between the blue of the sky and the warmer tones of the
+hillsides, while here and there picturesque villages stand out on
+projecting promontories to lend an additional gleam of whiteness to the
+landscape.
+
+Mingling with the charm of all this natural beauty and intensifying it
+are the atmosphere of poetry and romance which one instinctively feels,
+and the more tangible associations with history, literature, science,
+art, and architecture which are constantly suggested as one makes the
+tour of the lakes.
+
+In the morning we found our places on the upper deck of the little
+steamer that makes a zigzag journey through Maggiore. No sooner had the
+boat started than we heard sweet strains of music and a chorus of
+well-modulated male voices. The night before we had had a miniature play
+for our special benefit. Can it be possible that now we are to have
+Italian opera? They were only a party of native excursionists, but we
+were genuinely sorry when they disembarked at the next landing.
+
+Leaving Stresa, famous as the home of Cavour, when that great statesman
+was planning the creation of a united Italy, we soon came in sight of
+Isola Bella. As it lay there in the bright sunlight, its green terraces
+and tropical foliage, its white towers and arcaded walls reflected in
+the blue waters of the lake, the snowy mountains forming a distant
+background and a cloudless blue sky surmounting the whole, we thought it
+beautiful. But in this, it seems, our taste was at fault, and while
+admiring we ought to have been criticizing. It was like spending an
+evening with genuine enjoyment at the theater, only to find out the next
+morning from the critic of the daily newspaper that the play was poor,
+the acting only ordinary, and the applause merely an act of generosity.
+Southey wrote of it, "Isola Bella is at once the most costly and the
+most absurd effort of bad taste that has ever been produced by wealth
+and extravagance." A more recent English writer condemns its "monstrous
+artificialities." He declares that "the gardens are a triumph of bad
+taste," and that "artificial grottoes, bristling with shells, terrible
+pieces of hewn stone, which it would be an offense to sculpture to term
+statuary, offend the eye at every turn." Another says that it is "like a
+Perigord pie, stuck all over with the heads of woodcocks and
+partridges," while some one else thinks it "worthy the taste of a
+confectioner."
+
+On the other hand, our own distinguished novelist, Mrs. Edith Wharton,
+found much to be admired:--
+
+  The palace has ... one feature of peculiar interest to the student of
+  villa architecture, namely, the beautiful series of rooms in the south
+  basement, opening on the gardens, and decorated with the most
+  exquisite ornamentation of pebble-work and sea-shells, mingled with
+  delicate-tinted stucco. These low-vaulted rooms, with marble floors,
+  grotto-like walls, and fountains dripping into fluted conches, are
+  like a poet's notion of some twilight refuge from summer heats, where
+  the languid green air has the coolness of water: even the fantastic
+  consoles, tables, and benches, in which cool glimmering mosaics are
+  combined with carved wood and stucco painted in faint greens and
+  rose-tints, might have been made of mother-of-pearl, coral, and
+  seaweed for the adornment of some submarine palace.
+
+It was the fashion to admire the island before it became the rule to
+condemn its artificiality. Bishop Burnet visited Maggiore in 1685,
+fourteen years after the Count Vitaliano Borromeo had transformed the
+island from a barren slate rock into a costly summer residence. He
+thought it "one of the loveliest spots of ground in the world," and
+wrote, "there is nothing in all Italy that can be compared with it." At
+a much later time, Lord Lytton allowed himself to rise to the heights of
+enthusiasm:--
+
+  "O fairy island of a fairy sea,
+     Wherein Calypso might have spelled the Greek,
+   Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury,
+      Culled from each shore her zephyr's wings could seek,--
+       From rocks where aloes blow.
+
+  "Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise:
+     The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon;
+   An India mellows in the Lombard skies,
+     And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun,
+       Smile to yon Alps of snow."
+
+[Illustration: ISOLA BELLA, LAKE MAGGIORE]
+
+The charge of artificiality must be admitted. A bare rock cannot be
+transformed into a thing of beauty and escape the charge. The ten
+terraces are a series of walls, built in the form of a pyramid and
+covered with earth, transported from the mainland at great expense.
+Orange and lemon trees, amid a profusion of tropical foliage, are thus
+made to wave their fragrant branches in the face of Alpine snows. Is not
+this worth while? The truth is that Lake Maggiore is so rich in the
+kind of beauty which the hand of Nature has provided that the creations
+of man--the villas, the gardens, the vineyards, the villages nestling
+close to the water's edge, and the pilgrimage churches high up on the
+mountain-sides--seem only to accentuate the charm.
+
+The Isola dei Pescatori, or Island of the Fishermen, lying near the
+"Beautiful Island," forms a striking contrast. If distance is needed to
+lend enchantment and conceal the lavish expenditure of wealth on the
+Isola Bella, it is needed still more to hide the squalor and avoid the
+odor of the poor fishermen's island. Yet the latter, seen from the
+steamer's deck, is far more picturesque than its more pretentious
+neighbor. The third of the Borromean group is known as the Isola Madre.
+It has seven terraces, surmounted by an unused villa. Its gardens are
+full of roses, camellias, and all kinds of beautiful plants, lemons,
+oranges, myrtle, magnolia, and semi-tropical trees in great profusion.
+Less popular than Isola Bella, it is considered by many far more
+attractive.
+
+Two villages lying farther south on the western shore of the lake are
+worthy of at least passing mention:--Belgirate and Arona. The former was
+the home, in the late years of his life, of the great master of Italian
+prose, Manzoni, whose novel, "I Promessi Sposi," was thought by Scott to
+be the finest ever written. He was a man of the people, greatly beloved
+by his countrymen for his benevolence, tender sympathy, and warmth of
+affection. Arona was the home of the patron saint of the Italian lakes,
+Carlo Borromeo. A colossal statue, sixty-six feet high on a pedestal of
+forty feet, built to his memory in 1697, is one of the sights of the
+region. St. Charles was born in 1537. At the age of twenty-three he was
+made a cardinal by his uncle, Pope Pius IV. Inheriting great wealth, he
+devoted his revenues to charity, sometimes living on bread and water and
+sleeping on straw. Traveling as a missionary, he visited the remotest
+villages and almost inaccessible shepherds' huts high up on the
+mountains. He is best remembered for his self-sacrifice and heroic
+devotion to the people in the great plague at Milan in 1575. But the
+great saint was a hater of heretics and caused many of them to be put to
+death. Nor was he without enemies among those of his own faith. A
+Franciscan monk once fired upon him, but he escaped as if by miracle,
+the bullet glancing from the heavy gold embroidery of his cope--a
+demonstration that gold lace is not always a wholly superfluous
+decoration.
+
+Our little steamer zigzagged back and forth, stopping at many villages,
+until finally Luino was reached. This busy little town was the
+birthplace of Bernardino Luini, the illustrious disciple of Leonardo da
+Vinci, whose frescoes adorn many of the Italian churches. It was also
+the scene of one of Garibaldi's brave exploits, though an unsuccessful
+one. Here we left the steamer for a short ride by tramway to Ponte
+Tresa, on Lake Lugano, where another little boat was waiting. Although
+usually regarded as one of the Italian lakes, the greater portion of
+Lugano is in Swiss territory. Most tourists make it the gateway from the
+north into Italy, passing through its most populous town, Lugano, which,
+with its neighbor, Paradiso, lines the shores of a beautiful blue bay,
+guarded on either side by high mountains, clothed with groves of oak and
+chestnut set off by vineyards and gardens on the lower slopes. To the
+front Monte Caprino rises straight up from the water like one huge,
+solitary rock, keeping stern watch over the soft luxuriance of the
+towns. San Salvatore is the sentinel on the right, while Monte Bri and
+Monte Boglia are on duty at the left. Lugano was the home of the Italian
+patriot, Mazzini, who has been called the prophet of Italian unity, as
+Garibaldi was its knight-errant and Cavour its statesman.
+
+On the eastern side of the lake and farther to the south is Monte
+Generoso. We saw it only from the steamer, but it ought to be seen at
+close range, for it is covered with woods and pastures and commands a
+view of the chain of lakes that is said to be unsurpassed in all Italy.
+We maintained our zigzag journey, however, until Porlezza was reached,
+where another little train stood ready to carry us over to Lake Como.
+
+For kaleidoscopic revelations of Nature's choicest scenes and rarest
+beauties, the descent from the highlands to the town of Menaggio could
+scarcely be equaled. The train moved slowly through the vineyards and
+gardens, gradually descending, until with a sudden turn the whole
+northern end of Como burst gloriously into view. Never was sky a
+lovelier blue and never did water more splendidly reflect its azure hue.
+Far away the snowy Alps gave a touch of the sublime to a view of
+surpassing grandeur. In a moment the scene changed, and Bellagio with
+its white villas stood before us, separating the two arms of the lake.
+Then Varenna with its solitary tower, and finally, at the edge of the
+water, the village of Menaggio itself.
+
+    "How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets
+  Thy open beauties or thy lone retreats,--
+  Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales
+  Thy cliffs: the endless waters of thy vales:
+  Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore,
+  Each with its household boat beside the door."
+
+So sang Wordsworth in the days of his youth.
+
+Slowly winding our way down the precipitous slopes, we reached at last
+the end of the railway, and a third steamer closed the experiences of
+the day by carrying us safely to Cadenabbia. "That was Italy! and as
+lovely as Italy can be when she tries." So the poet Longfellow wrote to
+James T. Fields in 1868. And every one who has been there can appreciate
+the poet's feeling when he wrote:--
+
+  "I ask myself, Is this a dream?
+     Will it all vanish into air?
+   Is there a land of such supreme
+     And perfect beauty anywhere?
+   Sweet vision! Do not fade away;
+     Linger until my heart shall take
+   Into itself the summer day
+     And all the beauties of the lake."
+
+Above Cadenabbia and reached by a winding path through terraces of
+vineyards, there is a bit of woods, made brilliant at this time of the
+spring by a wealth of wild cherries, peaches, and almonds in full
+blossom, and by the tall, luxuriant growths of rhododendrons, now
+covered in thick profusion with huge clusters of splendid pink and
+purple blossoms. A shady spot near the edge of the woods, where there
+was a table and some chairs, made a convenient place where we could rest
+after our climb, and view Longfellow's vision of "supreme and perfect
+beauty." The grand and majestic beauty of Maggiore and the more modest
+but sweeter loveliness of Lugano were but the preparation for the
+glorious, satisfying perfection of Como, the most beautiful of all the
+lakes, "a serene accord of forms and colors."
+
+Lake Como is famous, not alone for its beauty, but for the many
+associations of history, science, art, and literature. For centuries its
+shores have been thickly set with costly villas--the homes of wealth and
+luxury, and not infrequently of learning and culture. The elder Pliny,
+whose habits of industry were so great that he worked on his prodigious
+"Natural History" even while traveling at night in his carriage, was
+born at the city of Como, as was also his gifted nephew. Volta, the
+great physicist and pioneer in electrical science, Pope Innocent III,
+and Pope Clement XIII were all natives of the same place. The Cathedral
+of Como is one of the most splendid in northern Italy. The churches
+scattered all along the shores of the lake, as well as the villas, are a
+delight to students of art and architecture. They are filled with
+paintings of great interest and valuable works of sculpture.
+
+Historically, although not conspicuous in the great events of the
+world's progress, the lake has been the theater of many stirring scenes,
+particularly in mediaeval times. Halfway between Menaggio and the
+northern end of the lake lies a rocky promontory known as Musso, the
+site in the sixteenth century of a great and almost impregnable castle.
+It was the center of the activities of one of the ablest, wickedest, and
+most picturesque figures in the history of Italy. His name was Gian
+Giacomo de Medici, although he was not related to the famous Florentine
+family. He is best known by the name of "Il Medeghino." He is described
+as a man of medium stature, broad-chested, and of pallid but
+good-humoured countenance, and possessed of a keen and searching glance.
+He was kind to his family and possessed the affection of his soldiers;
+he was temperate and not given to the indulgence of the senses; and he
+gave liberally to charity and to the encouragement of art. But he was a
+murderer, traitor, liar, and all-round villain of the first magnitude.
+If San Carlo Borromeo was the patron saint of the Italian lakes, his
+uncle, Il Medeghino, was their presiding demon. He began his career at
+the age of sixteen by killing another youth--an act for which he was
+banished from Milan, but which became the stepping-stone to a successful
+campaign of ambition, based upon crime and bloodshed.
+
+In those days of violence the capacity to do murder was a
+recommendation, and Il Medeghino soon rose to a position of power. He
+helped Francesco Sforza, the last of that famous house, to regain the
+Duchy of Milan by taking the life of a French courier and stealing his
+documents, for which services he demanded the Castle of Musso. The price
+asked by the duke was another murder, and the victim this time was a
+personal friend and fellow soldier. Il Medeghino did not hesitate, but
+brutally assassinated his friend. The duke, no longer able to refuse,
+sent him to the castle with a letter to the governor, ordering the
+latter to turn the fortress over to the young adventurer, but also with
+a sealed letter requesting the governor to cut his throat. Il Medeghino
+took no chances on the secret letter. He broke the seal and destroyed
+this message, presenting the open letter and obtaining possession of the
+stronghold. Immediately he made his power felt. He strengthened the
+walls of the fort and made the cliffs inaccessible. He made himself
+feared and his authority respected. He began a career of piracy and
+plunder, continuing until he became the master, not only of Lake Como,
+but of Lugano and much of the adjacent territory. His fleet of seven
+large ships and many smaller ones swept the lake from end to end.
+
+Although but thirty years of age, he was now a power to be reckoned
+with. The Spaniards, finding him dangerous and not to be conquered by
+force, finally succeeded in winning him by concessions. Charles V
+created him Marquis of Musso and Count of Lecco, and induced him to
+begin a vigorous warfare against his former master, the Duke of Milan.
+But the end was near. A great force of Swiss attacked from the north and
+the Duke of Milan sent a large fleet and great army to subdue the rebel.
+A battle off Menaggio was lost by the pirate. He made a desperate fight,
+but was compelled to yield to superior forces. But he nevertheless
+retired with honors. He was given an enormous sum of money and the title
+of Marquis of Marignano, together with free pardon for himself and all
+his followers. The rest of his days were spent in the service of Spain.
+When he died, in his sixtieth year, his brother, Pope Pius IV, erected a
+magnificent tomb to his memory in the Cathedral of Milan, where all who
+feel so disposed may pause to honor this prince of pirates and most
+unscrupulous of plunderers, conspicuous for his wickedness, even in an
+age ruled by violence.
+
+It is a relief to turn from the history of one of the wickedest of men
+to that of one of the noblest of women, by merely crossing the lake to
+the village of Varenna--a town known to tourists for its milk-white
+cascade, the Fiume Latte, a waterfall which leaps in spring-time from a
+height of a thousand feet. Here the remnant of the castle of the good
+Queen Theodelinda may still be seen.
+
+In the sixth century A.D., the Langobards, or Long-Beards, taking
+advantage of the weakness and desolation following the long wars against
+the Goths, descended into Italy to take possession of the land. A
+powerful race of Teutons, renowned for daring and love of war, they met
+with little resistance. Their king, soon after, met a tragic death at
+the hands of his wife, and his successor reigned only two years. After
+ten years of experiments with a national confederacy, composed of some
+thirty-five dukes, constantly at war with each other, and resulting in a
+condition of anarchy, the first real king of the Lombards was chosen,
+Authari the Long-haired, known also by his Roman name of Flavius. The
+chief event in the life of this monarch was his courtship and marriage.
+Having decided, probably for reasons of state, upon the daughter of
+Garibald, Duke of Bavaria, as his future wife, he sent ambassadors to
+arrange the union. But becoming possessed of a strange and unaccountable
+desire to catch a glimpse of the lady before taking the final step, he
+is said to have accompanied his messengers in disguise. Fortunately for
+the romance of the incident, he was charmed with her beauty while the
+princess promptly fell in love with him.
+
+The Christian Theodelinda became the honored queen of the Lombards and
+so won the confidence of their leaders that after the death of Authari,
+shortly after their marriage, she was invited to choose her own husband,
+who would thereupon become the king. She chose Agilulf, Duke of Turin.
+Through the influence of Theodelinda, the Lombards were brought into the
+Catholic Church, and the queen herself built at Monza the first Lombard
+cathedral. Pope Gregory the Great is said to have recognized her
+services by sending her a precious relic, one of the nails of the Cross,
+wrought into a narrow band or fillet of iron. Sometime later, probably
+in the twelfth century, this ancient relic, combined with a broad band
+of gold set with many jewels, was converted into the celebrated Iron
+Crown of Lombardy, with which the German Emperors in mediaeval times were
+crowned Kings of Italy. It was used at the coronation of Napoleon at
+Milan in 1805, and by the present King of Italy upon his accession.
+Theodelinda's name was held in reverence by her people, not only for her
+great public and private charities, but for her kindliness of heart. The
+castle at Varenna is said to have been her home during the last years of
+her life.
+
+If this story of the Larian Lake, to use its Roman name, is being told
+backwards, it is because we first saw it at the northern end, where the
+interest centers in the events of the Middle Ages. But having jumped
+from the sixteenth back to the sixth century, it requires no greater
+agility to skip a few more hundreds of years until we get back to the
+time of Julius Caesar, who as governor of Cisalpine Gaul sent five
+thousand colonists to the shores of the lake to protect the region
+against the depredations of the Gauls. Five hundred of them settled at
+the ancient town of Comum. The city never played an important part in
+the history of Rome, but remained a comparatively quiet yet prosperous
+municipality.
+
+In the Golden Age of Rome, the shores of the Lacus Larius became lined
+with costly villas, where wealthy men sought a retreat from the too
+strenuous life of the Imperial City. The need of such a refuge must be
+apparent to any one having even the most superficial knowledge of Roman
+municipal life in the first century of the Christian era. To escape the
+corruption of official life, the endless feasts of extravagance and
+immorality, and even the public amusements, where, as in the Flavian
+amphitheater, 87,000 people were wont to gather to witness vast
+spectacles of cruelty, obscenity, and bloodshed, there was need enough,
+and the moral, self-respecting, and refined people of Rome fully
+realized it. For there were such people, though the fact has been
+obscured by history, which has to deal chiefly with the excesses of the
+ruling classes.
+
+The two Plinys and their friends were brilliant examples of the Romans
+of the better sort. Though an aristocrat, Pliny the younger was a
+charitable, good-natured man, who loved the quiet of a home where he
+could combine study with fishing, hunting, and the companionship of
+congenial friends. He possessed several villas on the shores of Como,
+but two particularly interested him, one of which, in a somewhat
+whimsical letter, he called "Tragedy" and the other "Comedy"; the high
+boot worn by tragedians suggesting the name of the one on a high rock
+over the lake, while the sock or slipper of the comedian applied to the
+villa down by the water's edge. The latter had the great advantage that
+one might fish from his bedroom, throwing the line out of the window
+while he lay in bed. Pliny does not tell how many fish he caught under
+these conditions.
+
+The Villa Pliniana, just above Torno, on the eastern side of the lake,
+was built in 1570 by Count Giovanni Anguisola, whose claim to
+distinction lies in his participation in the murder of Pierluigi
+Farnese. The villa was erected as a safe retreat, where he might escape
+vengeance. Its feature of greatest interest is a curious stream which
+flows through the central apartment of the house. Fifteen centuries
+before the villa was constructed, Pliny described this stream in one of
+his most interesting letters. "A certain spring," he writes, "rises in a
+mountain and runs down through the rocks till it is inclosed in a small
+dining-parlor made by hand; after being slightly retarded there, it
+empties itself into the Larian lake. Its nature is very remarkable.
+Three times a day it is increased or diminished in volume by a regular
+rise and fall. This can be plainly seen, and when perceived is a source
+of great enjoyment. You recline close to it and take your food and even
+drink from the spring itself (for it is remarkably cold): meanwhile with
+a regular and measured movement, it either subsides or rises. If you
+place a ring or any other object on the dry ground it is gradually
+moistened and finally covered over: then again it comes to view and is
+by degrees deserted by the water. If you watch long enough you will see
+both of these performances repeated a second and even a third time."
+
+Another famous villa at the southern end of the lake, near the city of
+Como, was erected by Cardinal Gallio, the son of a fisherman, who
+achieved high honors in his Church and amassed great wealth. This villa
+was later the home of the discarded Queen Caroline, wife of George IV,
+who gave it the name of Villa d'Este and made great additions to its
+elegance. It is now a fashionable hotel. Cardinal Gallio seems to have
+had a passion for extensive villas. His palace at Gravedona, at the head
+of the lake, was one of the most splendid in Europe. It is said that he
+could make the journey to Rome, requiring six days, and stop at one of
+his own palaces every night.
+
+The Villa Carlotta now the property of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, is at
+Tremezzo, a village adjoining Cadenabbia on the south. Its chief beauty
+lies in the garden, filled with a profusion of plants of every
+variety--roses, camellias, azaleas, magnolias, oranges, lilies--all
+arranged in charming walks, with here and there a vista of the lake and
+Bellagio in the distance, reflecting the bright sunlight from its white
+walls. Above are the woods and the little round table overlooking the
+water, where we began our survey of the Larian shores. The interior
+contains a large collection of sculptures, but most visitors remember
+only two pieces,--Thorwaldsen's "Triumphant Entry into Babylon of
+Alexander the Great," and Canova's lovely "Cupid and Psyche."
+
+After seeing some of these palaces merely as tourists, and learning the
+history of others of an earlier day, particularly the homes described by
+Pliny, we could not help wishing to see an Italian palace which is not a
+show place but a home, and typical of modern life on the shores of this
+wonderful lake, for so many centuries sought by men of wealth as the
+place where they could realize their dreams of comfort and delight.
+
+The opportunity of gratifying this desire came sooner than we expected.
+We had started one morning to make a call at the summer home of Mrs.
+Humphry Ward, who had leased the Villa Bonaventura for a season.
+Mistaking the directions, we entered the gate of the Villa Maria, a
+large house in the classical lines of the Italian Renaissance, standing
+high above the road and reached by winding paths through a garden of
+surpassing loveliness. Our ring was answered by the Italian butler, who
+in response to our inquiries nodded pleasantly, not understanding a word
+we said, and disappeared. In a few moments we were most cordially
+greeted by an American gentleman, who assured us he was delighted to see
+us, and would be happy to show us the villa. In another moment, and
+before we could make explanations, another ring of the doorbell
+announced two other callers, who, as it happened, were really expected
+at the hour of our arrival, by invitation to see the villa. We had made
+a mistake, and in turn had been mistaken for two other people, but our
+friendly host insisted that we, too, should see his beautiful home.
+
+[Illustration: THE ATRIUM OF THE VILLA MARIA]
+
+We were standing in the atrium before a large marble vase--a restoration
+of the so-called Gaeta vase, by Salpion, a Greek sculptor of the time of
+Praxiteles. The original was thrown into the Bay of Gaeta, where for
+centuries it remained partially embedded in the mud. The fishermen of
+many generations used it as a convenient post for mooring their boats,
+and did much damage with their ropes. It was finally rescued and taken
+to a church for use as a baptismal font, and later transferred to the
+Naples Museum. The theme of the vase is the presentation of the infant
+Bacchus, by Mercury, to one of the Nymphs--a favorite subject with
+ancient sculptors. Mr. Haines, our courteous host, was justly proud of
+this--the first complete restoration of this beautiful work of art. The
+decoration of the atrium, including the eight lunettes, as well as of
+the entire villa, are by the hand of Pogliaghi, who now stands at the
+head of the Lombard decorators. He is the young sculptor who in 1895 was
+commissioned to design the magnificent bronze doors of the Cathedral
+of Milan, a work requiring seven years.
+
+One striking feature of the villa is its harmony of color. Glance out
+the doorway, from the atrium across the lake, or from the dining-room
+toward Menaggio, or through the library windows into the garden, and
+everywhere you see the blue Italian sky, the brown of the distant
+mountains, the green of the freshly budding trees, the sparkle of the
+lake, and the brilliant tints of the camellias, hyacinths, and
+cineraria, combining to make a scene of splendor rarely equaled in this
+good old world of ours. Then, glancing back into the rooms of the villa,
+you find the same tints and shadings in the walls and ceilings, the
+paintings, tapestries, and upholstery. Perfect harmony with Nature at
+her best seems to have been Pogliaghi's motive.
+
+Passing to the right of the atrium, we entered the music saloon,
+decorated and furnished in the style of Louis XIV, a large and beautiful
+room, noteworthy, not only for its acoustic properties, but also for
+extreme richness and harmony of design and color. An arched opening
+reveals a portion of a fine piece of tapestry by Giulio Romano, dating
+from the sixteenth century, which covers the rear wall of the
+dining-room. This tapestry, formerly owned by the Duke of Modena, is a
+representation of the old Greek legend of the presentation of Bacchus,
+the same theme as that of the Gaeta vase. Indeed, it was the possession
+of this tapestry which suggested to Mr. Haines the idea of obtaining a
+restoration of the famous vase. A striking feature of the dining-room is
+the frieze of Poliaghi representing young Bacchantes in the midst of
+fruit and flowers, so cleverly painted that it seems to be done in high
+relief, completely deceiving the eye.
+
+On the left of the atrium is the library, with two life-size portraits
+by De La Gandara, one of Mr. Haines and the other of his wife. Mrs.
+Haines was an accomplished musician as well as an enthusiastic collector
+of works of art. The Villa Maria was designed by her as a fitting shrine
+for her valuable collections as well as with a view to musical
+entertainments. Since her death, in 1899, Mr. Haines, with equal
+enthusiasm and taste, has added to the collections and improved the
+villa. His study is in the rear of the library. Its distinguishing
+feature is a life-size portrait of the children of Catherine de Medici,
+by Federico Zuccheri. This painting is seven hundred years old, but the
+colors are still fresh, and although life-size it has the exactness of a
+miniature. It was formerly in the Borghese collection.
+
+Ascending the marble stairway we were ushered into the "Porcelain" room,
+containing the most unique and valuable portion of the art treasures of
+the villa. There are four cabinets in the style of Louis XV, containing
+what is probably the best collection to be found in Europe of rare
+Ancienne, Porcelain de Saxe, Old Chelsea, Nymphenberg, Dresden, Meissen,
+Ludwigsburg, and Sevres pieces in endless variety and bewildering
+richness of design. There are fans painted by Nicolas Poussin, and
+others by French and Italian artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries. There is a fine portrait of the Duchess de Chevreuse by La
+Guilliere and an original painting of Louis le Grand by Le Fevre. A rare
+clock of the period of Louis XV, made about 1750, with miniature
+allegorical paintings, surrounded by pearls, stands upon a Louis XIV
+desk, ornamented with elaborate carved bronzes by Reisinger. On either
+side of the clock is a fine old Bohemian vase, while near by is a
+miniature of Napoleon by Isabey. The decoration of the room is completed
+by a fine old piece of Gobelin tapestry, bearing the signature of
+Boucher and the date 1747, originally presented by Louis XV to one of
+the queens of Spain.
+
+These are a few of the treasures shown to us in a very brief visit to
+the Villa Maria. The enthusiasm of its owner for art goes hand in hand
+with a love of nature. If the interior decorations have been done with
+the eye of a discriminating artist, no less has the exterior received
+the same careful attention. The fine fountain, just within the gates,
+the flower-beds with their well-harmonized tints, the olives and
+cypresses, the camellias, the cherry tree in full blossom, all add their
+charm to a view which would be unsurpassed even without their aid. For
+the villa is situated at one of the loveliest points on beautiful Como,
+commanding on all sides a panorama of distant mountains, with here and
+there a snow-capped peak, of peaceful water glistening in the warm April
+sun, of little white villages dotting the shores of the lake, of quaint
+little chapels in nooks and corners of the mountains, of peach trees and
+almonds adding a touch of pink to the landscape, of blue skies and
+fleecy clouds surmounting the whole like a brilliant canopy. No wonder
+that our genial host, after showing all the beauties of his palace,
+stood by the open window and waving his hand exclaimed, "I call this my
+J. M. W. Turner." But the window framed a lovelier work of art than the
+hand of man will ever paint.
+
+[Illustration: "I CALL THIS MY J. M. W. TURNER"]
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LITERARY LANDMARKS OF NEW ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LITERARY LANDMARKS OF NEW ENGLAND
+
+
+The quest for literary landmarks is always a fascinating pursuit,
+particularly to the amateur photographer who likes to take pictures that
+mean something. I have always found a certain exhilaration in seeing for
+myself and reproducing photographically the places made memorable by
+some favorite author. To look into the ground glass of my camera and see
+the reflected image of some lovely scene that has been an inspiration to
+poet or novelist, is like suddenly coming into possession of a prize
+that had ever before been thought unattainable. It brings the author of
+a by-gone generation into one's own time. It deepens the previous
+enjoyment--makes it more real. When I stand before the house in which
+some great author has lived, I seem to see more than a mere dwelling.
+The great man himself comes out to meet me, invites me in, shows me his
+study, presents me to his wife and children, walks with me in his
+garden, tells me how the surroundings of his home have influenced his
+literary work, and finally sends me away with a peculiar sense of
+intimacy. I go home, reach out my hand for a certain neglected book on
+my shelves, and lo! it opens as with a hidden spring, a new light glows
+upon its pages, and I find myself absorbed in conversation with a
+friend.
+
+
+I
+
+CONCORD
+
+For this kind of hunting I know of no better place in America than New
+England, and no better town in which to begin than the sleepy old
+village of Concord, twenty miles northwest of Boston. On the occasion of
+a recent visit, we walked out Monument Street and made our first stop at
+a point in the road immediately opposite the "Old Manse." A party of
+school-children were just entering. Had we been looking at the grove on
+the hillside, at the opposite end of the town, where Hawthorne used to
+walk to and fro, composing the "Tanglewood Tales," we might have
+supposed they had come to catch a few echoes of the famous
+story-teller's voice, and I should have made a photograph with the
+children in it. But here they did not seem so appropriate, and we waited
+until they had gone. When all was quiet again, it did not require a very
+vigorous imagination to look down the vista of black-ash trees seen
+between the "two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone," and fancy a man
+and woman walking arm in arm down the avenue toward the weather-stained
+old parsonage, its dark sides scarcely visible beneath the shadows of
+the overarching trees. The man is of medium height, broad-shouldered,
+and walks with a vigorous stride, suggesting the bodily activity of a
+young athlete. His hair is dark, framing with wavy curves a forehead
+both high and broad. Heavy eyebrows overhang a pair of dark blue eyes,
+that seem to flash with wondrous expressiveness, as he bends slightly to
+speak to the little woman at his side. His voice is low and deep, and
+she responds to what he is saying with an upward glance of her soft gray
+eyes and a happy smile that clearly suggest the sunshine which she is
+destined to throw into his life.
+
+Thus Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody, his bride, on a day in
+July, 1842, passed into the gloomy old house where they were to begin
+their honeymoon. I say "begin" because it was not like the ordinary
+honeymoon that ends abruptly on the day the husband first proposes to go
+alone on a fishing excursion. Nor was it like that of a certain "colored
+lady" whom I once knew. On the day following the wedding she left
+William to attend to his usual duties in the stable and the garden while
+she started on a two weeks' "honeymoon" trip to her old Virginia home,
+explaining afterward that she "couldn't afford to take dat fool niggah
+along, noway."
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD MANSE]
+
+The Hawthorne honeymoon was one of that rare kind which begins with the
+wedding bells and has no ending. They were married lovers all their
+days. Hawthorne had seen enough of solitariness in his bachelorhood
+to appreciate the rare companionship of his gifted wife, and he wanted
+nothing more. The dingy old parsonage was a Paradise to them and the new
+Adam and Eve invited no intrusions into their Eden. Some of their
+friends came occasionally, it is true, but Hawthorne records that during
+the next winter the snow in the old avenue was marked by no footsteps
+save his own for weeks at a time. And his loving wife, though she had
+come from the midst of a large circle of friends, found only happiness
+in sharing this solitude.
+
+During the three years in which Hawthorne lived in this "Old Manse," he
+seldom walked through the village, was known to but few of his
+neighbors, never went to the town-meeting, and not often to church,
+though he lived in a house that had been built by a minister and
+occupied by ministers so long that "it was awful to reflect how many
+sermons must have been written there."
+
+Let us peep through the windows of the parlor at the end of the dark
+avenue and indulge in another flight of fancy. It is an unusual day at
+the Manse, for two visitors have called to greet the new occupant. The
+elder of the two, a man in his fortieth year, is Ralph Waldo Emerson,
+who lives in the other end of the town in a large, comfortable, and
+cheery house, which we expect to see a little later. He knows the Old
+Manse well. His grandfather built it shortly before the outbreak of the
+Revolution and witnessed the battle of Concord from a window in the
+second story. This good man, who was the Revolutionary parson of the
+village, died in 1776 at the early age of thirty-three, and a few years
+later his widow married the Reverend Ezra Ripley, who maintained, for
+more than sixty years, the reputation of the Manse as a producer of
+sermons, being succeeded by his son, Samuel, also a minister. In
+October, 1834, Emerson came there with his mother and remained a year,
+during which he wrote his first, and one of his greatest essays,
+"Nature."
+
+The other visitor is Henry D. Thoreau, a young man of twenty-five, then
+living with the Emersons. The two guests and their host are sitting bolt
+upright in stiff-backed chairs. The host speaks scarcely a word except
+to ask, for the sake of politeness, a few formal questions, which
+Thoreau answers with equal brevity. Emerson alone talks freely, but his
+words, however much weighted with wisdom, are those of a monologuist and
+do not beget conversation. Yet there is something in the manner of all
+three that seems to betray the unspoken thought. Hawthorne's observing
+eyes seem to be saying, "So this is Emerson, the man who, they say, is
+drawing all kinds of queer and oddly dressed people to this quiet little
+village,--visionaries, theorists, men and women who think they have
+discovered a new thought, and come to him to see if it is genuine.
+Perhaps he might help solve some of my problems. What a pure,
+intellectual gleam seems to be diffused about him! With what full and
+sweet tones he speaks and how persuasively! How serene and tranquil he
+seems! How reposeful, as though he had adjusted himself, with all
+reverence, to the supreme requirements of life! Yet I am not sure I can
+trust his philosophy. Let me admire him as a poet and a true man, but I
+shall ask him no questions."
+
+Then while Thoreau is talking, Emerson gazes at Hawthorne and reflects:
+"This man's face haunts me. His manner fascinates me. I talk to him and
+his eyes alone answer me; and yet this seems sufficient. He does not
+echo my thoughts. He has a mind all his own. He says so little that I
+fear I talk too much. Yet he is a greater man than his words betray. I
+have never found pleasure in his writings, yet I cannot help admiring
+the man. Some day I hope to know him better. I have much to learn from
+him."
+
+Meanwhile Hawthorne's gaze has turned upon the younger visitor. "What a
+wild creature he seems! How original! How unsophisticated! How ugly he
+is, with his long nose and queer mouth. Yet his manners are courteous
+and even his ugliness seems honest and agreeable. I understand he
+drifts about like an Indian, has no fixed method of gaining a
+livelihood, knows every path in the woods and will sit motionless beside
+a brook until the fishes, and the birds, and even the snakes will cease
+to fear his presence and come back to investigate him. He is a poet,
+too, as well as a scientist, and I am sure has the gift of seeing Nature
+as no other man has ever done. Some day I must walk with him in the
+woods."
+
+Every man in the room loves freedom, and hates conventionalities. The
+ordinary formalities of polite society are unendurable. Therefore the
+four walls seem oppressive and the straight-back chairs produce an
+agonizing tension of the nerves. They are all glad when the call is
+over.
+
+[Illustration: WALDEN WOODS]
+
+Now let the scene change. It is winter and the river behind the house is
+frozen. In the glory of the setting sun, its surface seems a smooth sea
+of transparent gold. The edges of the stream are bordered with fantastic
+draperies, hanging from the overarching trees in strange festoons of
+purest white. Once more our three friends appear, but the four walls are
+gone and the wintry breeze has blown away all constraint. All three
+lovers of the open air are now on skates. Thoreau circles about
+skillfully in a bewildering series of graceful curves, for he is an
+expert at this form of sport and thinks nothing of skating up the river
+for miles in pursuit of a fox or other wild creature. Emerson finds
+it harder; he leans forward until his straight back seems to parallel
+the ice and frequently returns to the shore to rest. Hawthorne, if we
+may recall the words of his admiring wife, moves "like a self-impelled
+Greek statue, stately and grave," as though acting a part in some
+classic drama, yet fond of the sport and apparently indefatigable in its
+pursuit.
+
+Once more let the scene change. Summer has come again. The icy
+decorations have given place to green boughs and rushes and meadow-grass
+which seem to be trying to crowd the river into narrower quarters. A
+small boat is approaching the shore in the rear of the old house. In the
+stern stands a young man who guides the craft as though by instinct.
+With scarcely perceptible motions of the single paddle, he makes it go
+in whatsoever direction he wills, as though paddling were only an act of
+the mind. The boat is called the Musketaquid, after the Indian name of
+the river. Its pilot, who is also its builder, quickly reaches the
+shore, and we recognize the man of Nature, Thoreau. Hawthorne, who has
+been admiring both the boat and steersman, now steps aboard and the two
+friends are soon moving slowly among the lily-pads that line the margin
+of the river. Hawthorne is rowing. He handles the oars with no great
+skill, and as for paddling, it would be impossible for him to make the
+boat answer _his_ will. Thoreau plucks from the water a white pond-lily,
+and remarks that "this delicious flower opens its virgin bosom to the
+first sunlight and perfects its being through the magic of that genial
+kiss." He says he has "beheld beds of them unfolding in due succession
+as the sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower"; and this leads
+Hawthorne to reflect that such a sight is "not to be hoped for unless
+when a poet adjusts his inward eye to a proper focus with the outward
+organ." We fancy that under these conditions their talk "gushed like the
+babble of a fountain," as Hawthorne said it did when he went fishing
+with Ellery Channing.
+
+But we must not linger at the gate of the Old Manse indulging these
+dreams, for we have other pleasures in store. A hundred yards beyond, we
+turn into the bit of road, at right angles with the highway, now
+preserved because it was the scene of the famous Concord fight. A
+beautiful vista is made by the overarching of trees that have grown up
+since the battle, and in the distance we see the Monument, the Bridge,
+and the "Minute Man." The Monument marks the spot where the British
+soldiers stood and opened fire on the 19th of April, 1775, while the
+"Minute Man" stands at the place where the Americans received their
+order to return the fire. The Monument was dedicated on the sixty-first
+anniversary of the battle, Emerson offering his famous "Concord Hymn,"
+the opening stanza of which, thirty-nine years later, was carved on the
+pedestal of the Minute Man, erected in commemoration of the centennial
+of the event:--
+
+  "By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
+     Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
+   Here once the embattled farmers stood,
+     And fired the shot heard round the world."
+
+The bridge is of no significance. It is a recent structure of cement,
+the wooden bridge over which the Minute Men charged having disappeared
+more than a century ago.
+
+Hawthorne took little interest in the battlefield, though he did express
+a desire to open the graves of the two nameless British soldiers, who
+lie buried by the roadside, because of a tale that one of them had been
+killed by a boy with an axe--a fiendish yarn which we may be glad is not
+authenticated. The great romancer confessed that the field between the
+battlefield and his house interested him far more because of the Indian
+arrow-heads and other relics he could pick up there--a trick he had
+learned from Thoreau.
+
+On our way back to the village we made a turn to the left, for a visit
+to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Never was such a place more appropriately
+named. An elliptical bowl, bordered by grassy knolls, with flowering
+shrubs and green groves, forms a perfect cradle among the hills in which
+sleep generation after generation of the inhabitants of old Concord. On
+the opposite side of the hollow, well up the slope of the hill and
+shaded by many trees, we came to the graves of the Emersons, the
+Thoreaus, and the Hawthornes, in neighborly proximity. The Emerson grave
+seemed eminently satisfactory. A rough-hewn boulder at the foot of a
+tall pine marks the resting-place of a strong, sincere, and
+unpretentious character, who lived close to Nature. By his side lies
+Lidian, his wife, with an inscription on her tombstone, which few,
+perchance, stop to read, but which ought to be read by all who can
+appreciate this rare tribute to a woman's worth:--
+
+        In her youth an unusual sense of
+      the Divine Presence was granted her
+         and she retained through life
+      the impress of that high Communion.
+       To her children she seemed in her
+      native ascendancy and unquestioning
+         courage, a Queen, a Flower in
+            elegance and delicacy.
+     The love and care for her husband and
+    children was her first earthly interest
+       but with overflowing compassion
+   her heart went out to the slave, the sick
+    and the dumb creation. She remembered
+  them that were in bonds as bound with them.
+
+Thoreau's grave is not quite so satisfactory. It creates the impression
+that the poet and naturalist who brought fame to his family was only
+one of a considerable number of children and died in infancy with all
+the rest. It is marked with a small headstone and the single name,
+Henry. In the center of the lot a larger stone records the names of all
+the members of the family who lie buried there.
+
+The Hawthorne grave is wholly unsatisfactory. It is not easily found by
+a stranger, even after careful directions. The small lot is inclosed by
+an ugly fence, only partially concealed by a poorly kept hedge. By
+making an effort one can peep through and see a simple headstone with
+the name Hawthorne. The most conspicuous object in the inclosure is a
+big sign warning the public not to pluck the leaves, etc., and ending
+with the curt injunction, "Have respect for the living if not for the
+dead." The unsightly fence and the rudeness of the sign clang
+discordantly upon the sensibilities of those who have been taught to
+admire the gracious hospitality and courteous disposition of the man. We
+came to gaze reverently upon the grave of a man whom we had seemed to
+know for many years as a personal friend, but found ourselves treated
+with contempt as if we were merely vulgar seekers for useless souvenirs!
+Let us get back to the village and see the things of life.
+
+Next to the Old Manse, the most interesting house in Concord is
+Emerson's. It is southeast of the public square, at the point where the
+Cambridge Turnpike joins the Lexington Road. When Emerson bought it in
+1835, it was on the outskirts of the village and not prepossessing. He
+said, himself, "It is in a mean place, and cannot be fine until trees
+and flowers give it a character of its own. But we shall crowd so many
+books and papers, and, if possible, wise friends into it, that it shall
+have as much wit as it can carry." In September of that year, Emerson
+went to Plymouth and was married to Miss Lydia Jackson, in a colonial
+mansion belonging to the bride, who suggested that they remain there.
+But Concord had charms which the poet could not sacrifice, so the couple
+established themselves in the big house at the southern edge of the
+village, where, ere long, the philosopher was dividing time between his
+study and the vegetable-garden, while Lidian, as her husband preferred
+to call her, set out her favorite flowers transplanted from the garden
+at Plymouth.
+
+[Illustration: HOUSE OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON]
+
+The first thing that strikes your eye, as you pass the Emerson house, is
+the row of great horse-chestnuts shading its front. Mr. Coolidge, of
+Boston, who built the house in 1828, remembered the lofty chestnuts of
+his boyhood home in Bowdoin Square and promptly set to work to duplicate
+them when he completed his new country house. Emerson added to his
+original two acres until he had nine, and planted an orchard of apple
+trees and pear trees, on which Thoreau did the grafting. "When I
+bought my farm," said Emerson, "I did not know what a bargain I had in
+the bluebirds, bobolinks, and thrushes, which were not charged in the
+bill. As little did I guess what sublime mornings and sunsets I was
+buying, what reaches of landscape, and what fields and lanes for a
+tramp." To appreciate the full extent, therefore, of Emerson's domain,
+we must next visit the favorite objective of his Sunday walks, Walden
+Pond, only a mile or two away.
+
+Walden Pond is a pretty sheet of water, about half a mile long,
+completely inclosed by trees, which grow very near to the water's edge.
+I fancy the visitors who go there may be divided into two classes:
+first, those who go for a swim in the cool, deep waters, as Hawthorne
+liked to do; and second, those who go to lay a stone upon the cairn that
+marks the site of Thoreau's hut. It is well worth a pilgrimage, in these
+days, to see the place where a man actually built a dwelling-house at a
+cost of $28.121/2 and lived in it two years at an estimated expense of
+$1.09 a month. One of his extravagances was a watermelon, costing two
+cents, and this was classified in his summary among the "Experiments
+which failed!" The site of the hut was admirably chosen. It overlooks a
+little cove or bay, and the still surface of the pond, glimpses of which
+could be seen through the trees, reflecting the blue sky overhead, made
+a beautiful picture.
+
+
+We must now return to the village, for there are two more houses to be
+seen, both on the Lexington Road. The first is the Alcott house, now
+restored to something like its original condition and preserved as a
+memorial to the author of "Little Women." A. Bronson Alcott came to live
+in Concord in 1840, having visited there for the first time five years
+earlier. Emerson at once hailed him as "the most extraordinary man and
+the highest genius of his time." He marveled at the "steadiness of his
+vision" before which "we little men creep about ashamed." The "Sage of
+Concord" was too modest and time failed to justify his enthusiasm for
+the new neighbor. He came to admit that Alcott, though a man of lofty
+spirit, could not be trusted as to matters of fact; that he did not have
+the power to write or otherwise communicate his thoughts; and that he
+was like a gold-ore, sometimes found in California, "in which the gold
+is in combination with such other elements that no chemistry is able to
+separate it without great loss."
+
+Alcott was a "handy man" with tools, could construct fanciful
+summer-houses or transform a melodeon into a bookcase, as a piece of his
+handiwork in the "restored" house will testify. But in intellectual
+matters he fired his bullets of wisdom so far over the heads of his
+fellow men that they never came down, and therefore penetrated nobody's
+brain.
+
+This lack of practical wisdom came near bringing disaster to the family.
+But his daughter came to the rescue with "Little Women," a book that has
+had an astonishing success from the first. Originally published in 1868,
+it has had a circulation estimated at one million copies and is still in
+demand.
+
+In the winter of 1862-63, Louisa M. Alcott marched off to war, carrying
+several volumes of Dickens along with her lint and bandages, determined
+that she would not only bind up the soldiers' wounds, but also relieve
+the tedium of their hospital life during the long days of convalescence.
+When she was ready to start, Alcott said he was sending "his only son."
+Girl visitors to the old "Orchard house" take great delight in the
+haunts of Meg, Amy, Beth, and Joe, and particularly in Amy's bedroom,
+where the young artist's drawings on the doors and window-frames are
+still preserved.
+
+Just beyond the Alcott house is a pine grove on the side of a hill and
+then the "Wayside," Hawthorne's home for the last twelve years of his
+life. When Hawthorne left the Old Manse, he went to Salem, then to
+Lenox, and for a short time to West Newton. In the summer of 1852, he
+returned to Concord, having purchased the "Wayside" from Alcott.
+
+While living in Lenox he had written "The Wonder-Book," which so
+fascinated the children, including their elders as well, that his first
+task upon settling in the new home was to prepare, in response to many
+urgent demands, a second series of the same kind to be known as "The
+Tanglewood Tales."
+
+[Illustration: THE WAYSIDE]
+
+In the following spring the family sailed for Liverpool, where Hawthorne
+was to be the American Consul, and from this journey he did not return
+until 1860, seven years later. He was then at the height of his fame as
+the author of "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and
+"The Marble Faun." As soon as his family was settled in the Wayside, he
+began extensive alterations, the most remarkable of which is the tower,
+which not only spoiled the architecture of the building, but failed,
+partially at least, to serve its primary purpose as a study. It was a
+room about twenty feet square, reached by a narrow stairway where the
+author could shut himself in against all intrusion. A small stove made
+the air stifling in winter, and the sun's rays upon the roof made it
+unbearable in summer. Nevertheless, Hawthorne managed to make some use
+of it and here he wrote "Our Old Home." I fancy he must have composed
+most of it while walking back and forth in the seclusion of the pine
+grove which he had purchased with the house. And here in this pleasant
+grove we must leave him for the present, while we go back to Boston and
+thence to Salem, to search out a few more old houses, which would
+fall into decay and finally disappear without notice, like hundreds of
+others of the same kind, but for the one simple fact that the touch of
+Hawthorne's presence, more than half a century ago, conferred upon these
+dingy old buildings a dignity and interest that draw to them annually a
+host of visitors from all parts of the United States.
+
+
+II
+
+SALEM
+
+On arrival at Salem we inquired of a local druggist whether he could
+direct us to any of the Hawthorne landmarks. He promptly pleaded
+ignorance, but referred us to an old citizen who chanced to be in the
+store and who admitted that he knew all about the town, having been
+"born and raised" there. Did he know whether there was a real "House of
+Seven Gables"? Well, he had heard of such a place, but it was torn down
+long ago. Could he direct us to the Custom House? Oh, yes, right down
+the street: he would show us the way. Any houses where Hawthorne had
+lived? Well, no,--he hadn't "followed that much." Had any of his family
+ever seen Hawthorne, or spoken of him? Yes--but he didn't amount to
+much: kind of a lazy fellow. People here didn't set much store by him.
+
+We were moving away, fearing that the old fellow would offer to
+accompany us and thereby spoil some of our anticipated enjoyment of the
+old houses, when he called after us--"Say, there's an old house right
+down this street that I've heard had something to do with Hawthorne. I
+don't know just what, but maybe the folks there can tell you. It's just
+this side of the graveyard." We thanked the old man, and following his
+directions, soon stood before an old three-story wooden house, with
+square front, big chimneys, and its upper windows considerably shorter
+than those below--a type common enough in Salem and other New England
+towns. It stood directly on the sidewalk and had a small, inclosed
+porch, with oval windows on each side, through which one could look up
+or down the street. In all these details it agreed exactly with
+Hawthorne's description of the house of Dr. Grimshawe. Adjoining it on
+the left was the very graveyard where Nat and little Elsie chased
+butterflies and played hide-and-seek among the quaint old tombstones,
+which had puffy little cherubs and doleful verses carved upon them. That
+corner room, no doubt, that overlooks the graveyard, was old Dr. Grim's
+study, so thickly festooned with cobwebs, where the grisly old
+monomaniac sat with his long clay pipe and bottle of brandy, with no
+better company than an enormous tropical spider, which hung directly
+above his head and seemed at times to be the incarnation of the Evil One
+himself.
+
+How could Hawthorne, in his later years, conceive such horrible
+suggestions in connection with a house which must have been associated
+in his mind with the happiest memories of his life? For here lived the
+Peabody family, Dr. Nathaniel Peabody and his highly cultivated wife,
+their three sons, only one of whom lived to maturity, and their three
+remarkable daughters--Elizabeth Palmer, who achieved fame as one of the
+foremost kindergartners of America and died at a ripe old age; Mary, who
+became the wife of Horace Mann; and the gentle, scholarly, and
+high-minded Sophia, who refused to come down to see Hawthorne, on plea
+of illness, the first time he called at the house, but fell in love with
+him at a subsequent visit. The calls were frequent enough after that,
+and before the family left the old house to reside in Boston, the lovers
+were engaged to be married.
+
+During the period of the courtship, Hawthorne lived with his mother and
+two sisters in a house on Herbert Street not far distant, and the two
+families came into close neighborly relations. Of course, we walked over
+to Herbert Street to find this house, but what remains of it has been
+remodeled into an ordinary tenement house and no longer resembles the
+house to which Sophia Peabody once sent a bouquet of tulips for Mr.
+Hawthorne, only to have it quietly appropriated by his sister Elizabeth,
+who thought her brother incapable of appreciating flowers, though she
+kindly permitted him to look at them! In the rear of this building,
+fronting on Union Street, is the plain, two-story-and-a-half house, with
+a gambrel roof, where Hawthorne was born.
+
+When the Hawthornes returned to Salem, after their residence in the Old
+Manse, they occupied the Herbert Street house, with Madam Hawthorne and
+her two daughters, Elizabeth and Louisa. This proved inconvenient for so
+large a family and they moved into a three-story house on Chestnut
+Street, well shaded by some fine old elms. This was only a temporary
+arrangement, and soon afterward, the family took a large three-story
+house on Mall Street, where the mother and sisters occupied separate
+apartments. Hawthorne's study was on the third floor--near enough his
+own family for convenience, but sufficiently remote for quiet. It was to
+this house that he returned one day in dejected mood and announced that
+he had been removed from his position at the Custom House. "Oh! then,
+you can write your book!" was the unexpectedly joyous reply of his wife,
+who knew that he had a story weighing on his mind. And then she produced
+the savings which she had carefully hoarded to meet just such an
+emergency. "The Scarlet Letter" was begun on the same day.
+
+It was to this same house that James T. Fields came in the following
+winter and found Hawthorne in despondent mood sitting in the upper room
+huddled over a small stove. The preceding half-year had been the most
+trying period in his life. Discouragement over the loss of his position
+and the prospect of meager returns for his literary work was followed by
+serious pecuniary embarrassment, for Mrs. Hawthorne's store of gold was,
+after all, a tiny one. The illness and death of his mother had left him
+in a nervous state from the great strain of emotion, and this was
+followed by the sickness of every member of the household, himself
+included. The story of how Fields left the house with the manuscript of
+"The Scarlet Letter" in his pocket is well known. The immediate success
+of the novel proved to be the tonic that restored the author to health
+and happiness, and when he left Mall Street in the following spring he
+was no longer the "obscurest man of letters in America."
+
+The old Salem Custom House is the best-known building in the town. As we
+stood before it and looked upon the great eagle above the portico, with
+"a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw"
+and a "truculent attitude" that seemed "to threaten mischief to the
+inoffensive community," it seemed as though we might fairly expect the
+former surveyor, or his ghost, to open the door and walk down the old
+granite steps.
+
+[Illustration: THE MALL STREET HOUSE]
+
+I have already mentioned the apparent indifference toward Hawthorne of a
+certain old citizen of Salem--a feeling which characterizes a large part
+of the population, particularly those whose ancestors have lived longest
+in the town. One would naturally expect Salem to be proud of her most
+distinguished citizen, to delight in honoring him, and to extend a
+cordial welcome to thousands of strangers who come to pay him homage.
+Shakespeare is the principal asset of Stratford-on-Avon, Scott of
+Melrose, Burns of Ayr, and Wordsworth of the English Lakes. Every
+citizen is ready to talk of them. Not so of Hawthorne and Salem. The
+town is quite independent, and would hold up its head if there had never
+been any Hawthorne. The later generation, it is true, recognize his
+greatness, but the prejudice of the older families is sufficient to
+check any manifestation of enthusiasm.
+
+This old Custom House upon which we are looking furnishes the
+explanation. When Hawthorne took possession as surveyor, he found
+offices ornamented with rows of sleepy officials, sitting in
+old-fashioned chairs which were tilted on their hind legs against the
+walls. These old gentlemen made an irresistible appeal to his sense of
+humor, such that he could scarcely have avoided the impulse to write a
+description of their whimsicalities. After his "decapitation" he yielded
+to the impulse and prepared in the best of good humor the amusing
+description of his former associates in the "Introduction" to "The
+Scarlet Letter." It brought the wrath of Salem upon his head. These old
+fellows did not fancy being caricatured as "wearisome old souls," who
+"seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom
+which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most
+carefully to have stored their memories with the husks." Especially
+enraged were the family of the Old Inspector of whom Hawthorne said
+nothing worse than that he remembered all the good dinners he had eaten.
+"There were flavors on his palate that had lingered there not less than
+sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of
+the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast," said
+Hawthorne with fine humor. "He called one of them a pig," said a
+Salemite to me, indignantly.
+
+After all, Salem never really knew Hawthorne. Though the town was his
+birthplace, he had little liking for it, and was seldom there. During
+the four years of his incumbency of the Custom House, he kept aloof from
+the townspeople, most of whom had no knowledge whatever of his literary
+efforts. When the fame of "The Scarlet Letter" had made Hawthorne's name
+a familiar one throughout America and England, the author was no longer
+a resident of Salem, for immediately after the publication of his first
+and most famous novel, he was glad to seek relief from the gloomy
+memories of Mall Street in the fresh mountain air of the Berkshires.
+
+Hawthorne, though apparently glad to escape, still allowed his thought
+to dwell in Salem, for in the same year of the completion of "The
+Scarlet Letter" and his removal to Lenox, Massachusetts, he began "The
+House of the Seven Gables." The identity of this house has long been a
+matter of curiosity. Three old Salem houses, two of which have since
+disappeared, have been pointed out as originals, the authenticity of all
+of which has been denied by George Parsons Lathrop, Hawthorne's
+son-in-law, who maintains that the author's statement, that he built his
+house only of "materials long in use for constructing castles in the
+air," must be taken literally.
+
+It must not be supposed that an author need ever describe such a
+building in detail or provide for its future identification. He may do
+as Scott often did, put the details of three or four houses into one
+structure, taking his material, not "out of the air," but from
+recollections of many places he has seen. It does not detract from the
+supposed "original" to find that the author has made material, even
+radical, departures from the original plan. The real point of interest
+is to know whether the old landmark suggested anything to the author,
+and if so, how much.
+
+To those who follow this line of reasoning, an old house at the foot of
+Turner Street, now commonly known as "The House of the Seven Gables,"
+has many points of interest. It is a weather-stained old building dating
+back to 1669, and contains so many gables that you are reasonably
+content to accept seven as the number, though I believe it has eight,
+not counting the one over the rear porch, recently added.
+
+The identification of this house as the one which, more than any other,
+suggested to Hawthorne the idea of a house of seven gables, rests upon
+two facts. The first is that in 1782 it came into the possession of
+Captain Samuel Ingersoll, whose wife was a niece of Hawthorne's
+grandfather. It passed, later, to their only surviving daughter,
+Susannah. Her portrait, which now hangs in the parlor of the old house,
+shows that, as a young woman, she was not unattractive. An unfortunate
+love affair caused her to withdraw from society and to live a life of
+solitude in the old house, from which all male visitors were rigidly
+excluded. An exception seems to have been made in favor of her cousin
+Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, it is said, was a frequent visitor and
+listened with interest to the legends of the house as told by his elder
+cousin.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES]
+
+The second fact of identification rests upon more recent evidence. The
+building was purchased in 1908 by a generous resident of Salem and
+turned into a settlement house. This lady, who possesses the highest
+antiquarian instincts, determined to restore the house to its original
+form. In doing so she discovered traces of four gables which had been
+removed. These, with three that remained, made the desired seven, but,
+unfortunately, about the same time an old plan was unearthed which
+proved that the house at one time must have had eight gables! So the
+house has been restored to its full quota of eight. When Hawthorne
+was calling there it had only three gables, and his elderly kinswoman
+must have told traditions of the time when it had seven or eight, as the
+case may be. And so the question of gables becomes as bewildering as Tom
+Sawyer's aunt's spoons.
+
+Aside from this not very profitable speculation, the house is an
+interesting survival of the time when Salem was a seaport town of some
+importance. A secret staircase has been reconstructed according to the
+recollections of the man who took it down a quarter of a century ago. It
+opens by a secret spring in a panel of the wall in the third-story front
+room, now known as "Clifford's chamber," and ascends through a false
+fireplace in the dining-room. It will be remembered how Clifford
+mysteriously disappeared from his room, and as mysteriously reappeared
+in the parlor where Judge Pyncheon sat in the easy-chair, dead. Perhaps
+he came down this secret stairway, though Hawthorne forgot to mention
+it.
+
+A little shop, where real gingerbread "Jim Crows" are sold, makes the
+present "House of the Seven Gables" seem real, so that when the bell
+tinkles as you open the door, you would not be at all surprised if
+Hepzibah Pyncheon herself should appear, entering from the quaint little
+New England kitchen on the right. A sunny chamber upstairs now called
+"Phoebe's room," and a pleasant little garden in the rear, still
+further heighten the illusion and make one feel that if this is not the
+real "House of the Seven Gables," it certainly ought to be.
+
+The conditions under which "The House of the Seven Gables" was written
+were quite the reverse of those which brought forth "The Scarlet
+Letter." Instead of obscurity, ill health, and financial difficulties,
+the author was now in the full flush of his fame, reveling in the
+friendship of the most distinguished men of letters, enjoying the best
+of health himself, and happy in the consciousness that his dear wife was
+also well, and living amid the most delightful surroundings, free from
+care and taking no anxious thought for the morrow.
+
+The people of Salem are now preparing to make ample amends for any
+neglect of Hawthorne in the past. A committee of prominent citizens has
+been at work for several years upon a plan to erect a handsome statue
+upon the Common, the design for which has been made by a well-known
+artist, and a portion of the funds collected. With this monument before
+them, we may reasonably hope that future generations will be able to
+forgive the frankness which irritated their ancestors, though it was
+kindly meant, and eventually open their hearts to adopt Hawthorne as
+their very own, just as Stratford does Shakespeare, acknowledging the
+full extent of their obligation for the luster which his brilliant
+genius has shed upon their town.
+
+
+III
+
+PORTSMOUTH
+
+If Thomas Bailey Aldrich were living to-day and could enter the front
+door of his grandfather's house in Court Street, Portsmouth, New
+Hampshire, he would be likely to have a strange feeling of suddenly
+renewed youth, for his eyes would rest upon the same rooms and many of
+the same furnishings as those which greeted him in 1849, when he
+returned to the old house, a lad of twelve, to enter upon those happy
+boyish experiences so pleasantly related in "The Story of a Bad Boy."
+And then, as he passed from room to room and gazed once more upon the
+old familiar sights, he would experience a deeper and richer joy--a
+sense of pride, mingled with love and gratitude, for this unique and
+splendid tribute to his memory, from his faithful wife and many loyal
+friends.
+
+In the summer of 1907, following the death of Mr. Aldrich, which
+occurred in the spring of that year, it was suggested in a local
+newspaper of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that the old Bailey house, where
+"Tom Bailey" lived with his "Grandfather Nutter," should be purchased by
+the town and refurnished as a permanent memorial to its distinguished
+son. The response was instant and hearty. The Thomas Bailey Aldrich
+Memorial Association was at once formed, and a fund of ten thousand
+dollars was raised by popular subscriptions, in sums varying from one
+dollar to one thousand dollars. The house, which had fallen into alien
+hands and had not been kept in good repair, was purchased and restored
+to its original condition, and the heirs gladly gave back all that had
+been taken away at the death of Grandfather Bailey. On June 30, 1908,
+the restored house was formally dedicated by a distinguished
+representation of Aldrich's friends, including Richard Watson Gilder,
+William Dean Howells, Hamilton Wright Mabie, Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
+Thomas Nelson Page, Samuel L. Clemens, and many others whose names are
+well known.
+
+[Illustration: THE BAILEY HOUSE]
+
+The "Nutter" house, or the "Aldrich Memorial" as it is officially known,
+impresses one with a sense of perfect satisfaction. I have seen
+memorials that are barn-like in their emptiness, so difficult has it
+been to secure a sufficient number of relics to furnish the rooms;
+others impress me like shops for the sale of souvenirs; others have the
+cold, touch-me-not aspect of a museum; and some are overloaded with
+busts, pictures, and inscriptions intended to convey an impression of
+the greatness of the former occupant. The Nutter house, on the contrary,
+looks as though Tom and his grandfather had gone off to the village an
+hour before, and Aunt Abigail and Kitty Collins, after "tidying" the
+rooms to perfection, had slipped away to gossip with the neighbors. The
+visitor has a feeling that real people are living there and is surprised
+to learn that at a certain hour each day the attendants go away and lock
+it up for the night.
+
+Mrs. Aldrich told us that when her husband took her there for the first
+time, as his bride, the old house made such a strong impression upon her
+mind that when she came to restore the place, many years afterward, she
+remembered distinctly where every piece of furniture used to stand. The
+perfection of her work is seen in the hundreds of little touches--the
+shawl thrown carelessly over the back of a chair, the fan lying on the
+sofa, the books on the center table, the music on the old-fashioned
+square piano, grandfather's Bible and spectacles on his bedroom table,
+the embroidered coverlet in the "blue-chintz room," the netting over
+Aunt Abigail's bed, the clothing in the closets, and even the
+night-clothes carefully laid out on each corpulent feather bed. I fancy
+the most loving touches of all were given to the little hall bedroom
+where Tom Bailey slept. There is the little window out of which Tom
+swung himself, with the aid of Kitty Collins's clothes-line, at the
+awful hour of eleven o'clock, and tumbled into a big rosebush, on the
+night before "the Fourth." The "pretty chintz curtain" may not be the
+one Tom knew, but it is very like it; and there is a very good
+imitation of the original wall-paper, on which Tom counted two hundred
+and sixty-eight birds, each individual one of which he admired, although
+no such bird ever existed. He knew the exact number because he once
+counted them when laid up with a black eye and dreamed that the whole
+flock flew out of the window. The little bed has "a patch quilt of more
+colors than were in Joseph's coat," and across it lies a clean white
+waistcoat waiting for Tom to put it on, as though to-morrow would be
+Sunday. Above the head of the bed are the two oak shelves, holding the
+very books that Tom loved. In front of the window is the "high-backed
+chair studded with brass nails like a coffin," and on the right "a chest
+of carved mahogany drawers" and "a looking-glass in a filigreed frame."
+A little swallow-tailed coat, once worn by Tom, hangs over the back of a
+chair, ready to be worn again. Surely Tom Bailey is expected home
+to-night!
+
+Even the garret is ready in case to-morrow should be stormy. "Here meet
+together, as if by some preconcerted arrangement, all the broken-down
+chairs of the household, all the spavined tables, all the seedy hats,
+all the intoxicated-looking boots, all the split walking-sticks that
+have retired from business, weary with the march of life." One slight
+liberty has been taken, in placing "The Rivermouth Theater" in one
+corner of the attic, next to Kitty Collins's room, but this may be
+forgiven in view of the fact that the barn, where the "Theater" really
+was, has disappeared.
+
+In our anxiety to see Tom's room and the attic, we have rushed upstairs
+somewhat too rapidly. Let us now go down and inspect the other rooms
+with more leisure.
+
+In the front of the house, on the second floor, and at the left of the
+tiny bedroom which Tom occupied, is Grandfather Nutter's room. It was
+too near for Tom's convenience, and that is why the young gentleman
+lowered himself from the window by a rope--at least, that was the reason
+he doubtless argued to himself in favor of the more romantic mode of
+exit, although as a matter of fact grandfather was a sound sleeper and
+Tom might have walked boldly downstairs without awakening him. Still he
+would have had to pass the door of Aunt Abigail's room at the head of
+the stairs, and if the old lady had suddenly appeared, Tom could
+scarcely have escaped a dose of "hot drops," which his aunt considered a
+certain cure for any known ailment, from a black eye to a broken arm.
+Aunt Abigail, it will be remembered, was the maiden sister of Captain
+Nutter, who "swooped down on him," at the funeral of the captain's wife,
+"with a bandbox in one hand and a faded blue cotton umbrella in the
+other." Though apparently intending to stay only a few days, she
+decided that her presence was indispensable to the captain, and whether
+he wished it or not she kept on staying for seventeen years, and might
+have stayed longer had not death released her from the self-imposed
+duty.
+
+On the right of Tom's room is "the blue-chintz room, into which a ray of
+sun was never allowed to penetrate." But it was "thrown open and dusted,
+and its mouldy air made sweet with a bouquet of pot-roses" on the
+occasion of Nelly Glentworth's visit, and a very delightful room Nelly
+must have found it, if it looked as well then as it does now, under the
+skillful direction of Mrs. Aldrich.
+
+Across the hall from Aunt Abigail's room is the guest chamber. An
+old-fashioned rocking-chair by the window, with a Bible and candle
+conveniently placed on a stand close by, offer the visitor every
+opportunity to get himself into a proper frame of mind before taking a
+plunge into the depths of the snow-white mountain of feathers,
+hospitably piled up to an enormous height for his comfort.
+
+[Illustration: "AUNT ABIGAIL'S" ROOM]
+
+Descending now to the main floor (for we are inspecting this house
+exactly contrary to the usual order), we step into the large corner room
+at our left. Here visions arise of Tom sitting disconsolately on the
+haircloth sofa, in the evening, driven to distraction by the monotonous
+click-click of Aunt Abigail's knitting-needles, but sometimes happily
+diverted by the spectacle of grandfather going to sleep over his
+newspaper and setting fire to it with the small block-tin lamp which he
+held in his hand.
+
+Across the hall is the parlor, which was seldom open except on Sundays,
+and was "pervaded by a strong smell of center table." Here again we
+fancy Tom sitting in one corner, "crushed." All his favorite books are
+banished to the sitting-room closet until Monday morning. There is
+nothing to do and nothing to read except Baxter's "Saint's Rest."
+"Genial converse, harmless books, smiles, lightsome hearts, all are
+banished." It was no fault of the room, however, that Tom felt doleful,
+for there is a fine, wide, open fireplace with big brass andirons from
+which a wonderful amount of cheer might have been extracted, while a
+piano in one corner and some shelves of books in another were capable of
+providing boundless entertainment, had the room been accessible on any
+other day than Sunday.
+
+Passing down through the hall we enter a door on the left, into the
+dining-room. Do you remember how Captain Nutter tormented poor Tom at
+the breakfast table, on the morning of the Fourth of July, by reading
+from the Rivermouth "Barnacle" an account of the burning of the
+stage-coach the night before? "Miscreants unknown," read the
+grandfather, while Tom's hair stood on end. "Five dollars reward
+offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators. Sho! I hope Wingate
+will catch them," continued the old gentleman, while Tom nearly ceased
+to breathe. And the sly old fox knew all about it and had already
+settled Tom's share of the damages!
+
+We now cross the hall into the kitchen, which we ought to have visited
+first, as everybody else does. A more delightful New England kitchen
+could scarcely be imagined. This was the only place where Sailor Ben
+felt at home--and no wonder, for how could any room have a more inviting
+fireplace? Here Tom sought refuge when oppressed by the atmosphere of
+the sitting-room and found relief in Kitty Collins's funny Irish
+stories. And here Sailor Ben gathered the whole family around the table
+while he spun his yarn "all about a man as has made a fool of hisself."
+
+This is the delightful fact about the Nutter house of to-day--every room
+brings back memories of Tom Bailey, Grandfather Nutter, Aunt Abigail,
+Kitty Collins, and Sailor Ben. The furnishings are so perfect that we
+should not have been surprised if any one of these old friends had
+suddenly confronted us. Our minds were concentrated upon their
+personalities and upon "The Story of a Bad Boy." The illusion is so
+complete that we scarcely gave a thought to the author of the tale until
+we entered the Memorial building at the rear. Suddenly Tom Bailey
+vanished and with him all the other ghosts of the old house. We stood in
+the presence of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the poet, the writer of a
+multitude of delightful tales, and the man of genial personality. Here,
+in a single large room, are brought together the priceless autographs,
+manuscripts, first editions, and pictures which Aldrich had found
+pleasure in collecting. Here is the little table on which he wrote "The
+Story of a Bad Boy," and there are cases containing countless presents,
+trophies, and expressions of regard from his friends. The walls are hung
+with manuscripts, framed in connection with portraits of their
+distinguished writers, as Aldrich loved to have them. At the end of the
+room is a handsome oil painting of Aldrich himself. Everything tends to
+suggest the exquisite taste of the man, his genial nature, his varied
+attainments, and the extent of his wide circle of distinguished friends.
+Above all, the room speaks in eloquent terms of the affectionate loyalty
+to his memory that has led his family to bring together the material for
+a memorial unsurpassed in variety of interest and tasteful arrangement
+of details.
+
+Even the garden in the rear of the house is made to sing its song in
+memory of Aldrich, for here are growing all the flowers mentioned in his
+poetry, blending their perfumes and uniting harmoniously their richness
+of color in one graceful tribute to the beauty and delicacy of his
+verse.
+
+[Illustration: AN OLD WHARF]
+
+After living over again the scenes of "The Story of a Bad Boy," in so
+far as they were suggested by the Nutter house, it was only natural that
+we should wish to stroll about the "Old Town by the Sea" in the hope of
+identifying some of the out-of-door scenes of "young Bailey's" exploits.
+The first house on the right, as we walked toward the river, is the
+William Pitt Tavern. In the early days of the Revolution it was an
+aristocratic hotel, much frequented by the Tories, and kept by a certain
+astute landlord named John Stavers. He had formerly kept a tavern on
+State Street, known as the "Earl of Halifax," and when it became
+necessary to move to the newer house in Court Street, he carried sign
+and all with him. But the patriots, whose resort was the old Bell
+Tavern, kept a jealous eye on the Earl of Halifax, and in 1777 attacked
+it, seriously damaging the building. Master Stavers, being at heart
+neither Tory nor patriot, but primarily an innkeeper, promptly changed
+both his politics and his sign. The latter became "William Pitt," in
+honor of the colonists' English friend and supporter, and the thrifty
+landlord began to entertain the leaders of the Revolution at his house.
+John Hancock, Elbridge Gerry, and Edward Rutledge decorated with their
+autographs the pages of his register as well as the Declaration of
+Independence. General Knox was a frequent visitor and Lafayette came
+there in 1882. Moreover, the old tavern has had the honor of
+entertaining the last of the French kings, Louis Philippe, who came
+there with his two brothers during the French Revolution, and the first
+American President, who was a guest in 1789.
+
+All this glory had long since departed in Aldrich's day, and his chief
+interest in the old tavern lay in the fact that he could climb up the
+dingy stairs to the top floor and listen for hours to the stories of the
+olden times, as told by Dame Jocelyn, with whom, as she asserted,
+Washington had flirted just a little, though in a "stately and highly
+finished manner"!
+
+Continuing down the street, we found the empty old warehouses and
+rotting wharves among which Aldrich spent so many hours of his boyhood,
+and we took a picture of one old crumbling dock, which we felt sure must
+have been very like the one upon which the boys of the Rivermouth
+Centipedes fired a broadside from "Bailey's Battery." The old abandoned
+guns, twelve in all, were cleaned out, loaded, provided with fuses, and
+set off mysteriously at midnight, much to the astonishment of the
+Rivermouthians, who thought the town was being bombarded or that the end
+of the world had come. The old wharf possessed a singular fascination
+for me because I still recall how vividly the incident impressed me in
+my boyhood and how fervently I envied Tom Bailey his unusual
+opportunities. Nor did it mar my enjoyment in the least to learn that
+the wharf I was looking at was not the right place, the real one, where
+the guns were stored, having been removed some time ago. It was near the
+Point of Graves, the spot where the boys went in bathing and where Binny
+Wallace's body was washed ashore after the ill-fated cruise of the
+Dolphin. The real Binny, by the way, was not drowned at all. The author,
+here, deviated from the facts to make his story more dramatic.
+
+Point of Graves takes its name from the old burying-ground, occupying a
+triangular space near the river's edge. It has quaint old tombstones
+dating back as far as 1682, with curious epitaphs, skulls, and cherubs
+carved upon them. Here is the place where Tom Bailey, disappointed in
+love and determined to become "a blighted being," used to lie in the
+long grass, speculating on "the advantages and disadvantages of being a
+cherub"--the disadvantages being that the cherub, having only a head and
+wings, could not sit down when he was tired and could not possess
+trousers pockets!
+
+A stroll through this part of the town, which in olden times was the
+center of its trade and commerce, is like walking through some of the
+old English villages. Every house, nearly, has its history, and I fancy
+the streets have not greatly changed their appearance since the days of
+Aldrich's boyhood.
+
+On the corner of Fleet and State Streets we came to an old house, which
+has an interesting connection with our story. A part of it was occupied
+as a candy store for nearly sixty years. On the Fourth of July, after
+Tom had treated the boys to root-beer, a single glass of which "insured
+an uninterrupted pain for twenty-four hours," they came here for
+ice-cream. It is said that one of the ringleaders subsequently
+celebrated every third of July, until his death, by eating ice-cream in
+the same room. The story was based upon an incident that really happened
+in 1847, in which, of course, Aldrich could have had no part, as he was
+not then living in Portsmouth. I am inclined to doubt whether the real
+event was half so delightful as the tale which Aldrich tells, of the
+twelve sixpenny ice-creams, "strawberry and verneller mixed," and how
+poor Tom was left to pay for the whole crowd, who slipped out of the
+window while he was in another room ordering more cream!
+
+No doubt we might have coupled many other places in Portsmouth with "The
+Story of a Bad Boy"--for it is a very real story, though not to be taken
+literally in every detail. It is interesting to think of the town, also,
+as the scene of "Prudence Palfrey." The old Bell Tavern, where Mr.
+Dillingham boarded, ceased to exist as a public house in 1852 and was
+destroyed by fire fifteen years later. It is pleasant also to follow
+Aldrich in a walk through the streets, with a copy of "An Old Town by
+the Sea" for a guide, and note all the fine old houses he so charmingly
+describes.
+
+But we must not devote our entire time to Aldrich, for an older poet has
+a slight claim to our attention. The opening scene of Longfellow's "Lady
+Wentworth," in the "Tales of a Wayside Inn," is laid in State Street.
+
+  "One hundred years ago and something more,
+   In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tavern door,"--
+
+is the way the poem opens. Queen Street was the old name for State
+Street, and the tavern was the old Earl of Halifax before Master Stavers
+carried the sign over to the new house in Court Street. It has long
+since disappeared. It was before this house that the barefooted and
+ragged little beauty, Martha Hilton, was rebuked by Dame Stavers for
+appearing on the street half-dressed and looking so shabby, to which she
+quickly replied:--
+
+  "No matter how I look: I yet shall ride
+   In my own chariot, ma'am."
+
+The house to which she did drive in her own chariot, many a time in
+later days, as the wife of Governor Wentworth, is one of the most
+pleasantly situated of all the houses in Portsmouth. It is at Little
+Harbor, on one of the many peninsulas that jut out into the Piscataqua,
+below the town, and commands a fine view of the beautiful river and its
+many islands. The house is a large wooden building containing forty-five
+rooms, though originally it had fifty-two. Architecturally it is
+unattractive, external beauty of design having been sacrificed to
+utility.
+
+  "Within, unwonted splendors met the eye,
+   Panels and floors of oak, and tapestry;
+   Carved chimney pieces, where on brazen dogs
+   Reveled and roared the Christmas fires of logs."
+
+The historic building, with its great Chamber where the Governor and his
+Council met for their deliberations, still remains in almost its
+original state.
+
+One could spend many days in Portsmouth investigating its connection
+with the history of the country, from the early explorations in 1603 of
+Martin Pring and the visit in 1614 of Captain John Smith, down through
+the settlements of David Thomson and Captain John Mason, the Indian wars
+and massacres, the incidents of the Revolution, and the rise and fall of
+the town's commerce, and find plenty of old landmarks to give zest to
+the pursuit. But our search, at present, is for literary landmarks. We,
+therefore, take passage on the little steamer that plies to and from the
+Isles of Shoals for a pilgrimage to the Island Garden of Celia Thaxter.
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ISLES OF SHOALS
+
+It is a pleasant sail down the Piscataqua, past the old "slumberous"
+wharves, where "the sunshine seems to lie a foot deep in the planks";
+past the long bridges; the numerous clusters of islands; the white sails
+of the yacht club, hovering like gulls about the huge battleships,
+moored to the docks of the navy yard; the ruins of Fort Constitution,
+formerly Fort William and Mary, famed in history, but more interesting
+to us as the place where Prudence Palfrey came near surrendering her
+heart to the infamous Dillingham; the ancient town of Newcastle with its
+old-fashioned dwellings mingling with pretty new summer cottages, the
+whole dominated by the white walls of a huge hotel; Kittery Point,
+birthplace of Sir William Pepperell, the famous Governor and Indian
+fighter: and at last, the broad Atlantic, stretching to the eastward
+with nothing to obstruct the view save a few tiny specks, dimly visible
+in the distance. These are the Isles of Shoals, looking so small that
+they seem to be only rocks jutting a few feet above the sea, upon which
+it would be impossible to land.
+
+As we approach Appledore, the islands still seem to be only a cluster of
+barren rocks, with a few scattered buildings. The charm which they
+undoubtedly exert upon those who come year after year does not
+immediately manifest itself to the stranger. He must spend a night
+there, breathing the pure sea air, watching in the early evening the
+glistening lights on the far-off shore, and finally falling asleep to
+dream that he is in mid-ocean, on one of the steadiest of steamers,
+enjoying the luxury of absolute rest, for which there is no better
+prescription than an ocean voyage. In the morning, he must walk around
+the island--it can be done in an hour or two--threading the narrow paths
+through the huckleberry bushes and picking his way over the high rocks
+that present their front to the full force of the waves, on the side of
+Appledore that faces the sea. Here he will see artists spreading their
+easels and canvases for a day's work and less busy people settling down
+in various shady nooks, to read, to chat, to knit, to dream.
+
+To get the real spirit of the islands it is advisable to find one of
+these quiet nooks and read Celia Thaxter's "Among the Isles of Shoals,"
+a book of sketches for which the author needlessly apologizes, but of
+which Mrs. Annie Fields says, "She portrays, in a prose which for beauty
+and wealth of diction has few rivals, the unfolding of sky and sea and
+solitude and untrammeled freedom, such as have been almost unknown to
+civilized humanity in any age of the world." Celia Thaxter is herself
+the Spirit of the Isles of Shoals, and if we are to know and love them,
+we must take her as our guide. She will be found an efficient one and
+there is no other.
+
+[Illustration: CELIA THAXTER'S COTTAGE]
+
+With this purpose in mind, we began our tour of the islands, book in
+hand, stopping first at the cottage of Mrs. Thaxter. One room is
+maintained somewhat as she left it, with every square foot of wall space
+covered by her pictures. But the flower-garden is sadly neglected. Only
+the vines that still clamber over the porch, and a few hollyhocks that
+stubbornly refuse to die, remain to suggest the dooryard where the
+garden flowers used to "fairly run mad with color." The salt air and
+some peculiar richness of the soil seem to impart unusual brilliancy to
+the blossoms and strength to the roots of all kinds of flowers, whether
+wild or cultivated. Celia Thaxter was one of those people for whom
+flowers will grow. They responded with blushing enthusiasm to the
+constant manifestations of her love and tender care. Flowers have a
+great deal of humanity about them after all. They refuse to display
+their real luxuriance for cold, careless, or indifferent people, just as
+babies and dogs know how to distinguish between those who love them and
+those who love only themselves.
+
+  "More dear to me than words can tell
+     Was every cup and spray and leaf;
+     Too perfect for a life so brief
+   Seemed every star and bud and bell."
+
+Celia Thaxter loved her flowers with a devotion born of the hours of
+solitude when they were her sole companions. "The little spot of earth
+on which they grow is like a mass of jewels. Who shall describe the
+pansies, richly streaked with burning gold; the dark velvet coreopsis
+and the nasturtiums; the larkspurs, blue and brilliant as lapis-lazuli;
+the 'ardent marigolds' that flame like mimic suns? The sweet peas are of
+a deep, bright rose-color, and their odor is like rich wine, too sweet
+almost to be borne, except when the pure fragrance of mignonette is
+added,--such mignonette as never grows on shore. Why should the poppies
+blaze in such imperial scarlet? What quality is hidden in this thin
+soil, which so transfigures all the familiar flowers with fresh beauty?"
+
+Unfortunately, the mysterious quality hidden in the soil, assisted by
+the warm sunshine and the salt air, with all their powers could not
+maintain the island garden after the loving hands of its owner were
+withdrawn, and the little inclosure is now a mass of weeds.
+
+Celia Laighton was brought to the Isles of Shoals as a child of five,
+and lived with her parents in a little cottage on White Island where her
+father was the keeper of the lighthouse. She grew to womanhood in the
+companionship of the rocks, the spray of the ocean, the seaweeds, the
+shells and the miniature wild life she discovered among them, the tiny
+wild flowers which her sharp young eyes could find in the most secret
+crannies, and the marigolds, "rich in color as barbaric gold," which she
+early learned to cultivate in "a scrap of garden literally not more than
+a yard square." She shouted a friendly greeting to the noisy gulls and
+kittiwakes that fluttered overhead, chased the sandpipers along the
+gravelly beach, made friends and neighbors of the crabs, the sea-spiders
+and land-spiders, the sea-urchins, the grasshoppers and crickets, and
+set in motion armies of sandhoppers, that jumped away like tiny
+kangaroos when she lifted the stranded seaweed. And then the birds came
+to see her. The swallows gathered fearlessly upon the window-sills and
+built their nests in the eaves, seeming to know that the loving eyes
+watching their movements could mean no evil. Now and then a bobolink, an
+oriole, or a scarlet tanager would be seen. The song sparrows came in
+flocks to be fed every morning. With them, at times, came robins and
+blackbirds, and occasionally yellowbirds and kingbirds. Sometimes, in
+hazy weather, they would fly against the glass of the lighthouse with
+fatal results. "Many a May morning," says Mrs. Thaxter, "have I wandered
+about the rock at the foot of the tower mourning over a little apron
+brimful of sparrows, swallows, thrushes, robins, fire-winged blackbirds,
+many-colored yellowbirds, nuthatches, catbirds, even the purple finch
+and scarlet tanager and golden oriole, and many more beside--enough to
+break the heart of a small child to think of."
+
+It is no wonder that such a sympathetic soul could even summon the birds
+to keep her company--as she frequently did with the loons. "I learned to
+imitate their different cries; they are wonderful! At one time the loon
+language was so familiar that I could almost always summon a
+considerable flock by going down to the water and assuming the
+neighborly and conversational tone which they generally use: after
+calling a few minutes, first a far-off voice responded, then other
+voices answered him, and when this was kept up a while, half a dozen
+birds would come sailing in. It was the most delightful little party
+imaginable; so comical were they that it was impossible not to laugh
+aloud."
+
+To her love of birds and flowers, Mrs. Thaxter added a love of the sea
+itself, finding delight equally in the sparkle of the calm waves of
+summer or the wild beating of the surf in winter. She developed a
+marvelous ear for the music of the sea--something akin to that which
+enables John Burroughs to name a bird correctly from its notes, even
+when the songster is trying to imitate the call of another bird as the
+little impostors sometimes do. She says: "Who shall describe that
+wonderful voice of the sea among the rocks, to me the most suggestive of
+all the sounds in nature? Each island, every isolated rock, has its own
+peculiar note, and ears made delicate by listening, in great and
+frequent peril, can distinguish the bearings of each in a dense fog."
+
+Equally well did she know humanity. The daily life of the fishermen, the
+kind and quantity of the fish they caught, the adventures they
+experienced, the stories they told, the hardships they endured, the
+little domestic tragedies that now and then took place in their humble
+cottages, the sufferings from illness or accident, were all matters of
+everyday knowledge to her and enlisted her profound sympathy.
+
+Everything in nature appealed to her--the sea and sky, the sunrise and
+the sunset, the winds and storms, the birds and flowers, the butterflies
+and insects, the sea-shells and kelp, the fishes and all the lower forms
+of life--all were objects of careful observation in which she took
+delight; and to these must be added a deep interest in humanity,
+particularly of the kind which she met in fishermen's cottages, where
+her good common sense and knowledge of simple remedies enabled her to
+render, again and again, a service in time of need when no other
+assistance could be obtained.
+
+Such was the unique character whose spirit dominates the islands even
+to-day,--a lover of nature worthy to stand with Gilbert White, Thoreau,
+or Burroughs, a poet, an artist, a friendly neighbor, and a womanly
+woman.
+
+It was a part of our good fortune to have the actual guidance in our
+tour of the islands of the only surviving brother of Mrs. Thaxter, Mr.
+Oscar Laighton. In his little motor boat he took us to the tiny island
+known as Londoners, where for many winters he was the sole inhabitant.
+Although advancing years have now made it inexpedient for him to live in
+solitude, the little cottage still remains ready for occupancy at any
+moment. We stepped inside expecting to see, in so desolate a spot, only
+such rude furnishings as might be found in some mountain cabin or
+hunter's lodge. To our astonishment we found it a veritable little
+bower, a model of neatness and order, and every room, including the
+kitchen, filled with well-chosen pictures and books, as though some
+dainty fairy, of literary tastes, had planned it for her permanent
+abode. Among the highly prized ornaments were many pieces of china,
+painted by Mrs. Thaxter. To our minds, the most valuable article in the
+house--valuable because of the lesson it teaches--is a typewritten card,
+hanging conspicuously over the kitchen stove, with this cordial greeting
+to the uninvited guest:--
+
+  "Welcome to any one entering this house in shipwreck or trouble. You
+  will find matches in the box on the mantel. The key to the wood-house
+  is in this box. Start a fire in the stove and make yourself
+  comfortable. There are some cans of food on shelf in the pantry.
+  Blankets will be found in the chamber on lower floor. There is a dory
+  ready to launch in the boat-house."
+
+Three times have shipwrecked men entered the house and taken advantage
+of this kindly welcome.
+
+Our next visit was to White Island, where, after much difficulty in
+getting ashore, we climbed to the top of the lighthouse. This is a very
+different structure from the old wooden building of Celia Thaxter's
+childhood and only a small part of the original dwelling remains. But
+the landing is very much as she describes it. "Two long and very solid
+timbers about three feet apart are laid from the boat-house to low-water
+mark, and between those timbers the boat's bow must be accurately
+steered.... Safely lodged in the slip, as it is called, she is drawn up
+into the boat-house by a capstan, and fastened securely." Our boat was
+not drawn up, and we had to walk up the steep, slippery planks--with
+what success I shall not attempt to describe. Here, at night, the little
+Celia used to sit, with a lantern at her feet, waiting in the darkness,
+without fear, for the arrival of her father's boat, knowing that the
+"little star was watched for, and that the safety of the boat depended
+in a great measure upon it."
+
+Haley's Island, or "Smutty Nose," as it was long ago dubbed by the
+sailors because of its long projecting point of black rocks, lies
+between Appledore and Star Island. Of the two houses now remaining, one
+is the original cottage of Samuel Haley, an energetic and useful
+citizen, who once owned the island. Nearby fourteen rude and neglected
+graves tell a pathetic tale. The Spanish ship Sagunto was wrecked on
+Smutty Nose, during a severe snowstorm on a January night. The
+shipwrecked sailors saw the light in Haley's cottage and crept toward
+it, benumbed with cold and overcome with the horror and fatigue of their
+experience. Two reached the stone wall in front of the house, but were
+too weak to climb over, and their bodies were discovered the next
+morning, frozen to the stones. Twelve other bodies were found scattered
+about the island. How gladly the old man would have given these poor
+sailors the warmth and comfort of his home could he have known the
+tragedy that was happening while he slept soundly only a few yards away!
+
+Star Island, once the site of the village of Gosport, was in early days
+the most important of the group. Before the Revolution a settlement of
+from three to six hundred people carried on the fisheries of the island,
+catching yearly three or four thousand quintals of fish. All this
+business is now a thing of the past. The great shoals of mackerel and
+herring, from which the islands took their name, have
+disappeared--driven away or killed by the steam trawlers. The old
+families departed long since, and new ones have never come to take their
+places, save a few lobster fishermen, who with difficulty eke out a bare
+living. A quaint little church of stone is perched upon the highest
+rocks of Star Island, but I fear the attendance is small, even in the
+summer time.
+
+We found our way back to Appledore, content to spend the remaining days
+of our visit on this the largest and most inviting of the group.
+
+  "A common island, you will say;
+   But stay a moment; only climb
+   Up to the highest rock of the isle,
+   Stand there alone for a little while,
+   And with gentle approaches it grows sublime,
+   Dilating slowly as you win
+   A sense from the silence to take it in."
+
+Lowell was right. The greatest charm of the islands is felt when you
+stand on "the highest rock of the isle," looking out upon the ever
+sparkling sea that stretches
+
+  "Eastward as far as the eye can see--
+   Still Eastward, eastward, endlessly";
+
+and feeling the restful quietude of the spot. I fancy Celia Thaxter
+stood upon this rock when she sang--
+
+  "O Earth! thy summer song of joy may soar
+     Ringing to heaven in triumph. I but crave
+     The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
+   That breaks in tender music on the shore."
+
+[Illustration: APPLEDORE]
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+A DAY WITH JOHN BURROUGHS
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+A DAY WITH JOHN BURROUGHS
+
+
+"Oh, everybody here calls him Uncle John," was the quick reply to one of
+my queries of the man who drove me to the country house of John
+Burroughs, near Roxbury, New York. He had been saying many pleasant
+things about the distinguished naturalist, dwelling particularly upon
+his kind heart and genial nature. I noticed that he never referred to
+him as "Dr." Burroughs, nor "Mr." Burroughs, nor even as "Burroughs,"
+but always as "John" or "good old John," or most often, "Uncle John." So
+I asked by what name the people called him, and the answer seemed to me
+the most sincere compliment that could have been paid.
+
+When a man has received many honorary degrees which the great
+universities have felt proud to confer, it is an indication that those
+most competent to judge have appreciated his intellectual attainments or
+public services, or both. When the people of his native village bestow
+upon him the title of "Uncle," it is an indication that the achievement
+of fame has not eclipsed the lovable qualities in his character nor
+dimmed the affectionate regard of the neighbors who have learned to
+know him as a man. There is a certain friendliness implied in the title
+of "Uncle," while it also suggests respect. If you live in a small town
+you call everybody by his first name. But one of your number becomes
+famous. To call him "John" seems too familiar. It implies that you do
+not properly appreciate his attainments. To call him "Mister" or
+"Doctor" seems to make a stranger of him, and you would not for the
+world admit that he is not still your friend. "Uncle" is often a happy
+compromise, particularly if he still retains the neighborly qualities of
+his less distinguished years.
+
+I do not know that the people of Roxbury ever followed this line of
+reasoning, but it does seem quite appropriate that they should call
+their most distinguished fellow citizen "Uncle John." He was born on a
+farm near this little village in the Catskills on the 3d of April, 1837,
+in the very time of the return of the birds. Perhaps this is why he is
+so fond of them and particularly of Robin Redbreast, that fine
+old-fashioned democrat, who is one of his prime favorites. He spent his
+boyhood here, and now, in the fullness of his years, quietly returns
+each summer to the old familiar haunts, living the same simple life as
+of yore, except that the pen is now his tool instead of the farming
+implements.
+
+The little red schoolhouse, where Burroughs and Jay Gould went to school
+together, may still be seen in the valley, standing in the open country
+with one of those rounded hilltops in the background which form the
+characteristic feature of the Catskills. Near by is the Gould
+birthplace, now a comfortable-looking farmhouse, glistening with a fresh
+coat of white paint. "Take away the porch and the back extension, and
+the top story and the paint," said my driver, "and you will have the
+original 'birthplace.'" He said that when he first began the livery
+business in Roxbury many people came to see the birthplace of Jay Gould,
+but no one mentioned Burroughs. Now it is just the other way, and the
+number of visitors increases yearly, all anxious to see the home of the
+famous philosopher. Yet these two men, one of whom seems to have
+belonged to the generations of the past while the other is a part of the
+ever-living present, were boys together in the same schoolhouse more
+than sixty years ago.
+
+As my conveyance drew up to the door, Mr. Burroughs came out with a
+hearty welcome. He was alone, for during the summer, when he retires to
+this place for work, he prefers to do his own housekeeping in his own
+way. "I am a good cook," said he, "but a poor housekeeper." I did not
+agree with the latter part of the statement, for as I looked around I
+thought he had about all he needed and everything was clean. Moreover,
+things were where he could get at them, and from a man's point of view
+what better housekeeping could anybody want?
+
+The house which he now occupies is a plain-looking farmhouse, built in
+1869 by Mr. Burroughs's elder brother. Its most distinctive feature is
+the rustic porch, a recent addition, which serves the purposes of
+living-room, library, and bedroom. Mr. Burroughs is a believer in fresh
+air and during the summer likes to sleep out of doors. He has a rustic
+table, covered with favorite books. When he is not at work, he likes to
+sit on the porch and enjoy what he calls "the peace of the hills."
+Across the road there is a field, broad and long and crossed by numerous
+stone walls. In the distance are the hills of his well-loved Catskills,
+their smoothly undulating lines giving a sense of repose. At the right
+of the house I noticed a small patch of green corn, in front of which
+were some rambling cucumber vines. In the rear and at the left were a
+few old apple trees, and farther back, capping the summit of a ridge, a
+fine grove of trees, standing in orderly array, like an army ready for
+action. Mr. Burroughs has named the place, in characteristic fashion,
+"Woodchuck Lodge," "because," he said, "I can sit here and count the
+woodchucks, sometimes eight or ten at a time."
+
+[Illustration: JOHN BURROUGHS AT WOODCHUCK LODGE]
+
+Not wishing to interfere with his plans, I expressed the hope that I was
+not interrupting him, when he quickly replied, "O, my work for to-day
+is all done. I rise at six and usually do all my writing before noon."
+"You are like Sir Walter Scott, then," said I, "who always began early
+and, as he said, 'broke the neck of the day's work' before the family
+came down to breakfast and was 'his own man before noon.'" "Ah, he was a
+wonderful man," replied Mr. Burroughs. Then, after a pause and with a
+little sigh--"I wish I could invest these hills with romance as he did
+the hills of Scotland." "But you _have_ invested them with romance," I
+said, "although of a different kind." "Yes," he replied, with
+brightening eyes, "with the romance of humanity and of nature, the only
+kind to which they are entitled."
+
+I could not help thinking how wonderfully like Wordsworth this seemed.
+The romance of humanity and nature! Is it not this, which, since
+Wordsworth's time, has given a new charm to the hills and valleys of
+Westmoreland and Cumberland, causing every visitor to seek the
+dwelling-places of the poet? And are not those who spend their summers
+in the Catskills finding a new delight in those beautiful mountains
+because of the spell which John Burroughs has thrown upon them?
+
+Wordsworth wrote the history of his own mind and called it "The
+Prelude," intending it to be but the introduction to a greater poem to
+be entitled "The Recluse," which should be a broad presentation of his
+views on Man, Nature, and Society. "The Excursion" was to be the second
+part, but the third was never written. He conceived that this great work
+would be like a Gothic church, the main body of which would be
+represented by "The Recluse," while "The Prelude" would be but the
+ante-chapel. All his other poems, when properly arranged, would then be
+"likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses,
+ordinarily included in those edifices."
+
+Burroughs is far too modest to compare his writings to a cathedral, but
+he has nevertheless, like Wordsworth, written himself into nearly all of
+them. Following the English poet's simile in a modified form, we may
+think of the product of his pen, not as a cathedral, but as a mansion of
+many rooms, each furnished with beautiful simplicity and charming taste
+to represent some different phase of the author's mind, and each
+equipped, so to speak, with a mirror, possessing all the magic but
+without the unpleasant duty of the one in Hawthorne's tale, so arranged
+as to reflect the very soul of its builder with perfect fidelity.
+
+So sincere is Burroughs that you feel certain he is constantly revealing
+his true self. Therefore, when he praises Wordsworth as the English poet
+who has touched him more closely than any other, you begin to realize
+the bond of sympathy. When he says that Wordsworth's poetry has the
+character of "a message, special and personal to a comparatively small
+circle of readers," you know that he is one of the few who have taken
+the message to heart.
+
+Wordsworth's love of Nature was of the same kind as the American poet's.
+"Nature," says Burroughs, "is not to be praised or patronized. You
+cannot go to her and describe her; she must speak through your heart.
+The woods and fields must melt into your mind, dissolved by your love
+for them. Did they not melt into Wordsworth's mind? They colored all his
+thoughts; the solitude of those green, rocky Westmoreland fells broods
+over every page. He does not tell us how beautiful he finds Nature, and
+how much he enjoys her; he makes us share his enjoyment." Substitute
+Burroughs for Wordsworth, and Catskill for Westmoreland, and you have in
+this passage a fine statement of the reason why John Burroughs is
+winning the gratitude of more and more people every year.
+
+Wordsworth thought of Nature as an all-pervading Presence, something
+mysterious and sublime, a supreme Being,--
+
+  "The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
+   The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
+   Of all my moral being."
+
+Burroughs does not rise to such ethereal heights, but recognizes that
+the passion for Nature is "a form of, or closely related to, our
+religious instincts." He lives closer to Nature than Wordsworth ever
+did. His knowledge of her secrets is far deeper and more intimate. He is
+a naturalist and scientist, as well as a man of poetic temperament. He
+has a trained eye that sees what others would miss. "There is a great
+deal of byplay going on in the life of Nature about us," he says, "a
+great deal of variation and outcropping of individual traits, that we
+entirely miss unless we have our eyes and ears open."
+
+Probably no other man has a keener ear for the music of the birds. He
+possesses that "special gift of grace," to use his own expression, that
+enables one to hear the bird-songs. Not only can he distinguish the
+various species by their songs, but he instantly recognizes a new note.
+He once detected a robin, singing with great spirit and accuracy the
+song of the brown thrasher, and on another occasion followed a thrush
+for a long time because he recognized three or four notes of a popular
+air which the bird had probably learned from some whistling shepherd
+boy. He loves to put words into the mouths of the birds to fit their
+songs and to fancy conversations between husband and wife upon their
+nest. The sensitiveness of his ear for bird-music is wonderfully
+illustrated in his story of a new song which he heard on Slide Mountain
+in the Catskills. "The moment I heard it, I said, 'There is a new bird,
+a new thrush,' for the quality of all the thrush songs is the same. A
+moment more and I knew it was Bicknell's thrush. The song is in a minor
+key, finer, more attenuated, and more under the breath than that of any
+other thrush. It seemed as if the bird was blowing into a delicate,
+slender, golden tube, so fine and yet so flute-like and resonant the
+song appeared. At times it was like a musical whisper of great sweetness
+and power." I do not believe that Wordsworth or any other poet, however
+passionate his love of Nature, ever heard such a bird-song or could
+describe its qualities with so keen a discernment.
+
+Mr. Burroughs made me think of Wordsworth again when, as we sat looking
+over toward the Catskills, he explained his residence at Woodchuck Lodge
+by referring to his enjoyment of the open country and the peace and
+quiet of the scene. For, says Wordsworth,--
+
+  "What want we? Have we not perpetual streams,
+   Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields
+   And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds
+   And thickets full of songsters, and the voice
+   Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound
+   Heard now and then from morn to latest eve,
+   Admonishing the man who walks below
+   Of solitude and silence in the sky?"
+
+After an hour of pleasant conversation my host arose, saying he would
+build his fire and we would have our dinner. In due course we sat down
+to a repast that would have gladdened the heart of General Grant
+himself. The old veteran, as many will remember, after his return from a
+tour of triumph around the world, in which he had been banqueted by
+kings and emperors, dukes, millionaires, and public societies, once
+slipped into a farmer's kitchen for a dinner of corned beef and cabbage,
+declaring that he was glad to get something good to eat. Our meal did
+not consist of corned beef and cabbage, but of corn cakes, made of fresh
+green corn plucked not a couple of yards from the kitchen door and baked
+on a griddle by one of the foremost literary men of America. There were
+other good things, plenty of them, but those delicious cakes with maple
+syrup of the genuine kind exactly "touched the spot," as old-fashioned
+folks used to say. Mine host must have noticed the unusual demands upon
+his crop of corn and marveled to see the rapid disappearance of the
+cakes, but he did not seem displeased. On the contrary, as he brought
+in, time after time, a fresh pile of the steaming flapjacks, his face
+beamed with the smile that betokens genuine hospitality. Our
+conversation at table was mostly on politics, in which Mr. Burroughs
+takes keen interest and upon which he is a man of decided convictions;
+but this is a subject which he must be allowed to elucidate in his own
+way.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN BURROUGHS AT WORK]
+
+After dinner, Mr. Burroughs laughingly remarked that his study was
+the barn, and we walked up the road to visit it. "I cannot bear to be
+cramped by the four walls of a room," said he, "so I have moved out to
+the barn. I enjoy it greatly. The birds and the small animals come to
+see me every day and often sit and talk with me. The woodchucks and
+chipmunks, the blue jays and the hawks, all look in at me while I am at
+work. A red squirrel often squats on the stone wall and scolds me, and
+the other day an old gray rabbit came. He sat there twisting his nose
+like this" (here Mr. Burroughs twisted his own nose in comical fashion),
+"and seemed to be saying saying--
+
+  'By the pricking of my thumbs
+   Something wicked this way comes.'"
+
+Arrived at the barn, Mr. Burroughs seated himself at his "desk." With
+twinkling eyes he explained that it was an old hen-coop. The inside was
+stuffed with hay to keep his feet warm, and if the weather happens to be
+chilly, he wears a blanket over his shoulders. A market-basket contains
+his manuscript and a few books complete the equipment. The desk is just
+inside the wide-open doors of the barn, and he sits with his face to the
+light. "There is a broad outlook from a barn door," said he, smilingly.
+
+Beyond the low stone wall, where his animal friends seat themselves for
+the daily conversations, is an apple orchard, and in the distance are
+the rounded summits of the Catskills--a view as peaceful and refreshing
+as the one from the house. Here Mr. Burroughs is never lonely. One day a
+junco, or slate-colored snowbird, came on a tour of inspection. She
+decided to build her nest in the hay. She scorned all the materials so
+close at hand and brought everything from outside. Her instinct had
+taught her to find certain materials for a nest, and she could not
+suddenly learn to make use of the convenient hay. Mr. Burroughs, in
+speaking of this, told me of a phoebe who built her nest over the window
+of his house. She brought moss to conceal it, but as the moss did not
+match the color of the house, she succeeded only in making her nest more
+conspicuous. Since the evolution of the species, phoebes have built
+their nests on the sides of cliffs, using moss of the color of the rocks
+to conceal them. The little bird who, like the junco, followed her
+instincts, failed to note the difference between the house and the
+rocks.
+
+In conversation of this kind, Mr. Burroughs turned the hours into
+minutes, and I was surprised to look up and see the team approaching
+which was to carry me away. After a reluctant farewell, we drove over
+the brow of a hill and stopped for a few moments before the farmhouse
+which was the birthplace of John Burroughs. A comical incident took
+place. It was raining hard when we arrived and we drove into the barn,
+directly across the road from the house. An old dog and a young one
+were here, keeping themselves dry from the shower. I set up my camera in
+the barn, to take a picture of the house. As I did so, I noticed the old
+dog walk deliberately out in the rain and perch himself upon the
+doorstep, where he turned around once or twice as if trying to strike
+the right attitude. This point determined, he stood perfectly still
+until I had taken the picture, and when I started to put away the
+camera, came trotting back to the barn. I do not know what instinct, if
+any, prompted the dog to wish his picture to be taken, but he was no
+more foolish than many people,--men, women, and children,--who have
+insisted upon getting into my pictures, though they knew there was no
+possibility of their ever seeing them.
+
+Mr. Burrough's permanent home is at West Park, on the Hudson River, a
+few miles south of Kingston. Here he has a farm mostly devoted to the
+cultivation of grapes. He occupies a comfortable stone house, pleasantly
+situated and nearly surrounded by trees of various kinds. Back of the
+house and near the river is the study or den, a little rustic building
+on the slope of the hill, where Mr. Burroughs can write undisturbed by
+the business of the farm. The walls are partly lined with bookshelves,
+well crowded with favorite volumes. Near by is a small rustic summer
+house from which a delightful view of the river may be seen for miles
+to the north and to the south. This is why the place is called
+"Riverby"--simply "by-the-river." It has been the author's home for many
+years.
+
+Even the study, however, did not satisfy Mr. Burroughs's longing for
+quiet, and so he built another retreat about a mile and a half west of
+the village which he calls "Slabsides." It is reached by walking up a
+hill and passing through a bit of hemlock woods which I found quite
+charming. Slabsides is a rustic house like many camps in the
+Adirondacks. It is roughly built, but sufficiently comfortable, and has
+a pleasant little porch, at the entrance to which a climbing vine gives
+a picturesque effect which is greatly enhanced by a stone chimney, now
+almost completely clothed with foliage. It is in an out-of-the-way
+hollow of the woods where nobody would be likely to come except for the
+express purpose of visiting Mr. Burroughs. For several summers this was
+his favorite retreat. He would walk over from his home at Riverby and
+stay perhaps two or three weeks at a time, doing his own cooking and
+housekeeping. Of late years, however, Slabsides has been less frequently
+used, Woodchuck Lodge having received the preference.
+
+All of these abodes, whether you see them within or without, reveal the
+secret of John Burroughs's strength. They coincide with his personal
+appearance, his dress, his conversation, his manner. It is the strength
+of absolute simplicity. Everything is sincere. Nothing is superfluous.
+There is no such thing as "putting on airs." Fame and popularity have
+not spoiled him. He is genuine. You feel it when you see his workshops.
+You know it when you meet the man.
+
+Mr. Charles Wagner, the apostle of "the simple life," has said, "All the
+strength of the world and all true joy, everything that consoles, that
+feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything
+that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless
+future, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who have made
+another object of their desires than the passing satisfaction and
+vanity, and have understood that the art of living is to know how to
+give one's life."
+
+John Burroughs is one of these "people of simplicity," and his
+contribution to our happiness lies in his rare power of bringing to his
+reader something of his own enjoyment of Nature--an enjoyment which he
+has been able to obtain only through the living of a simple life. He is
+the complete embodiment of Emerson's "forest seer":--
+
+  "Many haps fall in the field
+   Seldom seen by wishful eyes;
+   But all her shows did Nature yield,
+   To please and win this pilgrim wise.
+   He saw the partridge drum in the woods;
+   He heard the woodcock's evening hymn;
+   He found the tawny thrushes' broods;
+   And the shy hawk did wait for him;
+   What others did at distance hear,
+   And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
+   Was shown to this philosopher
+   And at his bidding seemed to come."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+GLIMPSES OF THE YELLOWSTONE
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+GLIMPSES OF THE YELLOWSTONE
+
+
+The Yellowstone National Park is Nature's jewel casket, in which she has
+kept her choicest gems for countless generations. Securely sheltered by
+ranges of rugged mountains they have long been safe from human
+depredations. The red man doubtless knew of them, but superstition came
+to the aid of Nature and held him awe-struck at a safe distance. The
+first white man who came within sight of these wonders a century ago
+could find no one to believe his tales, and for a generation or two the
+region of hot springs and boiling geysers which he described was
+sneeringly termed "Colter's Hell." Only within the last half-century
+have the generality of mankind been permitted to view these precious
+jewels, and even then jealous Nature, it would seem, did not consent to
+reveal her treasures until fully assured that they would have the
+protection of no less powerful a guardianship than that of the National
+Government.
+
+On the 18th of September, 1870, a party of explorers, headed by General
+Henry D. Washburn, then Surveyor-General of Montana, emerged from the
+forest into an open plain and suddenly found themselves not one hundred
+yards away from a huge column of boiling water, from which great rolling
+clouds of snow-white vapor rose high into the air against the blue sky.
+It was "Old Faithful" in action. Then and there they resolved that this
+whole region of wonders should be made into a public park for the
+benefit of all the people, and renouncing any thought of securing the
+lands for personal gain, these broad-minded men used their influence to
+have the National Congress assume the permanent guardianship of the
+place. And now that protection is fully assured these jewels of Nature
+may be seen by you and me.
+
+Those who have traveled much will tell you that Nature is prodigal of
+her riches, and, indeed, this would seem to be true to one who has spent
+a summer among the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, or dreamed away the days
+amid the blue lakes of northern Italy, or wandered about in the green
+forests of the Adirondacks, where every towering spruce, every fragrant
+balsam, every dainty wild flower and every mossy log is a thing of
+beauty. But these are Nature's full-dress garments, just as the
+broad-spreading wheatfields of the Dakotas are her work-a-day clothes.
+Her "jewels" are safely locked up in places more difficult of access,
+where they may be seen by only a favored few; and one of these
+safe-deposit boxes, so to speak, is the Yellowstone National Park.
+
+[Illustration: HYMEN TERRACE]
+
+The first collection of these natural gems is at Mammoth Hot Springs,
+and here my camera, as if by instinct, led me quickly to the daintiest
+in form and most delicate in colorings of them all, a beautiful
+formation known as Hymen Terrace. A series of steps, covering a circular
+area of perhaps one hundred feet in diameter, has been formed by the
+overflow of a hot spring. The terraces consist of a series of
+semicircular and irregular curves or scallops, like a combination of
+hundreds of richly carved pulpits, wrought in a soft, white substance
+resembling coral. Little pools of glistening water reflect the sunlight
+from the tops of the steps, while a gently flowing stream spreads
+imperceptibly over about one half the surface, sprinkling it with
+millions of diamonds as the altar of Hymen ought to be. The pools are
+greens and blues of many shades, varying with the depth of the water.
+The sides of the steps are pure white in the places where the water has
+ceased to flow, but beneath the thin stream they range in color from a
+rich cream to a deep brown, with all the intermediate shades
+harmoniously blended. From the highest pools, and especially from the
+largest one at the very summit of the mound, rise filmy veils of steam,
+softening the exquisite tints into a rich harmony of color against the
+azure of the sky.
+
+The Terrace of Hymen is the most exquisite of the formations, but there
+are others much larger and more magnificent. Minerva Terrace gave me a
+foreground for a charming picture. Beyond its richly colored steps and
+sparkling pools were the splendid summits of the Gallatin Range towering
+more than ten thousand feet above the level of the sea and seeming, in
+the clear mountain air, to be much nearer than they really are. Hovering
+above their peaks were piles upon piles of foamy clouds, through which
+could be seen a background of the bluest of skies, while down below were
+the gray stone buildings with their bright red roofs that form the
+headquarters of the army guarding the park.
+
+Jupiter Terrace, the most imposing of all these formations, extends a
+quarter of a mile along the edge of a brilliantly colored mound, rising
+about three hundred feet above the plain upon which Fort Yellowstone is
+built. Pulpit Terrace, on its eastern slope, reproduces upon a larger
+scale the rich carvings and exquisite tints of Hymen, though without the
+symmetry of structure. The springs at its summit are among the most
+strikingly beautiful of these unique formations which I like to call the
+"jewels" of Nature. Two large pools of steaming water lie side by side,
+apparently identical in structure, and separated only by a narrow ridge
+of lime. The one on the left is a clear turquoise blue, while its
+neighbor is distinctly Nile green. Surrounding these springs are several
+smaller pools, one a rich orange color, another light brown, and a third
+brown of a much darker hue. The edges of all are tinted in yellow,
+brown, and gold of varied shades. The pools are apparently all a part of
+the same spring or group of springs, and subject to the same conditions
+of light; yet I noticed at least five distinct colors in as many pools.
+The water itself is colorless and the different hues must be imparted by
+the colorings of the lime deposits, influenced by the varying depth and
+temperature of the water.
+
+What is known as "the formation" of the Mammoth Hot Springs covers
+perhaps fifty or sixty acres on the slope of Terrace Mountain. It is a
+heavy deposit of lime or travertine, essentially the same as the
+stalagmites and stalactites which one sees in certain caverns. When dry
+it is white and soft like chalk. The colorings of the terraces are of
+vegetable origin, caused by a thin, velvety growth, botanically classed
+as algae, which flourishes only in warm water. The heat of rocks far
+beneath the surface warms the water of the springs, which, passing
+through a bed of limestone, brings to the surface a deposit of pure
+calcium carbonate. Wherever the flow of water remains warm the algae
+appear and tint the growing formation with as many shades of brown as
+there are varying temperatures of the water. When the water is diverted,
+as is likely to happen from one season to the next, the algae die and the
+surfaces become a chalky white.
+
+Leaving the Hot Springs, the road passes through the Golden Gate, where,
+on one side, a perpendicular wall of rock rises to a height of two
+hundred feet or more, and on the other are the wooded slopes and rocky
+summit of Bunsen Peak--a beautiful canon, where the view suggests the
+greater glories of Swiss mountain scenery, but for that very reason is
+not to be mentioned here among the rare gems of the park. Nor shall I
+include the "Hoodoos," which, though distinctly unusual, are far from
+beautiful. An area of many acres is covered with huge fragments of
+massive rocks, piled in disorderly confusion, as though some Cyclops, in
+a fit of ugly temper, had torn away the whole side of a mountain and
+scattered the pieces. Through these rocks project the whitened trunks of
+thousands of dead trees,--a sort of ghostly nightmare through which we
+were glad to pass as quickly as possible.
+
+[Illustration: PULPIT TERRACE]
+
+We stopped for lunch at the Norris Geyser Basin, and here saw some
+miniature geysers, as a kind of preparation for the greater ones beyond.
+The "Constant," true to its name, throws up a pretty little white
+fountain so often that it seems to prepare for a new eruption almost
+before the previous one has subsided. The "Minute Man" is always on duty
+and pops up his little spray of hot water, fifteen feet high, every
+minute or two. The "Monarch," near by, is much larger, but not at all
+pretty. It throws up a stream of black, muddy water seventy-five to one
+hundred feet high about every forty minutes.
+
+Some of these geysers are steady old fellows who have found their
+appointed task in life and have settled down to perform it with
+commendable regularity. The Norris Basin, however, seems to be the
+favorite playground of the youngsters,--a frisky lot of geysers of no
+fixed habits and a playful disposition to burst out in unexpected
+places. Such is the New Crater, which asserted itself with a great
+commotion in 1891, bursting forth with the violence of an earthquake.
+Another erratic young fellow is the "Fountain Geyser," in the Lower
+Basin. In July, 1899, he was seized with a fit of the "sulks" and for
+three months refused to play at all. In October he decided to resume
+operations and behaved quite well for ten years, when he suddenly took a
+notion to abandon his crater for the apartments of his neighbor next
+door. Apparently the furnishings of his new abode did not suit him, for
+he began at once to throw them out with great violence, hurling huge
+masses of rock with volcanic force to a height of two hundred feet. Amid
+terrific rumblings and the hissing of escaping steam, this angry
+outburst continued for several days, and did not wholly cease for nearly
+two months. Since then the "Fountain" has settled down to the ordinary
+daily occupation of a self-respecting geyser. When I saw him he was as
+calm and serene as a summer's day, and to all appearances had never been
+guilty of mischief, nor even exhibited a ruffled temper in all his life.
+Indeed, had I not known his history (inconceivable in one of the gentler
+sex), I should have personified this geyser in the feminine gender,
+because of his exquisite beauty. A great jewel seemed to be set into the
+surface of the earth. Its smooth upper face, about thirty feet in
+diameter, was level with the ground upon which we stood. Its color, at
+first glance, seemed to be a rich turquoise blue, but as we looked into
+the clear, transparent depths there seemed to be a hundred other shades
+of blue, all blending harmoniously. In the farthest corner, beneath a
+shelf or mound of geyserite, appeared the opening of a fathomless cave.
+All around its edges, and continuing in wavy lines of delicate tracery
+around the bottom of the bowl, were marvelous patterns of exquisite
+lacework, every angle seeming to catch and throw back its own particular
+ray of bluish light. There was not a ripple to disturb the surface, not
+a bubble to foretell the violent eruption which a few hours would bring
+forth, and only a thin film of vapor to suggest faintly the
+extraordinary character of this beautiful pool.
+
+Only a few hundred feet away is another curious phenomenon in this
+region of surprises. It is a cauldron of boiling mud, measuring forty
+or fifty feet in diameter, known as the "Mammoth Paint Pots," where a
+mass of clay is kept in a state of continuous commotion. Millions of
+bubbles rise to the surface and explode, sputtering like a thick mess of
+porridge kept at the boiling point. The color is a creamy white where
+the ebullition is greatest, but thick masses thrown up around the edges
+and allowed to cool have assumed a delicate shade of pink. A smaller but
+more beautiful formation of the same kind is seen near the Thumb Station
+on the Yellowstone Lake.
+
+As we proceeded, Nature's jewels seemed to increase in number and
+magnificence. Turquoise Spring, a sheet of water one hundred feet wide,
+has all the beauty of the Fountain Geyser in the latter's quiet state,
+with an added reputation for tranquillity, for it is not a geyser at
+all. Near by is Prismatic Lake, about four hundred feet long and two
+hundred and fifty feet wide. Its center is a very deep blue, changing to
+green of varying shades, and finally, in the shallowest parts, to
+yellow, orange, and brown. It is a great spring from the center of which
+the water flows in delicate, wavy ringlets. The mineral deposits have
+formed countless scallops, like miniature terraces, a few inches high,
+sculpturing a wonderful pattern in hues of reds, purples, and browns,
+delicately imposed upon a background of gray. A thin veil of rising
+steam was carried away by the wind just enough to reveal the wonderful
+colorings to our eyes, while the sun added to the bewildering beauty of
+the spectacle by changing the vapor into a million prisms reflecting all
+the colors of the rainbow.
+
+In this connection I must not fail to mention the Morning-Glory Spring,
+where the action of a geyser has carved out a deep bowl, twenty feet in
+diameter. It would seem as though Nature had sunk a gigantic
+morning-glory into the earth, leaving its rim flush with the surface and
+yet retaining, clearly visible beneath the smooth surface of the
+transparent water, all the delicate shades of the original flower.
+
+The Sapphire Spring, not far away, is another of the little gems of the
+region. It is a small, pulsating spring, and the jewel itself is not
+less remarkable than its extraordinary setting, resembling coral. The
+constant flow of the waters from a center to all directions has caused
+the formation of a series of irregular concentric circles, broken into
+little knobs or mounds, from which the vicinity takes its name of the
+"Biscuit Basin."
+
+As we approached the Upper Geyser Region, the number and variety of
+these highly colored pools, hot springs, geysers, and strange formations
+increased steadily, until at last we stood in the presence of "Old
+Faithful," the crown jewel of the collection, the Koh-i-noor of Nature's
+casket.
+
+A strong breeze from the north was blowing as I stood before the geyser
+for the first time, and for that reason, I decided to place my camera
+directly to the west. A small cloud of steam was rising, which seemed
+gradually to increase in volume. Then, as I watched, a small spray of
+water would shoot up occasionally above the rim of the crater. Then a
+puff of steam and another spray, breaking into globules as the wind
+carried it away. Then silence. Suddenly a large, full stream shot up a
+distance of twenty or thirty feet and fell back again, and the crater
+remained quiet for at least five minutes. Is that all? I thought. Does
+its boasted regularity only mean that while it plays once in sixty-five
+minutes, yet the height of some of the eruptions may be only trifling? I
+began to feel doubtful, not to say disappointed. The column of steam
+seemed smaller, and I wondered if I should have to wait another hour for
+a real eruption, when suddenly the lazily drifting cloud became a giant,
+like the genie in the Arabian Nights. Up into the air shot a huge column
+of water, followed instantly by another still higher, then another,
+until in a moment or two there towered above the earth a gigantic column
+of boiling water one hundred and fifty feet high. Straight as a
+flagstaff it seemed on the left, while to the right rolled the waving
+folds of a huge white banner, obscuring the blue of the sky in one great
+mass of snowy vapor. For several minutes the puffs of steam rolled up,
+and the fountain continued to play. Then, little by little, its form
+grew less, its force weakened, and at last there was only the little
+lazy pillar of vapor outlined against the distant hills.
+
+Again and again during the day I watched it with an ever-increasing
+sense of fascination, which reached its climax in the evening, when the
+eruption was lighted by the powerful search-light on the hotel. As the
+great clouds of steam rolled up, the strong light seemed to impart a
+vast variety of colors, ranging from rich cream to yellow, orange,
+brown, and purple, blended harmoniously but ever changing like the rich
+silk robes of some Oriental potentate,--a spectacle of bewildering
+beauty, defying the power of pen to describe or brush to paint.
+
+[Illustration: OLD FAITHFUL]
+
+There are other geysers greater than "Old Faithful." "The Giant" plays
+to a height of two hundred and fifty feet, and the "Grand" and "Beehive"
+nearly as high; the "Grotto" has a more fantastic crater; the "Castle"
+has the largest cone, and with its beautifully colored "Castle Well" is
+more unique; and the "Riverside," which plays a stream diagonally across
+the Firehole River, makes a more striking scenic display. But all of
+these play at irregular intervals and with far less frequency, varying
+from a few hours to ten or twelve days between eruptions. On the other
+hand, the regularity with which "Old Faithful" sends his straight,
+magnificent column to the skies is fascinating beyond description. Every
+sixty-five or seventy minutes, never varying more than five minutes, day
+and night, in all seasons and every kind of weather, "Old Faithful" has
+steadily performed his task since first discovered in 1870 until the
+present time, and no man can tell for how many centuries before.
+
+  "O! Fountain of the Wilderness! Eternal Mystery!
+   Whence came thy wondrous power?
+   For ages,--long before the eye of Man
+   Found access to thy charm, thou'st played
+   Thy stream of marvelous beauty.
+   In midnight dark no less than glorious day,
+   In wintry storms as well as summer's calm,
+   Oblivious to the praise of men,
+   Each hour to Heaven thou hast raised
+   Thine offering pure, of dazzling white.
+   Thy Maker's eye alone has seen
+   The tribute of thy faithfulness,
+   And thou hast been content to play thy part
+   In Nature's solitude."
+
+Not alone as the guardian of Nature's jewels is the Yellowstone National
+Park remarkable. Even if the wonderful geysers, hot springs, and
+many-colored pools were taken away,--locked up in a strong box and
+hidden from sight as jewels often are,--the more familiar phases of
+natural scenery, such as mountains, rivers, lakes, and waterfalls would
+make it one of the wonder-places of America. On the eastern boundary is
+the great Absaroka Range, with peaks rising over 10,000 feet. In the
+northwest corner is the Gallatin Range, dominated by the Electric Peak,
+11,155 feet high, covered with snow, and so charged with electricity as
+to make the surveyor's transit almost useless. The Yellowstone and
+Gardiner Rivers, which join at the northern boundary, are separated
+within the park by a range of mountains of which the highest is Mount
+Washburne (10,350 feet), named for the leader of the expedition of 1870.
+Farther south, and midway between the Upper Geyser Basin and the
+Yellowstone Lake, is the Continental Divide. The road passes between two
+small lakes, one of which discharges its waters into the Atlantic Ocean
+by way of the Yellowstone, the Missouri, and the Gulf of Mexico, while
+the other flows into the Pacific through Snake River and the Columbia.
+From a point a few miles to the east Lake Shoshone may be seen far
+below, and seeming to tower directly above it, but really fifty miles
+away, just beyond the southern boundary of the park, are the three
+sentinels of the Teton Range, the highest 13,741 feet above the sea. The
+entire park is in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, its lowest level
+being over 6000 feet elevation.
+
+[Illustration: THE GROTTO GEYSER]
+
+The park is full of lakes and streams varying in size from the hundreds
+of little pools and brooks, hidden away among the rocks, to the great
+Yellowstone Lake, twenty miles in width, and the picturesque river of
+the same name. Here and there are beautiful cascades which one would go
+miles to see anywhere else, but the surfeited travelers give them only a
+careless glance as the stages pass without stopping. The Kepler Cascades
+tumble over the rocks in a series of falls of more than a hundred feet,
+making a charming veil of white lace, against a dark background of rocks
+and pines. The Gibbon Falls, eighty feet high, are nearly as attractive,
+while the little Rustic Falls, of sixty feet, in Golden Gate Canon, are
+really quite delightful. These, and many others, are passed in
+comparative indifference, for the traveler has already seen many
+wonderful sights and knows that greater ones are yet in store. His
+anticipations are realized with good measure running over, when at last
+he catches his first glimpse of the great Canon of the Yellowstone.
+
+With us this glimpse came at the Upper Falls, where the Yellowstone
+River suddenly drops one hundred and twelve feet, suggesting the
+American Fall at Niagara, though the volume of water is not so great. It
+is more beautiful, however, because of the wildness of the scenery.
+Lower down, the river takes another drop, falling to the very bottom of
+the canon. Here the cataract is more than twice the height of Niagara,
+and though lacking the width of the stream that makes the latter so
+impressive, is in every respect far more beautiful.
+
+One must stand near the edge of the rocks at Inspiration Point to grasp
+the full majesty of the scene. We are now three miles below the Great
+Falls. The Upper Fall, which at close range is a great, beautiful white
+sheet of water, rolling with imperial force over a rocky precipice,
+seems only a trifling detail in the vast picture--a mere touch of
+dazzling white where all else is in color. At the bottom is the blue of
+the river, broken here and there into foamy white waves. Pines and
+mosses contribute touches of green. The rocky cliffs are yellow and
+gold, deepening into orange. In the distance a great rock of crimson
+stands like a fortress, with arched doorway, through which is seen a
+vista of green fields. But this is an optical illusion, as a strong
+glass will reveal. The doorway is only a pointed fir, which the distance
+has softened into the shadow of a pointed arch. Mediaeval castles rear
+their buttressed fronts on inaccessible slopes. Cathedral spires, as
+majestic as those of Cologne, and numerous as the minarets of Milan,
+stand out in bold relief. Away down below is an eagle's nest, into which
+we can look and see the birds, yet it is perched upon a pinnacle so high
+that if one were to stand at the level of the river and look up, it
+would tower above him higher than the tallest building in the world.
+
+[Illustration: THE CANON OF THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER]
+
+Not a sign of the handiwork of man appears in any direction. The
+gorgeous spectacle, reveling in all the hues of the rainbow, is just as
+Nature made it--let the geologist say, if he can, how many thousands of
+years ago. And above all this splendid panorama, unequaled save by the
+glory of the sunset sky, is that same rich blue which Nature employs to
+add the final touch of loveliness to all her greatest works, and yet
+reserves enough to beautify the more familiar scenes at home.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA
+
+
+I arrived at the canon on a cold night in January, 1903, alone. There
+were few guests at the hotel, which was a capacious log cabin, with
+long, single-storied frame structures projecting in various directions,
+to serve the purposes of sleeping-rooms and kitchens. It had a primitive
+look, far more in keeping with the solitude of its surroundings than the
+present comfortable hotel. An old guide (I hoped he might be John Hance)
+sat by the fire talking with a group of loungers, and I sauntered near
+enough to hear the conversation, expecting to listen to some good tale
+of the canon. But the talk was commonplace. Presently an Indian came in
+accompanied by a young squaw. He was said to be a hundred years old--a
+fact no doubt easily proved by the layers of dirt on his face and hands,
+if one could count them like the rings on a tree. He proved to be only a
+lazy old beggar and quite unromantic. The hotel management did not
+provide Indian dances and other forms of amusement then as now and I was
+obliged to spend a dull evening. I read the guidebooks and reached the
+conclusion that the canon was not worth visiting if one did not go
+"down the trail" to the bottom of it. So I inquired at the desk when the
+party would start in the morning, and was dismayed to be told that there
+would be none unless somebody wanted to go. I was told to put my name on
+the "list" and no doubt others would see it and we might "get up" a
+party. I therefore boldly signed my name at the top of a white sheet of
+paper, feeling much like a decoy, and awaited results. Again and again
+during the lonesome evening I sauntered over to the desk, but not one of
+the few guests had shown the slightest interest. At ten o'clock my
+autograph still headed an invisible list, as lonely as the man for whom
+it stood, and I went to bed, vowing to myself that if I could get only
+one companion, besides the guide, I would go down the trail.
+
+It was still dark when I heard the strident voice of a Japanese porter
+calling through the corridor, "Brek-foos! Brek-foos"! and I rose
+quickly. The dawn was just breaking as I stepped out into the chill air
+and walked to the edge of the great chasm. Before me rolled a sea of
+vapor. It was as though a massive curtain of clouds had been let down
+from the sky to protect the canon in the night. The spectacle was not to
+be exhibited until the proper hour arrived. The great white ocean
+stretched away to the north as far as the eye could reach, filling every
+nook and corner of the vast depression. In the east the rosy tints of
+the morning brightened the sky. Suddenly a ray of light illumined what
+appeared to be a rock, far out in the filmy ocean, and the black mass
+blazed with the ruddy hue. The tip of another great butte suddenly
+projected itself and caught another ray of light. One by one the rugged
+domes of the great rock temples of Brahma and Buddha and Zoroaster and
+Isis, as they are called, peeped into view as the mists gradually
+disappeared, catching the morning sunbeams at a thousand different
+angles, and throwing back a kaleidoscope of purples, blues, reds, and
+yellows, until at last the whole superb canon was revealed in a burst of
+color, over which the amethyst reigned supreme.
+
+How long I should have stood enraptured before this scene of superlative
+grandeur, so marvelously unfolded to the sight, I do not know, had not
+the more prosaic call of "Brek-foos!" long since forgotten, again
+resounded to bring me back to human levels. I returned to the hotel and
+entered the breakfast-room, with an appetite well sharpened by the crisp
+wintry air, first taking a furtive glance at the "list," where my name
+still presided in solitary dignity. It was still early and I was seated
+at the head of a long table, where there were as yet only two or three
+other guests. I felt sure that the day would be a busy one, particularly
+if I should find that one companion with whom I was determined to
+attempt the trail. It would be well to lay in a good supply of fuel, and
+accordingly I asked the waiter to get me a good beefsteak and a cup of
+coffee. He suggested griddle cakes in addition, as appropriate for a
+cold morning, and I assented. Then suddenly remembering that country
+hotels have a way of serving microscopic portions in what a
+distinguished author has described as "bird bathtubs," I called over my
+shoulder to bring me some ham and eggs also. "George" disappeared with a
+grin. When he returned, holding aloft a huge and well-loaded tray, that
+darky's face was a vision of delight. His eyes sparkled and his thick
+lips had expanded into an upturned crescent, wherein two rows of
+gleaming ivory stood in military array, every one determined to be seen.
+He laid before me a porter-house steak, large enough for my entire
+family, an immense elliptical piece of ham sliced from rim to rim off
+the thigh of a huge porker, three fried eggs, a small mountain of
+buckwheat cakes, and a pot of coffee, remarking, as he made room for the
+generous repast, "Ah reckon you-all's powerful hungry dis mawnin',
+boss!"
+
+By this time the table was well filled. There is no formality at such
+places and we were soon chatting together like old acquaintances. I
+resolved to open up the subject of the trail and asked my neighbor at
+the right whether he intended to make the trip. He said "No," rather
+indifferently, I thought, and I expressed my surprise. I had read the
+guidebooks to good purpose and was soon expatiating on the wonders of
+the trail, declaring that I could not understand why people should come
+from all parts of the world to see the canon and miss the finest sight
+of all, the view from below. (Somebody said that in the guidebook.) They
+were all listening now. Some one asked if it was not dangerous. "Not in
+the least," I replied; "no lives have ever been lost and there has never
+been an accident" (the guidebook said that, too)--"and, besides," I
+continued, knowingly, "it's lots of fun." Just here a maiden lady of
+uncertain age, cadaverous cheeks, and a high, squeaky voice, piped
+out,--"I believe I'll go." I remembered my vow about the one companion
+and suddenly felt a strange, sickly feeling of irresolution. But it was
+only for a moment. A little girl of twelve was tugging at her father's
+coat-tails--"Papa, can't I go?" Papa conferred with Mamma, who agreed
+that Bessie might go if Papa went too. I was making progress. A
+masculine voice from the other end of the table then broke in with a few
+more questions, and its owner, a man from Minnesota, whom we afterward
+called the "Major," was the next recruit. I had suddenly gained an
+unwonted influence. The guests were evidently inspired with a feeling of
+respect for a man who would order such a regal breakfast! After the
+meal was over, a lady approached and prefacing her request with the
+flattering remark that I "looked respectable," said that her daughter, a
+young lady of twenty, was anxious to go down the trail; she would
+consent if I would agree to see that no harm befell her. I thought I
+might as well be a chaperon as a cicerone, since I had had no experience
+as either, and promptly assured the mother of my willingness to accept
+the charge. It was a vain promise. The young lady was the first to mount
+her mule and fell into line behind the guide; before I could secure my
+animal others had taken their places and I found myself three mules
+astern, with no possibility of passing to the front or of exchanging a
+word with my "charge." I fancied a slight gleam of mischievous triumph
+in her eyes as she looked back, seeming to say, "I can take care of
+myself, quite well, thank you, Mr. Chaperon!" After a slight delay, I
+secured my mule and taking the bridle firmly in hand said, "Get up,
+Sam." The animal deliberately turned his head and looked back at me with
+a sardonic smile in his mulish eye that said clearly--"You imagine that
+_you_ are guiding me, don't you? Just wait and see!"
+
+[Illustration: THE TRAIL, GRAND CANON]
+
+There were seven of us, including the guide, as we started down the long
+and crooked path. The guide rode a white horse, but the rest of the
+party were mounted, like myself, on big, sturdy mules--none of your
+little, lazy burros, as most people imagine. At first the trail seemed
+to descend at a frightful angle, and the path seemed--oh, so narrow! I
+could put out my left hand against a perpendicular wall of rock and look
+down on the right into what seemed to be the bottomless pit. I noticed
+that the trail was covered with snow and ice. Suppose any of the mules
+should slip? Had we not embarked upon a foolhardy undertaking? And if
+there should be an accident, all the blame would justly fall upon my
+head. How silly of me to be so anxious to go! And how reckless to urge
+all these other poor innocents into such a trap!
+
+Fortunately such notions lasted only a few minutes. The mules were
+sharp-shod and did not slip. They went down every day, nearly, and knew
+their business. They were born in the canon. They would have been
+terribly frightened in Broadway, but here they were at home and followed
+the familiar path with a firm tread. I threw the bridle over the pommel
+of the saddle and gave Sam my implicit trust. He knew a great deal more
+about the job than I did. From that moment I had no further thought of
+danger.
+
+I came to have a high respect for that mule. Most people respect a mule
+only because of the possibility that his hind legs may suddenly fly out
+at a tangent and hit something. I respected Sam because I knew his legs
+would do nothing of the kind. He needed all of them under him and he
+knew it. He never swerved a hair's breadth nearer the outer edge of the
+path than was absolutely necessary. The trail descends in a series of
+zigzag lines and sharp angles like the teeth of a saw. Sam would march
+straight down to one of these angles; then, with the precipice yawning
+thousands of feet below, he would slowly squirm around until his head
+was pointed down the next segment and then with great deliberation
+resume his journey. The guide thought him too deliberate and once came
+back to give me a small willow switch. I was riding on a narrow shelf of
+rock, less than a yard wide, where I could look down into a chasm
+thousands of feet deep. "That mule is too slow," he said; "you must whip
+him up." I took the switch and thanked him. But I wouldn't have used it
+then for a million dollars!
+
+It was a glorious ride. The trail itself was the only sign of human
+handiwork. Everything else in sight was as Nature made it--a wild,
+untouched ruggedness near at hand and a softer, gentler aspect in the
+distance, where the exposed strata of all the geologic ages caught the
+sunshine at millions of angles, each reflecting its own particular hue
+and all blending together in a rich harmony of color; where the bright
+blue sky and the fleecy clouds came down to join their earthly brethren
+in a revelry of rainbow tints, and the sun overhead, despite the snow
+about the rim, was smiling his happiest summer benison upon the deep
+valley.
+
+We came, presently, to a place called Jacob's Ladder, where the path
+ceased to be an inclined plane and became a series of huge steps, each
+about as high as an ordinary table. Here we all dismounted, for the
+mules could not safely descend with such burdens. It was comical to
+watch them. My Sam would stand on each step for several minutes, gazing
+about as though enjoying the scenery. Then, as if struck by a sudden
+notion, he would drop his fore legs to the next step, and with hind legs
+still at the higher elevation, pause in further contemplation. At length
+it would occur to this deliberate animal that his hind legs, after all,
+really belonged on the same level with the other two, and he would
+suddenly drop them down and again become rapt in thought. This
+performance was repeated on every step for the entire descent of more
+than one hundred feet.
+
+After traveling about three hours, during which we had descended three
+thousand feet below the rim, we came to Indian Garden, where an Indian
+family once found a fertile spot on which they could practice farming in
+their own crude way. Here we came to some tents belonging to a
+camping-party, and I found the solution of a problem that had puzzled me
+earlier in the day. Standing on the rim and looking across the canon I
+had seen what appeared to be a newspaper lying on the grass. I knew it
+must be three or four miles from where I stood, and that a newspaper
+would be invisible at that distance, yet I could not imagine how any
+natural object could appear white and rectangular so far away. Presently
+I saw some tiny objects moving slowly like a string of black ants, and
+realized that these must be some early trail party. We met them at
+Indian Garden. They proved to be prospectors and the "newspaper" was in
+reality the group of tents.
+
+We had now left the steep zigzag path, and riding straight forward over
+a great plateau, we came to the brink of some granite cliffs, where we
+could at last see the Colorado River, thundering through the gorge
+thirteen hundred feet below. And what a river it is! From the rim we
+could only catch an occasional glimpse, looking like a narrow silver
+ribbon, threading in and out among a multitude of strangely fashioned
+domes and turrets. Here we saw something of its true character, though
+still too far away to feel its real power--a boiling, turbulent, angry,
+and useless stream dashing wildly through a barren valley of rock and
+sand, its waters capable of generating millions of horse-power, but too
+inaccessible to be harnessed, and its surface violently resisting the
+slightest attempt at navigation; a veritable anarchist of a river! For
+more than a thousand miles it rushes through a deep canon toward the
+sea, falling forty-two hundred feet between its source and mouth and for
+five hundred miles of its course tumbling in a series of five hundred
+and twenty cataracts and rapids--an average of slightly more than one to
+every mile.
+
+Think of the courage of brave Major Powell and his men, who descended
+this terrible river for the first time, and you have a subject for
+contemplation as sublime as the canon itself. In the spring of 1869,
+when John W. Powell started on his famous expedition, the Grand Canon
+was totally unknown. Hunters and prospectors had seen enough to bring
+back wonderful stories. Parties had ventured into the gorge in boats and
+had never been heard of again. The Indians warned him that the canon was
+sacred to the gods, who would consider any attempt to enter it an act of
+disobedience to their wishes and contempt for their authority, and
+vengeance would surely follow. The incessant roar of the waters told of
+many cataracts and it was currently reported that the river was lost
+underground for several hundred miles. Undaunted by these fearful tales,
+Major Powell, who had seen service in the Civil War, leaving an arm on
+the battlefield of Shiloh, determined, nevertheless, to descend the
+river. He had long been a student of botany, zooelogy, and mineralogy
+and had devoted two years to a study of the geology of the region.
+
+With nine other men as his companions, he started from Green River City,
+Wyoming, on the 24th of May, with one light boat of pine and three heavy
+ones built of oak. Nothing could be more modest than his report to the
+Government, yet it is an account of thrilling adventures and
+hair-breadth escapes, day by day, almost too marvelous for belief. Yet
+there is not the slightest doubt of its authenticity in every detail. At
+times the swift current carried them along with the speed of an express
+train, the waves breaking and rolling over the boats, which, but for the
+water-tight compartments, must have been swamped at the outset.
+
+When a threatening roar gave warning of another cataract they would pull
+for the shore and prepare to make a portage. The boats were unloaded and
+the stores of provisions, instruments, etc., carried down to some
+convenient point below the falls. Then the boats were let down, one by
+one. The bow line would be taken below and made fast. Then with five or
+six men holding back on the stern line with all their strength, the boat
+would be allowed to go down as far as they could hold it, when the line
+would be cast off, the boat would leap over the falls, and be caught by
+the lower rope. Again and again, day after day throughout the entire
+summer, this hard work was continued. In the early evenings and
+mornings Major Powell, with a companion or two, would climb to the top
+of the high cliffs, towering to a height of perhaps two thousand or
+three thousand feet above the river, to make his observations,
+frequently getting into dangerous positions where a man with two arms
+would have difficulty in clinging to the rocks, and where any one but a
+man of iron nerve would have met instant death.
+
+Day by day they faced what seemed certain destruction, dashing through
+rapids, spinning about in whirlpools, capsizing in the breakers, and
+clinging to the upturned boats until rescued or thrown up on some rocky
+islet, breaking their oars, losing or spoiling their rations until they
+were nearly gone, and toiling incessantly every waking hour. One of the
+boats was completely wrecked before they had crossed the Arizona line,
+and one man, who barely escaped death in this accident, left the party
+on July 5, declaring that he had seen danger enough. The remaining
+eight, whether from loyalty to their chief or because it seemed
+impossible to climb to the top of the chasm, continued to brave the
+perils of the river until August 27, when they had reached a point well
+below the mouth of the Bright Angel River. Here the danger seemed more
+appalling than at any previous time. Lateral streams had washed great
+boulders into the river, forming a dam over which the water fell
+eighteen or twenty feet; then appeared a rapid for two or three hundred
+yards on one side, the walls of the canon projecting sharply into the
+river on the other; then a second fall so great that its height could
+not be determined, and beyond this more rapids, filled with huge rocks
+for one or two hundred yards, and at the bottom a great rock jutting
+halfway across the river, having a sloping side up which the tumbling
+waters dashed in huge breakers. After spending the afternoon clambering
+among the rocks to survey the river and coolly calculating his chances,
+the dauntless Powell announced his intention to proceed. But there were
+three men whose courage was not equal to this latest demand, and they
+firmly declined the risk.
+
+On the morning of the 28th, after a breakfast that seemed like a
+funeral, the three deserters--one can scarcely find the heart to blame
+them--climbed a crag to see their former comrades depart. One boat is
+left behind. The other two push out into the stream and in less than a
+minute have safely run the dangerous rapids, which seemed bad enough
+from above, but were in reality less difficult than many others
+previously experienced. A succession of rapids and falls are safely run,
+but after dinner they find themselves in another bad place. The river is
+tumbling down over the rocks in whirlpools and great waves and the
+angry waters are lashed into white foam. There is no possibility of a
+portage and both boats must go over the falls. Away they go, dashing and
+plunging, striking the rocks and rolling over and over until they reach
+the calmer waters below, when as if by miracle it is found that every
+man in the party is uninjured and both the boats are safe. By noon of
+the next day they have emerged from the Grand Canon into a valley where
+low mountains can be seen in the distance. The river flows in silent
+majesty, the sky is bright overhead, the birds pour forth the music of a
+joyous welcome, the toil and pain are over, the gloomy shadows have
+disappeared, and their joy is exquisite as they realize that the first
+passage of the long and terrible river has been safely accomplished and
+all are alive and well.
+
+But what of the three who left them? If only they could have known that
+safety and joy were little more than a day ahead! They successfully
+climbed the steep canon walls, only to encounter a band of Indians who
+were looking for cattle thieves or other plunderers. They could give no
+other account of their presence except to say they had come down the
+river. This, to the Indian mind, was so obviously an impossibility that
+the truth seemed an audacious lie and the three unfortunate men were
+murdered.
+
+We were obliged to content ourselves with a view of the river from this
+height, though I had expected to descend to the river's edge and felt
+correspondingly disappointed. We had started too late for so long a trip
+and now it was time to turn back. Looking back at the solid and
+apparently perpendicular rock, nearly a mile high, it seemed impossible
+that any one could ascend to the top. It is only when one looks out from
+the bottom of this vast chasm at the huge walls on every side that he
+begins to realize its awfulness. We are mere specks in the bottom of a
+gigantic mould wherein some great mountain range might have been cast.
+There are great mountains all about us and yet we are not on a mountain
+but in a vast hole. The surface of the earth is above us. A great gash
+has been cut into it, two hundred miles long, twelve to fifteen miles
+wide, and a mile deep, and we are in the depths of that frightful abyss
+with--to all appearance--no possible means of escape. Perpendicular
+cliffs of enormous height, which not even a mountain sheep could climb,
+hem us in on every side. The shadows are growing deep and it seems that
+the day must be nearly done. Yet we remount our mules and slowly retrace
+our steps over the steep ascent. It seems as though the strain would
+break the backs of the animals. As we approached the summit of the path
+some one remarked, "I should think these mules would be so tired they
+would be ready to drop." "Wait and see," said the guide. A few minutes
+later we reached the top and dismounted, feeling pretty stiff from the
+exertion. The mules were unsaddled and turned loose. Away they scampered
+like a lot of schoolboys at recess, kicking their heels high in the air
+and racing madly across the field. "I guess they're not as tired as we
+are," said the Major, as he painfully tried to straighten up. Just then
+the little girl of twelve came up to me. "There is one thing," she said,
+"that has been puzzling me all day. How in the world did you find out so
+quickly that your mule's name was Sam?" "Name ain't Sam," interrupted
+the guide, bluntly. "Name's Teddy--Teddy Roosevelt."
+
+Some years ago I had occasion to attend a stereopticon lecture on the
+Grand Canon. The speaker was enthusiastic and his pictures excellent.
+But he fired off all his ammunition of adjectives with the first slide.
+For an hour and a half we sat listening to an endless repetition of
+"grand," "magnificent," "sublime," "awe-inspiring," etc. As we walked
+home a young lad in our party, who was evidently studying rhetoric in
+school, was heard to inquire, "Mother, wouldn't you call that an example
+of tautology?" I fear I should merit the same criticism if I were to
+undertake a description of the canon. Yet we may profitably stand, for a
+few moments, on Hopi Point, a promontory that projects far out from the
+rim, and try to measure it with our eyes.
+
+That great wall on the opposite side is just thirteen miles away. The
+strip of white at its upper edge, which in my photograph measures less
+than a quarter of an inch, is a stratum of limestone five hundred feet
+thick. Here and there we catch glimpses of the river. It is five miles
+away, and forty-six hundred feet--nearly a perpendicular mile--below the
+level upon which we are standing. We look to the east and then to the
+west, but we see only a small part of the chasm. It melts away in the
+distance like a ship at sea. From end to end it is two hundred and
+seventeen miles. It is not one canon, but thousands. Every river that
+runs into the Colorado has cut out its own canon, and each of these has
+its countless tributaries. It has been estimated that if all the canons
+were placed end to end in a straight line they would stretch twenty
+thousand miles.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA]
+
+If this mighty gash in the earth's surface were only a great valley with
+gently sloping sides and a level floor, it would still be impressive and
+inspiring, though not so picturesque. But its floor is filled with a
+multitude of temples and castles and amphitheaters of stupendous size,
+all sculptured into strange shapes by the erosion of the waters. Any one
+of these, if it could be transported to the level plains of the Middle
+West or set up on the Atlantic Coast, would be an object of wonder which
+hundreds of thousands would visit. Away off in the distance is the
+Temple of Shiva, towering seventy-six hundred and fifty feet above
+the sea and fifty-two hundred and fourteen feet (nearly a mile) above
+the river. Take it to the White Mountains and set it down in the
+Crawford Notch. From its summit you would look down upon the old Tip-Top
+house of Mount Washington, eight hundred feet below. Much nearer, and a
+little to the right, is the "Pyramid of Cheops," a much smaller butte
+but rising fifty-three hundred and fifty feet above the sea-level. If
+the "Great Pyramid of Cheops" in Egypt were to be placed by its side it
+would scarcely be visible from where we stand, for it would be lost in
+the mass of rocky formations. Mr. G. Wharton James, who has spent many
+years of his life in the study of the canon, says that he gazed upon it
+from a certain point every year for twenty years and often daily for
+weeks at a time. He continues, "Such is the marvelousness of distance
+that never until two days ago did I discover that a giant detached
+mountain fully eight thousand feet high and with a base ten miles square
+... stood in the direct line of my sight, and as it were, immediately
+before me." He discovered it only because of a peculiarity of the light.
+It had always appeared as a part of the great north wall, though
+separated from it by a canon fully eight miles wide.
+
+How are we to realize these enormous depths? Those isolated peaks and
+mountains, of which there are hundreds, are really only details in the
+vast stretch of the canon. Not one of them reaches above the level of
+the plain on the north side. Tourists who have traveled much are
+familiar with the great cathedrals of Europe. Let us drop a few of them
+into the canon. First, St. Peter's, the greatest cathedral in the world.
+We lower it to the level of the river, and it disappears behind the
+granite cliff. Let the stately Duomo of Milan follow. Its beautiful
+minarets and multitude of statues are lost in the distance, and though
+we place it on the top of St. Peter's, it, too, is out of sight behind
+the cliffs. We must have something larger, so we place on top of Milan
+the great cathedral of Cologne, five hundred and one feet high, and the
+tips of its two great spires barely appear above the point from which we
+watched the swiftly rolling river. Now let us poise on the top of
+Cologne's spires, two great Gothic cathedrals of France, Notre Dame and
+Amiens, one above the other, then add St. Paul's of London, the three
+great towers of Lincoln, the triple spires of Lichfield, Canterbury with
+its great central tower, and the single spire, four hundred and four
+feet high, of Salisbury. We are still far from the top. These units of
+measurement are too small. Let us add the tallest office building in the
+world, seven hundred and fifty feet high, and then the Eiffel Tower, of
+nine hundred and eighty-six feet. We shall still need the Washington
+Monument, and if my calculations are correct, an extension ladder
+seventy-five feet long on top of that, to enable us to reach the top of
+the northern wall. One might amuse himself indefinitely with such
+comparisons. Perhaps they are futile, but it is only by some such method
+that one can form the faintest conception of the colossal dimensions of
+this, the greatest chasm in the world.
+
+Still more bewildering is the attempt to measure the canon in periods of
+time. There were two great periods in its history--first, the period of
+upheaval, and second, that of erosion. When the geologic movement was in
+process which created the continent, with the Rocky Mountains for its
+backbone, this entire region became a plateau, vastly higher than at
+present, with its greatest elevation far to the north. Then the rivers
+began to carry the rains and snows to the sea, carving channels for
+themselves through the rocky surface. The steep decline caused the
+waters to flow with swiftness. The little streamlets united to form
+larger ones, and these in turn joined their waters in still greater
+streams. The larger the stream and the swifter the flow, the faster the
+channel would be carved. The softer rocks gave slight resistance, but
+when the granite or harder formations were encountered, the streams
+would eddy and whirl about in search of new channels, the hard rocks
+forming a temporary dam. In this way the hundreds of buttes were
+formed. The Green River and the Grand unite to form the Colorado, the
+entire course of this great waterway stretching for two thousand miles.
+The two streams carry down a mighty flood--in former ages it was far
+mightier than now--which in its swift descent has ground the rocks into
+sand and silt and with resistless force carried them down to the sea.
+Those great buttes and strangely sculptured temples, each a formidable
+mountain, were not thrown up by volcanic forces, but have been carved
+out of the solid earth by the erosion of the waters. That river five
+miles away, of which we see only glimpses here and there, was the tool
+with which the Great Sculptor carved all this wondrous chasm. Major
+Powell has calculated that the amount of rock thus ground to pieces and
+carried away would be equivalent to a mass two hundred thousand square
+miles in area and a full mile in thickness. Think of excavating a mile
+deep the entire territory of New England, New York, New Jersey,
+Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia, and dumping it all
+into the Atlantic. Then think that this is the task the Colorado River
+and other geologic forces have accomplished, and pause to wonder how
+long it took to complete the process! If the Egyptian kings who built
+the pyramids had come here for material they would have seen the chasm
+substantially as we see it!
+
+The geologic story of the canon's origin is too far beyond our
+comprehension. Let us turn to the Indian account. A great chief lost his
+wife and refused to be comforted. An Indian God, Ta-vwoats, came to him
+and offered to conduct him to a happier land where he might see her, if
+he would promise to cease mourning. Then Ta-vwoats made a trail through
+the mountains to the happy land and there the chief saw his wife. This
+trail was the canon of the Colorado. The deity made the chief promise
+that he would reveal the path to no man, lest all might wish to go at
+once to heaven, and in order to block the way still more effectually he
+rolled a mad surging river through the gorges so swift and strong that
+it would destroy any one who dared attempt to enter heaven by that
+route.
+
+I have often been asked which is the greater wonder, the Grand Canon of
+the Colorado River or the Yellowstone National Park. The question is
+unanswerable. One might as well attempt to say whether the sea is more
+beautiful than the sky. If mere size is meant, the Grand Canon is vastly
+greater. If all the geysers of the Yellowstone were placed down in the
+bottom of the Grand Canon at the level of the river, and all were to
+play at once, the effect would be unnoticed from Hopi Point. The canon
+of the Yellowstone River, impressive as it is, would be lost in one of
+the side canons of the Colorado.
+
+The Grand Canon and the Yellowstone are creations of a totally different
+kind.
+
+The Yellowstone is a garden of wonders. The Grand Canon is a sublime
+spectacle.
+
+The Yellowstone is a variety of interesting units. The Grand Canon is a
+unit of infinite variety.
+
+The Yellowstone contains a collection of individual marvels, each
+wondrous in structure and many of them exquisite in beauty. The Grand
+Canon is one vast masterpiece of unimagined architecture, limitless
+grandeur, and ever-changing but splendidly harmonious brilliancy of
+color.
+
+The Yellowstone fills the mind with wonder and amazement at all the
+varied resources of Nature. The Grand Canon fills the soul with awe and
+reverence as one stands in silence upon the brink and humbly reflects
+upon the infinite power of God.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Alcott, A. Bronson, 192, 193.
+
+  Alcott, Louisa M., 193.
+
+  Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 207-20.
+
+  Amiel, Henri Frederic, 118; 124-27.
+
+  Anderson, Mary, 110, 112, 113.
+
+  Appledore, 222, 223, 232.
+
+  Arbury Hall, 20-28.
+
+  ARIZONA, THE GRAND CANON OF, 271-96.
+
+  Arnold, Thomas, 52, 98, 99.
+
+  Arona, 156.
+
+  Authari, the Long-haired, 164.
+
+  Ayrshire, 46-48.
+
+
+  Bashkirtseff, Marie, 132, 133.
+
+  Bastien-Lepage, 133.
+
+  Battlefield of Concord, 186, 187.
+
+  Belgirate, 155-56.
+
+  Bellagio, 168.
+
+  Borromeo, Carlo, 156, 161.
+
+  Borromeo, Count Vitaliano, 154.
+
+  Bruce, Robert, 85, 90, 91.
+
+  Burns, Robert, 43-48.
+
+  BURROUGHS, JOHN, A DAY WITH, 233-50.
+
+  Burroughs, John, 227, 228.
+
+  Byron, Lord, 143, 144.
+
+
+  Cadenabbia, 158, 159.
+
+  Canon of the Yellowstone, the, 267-69.
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, 41, 44, 66.
+
+  Caroline, Queen, 168.
+
+  Catskill Mountains, 237, 238, 239, 242, 243, 246.
+
+  Channing, Ellery, 186.
+
+  Coleridge, Hartley, 62.
+
+  Coleridge, Samuel T., 51, 61, 62.
+
+  Colorado River, the, 282-88; 293-95.
+
+  Colvin, Sir Sidney, 19-21.
+
+  Como, City of, 165, 168.
+
+  Como, Lake, 95-98; 137; 138; 150; 158-68.
+
+  Concord, Massachusetts, 179-95.
+
+
+  Deffand, Marquise du, 140.
+
+  De Quincey, Thomas, 52, 59, 63, 64.
+
+  Drummond, William, 77-84.
+
+
+  Ecclefechan, 41-44.
+
+  Eliot George, 20-35.
+
+  Ellastone, original of "Hayslope," 31.
+
+  Emerson, Lidian, 188, 190.
+
+  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 17; 181-92; 249.
+
+  Esk, Vale of the, 75-92.
+
+  Esthwaite, Lake, 56.
+
+  Evans, Rev. Frederick R., 28-29.
+
+
+  Fields, James T., 199, 200.
+
+
+  Gaeta vase, 170.
+
+  Gallio, Cardinal, 168.
+
+  Gould, Jay, 236, 237.
+
+  GRAND CANON OF ARIZONA, THE, 271-96.
+
+  Grant, Gen. U. S., 244.
+
+  Grasmere, 59, 60, 61, 65, 66.
+
+  Gravedona, palace of Cardinal Gallio, 168.
+
+  GREAT BRITAIN, LITERARY RAMBLES IN, 15-48.
+
+  Green, Thomas H., 117, 118, 122, 123, 124, 127.
+
+
+  Haines, George, 170-74.
+
+  Hawthorne, Elizabeth, 198, 199.
+
+  Hawthorne, Madam, 198, 200.
+
+  Hawthorne, Nathaniel; in Concord, 179-95; in Salem, 196-206.
+
+  Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody, 180, 185; 198; 199.
+
+  HAWTHORNDEN TO ROSLIN GLEN, FROM, 73-92.
+
+  Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 17.
+
+  "House of the Seven Gables, The," 196, 202-06.
+
+
+  Il Medeghino, 160-63.
+
+  Iron Crown of Lombardy, 165.
+
+  Isles of Shoals, the, 222-32.
+
+  Isola Bella, 152-55.
+
+  Isola dei Pescatori, 155.
+
+  Isola Madre, 155.
+
+  ITALIAN LAKES, A TOUR OF THE, 147-74.
+
+
+  Jonson, Ben, 81-84.
+
+
+  Lacus Larius. _See_ Como.
+
+  Lacus Verbanus. _See_ Maggiore.
+
+  "Lady Wentworth," scenes of, 220, 221.
+
+  Laighton, Oscar, 229.
+
+  Lamb, William and Caroline, 141-44.
+
+  Lasswade, 75-76.
+
+  Lecco, Lake, 95, 96.
+
+  Lespinasse, Julie de, 139-41.
+
+  Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 17; 159; 220; 221.
+
+  Lowell, James Russell, 17; 55; 232.
+
+  Lugano, Lake, 96, 151, 157, 159.
+
+  Luino, 156, 157.
+
+
+  Maggiore, Lake, 96, 149, 150, 152-56, 159.
+
+  Mammoth Hot Springs, 255-57.
+
+  Medici, Gian Giacomo de (Il Medeghino), 160-63.
+
+  Melbourne, Lord, 141-44.
+
+  Menaggio, 160.
+
+  Minute-Man, the, Concord, 186, 187.
+
+  Monument, the, on battlefield of Concord, 186, 187.
+
+  Musketaquid, river at Concord, 185.
+
+
+  NEW ENGLAND, LITERARY LANDMARKS OF, 175-232.
+
+  Nuneaton, 20, 22, 29, 30.
+
+  Nutter House, the, 207-16.
+
+
+  Old Faithful, 254; 262-65.
+
+  Old Manse, the, 179-86.
+
+  Oxford, 99-100.
+
+
+  Passmore Edwards Settlement, London, 103-09, 127.
+
+  Pattison, Mark, 100; 117-21; 126, 127.
+
+  Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 198.
+
+  Peabody, Mary (Mrs. Horace Mann), 198.
+
+  Peabody, Dr. Nathaniel, 197.
+
+  Peabody, Sophia. _See_ Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody.
+
+  Pliny, the Elder, 160, 166.
+
+  Pliny, the Younger, 166, 167.
+
+  Pogliaghi, Lombard decorator, 170, 171.
+
+  Portsmouth, N.H., 207-21.
+
+  Powell, Major John W., 283-87.
+
+
+  Ripley, Rev. Ezra, 182.
+
+  Ripley, Rev. Samuel, 182.
+
+  "Robert Elsmere," 102, 109, 110-27.
+
+  Roslin Castle, 86-88.
+
+  Roslin Chapel, 88, 90.
+
+  Roslin Glen, 75-92.
+
+
+  St. Clair family, of Roslin, 87, 88, 91, 92.
+
+  Salem, Massachusetts, 196-206.
+
+  Salpion, Greek sculptor, 170.
+
+  "Scarlet Letter, The," 201-02.
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, 37, 38, 39, 45, 46, 75, 76, 89, 90, 239.
+
+  Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, 187-89.
+
+  Southey, Robert, 51.
+
+
+  Thaxter, Celia, 221, 223-32.
+
+  Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards, 163-65.
+
+  Thoreau, Henry D., 182-91; 228.
+
+  Tower of London, 18.
+
+  Tremezzo, 168.
+
+
+  Varenna, 163.
+
+  Victoria Monument, London, 40.
+
+  Villa Bonaventura, 169.
+
+  Villa Carlotta, 168, 169.
+
+  Villa d'Este, 168.
+
+  Villa Maria, 169-74.
+
+  Villa Pliniana, 167, 168.
+
+
+  Walden Pond, 191.
+
+  WARD, MRS. HUMPHRY, THE COUNTRY OF, 93-146.
+
+  Ward, Mrs. Humphry, scenes of novels, 36, 37, 111-17; 128-31; 134-38;
+  145; 169.
+
+  Washburn, Gen. Henry D., 253.
+
+  Wayside, the, Hawthorne's house in Concord, 193, 194.
+
+  Wentworth House, 220-21.
+
+  Westmoreland, 51-72; 98; 131; 134; 135; 136; 239; 241.
+
+  White, Gilbert, 228.
+
+  Wilson, John (Christopher North), 52.
+
+  Windermere, Lake, 54; 68; 70; 98.
+
+  Windermere village, 51.
+
+  WORDSWORTH'S COUNTRY, A DAY IN, 49-72.
+
+  Wordsworth, Dorothy, 41, 63, 64, 65.
+
+  Wordsworth, Mrs., 63.
+
+  Wordsworth, William, 41; 51-72; 98; 158; 239-43.
+
+
+  YELLOWSTONE, GLIMPSES OF THE, 251-69.
+
+  Yellowstone Lake, the, 261; 267.
+
+  Yellowstone National Park, the, 295, 296.
+
+  Yellowstone River, the, 267, 268.
+
+
+
+
+  The Riverside Press
+  CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
+  U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Lure of the Camera, by Charles S. Olcott
+
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