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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64210 ***

Transcriber's note.

A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.
Formatting and special characters are indicated as follows:

  [Sidenotes]
  _italic_
  =bold=




TYPES OF PROSE NARRATIVES




TYPES OF PROSE NARRATIVES

                   A TEXT-BOOK FOR THE STORY WRITER
                                  BY
                         HARRIOTT ELY FANSLER

Assistant Professor of English in the University of the Philippines.
Formerly Instructor in English in Western Reserve University at
Cleveland, Ohio

  [Illustration]

  CHICAGO
  ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1911,
  HARRIOTT ELY FANSLER.




PREFACE


Inspiration for any craftsman lies in the history of his art and in a
definite problem at hand. He feels his task dignified when he knows
what has been done before him, and he has a starting point when he can
enumerate the essentials of what he wants to produce. He then goes to
his work with a zest that is in itself creative. There is a popular
misconception, especially in the minds of young people and seemingly
in the minds of many teachers and critics of literature, that geniuses
have sprung full-worded from the brain of Jove and have worked without
antecedents. There could not be to a writer a more cramping idea than
that. It is the aim of the present volume to help dispel that illusion,
and to set in a convenient form before students of narrative the
twofold inspiration mentioned--a feeling for the past and a series of
definite problems.

There has been no attempt at minuteness in tracing the type
developments; though there has been the constant ideal of exactness
and trustworthiness wherever developments are suggested. In other
words, this book is not a scrutiny of origins, but a setting forth of
essentials in kinds of narratives already clearly established. The
analysis that gives the essentials has, of course, the personal element
in it, as all such analyses must have; but the work is the work of one
mind and is at least consistent. Since I have not had the benefit of
other texts on the subject (for there are none that I know of) and
since the inquiry into narrative types with composition in view is thus
made, put together with illustrations, and published for the first
time, it has been my especial aim to exclude everything dogmatic. As
can readily be seen, the details have been worked out in the actual
classroom. The safe thing about the use of such a text by other
instructors is the fact that they and their pupils can test the truth
of the generalizations by first-hand inquiry of their own.

The examples chosen from literature and here printed are specific
as well as typical. They have been selected not only to illustrate
general principles, but for other reasons as well--some for superior
intrinsic worth; some for historical position; all because of possible
inspiration. But none have been selected as models.

The themes written by my present and former pupils are added for the
last reason--as sure reinforcement of the inspiration, as provokers
to action. Often students fail to write because there is held up to
them a model, something complicated and perfect in detail. They feel
their apprenticeship keenly and hesitate to attempt a likeness to a
masterpiece. But, on the other hand, when they get a glimpse of history
and when they see the work of a fellow tyro, they know that an equally
good or even better result is within their reach and so set to work
at once. The productions of pupils under this historical-illustrative
method, wherever it has been tried, have been encouraging. Seldom has
any one failed to present an acceptable piece of work. Once in a while
a "mistake" has been made that has reassured a teacher and a class of
the accuracy of the contamination theory--the historical cross-grafting
or counter influence of types; that is, sometimes in the endeavor
to produce a theme that should vary from those he thought the other
students would write, an earnest worker has unconsciously produced
an example of the next succeeding type to be studied; unconsciously,
because hitherto, of course, the classes have gone forward without a
printed text.

This statement leads to the question, Why publish the literary
examples? Why not merely give the references? Because school and even
town libraries are limited. Twenty-five card-holders can scarcely get
the same volume within the same week. Besides, the plan I consider
good to insure the pupil's thorough acquaintance with the library
accessible to him and with library methods and possibilities is quite
other than this. This book is meant as a work-table guide for the
student and as a time-saver for the teacher; hence all the necessary
material should be immediately at hand. The instructor's concern in
the teaching of narrative writing is just the twofold one mentioned
before--to orientate the young scribbler and to give him a quick and
sure inspiration. After that he is to be left alone to write, and the
fewer the books around him the better.

The bibliography is added for two other classes of persons: those
who desire to make a somewhat further and more minute study of type
developments, and those who wish merely to read extensively or
selectively in the works of fiction and history themselves. The list of
books and authors is intended simply to be helpful, not exhaustive, and
consequently contains, with but few exceptions, only those works that
one might reasonably expect to find in a well-stocked college or city
library.

I confess I hope that some amateur writer out of college or high
school may chance upon the book and be encouraged by it to persevere.
There are many delightful hours possible for one who enjoys
composition, if he can but get a bit of a lift here and there or a
new impulse to an occasionally flagging imagination. All but the very
earliest literature has been produced thus--namely, by a conscious
writing to a type, with an idea either of direct imitation, as in the
case of Chaucer, who gloried in his "authorities;" or of variation and
combination, as in the case of Walpole; or of equaling or surpassing in
excellence, as in the case of James Fenimore Cooper; or of satire and
supersedence, as in the case of Cervantes.

But to go back to the student themes here presented. They were written,
with the exception of two, for regular class credit. These two were
printed in a college paper as sophomore work. A number of the remaining
came out in school publications after serving in the English theme box.
All in all, they are the productions of actual students; from whom,
it is hoped, other young writers may get some help and a good deal of
entertainment. In each case the name of the author is affixed to his
narrative, since he alone is responsible for the merits and faults of
the piece.

In regard to the Filipino pupils no word is necessary: they speak
for themselves. The work here given as theirs is theirs. I have not
treated it in any way different from the way I treat all school
themes, American or other. It is everyday work--criticized by the
instructor, corrected by the pupil, and returned to the English office.
The examples could be replaced from my present stock to the extent
literally of some ten, some twenty, some two hundred fold. Naturally,
of course, as is true of all persons using a foreign language, the
Filipinos mistake idiom more often than anything else, and they write
more fluently than they talk; but there is among them no dearth of
material and no lack of thought. Indeed, the publishers have been
embarrassed by the supply of interesting stories, especially in the
earlier types. The temptation has been to add beyond the limits of
the merely helpful and illustrative and to pass into the realm of the
curious and entertaining. Regardless of literary quality, Filipino
themes have today an historic value; many of them are the first written
form of hitherto only oral tradition.

To say to how great an extent a writer and talker is indebted to
his everyday working library is difficult. Like a sculptor to an
excellent quarry, a teacher can indeed forget to give credit where
credit is due, especially to the more general books of reference such
as encyclopedias and histories of literature--Saintsbury, Chambers,
Ticknor, Jusserand. I would speak of the "Standard Dictionary," that
does all my spelling for me and not a little of my defining; and the
"Encyclopedia Britannica," which in these days of special treatises is
sometimes superciliously passed over, though it offers in its pages not
only much valuable literary information, but some of that information
in the form of very valuable literature. Next to these might be placed
Dunlop's "History of Fiction;" and last, particular and occasional
compilations like Brewer's and Blumentritt's, and criticism like
Murray's, Keightley's and Newbigging's. Then there is the "World's
Great Classics Series." Just how much I owe to these general texts I
cannot perhaps tell definitely; though I am not conscious of borrowing
where I have not given full credit. As I have said before, direct
treatises on my subject are lacking; so I shall have to bear alone the
brunt of criticism on the analysis, or the main body of the book. I
know of no one else to blame.

Grateful acknowledgment is due to my husband, Dean Spruill Fansler,
for long-suffering kindness in answering appeals to his opinion and
for reading the manuscript, compiling the bibliography, and making the
index. Without his generous help I should hardly have found time or
courage to put the chapters together.

In justice to former assistant English instructors in the United States
who have successfully followed earlier unpublished outlines, and to my
colleagues in the University of the Philippines who have been teaching
from the book in manuscript form for nine months, it ought to be said
that, whatever faults the work may have--and I fear they are all too
many--it can hardly be dismissed as an immature and untried theory.

If there should be found any merit in the content of the book in
general, I should like to have that ascribed to the influence of
the department of English and Comparative Literature of Columbia
University, where I had the privilege of graduate study with such
scholars as Ashley Horace Thorndike, William Peterfield Trent and
Jefferson Butler Fletcher.

My chief material debt is to the publishing firms who have very
courteously permitted the reprinting of narratives selected from their
copyrighted editions.

                                                               H. E. F.

University of the Philippines, Manila, 1911.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


  LIST OF STORIES                                                  xv-xx
  INTRODUCTION                                                  xxi-xxvi

  Part 1. Narratives of Imaginary Events

  CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE-RELIGIOUS GROUP                          1-82

  I. MYTH--Classes of myths: primitive-tribal and
  artificial-literary--Myth age not a past epoch--How traditional myths
  are collected--How original myths are composed--Difference between
  myth and allegory, and myth and legend--Working definition--List of
  mythological deities: Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Hindu, Russian, Finnish,
  Norse, Filipino--Examples                                            1

  II. LEGEND--Myth and legend compared--Saga--Saint legends--Geoffrey of
  Monmouth--Legendary romance--Modern literary legends--How to select
  and record a legend of growth--How to write a legend of art--Working
  definition--Examples                                                22

  III. FAIRY TALE--Attitude toward fairy stories--Fundamental
  characteristics of fairies--Northern fairies and their attributes--Some
  literary fairy tales--How to proceed to write a fairy tale--Summary
  definition--Partial lists of fairies of different countries:
  Northern, Irish and Scotch, Filipino, Russian, Arabian, and
  Miscellaneous--Examples                                             43

  IV. NURSERY SAGA--Origin--The brothers Grimm--English nursery
  sagas--Distinguishing elements: kind of hero, rhymes, repetition of
  situation, supernatural element--A few specific suggestions--Working
  definition--Examples                                                65

  CHAPTER II. SYMBOLIC-DIDACTIC GROUP                             83-127

  I. FABLE--Æsop--Other early fabulists--"Hitopadesa" and
  "Panchatantra"--"Reynard the Fox" and bestiaries--Some more writers of
  fables--Working definition--Classes of fables: rational, non-rational,
  mixed--How to write an original fable--Maxims upon which fables may be
  built--Examples                                                     83

  II. PARABLE--Distinguishing characteristics--Tolstoy--Suggestions on
  writing a parable--Working definition--A list of proverbs that might be
  expanded into parables--Examples                                   101

  III. ALLEGORY--Characteristics--Plato's "Vision of Er"--Modern
  allegories--Some famous English allegories--Allegory fable, and
  parable differentiated--Working definition--How to write an
  allegory--Present-day interest in primitive types--Examples        112

  CHAPTER III. INGENIOUS-ASTONISHING GROUP      128-254

  I. TALE OF MERE WONDER--Definition--Collections of
  wonder stories, ancient and modern--Suggestions for
  writing--Characteristic elements--Mediæval tales of chivalry--Heroic
  romances--Examples                                                 128

  II. IMAGINARY VOYAGE WITH A SATIRIC OR INSTRUCTIVE
  PURPOSE--Distinguishing elements--Source of the type--Famous
  imaginary voyages--Suggestions on how to write
  a satiric imaginary voyage--Examples                               150

  III. TALE OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY AND OF MECHANICAL
  INVENTION--Relation to imaginary voyages--Essential
  elements--Kind of stories included in this type--Suggestions
  on how to write the type--Examples                                 194

  IV. THE DETECTIVE STORY AND OTHER TALES OF PURE
  PLOT--The detective story: connection with stories of
  ingenuity--Poe and Doyle--Other stories of plot--Romance--A
  few suggestions--Examples                                          225

  CHAPTER IV. THE ENTERTAINING GROUP                             255-344

  I. TALE OF PROBABLE ADVENTURE--Characteristics and definition--How to
  write a probable adventure--A warning--Examples                    255

  II. THE SOCIETY STORY--Definition--Pastoral Romance--Suggestions on
  writing a society story--Examples                                  277

  III. THE HUMOROUS STORY--Definition--Fableaux--Picaresque
  romance--Difference between a humorous story and a comic
  anecdote--Examples                                                 299

  IV. THE OCCASIONAL STORY--The spirit of the occasional story--Its
  masters--Suggestions for subjects--Examples                        313

  CHAPTER V. THE INSTRUCTIVE GROUP                               345-394

  I. THE MORAL STORY--Differentiated from the symbolic-didactic
  group--Great authors who have written this type: Hawthorne, Johnson,
  Voltaire, Tolstoy, Cervantes--What to put in and what to leave
  out--Examples                                                      345

  II. THE PEDAGOGICAL NARRATIVE--Definition--Some famous pedagogical
  books--Froebel--Examples                                           361

  III. THE STORY OF PRESENT DAY REALISM--What realism is--The realistic
  school--Suggestions on characters to treat--Examples               370

  CHAPTER VI. THE ARTISTIC GROUP: THE REAL SHORT-STORY           395-478

  I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WEIRD TALE--Origin--The School of Terror--Poe,
  Stevenson, Maupassant, and others--Suggestions on writing a weird
  tale--Material and method--Form--Examples                          398

  II. STORY THAT EMPHASIZES CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT--Kipling--Mary
  E. Wilkins Freeman--Hamlin Garland--Bret Harte--Suggestions
  and precautions--The "Character": Overbury and Hall--Novel of
  Manners--Trollope's Cathedral Town Studies--Examples               426

  III. STORY THAT EMPHASIZES CHARACTER AND EVENTS--Difference between
  character-place story and character-events story--Component elements
  of this type--A scrapbook suggestion--Other suggestions--Examples  455

  Part II. Narratives of Actual Events

  CHAPTER VII. PARTICULAR ACCOUNTS                               479-556

  I. INCIDENT--Definition--How to tell an incident--Examples         480

  II. ANECDOTE--Meaning of the term--Ana--Collection of anecdotes--How to
  write an original anecdote--Examples                               490

  III. EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT--What it is and how to write it--An ancient
  eye-witness account--Literary eyewitness accounts--Examples        499

  IV. TALE OF ACTUAL ADVENTURE--The one necessary element--Suggestions
  for writing--Examples                                              512

  V. THE TRAVELER'S SKETCH--What a traveler's sketch includes--Great
  travel books--Fielding's gentle warning--A motto for the
  narrator--Examples                                                 530

  CHAPTER VIII. PERSONAL ACCOUNTS                                557-611

  I. JOURNAL AND DIARY--The two distinguished--The range of
  journals--"Vida del Gran Tamurlan"--Great diaries--How to write
  journal and diary--Examples                                        557

  II. AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIRS--Distinction--Cellini, Franklin, and
  others--Selection and coherence--Examples                          572

  III. BIOGRAPHY--Beginning in England of literary biography--Great
  biographies in English--Writer and subject--Beginning, emphasis, and
  attitude--Outline for a life--Examples                             590

  CHAPTER IX. IMPERSONAL ACCOUNTS                                612-645

  I. ANNALS--What annals are--Famous old annals--Stow--Suggestions on
  material--Examples                                                 613

  II. CHRONICLES--Definition--Froissart, Ayala, "General Chronicle of
  Spain"--Saxo Grammaticus--Holinshed--True relations--Examples      626

  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                   647-660
  INDEX                                                          661-672




LIST OF STORIES

NARRATIVES OF FICTITIOUS EVENTS


                                =Myths=
                                                                  PAGE

  The World's Creation and the Birth of Wainamoinen.
  From the _Kalevala_                                                 14

  _Students' Themes_--
  Origin of the Moon                        Emanuel Baja              16
  The First Cocoanut Tree                   Manuel Reyes              18
  The Lotus                                 Ida Treat                 21

                               =Legends=

  Kenach's Little Woman                     William Canton            28

  _Students' Themes_--
  A Legend of Gapan                         Teofilo Corpus            36
  Manca: a Legend of the Incas              Dorothea Knoblock         38
  The Place of the Red Grass                Sixto Guico               42

                             =Fairy Tales=

  The Boggart                               From the English          55

  _Students' Themes_--
  Cafre and the Fisherman's Wife            Benito Ebuen              57
  The Friendship of an Asuang and a Duende  Emanuel Baja              58
  A Tianac Frightens Juan                   Santiago Ochoa            61
  The Black Cloth of the Calumpang          Eusebio Ramos             63

                            =Nursery Tales=

  Princess Helena the Fair                  From the Russian          69

  _Students' Themes_--
  Juan the Guesser                          Bienvenido Gonzalez       73
  The Shepherd who became King              Vicente Hilario           78

                               =Fables=

  Jupiter and the Countryman                From the _Spectator_      90
  The Drop of Water       (Persian)         From the _Spectator_      91
  The Grandee at the Judgment Seat          Kriloff                   91
  The Lion and the Old Hare                 From the _Hitopadesa_     92
  The Fox and the Crab                      From the Turkish          93
  The Fool who Sells Wisdom                 From the Turkish          94
  The Archer and the Trumpeter              From the Turkish          95

  _Students' Themes_--
  The Courtship of Sir Butterfly            Maximo M. Kalaw           96
  The Hat and the Shoes                     José R. Perez             98
  The Crocodile and the Peahen              Elisa Esguerra            99
  The Old Man, his Son, and his Grandson    Eutiquiano Garcia        100

                              =Parables=

  The Three Questions                       Tolstoy                  104

  _Students' Themes_--
  A Master and his Servant                  Eusebio Ramos            110
  The Parable of the Beggar and the Givers  Dorothea Knoblock        111

                             =Allegories=

  The Artist                                Oscar Wilde              120
  The House of Judgment                     Oscar Wilde              120

  _Students' Themes_--
  The Chain that Binds                      Elizabeth Sudborough     123
  The Love which Surpassed All Other Loves  Florence Gifford         125

                        =Tales of Mere Wonder=

  The Story of the City of Brass           From the _Arabian Nights_ 132

  _Student's Theme_--
  The Magic Ring, the Bird, and the Basket  Facundo Esquivel         147

                          =Imaginary Voyages=

  Mellonta Tauta                            Edgar Allan Poe          155

  _Student's Theme_--
  Busyong's Trip to Jupiter                 Manuel Candido           173

        =Tale of Scientific Discovery and Mechanical Invention=

  A Curious Vehicle                         Alexander Wilson Drake   200

  _Students' Themes_--
  The Spyglass of the Past                  Hazel Orcutt             218
  Up a Water Spout                          Edna Collister           221

                =Detective Story and Tale of Mere Plot=

  Thou Art the Man                          Edgar Allan Poe          228

  _Student's Theme_--
  The Picture of Lhasa                      Hazel Orcutt             248

              =Tales of More-or-Less Probable Adventure=

  Fight with a Bear                         Charles Reade            257

  _Student's Theme_--
  Secret of the Jade Tlaloc                 Dorothea Knoblock        267

                           =Society Stories=

  The Fur Coat                              Ludwig Fulda             277

  _Student's Theme_--
  The Lady in Pink                          Wilma I. Ball            289

                          =Humorous Stories=

  The Expatriation of Jonathan Taintor      Charles Battell Loomis   302

  _Students' Themes_--
  Kileto and the Physician                  Lorenzo Licup            307
  The Lame Man and the Deaf Family          Santiago Rotea           311

                         =Occasional Stories=

  The Lost Child                            François Coppée          315

  _Students' Themes_--
  The Peace of Yesterdays                   Katherine Kurz           334
  A Christmas Legend                        Ida F. Treat             342

                             =Moral Story=

  Jeannot and Colin                         Voltaire                 348

                       =Pedagogical Narratives=

  Gertrude's Method of Instruction          Pestalozzi               365

  _Student's Theme_--
  Lawin-lawinan (a Filipino game)           Leopoldo Uichanco        368

                   =Stories of Present-Day Realism=

  The Piece of String                       Maupassant               374

  _Students' Themes_--
  A Social Error                            Ida Treat                382
  The Lot of the Poor                       Agnes Palmer             388
  Filipino Fear                             Walfrido de Leon         390

                      =Psychological Weird Tales=

  The Signal-Man                            Charles Dickens          403

  _Student's Theme_--
  Like a Thief in the Night                 Dorothea Knoblock        420

          =Stories That Emphasize Character and Environment=

  Muhammad Din                              Rudyard Kipling          432

  _Students' Themes_--
  The Fetters                               Katherine Kurz           436
  When Terry Quit                           Dorothea Knoblock        446
  Nora Titay and Chiquito                   Joaquina E. Tirona       453

             =Stories That Emphasize Character and Events=

  The Necklace                              Maupassant               460

  _Student's Theme_--
  Andong                                    Justo Avila              470


NARRATIVES OF ACTUAL EVENTS

                              =Incidents=

  A Near Tragedy                            Fielding                 482
  An Incident before Sadowa: Birds
    Divulge Army Secrets                    Newspaper                483
  An Incident Related in a Letter           Robert Louis Stevenson   484

  _Students' Themes_--
  A Hero Dead                               Ida Treat                485
  My First Day at School                    Máximo Kalaw             487
  The Guinatan Prize                        Leopoldo Faustino        488

                              =Anecdotes=

  Coleridge's Retort                                                 493
  An Inevitable Misfortune                                           494
  A Point Needing to be Settled                                      494
  Patience                                                           494
  Preaching and Practice                                             495
  Johnson's Dictionary                                               495
  The Boy Kipling                                                    496
  Sir Godfrey Kneller                       Spence                   496
  Pope and the Trader                       Spence                   497
  The Capitan Municipal and the Jokers    José Feliciano             497
  An Instance of Bamboo Spanish             Pilar Ejercito           498
  Mr. Taft's Mistake                        Amando Clements          499

                        =Eye-Witness Accounts=

  The Portuguese Revolution                 Newspaper                503

  _Student's Theme_--
  A Contrast                                Adolfo Scheerer          509

                     =Tales of Actual Adventures=

  The Bear Hunt                             Tolstoy                  514

  _Students' Themes_--
  Saladin and I Fight an Alupong            Cecilio Esquivel         525
  I Get Two Beatings                        Facundo Esquivel         527
  The Fall of Juan                          Gregorio Farrales        528
  A Narrow Escape from a Wild Carabao       José Cariño              529

                        =Travellers' Sketches=

  On the Way to Talavera                    George Borrow            534
  Smyrna--First Glimpses of the East        Thackeray                539

  _Student's Theme_--
  A Trip from Curimao to Laoag              Fernando Maramag         551

                        =Journals and Diaries=

  Extracts from Pepys' Diary                                         562

  _Students' Themes_--
  A Diary of Four Days                      Facundo Esquivel         564
  A Journal: Mock Heroic                    Victoriano Yamzon        567

                      =Autobiography and Memoirs=

  The Life of David Hume, Esq.              Written by himself       575
  Student autobiography                     Domingo Guanio           585
  What I Remember of the Coming of
    the Americans                           Leopoldo Faustino        588

                             =Biographies=

  Queen Christina                           Hawthorne                595

  _Students' Themes_--
  Juan Luna's Life                          Dolores Asuncion         604
  Life of Elizabeth Glade                   Nellie Barrington        607
  The Biography of a Traitor                Walfrido de Leon         609

                               =Annals=

  The State of England, in Stephen's Reign  _Peterborough Chronicle_ 616

  _Students' Themes_--
  Annals of Mangaldan                       Translated by Bernabe
                                              Aquino                 621
  Annals of Pagsanjan                       Dolores Zafra            622

                             =Chronicles=

  Rivalry between Two Towns                 Froissart                630

  _Students' Themes_--
  A Short History of Ilagan                 Fernando Maramag         636
  Some Incidents of the Rebellion of
    1898: A True Relation                   Marcelino Montemayor     639




INTRODUCTION


There are many interesting possibilities for both the reader and the
writer in a study of narrative types. It is a truism to say that
everybody loves a story. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every
family, has its favorite narratives. Every person has his and likes to
repeat them. Even the driest old matter-of-fact curmudgeon delights
in relating an incident if nothing else. Perhaps he tells you of how
he lost and found again his pocket talisman--a buckeye, maybe, or
a Portuguese _cruzado_. He will assure you that he does not really
believe that the unfortunate events that followed his loss of it
were occasioned by its absence, or the return of good-luck casually
connected with its recovery; but still, he adds, he feels much better
with the old thing in his pocket. "And that was a queer coincidence,
wasn't it?" he insists, starting again over the details of the
happening. So with us all: we all know and love stories, our own or
another person's.

It is a fine thing to write a story. It is good through one's
imagination and skill to entertain one's fellows or through one's
accurate observation of life and history to benefit society. The
narrator has always been honored. In earliest times he was the seer
and prophet, forming the religion of his wandering tribe; later he
was the welcomed guest, for whom alone the frowning castle's gate
stood always open; and after the dark ages, in the time of the
revival-of-the-love-of-written-things, he was the favorite at the
court of favoring princes, who lavished upon him preferment and money
and humbly offered him the laurel crown, their highest tribute. In our
own day his reward surpasses that of kings and presidents. They come to
him, and for immortality invoke his name. In earliest times he composed
in verse so that his story might be remembered and handed down. In
latest times he writes most often in prose--a more difficult medium
to handle with distinction, but one more widely understood and more
readily appreciated than poetry.

Narrative as a general type needs no definition. What pure description
is the ordinary reader might hesitate to assert, or exposition, or
argumentation; but not story: he knows that. Let an author combine
these others with a series of events, let him put them in as aids to
the understanding or as ornaments on the thread of his recital, and
they are accepted without question as elements of narration, be it
prose or verse in form, true or fictitious in content. That is to say,
though a story often contains to some extent all the other forms of
writing too, we think of it as narrative because it carries us along a
course of events. Frequently the teller spends much time in studying
different styles and kinds of description and in analyzing various
devices used to secure definite effects, because he wishes to call
to his aid every bit of skill possible in portraying his characters
and places; but general readers take his fine points of description
and exposition as matters of course and are crudely interested in the
happenings he has to relate. They are unconscious of the fact that
much of their enjoyment comes from knowing how a hero looks, what
his surroundings are, and what his disposition and usual character. A
story-writer gives no small amount of attention also to transcribing
conversations; but the ordinary reader takes these likewise as expected
parts of narrative. But there is one thing that the author and the
reader agree on at the outset as necessary to be settled; namely, the
kind of story to be written or to be read.

It is pleasant to know that there are definite types of narratives
that the world has always loved, and that there are new forms growing
up as civilization becomes more complex. Some of the kinds of stories
discussed in this book are older than the English language, older than
Christianity, older even than the divisions of Aryan speech. They seem
to be inherent forms of all literatures, to be as ancient as thought
and as young as inspiration. They are in use to-day in every tongue.

This book attempts to set forth the distinguishing elements of the
types that have persisted, those matters that a writer must take into
account when producing or a critic when judging. Though its title
emphasizes the fact that now-a-days most persons think of stories
as being always in prose, the book discriminates but little in this
respect. In reality a student of narrative cares hardly at all whether
the vehicle be meter or not. He is concerned with something else.
Language form is rather an accident of the time and the fashion than
anything essential. It is not dependent on the author's personality
even. Chaucer undoubtedly would write in prose to-day, whereas our
modern idealists would certainly have lisped in numbers a hundred
years ago. We study narrative types, therefore, with the idea that
verse tales are but measured and rhythmical expression of the
same forms--sometimes the best, sometimes merely the most popular
expression--but that the development in presentation has been toward
prose, especially for the more psychological and complex material.

On the basis of content, narratives fall naturally into two large
divisions: those that recount imaginary happenings and those that
recount actual happenings. These large divisions in turn fall into
smaller and still smaller groups upon one basis or another--source,
purpose, method, or what not.

Under the division of narratives of fictitious events we notice
six groups, when we are thinking of source and purpose: (1)
the primitive-religious; (2) the symbolic-didactic; (3) the
ingenious-astonishing; (4) the merely entertaining; (5) the
instructive; (6) the artistic. Within these groups come the following
individual types: (1) myth, legend, fairy tale, nursery saga; (2)
fable, parable, allegory; (3) the tale of mere wonder, the imaginary
voyage with a satiric or expository purpose, the tale of scientific
discovery and mechanical invention, the detective story; (4) the
probable adventure, the society story, the humorous and picaresque
story, the occasional story; (5) the moral tale, the pedagogical
narrative, the realistic sketch; (6) the psychological weird tale; the
story that emphasises place and character, the story that emphasizes
events and character.

On the basis of form and of the attitude of the teller, narratives of
actual events fall into three groups. The first set has five types:
incident, anecdote, eye-witness account, traveler's sketch, and the
tale of actual adventure. The second set includes journal and diary,
autobiography and memoirs, biography. The third set is composed of
annals, and chronicles and true relations. Instead of naming these
sets, we might describe them thus: The first is made up of particular
accounts of the doings of the writer and others in chance groups; the
second, of more-or-less extended accounts of the sayings and doings
of individual personages who for the time are important and either
write about themselves or are written about; the third, of impersonal
accounts of the doings of larger or smaller sections of mankind as
units.

Of course, the types fade into one another, and it is only in analyzing
that a person would draw a hard and fast line between any two of them;
but it is permissible to draw this line for the convenience of study
and discussion. After an investigator has learned all the kinds, he may
classify a given story into one or the other group according to the
predominating characteristics, or he may make a group of narratives of
mixed kinds, and consider the various elements.

If he is trying, however, to write also, as well as to study according
to the suggestions of this book, it would be a good plan for him to
endeavor to produce at each attempt a rather more than less pure
example of the type under consideration, so as to get as a result not
only an interesting narrative, but a working model either for criticism
or further production. For a person to have studied carefully an
analysis of a type, to have read a distinct literary example of it,
and to have attempted to put together a narrative that contains the
essential elements, ought to mean that he has in his possession a piece
of knowledge that will be valuable to him all his life, irrespective
of any purely artistic quality of his achievement. That quality will
probably be present much more surely than he at first expects; for a
large part of the excellence of a piece of literature results from
definite knowledge on the part of the writer, a clear aim to produce a
particular kind of composition, and an indefatigable perseverance in
revision of details. By emphasis on knowledge and work one would not
preclude inspiration. Indeed, one would thereby court it; for, as we
all know, it comes usually only to the expert and patient toiler. Even
Robert Burns labored long over his reputedly spontaneous songs. The
thought came to him often at the plough, it is true; but he confesses
that afterwards he spent many hours polishing his lines.




PART I

NARRATIVES OF IMAGINARY EVENTS




TYPES OF PROSE NARRATIVES

CHAPTER I

THE PRIMITIVE-RELIGIOUS GROUP


The traditional types--myth, legend, fairy tale, and nursery saga--are
designated as primitive-religious in order to express the fact
that they grew up in response to the reverent credulity of simple
folk. The myths of all races are the embodiment of their highest
prehistoric religious thinking. The legends are their semi-historical,
semi-religious thinking. The fairy and nursery stories are modified
forms of the other two. Consequently they all belong together in one
group.


I. The Myth

There are two general classes of myths: the primitive-tribal and the
artificial-literary, or myths of growth and myths of art.

From the point of view of ethnology, the myth of growth is primitive
philosophy, and represents racial anthropomorphic thinking concerning
the universe. Anthropomorphic is a term derived from the Greek
ἄνθρωπος, meaning man, and μορφἠ, meaning shape or form, and is used
to describe the tendency of people to represent invisible forces as
having human form (for example, the Deity), or natural forces like
fire and wind as being animate, volitional agents. It is probably true
that, at a very early stage in the development of both the individual
and the race, every object is looked upon as having life; and later,
if any distinction is made between animate and inanimate, spirits are
yet regarded as agents controlling the inanimate and causing changes
therein. A myth of growth is the verbal expression of this attitude of
the mind of a people in its wider and deeper imaginings.

Doubtless after the first or second repetition of a myth, which
some seer of a tribe chants in rude verse, the primitive listener
is confused between fact and fancy. The non-essential incidents
which the narrator adds from sheer love of making up a story are not
distinguished from the incidents that really express the working of
natural forces. So it happens that, in the time between the first
starting up of the account and the analysis and explanation of it
by some philosopher, a narrative handed down from father to son is
believed in, word for word, as religious truth, though gaining details
and losing its original meaning as it goes. As some one has said, it
was because the Greeks had forgotten that Zeus meant _the bright sky_
that they could talk of him as a king ruling a company of manlike
deities on Mount Olympus.

There are many beautiful myths existing to-day in prose and poetry. In
the tribal species, there is the great mass of Greek and Roman early
religious stories and there are the Oriental and the Norse cycles. In
the artificial group there are the later Greek and Roman myths like
those devised by Plato and Plutarch, and there are our more modern
beautiful creations with myth elements like Milton's "Comus" and many
of the poems of Keats, where not only the incidents are newly made
but the deities also. In prose we have the delightful "Wonder Book,"
which Hawthorne prepared for children. We have become so familiar with
"Paradise Lost" that we hardly realize that it is essentially myth--a
great seer's expression of the anthropomorphism of his people. Like a
true bard of old, Milton added much also to his people's thinking on
the universe. How much he added we see fully only when we deliberately
compare the extension and concreteness of his account with the
meagerness of the Hebrew Scriptures.

[Myth age not a past epoch]

An error we are liable to fall into concerning myths is that of
presuming that they are wholly things of the past; that nowadays nobody
believes in them or tells them. In fact, many persons and many tribes
believe in them and tell them. The myth age is not a past epoch, but
a condition of thinking. It is always present somewhere and present
to some extent always among all races. The primitive tribes of the
Philippines believe implicitly in their myths. The Bontoc Igorots,
for example, tell how the Moon woman, Kabigat, cut off the head of a
child of the Sun man, Chal-chal, and thus taught head-hunting to earth
people; some of them tell, too, how Coling, the Serpent Eagle, was
made, and happens to be always hovering over their pueblo. Even the
youngest child knows how the rice-bird came about, and why an Igorot
never harms O-wug, the snake. These stories are being gathered to-day
by American scientists and are being written down for the first time.
The native college students of the Islands have joined in a movement
to preserve the traditions of the more civilized tribes also, and are
industriously putting into written form the stories of their people.
Most of these are not beliefs that are past, but beliefs about the
past--a distinction noteworthy to the student of myths. Little children
of all races are naturally in a myth age, and many of their imaginings
are as beautiful as those of the old Greeks, and, if made known, would
be as contributive to literature, I dare say. Poets are but grown-up
children to whom Nature makes a continued concrete appeal, and they are
always thinking myth-wise, we well know.

So it happens that even the most learned man is willing to listen
to a new myth. All the reader demands is that it shall be either a
scientifically made record of some present tribal belief or a beautiful
and philosophical interpretation of the workings of nature--such a one
as a simple, early pagan, but poetic and essentially refined, mind
might imagine. Plato's myths were advisedly artificial. He deliberately
set out to modify and improve the government of his time by means of
religious stories, and he begged the other philosophers to attempt the
like also. He gave his magnificent "Vision of Er" as an example of what
might be done.

[How traditional myths are collected]

If one wishes to collect traditional myths among a primitive people,
this is in general the way he proceeds: He calls to his aid the
more elderly folk and the little children--those that have time and
inclination to talk. If he can not speak their dialect, he obtains
an interpreter--if possible, one very intimate and sociable with the
tribe. Then he himself tries to get into good fellowship with all,
and to induce free and natural talking. He asks for tales of the sun
and moon, the wind and the rain, grasses, flowers, birds, clouds,
mountain-systems, river-chains, lightning, thunder, and whatever else
their gods have charge of. He asks about the relation of these gods
with the deities of neighboring peoples--which, if any, are to be
feared and why. Then he makes note of as many historical facts as he
can about the tribe--where it first lived, what are the topographical
features of the remote and the immediate places of abode, how powerful
the warriors are, what respect they command from outsiders, what are
considered most honored occupations, and so on. These facts are not
to go explicitly into the story, but are to form the background of
explanation if he cares to seek or give one. Then, too, they may aid
him in making a happy translation of the primitive oral narrative. The
aim of the collector, however, is accuracy rather than beauty, though
beauty may be present in his versions.

[How original myths are composed]

The writer of an original myth, on the other hand, tries to make
his diction as exquisite as he can without affectation. He proceeds
somewhat differently, though with no less forethought. If he wishes to
use gods and goddesses already known, he attempts not to violate the
generally accepted notions of their characteristics. He bears in mind
that the beings of myths are large, ample, superhuman, of the race of
the infinite. Above mortals, they rule mortals or ignore them. The
gods are never petty, though they may be trivial. They belong to the
over-world. They are essential: they make day and night, the coming
of the seasons, the roll of the ocean, the rising and setting of the
constellations. Connected with them too, of course, he knows, are the
lesser events of Nature's activity, the speaking of echo, the blooming
of the slender narcissus at the edge of the pool, the drooping of the
poplars. Hence the writer of a myth of art modifies or adds, but avoids
making radical changes. If he chooses wholly to invent his deities,
he picks out for each a definite phenomenon and keeps it steadily in
mind in order that his created personage may be an appropriate one to
perform the well-known actions of the natural force he is explaining.
He makes the deeds of his beings far-reaching in result and does not
forget to give them euphonious and suggestive names.

[Difference between myth and allegory]

There is a difference between myth and allegory as narratives, although
myth is fundamentally allegorical in the broad sense of the term. The
actors of myth are rather representative than figurative. Being grander
they are at once more simple and dignified than those of allegory. The
gods are not thin abstractions raised to concreteness, but are powerful
forces reduced to the likeness of men.

Pure myth is different from pure legend likewise, though legend may
have gods in it. Legend is generally confined to a particular person
or event, or is connected with a definite spot and a limited result;
whereas myth deals with universal phenomena.

[Working definition of myth]

The collector or composer of myths, accordingly, posits for himself
some such working definition as this: A myth is a story accounting in a
fanciful way for a far-reaching natural phenomenon. The basis on which
the narrator proceeds is emphatically not science, but imagination and
philosophy. He pictures the activities of the universe as the conduct
of personal beings, as gods and goddesses doing good or evil, creating
and destroying, ruling man or ignoring him, punishing and rewarding.


A List of Deities

  =Great Greek Deities=   =Great Roman Deities=
  Zeus                    Jupiter (king)
  Appollon                Apollo (the sun)
  Ares                    Mars (war)
  Hermes                  Mercury (messenger)
  Poseidon                Neptune (ocean)
  Hephaistos              Vulcan (smith who made the armor of the gods)
  Hera                    Juno (queen)
  Demeter                 Ceres (tillage)
  Artemis                 Diana (moon, hunting)
  Athena                  Minerva (wisdom)
  Aphrodite               Venus (love and beauty)
  Hestia                  Vesta (home life)
  Dionysos                Bacchus (wine and revelry)
  Eros                    Cupid (the lad Love)
  Pluton                  Pluto (king of Hades)
  Kronos                  Saturn (Time, who devoured all his children
                                  except Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto)

Juno was the wife of Jupiter, Hera of Zeus, Venus of Vulcan, Aphrodite
of Hephaistos.

Persephone was wife of Pluton, Proserpine was wife of Pluto, Cybele was
wife of Saturn, Rhea was wife of Kronos.


Egyptian Gods

  Ra--the sun, usually represented as a hawk-headed man. He protects
    mankind, but has nothing in common with men.

  Shu--light, a type of celestial force, for he is represented
    supporting the goddess of heaven. His consort was Tefnet.

  Seb--the god of the earth; Nut was the goddess of heaven. These two
    are called "father of the gods."

  Osiris--the good principle. He is in perpetual warfare with evil. He
    is the source of warmth, life and fruitfulness. Isis, his wife, was
    his counterpart in many respects. Osiris became the judge of the
    under-world, and Isis was the giver of death.

  Horus--the son of Osiris. He avenged his father, who was slain by
    Typhon.

  Seth, or Typhon--the brother of Osiris, and his chief opponent.
    He represented physical evil; he was the enemy of all good. His
    consort was Nebti.

  Thoth--the god of letters, the clerk of the underworld, and the
    keeper of the records for the great judge, Osiris. The chief
    moon-god.

  Ptah--the Egyptian Hephaestus, the divine architect.

  Ma-t--the goddess of truth. She is characterized by the ostrich
    feather, the emblem of truth, on her head.

  Anubis--the jackal-headed, presided over tombs and mummification.

  The Sphinx--a beneficent being who personified the fruit-bearing
    earth, and was a deity of wisdom and knowledge.


Hindoo Gods

  Dyaus--the most ancient name for the supreme god. Dyaus, the heaven,
    married Prithivi, the earth, and they became the father and mother
    of the other Hindu gods. Dyaus is also the god of rain.

  Indra--the rain-bringer. The son of Dyaus. He is a strong, impetuous
    warrior, drives a chariot drawn by pawing steeds, bears a
    resistless lance that is lightning.

  Vishnu--one name for the sun; second god of the Hindu triad,
    literally the Pervader. (Brahma and Siva are the other two of the
    trinity.)

  Vishnu is represented as being of blue color. His _sacti_, or wife,
    is Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.

  Mitra--another name for the sun-god.

  Rudra--the father of the storm-gods, the Maruts.

  Maruts--the storm gods. "They overturn trees, destroy whole forests,
    they roar like lions, are swift as thought. In the Maruts we see
    blind strength and fury without judgment."

  Vayu--sometimes the wind was thought of as a single personality. He
    was called Vayu.

  Agni--the fire-god. Considered the messenger between the Hindus and
    heaven. He carried their offerings to Dyaus-pitar.

  Varuna--the noblest figure of the Vedic religion. The supreme god at
    one time. Sometimes he was the All-Surrounder. Later he was ruler
    of the seas.

  Yama--the judge of the dead. He had a dog with four eyes and wide
    nostrils, whom he sent to earth to collect those about to die.

  Vritva--an evil snake which had stolen some treasure and a maiden,
    Ushas. She was rescued by Indra.

  Ushas (Ahana)--a pure, white-robed being from whose presence every
    dark thing fled away. Ushas never grows old, but she makes others
    old. (Same as Eos, Greek; Aurora, Latin.) She is the dawn; is also
    known by the name of Dahana.

  Rita--a word to signify the all-pervading law of nature. It was the
    power that settled the path of the sun. The abode of Rita was in
    the east, and finally every good thing traveled in the path of Rita.

  Asoura Medhas--the wise living one, the animation of moving mind and
    matter. He is the mysterious principle of life, is represented as
    one god high over everything. However, he mingles in the affairs of
    men.

  Surya (same as Gr. Helios)--the special god who dwelt in the body of
    the sun.

  Savitar--another personification of the sun. He is spoken of as
    golden-eyed, golden-tongued and golden-handed.


MINOR DEITIES

  Kuvera--the god of riches.

  Kamadeva--the god of love, represented as riding on a dove, and armed
    with an arrow of flowers and a bow, whose string is formed of bees.

  Ganesha--the god of prudence and policy.


Russian Gods

  Peroun--Lightning; the chief god.

  Svaroga--begetter of fire and of the sun gods. Used also sometimes as
    name of chief god.

  Dajh'bog--grandfather of the sun.

  Kolyada--beneficent spirit who was supposed to visit the farms and
    villages in mid-winter and bring fertility to the pent-up herds and
    frost-bound seeds. A festival in honor of Kolyada was held about
    December 25, the date when the sun was supposed to triumph over the
    death in which Nature had gripped him, and to enter again on his
    new span of life.

  Stribog--wind-god.


Finnish Mythology (derived from Kalevala)

  Ahto--god of the sea.

  Hisi--evil spirit, also called Lempo. His son was Ahti, another name
    for Lemminkainen.

  Lowjatar--Tuoni's daughter; mother of the nine diseases.

  Mana--also called Tuoni; the god of death.

  Manala--also called Tuonela; the Deathland, for it was the abode of
    Mana.

  Suonetar--the goddess of the veins.

  Tapio--the forest-god.

  Ukko--the greatest god of the Finns.

  Mielikki--the forest-goddess.

  Osmotar--the wise maiden who first made beer.

  Sampo--the magic mill forged by Ilmarinen, which brought wealth and
    happiness to its possessor.


Norse Deities

  Odin--the All-father.

  Thor--the thunderer.

  Baldr--the shining god; he typifies day.

  Freyr (Fro)--fruitfulness; the patron of seafarers.

  Tyr--the god of war and athletic sports.

  Bragi--god of poetry and eloquence.

  Hodur--Baldur's twin brother; the god of darkness.

  Heimdall--kept the keys of heaven; was the watchman of Asgard.

  Ulle--god of the chase and of archery. A fast runner on stilts or
    snowshoes.

  Mimir--most celebrated of the giants; god of wisdom and knowledge.

  Loki--the god of strife and the spirit of evil. He had three cruel
    and hateful children: Fenris, a huge wolf; Hel, half black and half
    blue, who lived on men's brains and marrow; and Formungard, the
    monstrous serpent of Midgard. Loki's wife was Sigura.


Filipino Deities

TAGALOG

  Atasip--a demon of the ancient Tagalogs.

  Bathala--principal god of the Tagalogs.

  Dian Masalanta--the god which was the patron of lovers and the god of
    procreation.

  Idinale--the god of husbandry.

  Lakhanbakor or Lakhanbakod--a god who cured sickness.

  Lakambui--a god who first (according to some writers) gave food.

  Pasing-tabi sa nono--with this phrase the Tagalogs used to pray
    the gods of the fields to allow them to walk on the fields and
    cultivate them.

  Sinaya--a divinity which the fishermen used to pray to.

  Sitan--a kind of evil spirit (a Mohametan word).

  Sonat--the pontifex maximus of the ancient Tagalogs.


VISAYAN

  Laon--the supreme god.

  Makabantog--the god of licentiousness and tumult.

  Sigbin--certain familiar spirits, which used to accompany any woman.
    They made a bargain with her and served her constantly.

  Solad--the Inferno.

  Sikabay--Eve, the first woman.

  Sikalak--the first man, Adam.

  Sinburanen--the god who conducted the souls of the dead consigned to
    Hades.

  Suigaguran }
  Suinuran   } gods of the Inferno.
  Sumpay     }

  Tagalabong--spirits who lived in the fields and woods.

  Yatangao--a god which made himself visible in the rainbow. Warriors
    going to battle invoked this god.


BAGOBOS

  Bayguebay--the first woman or Eve.

  Damakolen--the god who made the hills and mountains.

  Makakoret--the god who created the air.

  Makaponquis--the god who created water.

  Malibud--the deity (fem.) who created woman.

  Mamale--the god who created the earth.

  Rioa-Rioa--a horrible and evil being which, suspended from the zenith
    like a large pendulum, approaches the earth and devours those men
    which his servant Tabankak gives him.

  Salibud--the god who taught the first men to cultivate the fields, to
    trade, and to practice other industries.

    Note: In the Filipino themes a foreign word is italicized only the
    first time it appears.


=The World's Creation and the Birth of Wainamoinen=

Long, long ago, before this world was created, there lived a lovely
maiden called Ilmatar, the daughter of the Ether. She dwelt in the
air--there were only air and water then--but at length she grew tired
of always being on high, and came down and floated on the surface of
the water. Suddenly, as she lay there, a mighty storm-wind began to
blow and poor Ilmatar was tossed about helplessly on the waves, until
at length the wind died down, the waves became still, and Ilmatar, worn
out by the violence of the tempest, sank beneath the waters.

Then a magic spell overpowered her, and she swam on and on vainly
seeking to rise above the waters, but always unable to do so. Seven
hundred long weary years she swam thus, until one day she could not
bear the loneliness longer, and cried out: "Woe is me that I have
fallen from my happy home in the air, and cannot now rise above the
surface of the waters. O great Ukko, ruler of the skies, come and aid
me in my sorrow!"

No sooner had she ended her appeal to Ukko than a lovely duck flew
down out of the sky, and hovered over the waters looking for a place
to alight; but it found none. Then Ilmatar raised her knees above the
water, so that the duck might rest upon them; and no sooner did the
duck spy them than it flew towards them and, without even stopping to
rest, began to build a nest upon them.

When the nest was finished, the duck laid in it six golden eggs, and a
seventh of iron, and sat upon to hatch them. Three days the duck sat
on the eggs, and all the while the water around Ilmatar's knees grew
hotter and hotter, and her knees began to burn as if they were on fire.
The pain was so great that it caused her to tremble all over, and her
quivering shook the nest off her knees, and the eggs all fell to the
bottom of the ocean and broke in pieces. But these pieces came together
into two parts and grew to a huge size, and the upper one became the
arched heavens above us, and the lower one our world itself. From the
white part of the egg came the moonbeams, and from the yolk the bright
sunshine.

At last the unfortunate Ilmatar was able to raise her head out of the
waters, and she then began to create the land. Wherever she put her
hand there arose a lovely hill, and where she stepped she made a lake.
Where she dived below the surface are the deep places of the ocean,
where she turned her head towards the land there grew deep bays and
inlets, and where she floated on her back she made hidden rocks and
reefs where so many ships and lives have been lost. Thus the islands
and the rocks and the firm land were created.

After the land was made Wainamoinen was born, but he was not born a
child, but a full-grown man, full of wisdom and magic power. For seven
whole years he swam about in the ocean, and in the eighth he left the
water and stepped upon the dry land. Thus was the birth of Wainamoinen,
the wonderful magician.--From the _Kalevala_.

    "Finnish Legends for English Children," by R. Eivind (T. Fisher
    Unwin).


_TRIBAL MYTH_

=Origin of the Moon=

South and east of Manila Bay stretches a piece of land, on which there
used to be a large forest surrounded and fringed by the Sierra Madre
mountains on the east, and guarded by the active Taal volcano on the
south. This volcano, which is on a small lake, is said to be always
looking toward the east, shouting with his big mouth the name of _Buan
Buan_, a very beautiful nymph who dwelt once in this deep forest. The
large trees formed towering pillars, the vines and moss that grew wild,
together with the blooming flowers, were ornaments of her court. The
birds, the insects, and all kinds of animals were her subjects.

The people who live now in this land say that in the beginning of the
world there was no such thing as the moon that shines at night. They
assert that the origin of the moon came in this wise:

Many thousands of years ago, when the beautiful nymph Buan was in her
court, a warlike tribe settled on her land of enjoyment. The invaders
began to cultivate the rich soil of this place. Buan, seeing that her
flowers would be destroyed and her birds driven away, fled toward the
west in grief. On the sea she saw a little _banca_ into which she
climbed and in which she drifted along until she came to an island near
where the Sun sleeps.

One afternoon when the Sun was about to hide his last rays, he was met
by the beautiful nymph, who at once said to him, "O Sun, bear me with
you, and I will be your faithful wife forever." Without hesitation
or doubt, the gallant Sun, who had been shining over the earth with
open eyes looking for a wife, took Buan under his golden arm, and they
together, as true lovers, departed.

The Arch-Queen of the Nymphs, ever quarrelsome and jealous, seeing the
departure of Buan, sent lightning and hurled thunderbolts after the two
fleeing lovers. Buan, who was peacefully slumbering on the breast of
her lover, fell down into the water. The Sun in his fright ran away,
and continued his course as usual. Pitied by the gods Buan did not
drown, but floated on the foam of the sea. The Sun lighted the world
the next morning with a great deal of heat and sorrow in his eyes,
searching for his lost sweetheart. Buan, who was hidden in the foam
that floated on the sea, did not come out until evening. By that time
Sun had retired to his wonderful cave beneath the ocean. Buan wandered
about until finally she saw a glittering light within the waves. In her
fright she cried aloud. The Sun, who was suddenly awakened from his
cave by her grief, saw her. With a satisfied heart he took her into his
cave, where they dwelt for a whole night. They sat and talked about
their love. The Sun taught her how to travel across the sky. However,
he asked Buan not to follow him in any of his journeys.

One afternoon Buan was sitting before the door of the cave waiting for
her lover. Longing and sentiment grew strong in her, and she remembered
the past days when she had lived in her forest court. This state of
mind made her come out of the cave, and she rode on the air by magic.
For fifteen successive nights she did this, yet she could not see her
old home. Finally she asked her husband to bear her across heaven in
order that she might see her home. The next morning the Sun took Buan
on his back, and they sailed across the sky. The world became dark,
for the sun could not then well illuminate the earth. The gods were
astonished. The Arch-Queen of the Nymphs sent a storm of wind and rain,
which made Buan turn into a soft brilliant mass of light. She was to be
with her husband but once every thirty days. She was also punished by
not being allowed to show herself entirely every night. She could not
sail across heaven for more than thirteen or fourteen days at a time.

                                                        --Emanuel Baja.


_TRIBAL MYTH_

=The First Cocoanut Tree and the Creation of Man=

There were three gods, Bathala, Ulilangkalulua, and Galangkalulua.
Bathala, a very large giant, ruled the earth; Ulilangkalulua, a very
large snake, ruled the clouds; and Galangkalulua, a winged head,
wandered from place to place. In fact, each of these gods thought that
he was the only living being in the universe.

The earth was composed of hard rocks. There were no seas and no oceans.
There were also no plants and no animals. It was indeed a very lonely
place. Bathala, its true inhabitant, had often wanted to have some
companions, but he wondered how he could provide these companions with
food, drink, and shelter when there was nothing on the earth but rocks.

What was true of Bathala was also true of Ulilangkalulua. In his
kingdom Ulilangkalulua saw nothing but white clouds. His solitary
condition led him to visit other places. He often came down to the
earth and enjoyed himself climbing high mountains and entering deep
caves.

As he was at the top of a very high hill one day, he saw some one
sitting on a large stone down below him. He was very greatly amazed and
it was a very long time before he could speak. At last he said, "Sir,
tell me who you are."

"I am Bathala, the ruler of the universe," answered the god.
Ulilangkalulua was filled with anger when he heard these words. He
approached Bathala and said, "If you declare yourself to be the ruler
of all things, I challenge you to combat."

A long struggle took place, and after the fighting had continued about
three hours Ulilangkalulua was slain. Bathala burned his body near his
habitation.

Not many years after this event Galangkalulua, the wandering god,
happened to find Bathala's house. Bathala received him and treated him
kindly. Thus, they lived together for many years as true friends.

Unfortunately, Galangkalulua became sick. Bathala did not sleep day and
night for taking care of his friend. When Galangkalulua was about to
die, he called Bathala and said, "You have been very kind to me, and
I have nothing to repay your kindness with. But if you will do what
I tell you, there is a way in which I can benefit you. You once told
me that you had planned to create creatures of the same appearance as
you in order that you might have subjects and companions, and that you
had not been successful because you did not know how you could supply
them with all the necessary things. Now, when I die, bury my body in
Ulilangkalulua's grave. In this grave will appear the thing that will
satisfy you."

Bathala did what Galangkalulua told him, and Galangkalulua's promise
was fulfilled. From the grave grew a plant, whose nut contained water
and meat. Bathala was very anxious to examine the different parts of
the tree because he had never seen such a thing before. He took a nut
and husked it. He found that its inner skin was hard and that the
nut itself resembled the head of his friend, Galangkalulua. It had
two eyes, a flat nose, and a round mouth. Bathala then looked at the
tree itself and discovered that its leaves were really the wings of
Galangkalulua and its trunk the body of his enemy, Ulilangkalulua.

Bathala was now free to carry out his plan. He created the first man
and woman. He built a house for them, the roof and walls of which were
made of the leaves of the cocoanut and the posts of which were cocoanut
tree trunks. Thus lived happily under the cocoanut palm this couple for
many years until the whole world was crowded with their children. These
children still use the cocoanut for food and clothing--the leaves for
making mats, hats, and brooms, and the fiber for rope and other things.

                                                        --Manuel Reyes.


_ORIGINAL MYTH_

=The Lotus=

Long ago, when the world was young, the Nile loved a maiden. She was
Isis, daughter of a hundred stars, who, as she nightly climbed the dark
pinnacle of cloud, drew her silver drapery across the stream's dark
bosom. Many were the sighs he breathed throughout the long nights--but
Isis heard him not; for the wind had told her of Osiris, Osiris the
beautiful, the well-beloved, who daily waked the dreaming earth with
his warm kiss. And afterwards Mira, the great Star-Mother, bending from
her gleaming throne, had spoken of Osiris and his glittering steeds,
while Isis listening, yearned for him whom she had never seen, whose
radiance was brighter even than that of Nefra-the-fire-bearer, who,
once in a century, flashed through the still heavens. So Isis heeded
not the Nile, moaning at her feet, for her eyes were ever bent on the
rim of the world, whence would come in rosy haste the heralds of Osiris.

But one morning, when the starry sisters were fleeing, one by one,
to the silent underworld, Isis stayed in the dark cloudland. The
night winds called her to hasten, but she heard them not, and stood
waiting--while above the eastern horizon rose the Hours, streaking
the heavens with their amber veils, and borne along behind them,
Osiris himself, more radiant than her dreams. But Osiris, glad in the
greetings of the jubilant earth, saw only a star-maiden lingering in
her pale robes on the borders of the forbidden Kingdom. Catching up a
barbed shaft, he hurled it shrieking through the air--and Isis fell.

The winds fled in horror from the earth; the air shuddered, and shrank
away; but the Nile, roaming in agony through the fields, stretched
out his mighty arms and, with a great cry, gathered the lifeless
star-maiden to his bosom. And there, where Isis fell, rose a starry
flower, pale, but with the stain of the dawn in its heart.

                                                        --Ida F. Treat.


II. The Legend

[Myth and legend compared]

Historically the legend may or may not be a later development than the
myth. The bards may have ascribed the fanciful deeds of the gods to
their tribal heroes, or they may have elevated their tribal heroes into
gods by exaggerating actual adventures into far-reaching phenomena. For
our present study the descent is immaterial; the distinction is all.
In the myth the chief actors are gods; in the legend, men--men endowed
with superhuman strength often, to be sure, but still men, though the
favorites of the gods. The course of events in the typical myth is pure
and absolute imagination; the course of events in the typical legend
is somewhat held down by facts. When the deeds are magnified or wholly
fanciful, the characters are semi-historical; when the events or places
are historical, the chief actors are generally imaginary.

[Saga]

In the myth-legend, or saga, the deeds transcend the ordinarily
credible and the heroes are often directed by superhuman agencies.
Perhaps the oldest examples of this kind are those recorded in the
Sanscrit "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana", and the Persian "Shah Nameh."
In the last occurs the beautiful story of Sohrab and Rustam, who lived
six hundred years before Christ. Firdousi, writing as late as the
first decade of the eleventh century, was therefore working over very
ancient material. Such combinations likewise of older tradition and
later writing are the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf", the French "Chanson de
Roland", the Spanish "Cid", the Italian "Orlando Furioso" (which is the
French story adapted), the German "Hildebrand", "Waltharilied", and
"Nibelungen Nôt", and the Icelandic "Grettir the Strong" and "Volsunga
Saga". The "Volsunga Saga" as we have it today is prose with some songs
from the "Elder Edda". Legend in its written form as a composition
type we think of as prose, though it may be verse, or prose and verse
combined.

[Saint legends]

To the early church a legend meant the narrative of the life of a saint
or a martyr, especially the account of his triumphs over temptation
and of the miracles he witnessed or performed. Even to-day in some
monasteries such stories are read at meals while the monks eat. It is
interesting to note that the church distinguishes between _legenda_,
things to be read, and _credenda_, things to be believed. What appears
to be the earliest of these legends and the model of the others is said
to have been written by St. John of Damascus, a monk of Syria, who
lived in the eighth century. It is called "Barlaam and Josaphat" and
contains besides the lives of the prince and the prophet many beautiful
parables, one of which Shakespeare immortalized in the casket scene in
the "Merchant of Venice". The life of Josaphat is in turn said to be
the legendary life of the Buddha. There are many beautiful Celtic and
Anglo-Saxon Christian stories of this type. In the Cynewulfian group
of Anglo-Saxon Lives of the Saints, the "Andreas" is considered very
fine. With its account of St. Andrew's miraculous rescue of St. Matthew
from prison among the heathen is a sturdy, realistic description of
a stormy voyage on northern seas. "The Golden Legend", published by
Caxton in 1483, is a translation of a celebrated medieval collection of
lives of the greater saints, composed in Latin by Jacobus de Voragine,
a Dominican archbishop of Genoa, in the thirteenth century.

[Geoffrey of Monmouth]

The great English legendary history and a great source-book of English
literary legend is the _Historia Britonum_ of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Besides giving us the original story of Lear and many other things in
his record of British rulers down to the Saxon Invasion, this twelfth
century author, building on the meager basis of an unknown Nennius
and possibly a cleric's version of Welsh traditions, started the
magnificent Arthurian cycle on its way. This Latin account joined the
great stream of continental legendary romance, added to it and took
from it, and came back into English in Layamon's "Brut" in the form of
a series of metrical legends for the common people.

[Legendary romance]

That most original and enchanting of all the medieval legendary romance
books, Malory's "Morte Darthur", stands between the old and the new
English fiction in that it has the content of the one and the form
of the other. In it were gathered up the religious element (that had
come in with the tradition of Joseph of Arimathæa), the love element
(of the Launcelot-Guinevere stories), and the national element
(Arthur, his wonderful Excalibur and his knights), and so emphasized,
so incomparably set forth, so shaken together, if you please, that
they combined and stayed together ever afterwards. On the form side,
this work is prose and it is art--the first English prose fiction, so
announced and so taken. It is literary legend. An artist conscious of
his art offered the material not as history or religion, but as a thing
of beauty. The preface states, "And for to pass the time this book
shall be pleasant to read in, but for to give faith and belief that all
is true that is contained herein, ye be at your liberty."

When stories such as these, either by an aim at history or at art,
emphasize what has been believed, they are classed as legend; when they
emphasize magic and combine history in a riotous way for the mere sake
of astonishing, they are classed as wonder tales.

While on the one side legend shades off into myth and wonder tales,
on the other it shades off into anecdote. A tendency to write legend
instead of fact is always present. As soon as a man or a place becomes
prominent, fictitious stories begin to spring up, founded not only on
what was done, but also on what might have been done. But to persist, a
legendary account must be true to the character and traits of the hero
or town or tribe or race with which it deals; at least, it must be true
to the popular conception of the character. Though innumerable, the
versions of the Faust story, for example, are nevertheless essentially
consistent. Typical legends shading off into history and anecdote are
those about William Tell, Robert the Bruce, Alfred the Great, John
Smith and Pocahontas, and many of the popular tales about Columbus,
Washington, Lincoln, and Rizal.

[Modern literary legends]

There are modern literary legends. An exquisite legend of a place
is "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. A terrific French novel
is founded on the legendary idea of the Wandering Jew. A wholesome
boys' story that is often mistaken for history is "The Man Without a
Country." Selma Lagerlöf, who was given the Nobel prize in 1909 for the
most original piece of literature, has written among others a saint's
legend about a hermit who was won to brotherly love by a pair of birds
that built a nest and hatched their young in his outstretched palms as,
keeping a vow, he stood day and night praying heaven to take vengeance
and destroy the sinful world. Allied to this species is one of Count
Tolstoy's most widely read stories. It is built upon an idea current in
all races and appearing in many legends; namely, of an angel sent by
God to live a while among men. But Tolstoy, with his fervent devotion
to the good of the people, has turned his narrative into a parable, and
calls it "What Men Live By." Another beautiful religious narrative, an
art legend tangent to tradition, is Henry Van Dyke's "The Other Wise
Man."

[How to select and record a legend of growth]

It is easy for one to select a place legend. Every town in the world,
I suppose, has stories connected with it that are only typically
true. Almost every prominent topographical feature has an explanatory
narrative current about it. Take any of these popular tales concerning
the cliffs, river, mountain peak, spring, lake, gully, or pictured
rocks of your neighborhood and you have a legend, so long as your
story confines itself to that particular spot, and does not let its
subject be emphatically the result of great natural forces or of the
cause of all subsequent similar formations. In other words, one must
remember that the basis of legend is particular incident, while that
of myth is universal phenomenon; the content of legend is exaggerated
history, while the content of myth is fanciful science. All one needs
to do to record such a place legend is to arrange the details in a
coherent fashion and to write out the sentences in good, clear, simple
English, sticking as close to the original oral account as correct
syntax will allow. If one cares to write about people instead of
places, one follows in general the same directions, being sure not
to fall into mere anecdote or incident, but to have a full, complete
account.

[How to write a legend of art]

To write a literary art legend, an author selects in history some
period that he likes very much or some hero or heroine he has always
admired, and notes down a number of facts that are connected with one
another and with his subject; then he lets his imagination loose upon
them. He uses terms and expressions of the age of which he is writing;
phrases that now appear quaint add a flavor of reality to the tale. But
he is careful, however, not to misuse words and thus commit what the
critics call anachronism, by putting the idioms peculiar to one age or
one people into the mouth of another. An occasional special touch is
good, but too much straining for effect spoils a story. He gets rather
into the mood of simple faith in greatness and goodness, and tells
of brave deeds and generous actions that might well have happened.
Dramatic truth there must be; literal truth, not necessarily. A working
definition runs somewhat like this:

[Working definition]

Legend is a narrative partly true and partly imaginary, about a
particular person, event, place or natural feature; a story that has
the semblance of history, but is in reality almost altogether fanciful,
since the basic fact is amplified, abridged, or wholly changed at the
will of the narrator.


=Kenach's Little Woman=

As the holy season of Lent drew nigh the Abbot Kenach felt a longing
such as a bird of passage feels in the south when the first little
silvery buds on the willow begin here to break their ruddy sheaths,
and the bird thinks tomorrow it will be time to fly over seas to the
land where it builds its nest in pleasant croft or under the shelter
of homely eaves. And Kenach said, "_Levabo oculos_--I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help," for every year
it was his custom to leave his abbey and fare through the woods to the
hermitage on the mountainside, so that he might spend the forty days in
fasting and prayer in the heart of solitude.

Now on the day which is called the Wednesday of Ashes he set out, but
first he heard the mass of remembrance and led his monks to the altar
steps, and knelt there in great humility to let the priest sign his
forehead with a cross of ashes. And on the forehead of each of the
monks the ashes were smeared in the form of a cross, and each time the
priest made the sign he repeated the words, "Remember, man, that thou
art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."

So with the ashes still in his brow and with the remembrance of the end
of earthly days in his soul, he bent his steps towards the hermitage;
and as he was now an aged man and nowise strong, Diarmait, one of the
younger brethren, accompanied him in case any mischance should befall.

They passed through the cold forest, where green there was none, unless
it were the patches of moss and the lichens on the rugged tree trunks
and tufts of last year's grass, but here and there the white blossoms
of the snowdrops peered out. The dead gray leaves and dry twigs
crackled and snapped under their feet with such a noise as a wood fire
makes when it is newly lighted; and that was all the warmth they had on
their wayfaring.

The short February day was closing in as they climbed among the
boulders and withered bracken on the mountainside, and at last reached
the entrance of a cavern hollowed in the rock and fringed with ivy.
This was the hermitage. The Abbot hung his bell on a thick ivy bough
in the mouth of the caves; and they knelt and recited vespers and
compline; and thrice the Abbot struck the bell to scare away the evil
spirits of the night; and they entered and lay down to rest.

Hard was the way of their sleeping; for they lay not on wool or on
down, neither on heather or bracken, nor yet on dry leaves, but their
sides came against the cold stone, and under the head of each there was
a stone for pillow. But being weary with the long journey, they slept
sound and felt nothing of the icy mouth of the wind blowing down the
mountainside.

Within an hour of daybreak, when the moon was setting, they were
awakened by the wonderful singing of a bird, and they rose for matins
and strove not to listen, but so strangely sweet was the sound in the
keen moonlight morning that they could not forbear. The moon set, and
still in the dark sang the bird, and the gray light came, and the bird
ceased; and when was white day they saw that all the ground and every
stalk of bracken was hoary with frost, and every ivy leaf was crusted
white round the edge, but within the edge it was all glossy green.

"What bird is this that sings so sweet before day in the bitter cold?"
said the Abbot. "Surely no bird at all, but an Angel from heaven waking
us from the death of sleep."

"It is the blackbird, Domine Abbas," said the young monk; "often they
sing thus in February, however cold it may be."

"O soul, O Diarmait, is it not wonderful that the senseless small
creatures should praise God so sweetly in the dark, and in the light
before the dark, while we are fain to lie warm and forget His praise?"
And afterwards he said, "Gladly could I have listened to that singing,
even till tomorrow was a day; and yet it was but the singing of a
little earth wrapped in a handful of feathers. O soul, tell me what
it must be to listen to the singing of an Angel, a portion of heaven
wrapped in the glory of God's love!"

Of the forty days thirty went by, and oftentimes now, when no wind
blew, it was bright and delightsome among the rocks, for the sun was
gaining strength, and the days were growing longer, and the brown trees
were being speckled with numberless tiny buds of white and pale green,
and wild flowers were springing between the boulders and through the
mountain turf.

Hard by the cave there was a wall of rock covered with ivy, and as
Diarmait chanced to walk near it, a brown bird darted out from among
the leaves. The young monk looked at the place from which it had flown,
and behold! among the leaves and the hairy sinews of the ivy there was
a nest lined with grass, and in the nest there were three eggs--pale
green with reddish spots. And Diarmait knew the bird and knew the eggs,
and he told the Abbot, who came noiselessly, and looked with a great
love at the open house and the three eggs of the mother blackbird.

"Let us not walk too near, my son," he said, "lest we scare the mother
from her brood, and so silence beforehand some of the music of the cold
hours before the day." And he lifted his hand and blessed the nest and
the bird, saying, "And He shall bless thy bread and thy water." After
that it was very seldom they went near the ivy.

Now after days of clear and benign weather a shrill wind broke out
from beneath the North Star, and brought with it snow and sleet and
piercing cold. And the woods howled for distress of the storm, and
the gray stones of the mountain chattered with discomfort. Harsh cold
and sleeplessness were their lot in the cave, and as he shivered, the
Abbot bethought him of the blackbird in her nest, and of the wet flakes
driving in between the leaves of the ivy and stinging her brown wings
and patient bosom. And lifting his head from his pillow of stone he
prayed the Lord of the elements to have the bird in His gentle care,
saying,

"How excellent is Thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of
men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings."

Then after a little while he said, "Look out into the night, O son, and
tell me if yet the storm be abated."

And Diarmait, shuddering, went to the mouth of the cavern, and stood
there gazing and calling in a low voice, "Domine Abbas! My Lord Abbot!
My Lord Abbot!"

Kenach rose quickly and went to him, and as they looked out the sleet
beat on their faces, but in the midst of the storm there was a space
of light, as though it were moonshine, and the light streamed from
an Angel, who stood near the wall of rock with outspread wings, and
sheltered the blackbird's nest from the wintry blast.

And the monks gazed at the shining loveliness of the Angel, till the
wind fell and the snow ceased and the light faded away and the sharp
stars came out and the night was still.

Now at sundown of the day that followed, when the Abbot was in the
cave, the young monk, standing among the rocks, saw approaching a woman
who carried a child in her arms; and crossing himself, he cried aloud
to her, "Come not any nearer; turn thy face to the forest, and go down."

"Nay," replied the woman, "for we seek shelter for the night, and food
and the solace of fire for the little one."

"Go down, go down," cried Diarmait; "no woman may come to this
hermitage."

"How canst thou say that, O monk?" said the woman. "Was the Lord Christ
any worse than thou? Christ came to redeem woman no less than to redeem
man. Not less did He suffer for the sake of woman than for the sake of
man. Women gave service and tendance to Him and His Apostles. A woman
it was who bore Him, else had men been left forlorn. It was a man who
betrayed Him with a kiss; and woman it was who washed His feet with
tears. It was a man who smote Him with a reed, but a woman who broke
the alabaster box of precious ointment. It was a man who thrice denied
Him; a woman stood by His cross. It was a woman to whom He first spoke
on Easter morn, but a man thrust his hand into His side and put his
finger in the prints of the nails before he would believe. And not less
than men do women enter the heavenly kingdom. Why, then, shouldst thou
drive my little child and me from thy hermitage and thy hospitality?"

Then Kenach, who had heard all that was said, came forth from the cave,
and blessed the woman. "Well hast thou spoken, O daughter; come, and
bring the small child with thee." And turning to the young monk, he
said, "O soul, O son, O Diarmait, did not God send His Angel out of
high heaven to shelter the mother bird? And was not that, too, a little
woman in feathers? But now hasten, and gather wood and leaves, and
strike fire from the flint, and make a hearth before the cave, that
the woman may rest and the boy have the comfort of the bright flame."

This was soon done, and by the fire sat the woman eating a little
barley bread; but the child, who had no will to eat, came round to the
old man, and held out two soft hands to him. And the Abbot caught him
up from the ground to his breast, and kissed his golden head, saying,
"God bless thee, sweet little son, and give thee a good life and a
happy, and strength of thy small body, and if it be His holy will,
length of glad days; and ever mayest thou be a gladness and deep joy to
thy mother."

Then, seeing that the woman was strangely clad in an outland garb of
red and blue and that she was tall, with a golden-hued skin and olive
eyes, arched, very black eyebrows, aquiline nose, and a rosy mouth, he
said, "Surely O daughter, thou art not of this land of Erinn in the
sea, but art come out of the great world beyond?"

"Indeed, then, we have traveled far," replied the woman; "as thou
sayest, out of the great world beyond. And now the twilight deepens
upon us, and we would sleep."

"Thou shalt sleep safe in the cave, O daughter, but we will rest here
by the embers. My cloak of goat's hair shalt thou have, and such dry
bracken and soft bushes as may be found."

"There is no need," said the woman, "mere shelter is enough," and she
added in a low voice, "Often has my little son had no bed wherein he
might lie."

Then she stretched out her arms to the boy, and once more the little
one kissed the Abbot, and as he passed by Diarmait he put the palms of
his hands against the face of the young monk, and said laughingly, "I
do not think thou hadst any ill-will to us, though thou wert rough and
didst threaten to drive us away into the woods."

And the woman lifted the boy on her arm, and rose and went towards the
cavern; and when she was in the shadow of the rocks she turned towards
the monks beside the fire and said, "My son bids me thank you."

They looked up, and what was their astonishment to see a heavenly glory
shining about the woman and her child in the gloom of the cave. And in
his left hand the child carried a little golden image of the world, and
round his head was a starry radiance, and his right hand was raised in
blessing.

For such a while as it takes the shadow of a cloud to run across a
rippling field of corn, for so long the vision remained; and then it
melted into the darkness, even as a rainbow melts away into the rain.

On his face fell the Abbot, weeping for joy beyond words; but Diarmait
was seized with fear and trembling till he remembered the way in which
the child had pressed warm palms against his face and forgiven him.

The story of these things was whispered abroad, and ever since, in
that part of Erinn in the sea, the mother blackbird is called Kenach's
Little Woman.

And as for the stone on which the fire was lighted in front of the
cave, rain rises quickly from it in mist, and leaves it dry, and snow
may not lie upon it, and even in the dead of winter it is warm to
touch. And to this day it is called the Stone of Holy Companionship.

                                                      --William Canton.

    "W. V.'s Golden Legend" (Dodd, Mead & Co.).


=A Legend of Gapan=

In the early part of December, in the year 1889, a poor man named
Carlos left the town where he lived to go to Gapan, about twenty miles
distant.

Day was beginning to break as Carlos reached the foot of a hill, which
he was just about to climb, when he heard the sound of music. Looking
upward to find whence the sound came, he saw a bright white cloud. From
the center of this cloud shone a ray of light, forming a circle in
which were all the colors of the rainbow.

Carlos could scarcely believe his eyes, till he heard a sweet voice
call his name. He hastened to climb the hill, and at the top found a
very beautiful woman, around whom shone a light that made the stones
and bushes sparkle like gems.

When the man had drawn near, our Blessed Lady--for it was she--told him
that she wished a church to be built on that spot, and bade him go to
Gapan and tell this fact to the priest. On reaching the town, Carlos
went straight to the priest, and related what the Blessed Virgin had
confided to him.

"I believe you," said the priest, "but to be still more certain, ask
her who sends you for some sign by which we may know that she is really
the Mother of God."

Afterwards Carlos went to the spot where the Blessed Mother was
waiting for him. As soon as he saw her, he immediately threw himself at
her feet, and told her what the priest had said. With great tenderness
our Lady bade him come to her the next day, saying she would give him
the sign for which the priest had asked.

Carlos came the next day. "Go now," said the Blessed Virgin, "to the
top of the hill, and gather the roses that are blooming there. Put them
in your handkerchief, and bring them to me; I will tell you what to do
with them."

Though Carlos believed that there were no roses there, he obeyed
without a word. How great, then, was his surprise to find a garden rich
with flowers! Filling his handkerchief with roses, he hurried back to
the Blessed Virgin.

Our Lady took the roses in her pure hands, and letting them drop back
into the handkerchief, said to Carlos, "Present these roses to the
priest, and say that they are the proof of the command I give you. Do
not show any one what you carry, and open your handkerchief only in the
presence of the priest."

Thanking the Blessed Virgin, Carlos started once more for the town.
When he reached the convent and was brought before the priest, he
opened his handkerchief to show the sign that was to prove his words,
and fresh, sweet-smelling roses, wet with dew, fell to the floor, while
on the handkerchief itself appeared a beautiful picture of the Mother
of God.

"The Blessed Virgin is here," said the father, and then he knelt before
the picture and gave praise to God. The miraculous handkerchief was
placed in the church of Gapan, where it remained until a suitable
chapel was built on the very top of the hill, as our Lady desired.

                                                   --Teofilo P. Corpus.


=A Legend of the Incas=

"We will rest here for a time, Uira." The hollow-eyed, tired-looking
youth dismounted from his burro. His companion Uira, a short,
swarthy-skinned Peruvian, turned and gazed down the mountainside whence
they had come, upon the flat roofs of Quito, which seemed like a dream
city, so lovely did the distance make it. "It is beautiful, is it not,
Juan? My home, the home of the Incas, the most ancient city in all the
land?"

"Yes, indeed, it is beautiful, and, Uira, while we rest, you shall
tell me a tale of your people; some pretty legend of the Incas. I
think nothing else would so thoroughly refresh me." Now Juan could by
no exercise of ingenuity have touched a more responsive chord in the
nature of his friend.

"Well, what shall it be, Juan? You have never heard the story of Manca,
have you? It may not be what you would call a pretty legend; yet I
think you would like it," said Uira, readily complying.

"Very well, I know I cannot help but enjoy it," said Juan, as he
settled himself comfortably, with dried leaves for a couch and a tree
stump for a pillow.

"Well," began Uira, his gaze still on the town below them.

"Uira, you're not beginning right; you should say many, many, years
ago." The fine-featured Spanish boy looked mischievously at the stolid
descendant of the Incas.

"You perhaps have heard," went on Uira, discouraging flippancy by
disregarding it, "of the story of Attahualpa; at least you have known
something of it from the histories you have studied; how, before he
died, the mighty Huayan Capar divided his kingdom between his two
sons, Attahualpa and Huascar, half-brothers, giving to Attahualpa
the northern region, Quito, which your geography calls Ecuador; how
Huascar, arrogant in his newly-acquired greatness, demanded tribute
from Quito. You know how Attahualpa angrily refused; how he came at
the head of a great army to the seat of his brother's power, defeated
Huascar, and taking from the conquered man kingdom and freedom, left
him only his life. Then the Spaniards, curses on them all----"

"You forget that I am proud of my Spanish blood, Uira," the lad
interrupted, his cheeks flushing with resentment.

"Ah, yes, Juan, I forgot. Forgive my hasty speech and unintended
insult. But to go on, the Spaniards, mad with lust for gold, marched
with armies legion in number. If you do not know, boy, how many legion
is, look at the tree tops above you; the leaves are countless; they are
legion. The invaders, with the Pizarro at their head, burned our homes,
desecrated our temples, and captured Attahualpa, who, elated with his
conquest, was returning to Quito. The Attahualpa, the records say,
collected in one room and gave the Pizarro the wealth of the Incas; and
your traditions tell you that in fear of his own life, Pizarro put his
captive to death. This is the story of Attahualpa as you have been
taught it.

But I will now tell you what it is given only the few in whose veins
still flows the blood of the Incas to know. Huayan had a daughter
Manca, whose name is not written in the annals. She was sister to
Attahualpa, and in her heart was all the mighty pride of the Incas.
Oh, how she loved the name of her race! How she rejoiced in their
conquests, their prowess! How she delighted to look upon the gold in
the temples, and think that it was all part of the prosperity of her
people! There was a woman, Juan, perhaps not beautiful, I cannot say,
well worthy to bear the name of an Incan.

How she wept when Pizarro, with his Spanish followers, seized
Attahualpa! But do not think that it was for fear that she wept, Juan.
It was for injured pride; for sorrow that she was to lose her dearest
friend, her brother.

But when the loyal girl found that Attahualpa, a ruler, a conqueror
of men, and most of all, an Incan, was bargaining for his life with a
roomful of gold as the price, she prayed to the gods she worshiped, to
take her brother to the spirit world, before he should place this blot
upon the nation. She--heroine that she was--would rather a thousand
times have lost her companion than have had him coward enough to buy
his life thus. Day and night she pondered and prayed, and planned ways
by which she might ward off so awful an outrage against Incan pride.
After a week of despair and vain thought, while Attahualpa was robbing
the shrines of their ornaments to fill the great chamber chosen by the
Spanish general, Manca determined that since she could not by pleading
with Attahualpa or by playing upon his love for his sister or his
country or even for his gods, move him from his purpose, she would at
least save him from himself.

This was Manca's purpose. Perhaps, Juan, I failed to tell you that
Manca bore a very strong resemblance to her brother," and for the first
time Uira looked away from Quito, and glanced questioningly at Juan.
The boy nodded. "Go on," he said, his gaze, too, traveling to the city
of antiquity, where, centuries ago, Manca made her hitherto unrecorded
sacrifice.

"The spirited girl," went on Uira, "realized that when Pizarro had his
booty, his cowardly fear for himself would outweigh his honor, and
cause him to kill his prisoner; and so, when the day came on which
Attahualpa was to open the doors of the treasure-filled chamber,
Attahualpa lay at his home, guarded by servants, who were not to
liberate him till sundown; and Manca, garbed in her brother's clothes,
gave to Pizarro the store of wealth. As she walked home, along a
lonely forest path, she received the poisoned arrow intended for
Attahualpa. He, when he discovered his sister's bravery, slunk off to
the mountains, with never a thought of the rumors which would forever
darken his name. Thus Manca's life, by the sacrifice of which she had
hoped that she might keep bright the fame of her brother, was given
up for the sake of a coward's reputation. By crediting herself with
the surrender of the wealth, she had intended that Attahualpa, though
he had been defeated in battle, should still remain the hero of the
Incas."

There was a pause. The man and the boy both were now staring down at
Ecuador's capital city, whose pillars seemed to be floating in the mist
just rising from Pinchincha's side.

"As you said, it is not a pretty legend. But don't you think, Uira,
that Manca must have been very beautiful?"

                                                   --Dorothea Knoblock.


=The Place of the Red Grass: or, The Invasion of Pangasinan by the
Ilocanos=

Long before the Spaniards discovered the Philippines, there was war in
Luzon among the Pangasinan and Ilocano tribes. Each tribe had powerful
chiefs of remarkable courage and bravery. It was believed that they
were sons of gods, and possessed magical power. Among them was Palaris,
the distinguished chief of the Pangasinanes, and Lumtuad, the skillful
chief of the Ilocanos. These rulers were neighbors and the army of the
one plundered the towns of the other. On account of this reason and
also of the ambition of each to enlarge his dominion, a war broke out.
Lumtuad collected three hundred ships in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. These
ships were loaded with his chosen men armed with bolos, spears, and
bows and arrows. These ships sailed toward the south, and entered the
Gulf of Lingayen, Pangasinan. Palaris and his army went to meet them.

At first, the battle took place on the water. Lumtuad showed his skill
to his enemy. He fought jumping from one ship to another. Unfortunately
he was shot by an arrow and fell into the water. After his death, his
soldiers fought furiously, and drove back the enemy into the town.

When the invading army had landed all its forces, it pursued Palaris's
army as far as Mangaldan, a town fifteen miles from Lingayen. When
Palaris foresaw the future defeat of his army, he escaped into a sugar
field. There by Lumtuad's scouts he was found sleeping. They thrust a
lance through the middle of his body. But Palaris whirled himself free
from the lance, killed some of these soldiers, and pursued the rest
until his last breath was gone. He was then succeeded by his lieutenant
Afilado, and the battle was renewed. Afilado's forces were entirely
defeated and those who survived were killed outright. A river of blood
flowed from the spot where the battle took place, and the grass that
grows there today is red. The place where Palaris was struck was named
after him.

After the war the victorious Ilocanos settled in the province of
Pangasinan; so that now they constitute a greater number in population
than the Pangasinanes themselves.

                                                         --Sixto Guico.


III. The Fairy Tale

[The attitude toward fairy stories]

"From Ghoulies and Ghoosties, long-leggetty Beasties, and Things that
go Bump in the Night, Good Lord, deliver us!" the quaint old litany
pleads, and is probably better representative of the attitude of
primitive peoples toward the extraordinary personages of the sub-world
than is our more modern and debonair view. We have come to look upon a
fairy story as a mental holiday, to enjoy which the narrator and the
listener are off on a picnic. But not so do the unsophisticated folk
think of the events. The grown-up primitive man believes more seriously
in the tricks of goblins and sprites than do our most credulous modern
children. To him, the good or malicious influence of the nunu or
ticbalan is not a fiction, but a reality that must be reckoned with.
Luckily he can reckon with it; for even in the earlier folk tales the
fairies are not generally immortal, and they do not have unlimited
power.

[Fundamental characteristics of fairies]

One chief characteristic that distinguishes these extra-natural beings
from the gods is that the extra-natural are for the most part small and
belong to the under-world. They are not so much superhuman as other
than human. They may be checked or outwitted or even finally overcome.
They have power to tease a man, though not the power utterly to destroy
him. A pixy may cast a spell, but not forever. Jack-o-lantern, or
Will-o-the-wisp, may lead astray into a bog and may hope that his
victim be not a good wader, but the trick and the malicious wish are
the extent of the evil. The victim usually in the end escapes. If he
perishes, he has forgotten his charms or neglects to say his prayers.

There is a somewhat well-fixed literary atmosphere for English fairy
stories and allusions. As we have said, they must have about them the
air of holiday. The English elfin people are a merry folk from the
dainty queen to the clumsiest boggart, and enjoy a bit of fun even at
their own expense,--though, to tell the truth, the joke is usually the
other way.

If you wish to write an original narrative about these charming
creatures, the best way to prepare is to get acquainted with them.
No doubt you know where some of them live. Perhaps only this morning
you chanced upon a forgotten hammock left swinging between two stout
little sprigs of grass where a fairy had slept, or maybe last night
you clearly heard the tinkle of pranckling feet and were too lazy
or indifferent to go to the window to catch a glimpse of a wondrous
sight. I pray you, if you have the chance again, join the masquerade,
remembering only that if Oberon asks you why you are there, you must
speak out frankly. His promise is

  "We fairies never injure men
  Who dare to tell us true."

Oh, yes, one more thing to remember! Leave before cock-crow if you
expect to bring your wits with you.

If you are afraid to try the experiment of original sightseeing and
fear Sir Topas's fate, do the next best thing. Seek out somebody who
has witnessed a fairy revel, or been at a brownies' banquet, has
outtricked a bogie, or propitiated an angry gnome, or, best of all,
likely, has made a little green cloak and hood for the lubber-fiend
of the kitchen hearth, and has seen him fling himself out-of-doors in
high glee to return no more except with good luck. Watchers who have
seen these things, I dare say, will have much to tell you. Get their
narratives.

The Filipino fairies are not so winsome as the English, but they are
far more actual. The English fairies are "but mortals beautifully
masquerading," says Mr. W. B. Yeats. He could find no fault with the
Filipino fairies; for they are potent forces. Like the Irish deenee
shee, the Filipino supernatural beings are thoroughly believed in by
the peasants, and, like the Irish creatures, the Malayan are not always
small, but may be small or large at will. Some of their manifestations
are indeed gruesome; a few are harmless or even helpful; all are very
interesting.

The educated young people of the Philippines have a mission to perform
for the native fairies. It has become the fashion in some places to
frown upon the unseen folk and to attempt to drive them out. The
endeavor is commendable so far as it discriminates. The bad fairies
should go. The wholesome ones should stay. They should stay for the
sake of future native poetry and for the sake of all the little brown
children who love stories.

[Northern fairies and their attributes]

A bare list of the names of fairies and subhuman beings is inspiring.
In the Norse countries there are dwarfs, known also as trolls, kobalds,
goblins, brownies, pucks, or elle-folk. It is said that 'they are
less powerful than gods, but far more intelligent than men; that
their knowledge is boundless and extends even to the future. They can
transport themselves with celerity from one place to another, and love
to hide behind rocks and repeat the last words of every conversation
they overhear. Echoes are known as dwarfs' talk. A Tarnkappe each one
owns, a tiny red cap which makes the wearer invisible. Dwarfs are ruled
by a king spoken of in various northern countries as Andvari, Alberich,
Elbegast, Gondemar, Laurin, or Oberon. He dwells in a magnificent
subterranean palace and owns a magic ring, an invisible sword, and a
belt of strength. His subjects often fashion marvelous weapons and
girdles. In general, dwarfs are kindly and helpful: sometimes they
knead bread, grind flour, brew beer, and perform countless other
household tasks; sometimes they harvest and thresh grain for the
farmers. If ill-treated or turned to ridicule, these little creatures
forsake the house never to come back to it again. Sometimes they take
vengeance by means of changelings. Changelings are the weazened and
puny offspring of the dwarfs which they substitute for unbaptized
children that they steal from people who have offended them. The
dwarfs, envious of the taller stature of the human race, desire to
improve their own, and so consider it good morals thus to make their
enemies their benefactors.'

Fairies, elves, and ariels include all the small creatures who are
fair, good, and useful. They have their dwelling-place, it is said,
'in the airy realm of Alf-heim (home of the light-elves), situated
between heaven and earth, whence they can flit downwards whenever they
please, to attend to the plants and flowers, sport with the birds and
butterflies, or dance in the silvery moonlight on the green.' They have
golden hair, sweet musical voices, and magic harps. These gentle aerial
beings, scholars say, were introduced into Europe by the Crusaders and
the Moors of Spain. Before that time the creatures of the North had
been cold and ungenial, like their heath-clad mountains, chilly lakes,
and piny solitudes; but after the advent of the Peri of the East, who
live in the sun or the rainbow and subsist on the odor of flowers, the
Northern elves took on more winning attributes and finally became
beneficent and beautiful.

Many of the stories in the so-called fairy books are technically
not fairy stories but nursery sagas, as we use the term today; for
instance, most of those in Miss Mulock's "Fairy Book" and the larger
part in the "Blue and the Green Fairy Books." They are English, French,
German, and other _Märchen_ retold. Jean Ingelow's "Mopsa the Fairy"
has a good-sounding title for a typical fairy book, though the material
seems to be literary rather than traditional. Brentano's creatures
in translation surely bear literary names, whatever they have in the
original. Dream-my-Soul and Sir Skip-and-a-Jump are suggestive of
the pen. But Puck of Pook's Hill comes near to being of the solid
traditional Northern type--at least in declaration. He says he is
the oldest Old Thing in England--very much at your service if you
care to have anything to do with him; but, by Oak and Ash and Thorn,
he hates the painty-winged, wand-waving, sugar-and-shake-your-head
set of imposters! He is for Wayland-Smith and magic and the old days
before the Conquest. Charles Kingsley's Madam How and Lady Why are
noble fairies without dispute--really goddesses; yet, strange to say,
they have revealed themselves to a pedagogue and have permitted their
work to be the subject of lectures. Still, they are companionable and
wholesome and none the less marvelous than their more common sisters.
This is an interesting contamination of genres--the pedagogical
narrative combined with the fairy tale. Usually the combination is not
so happily made.

[How to proceed to write a fairy-tale]

If a writer cares to attempt a new "old" fairy tale of the real sort,
he might observe the following more specific suggestions, which were
written out before "Puck of Pook's Hill" came into the hands of the
author of this book, but which happen to express fairly well what might
be deduced as Kipling's procedure. (1) Decide on the country in which
the events are to take place. (2) If you are not already familiar
with that country through the medium of traveling or residence, make
yourself familiar with it by reading. The more you know about the
common people and their superstitions, the better your story will be.
(3) Make lists of names of the good and bad spirits of that country
together with their occupations and powers. (4) From these lists pick
out the being you are going to treat as your chief personage and
clearly define to yourself its relation to the other spirits. (5)
Then weave about this personality a series of events for which it is
directly or indirectly responsible. (6) Be sure to make the fairies
or spirits of the other world the chief actors. If living man comes
in, he must be simply the object to whom they offer their favors or on
whom they play their pranks or wreak their vengeance. It is the doings
of the fairies or of the beings of the extra-natural world that you
must make your reader interested in. (7) If you care to write a weird
fairy tale, select the unpleasant spirits and proceed; but be sure not
to make your story revolting instead of weird. A good weird tale is
the work of a master and pleases because of its art. A horrible story
any bungler can tell. (8) Finally, remember the working definition:
[Summary definition] A fairy tale is a narrative of imaginary events
wherein the chief actors are beings other than man and the gods--beings
who have power to help man or to tease and molest him, but not the
power utterly to destroy him.


PARTIAL LIST OF FAIRIES, GOOD AND BAD, OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES:

=Northern Fairies=

  Duergar, or Dwerger--Gotho-German dwarfs, dwelling in rocks and
    hills; noted for their strength, subtlety, magical powers, and
    skill in metallurgy. They are personifications of the subterranean
    powers of nature.

  Kobold--a house-spirit in German superstition; same as English Robin
    Goodfellow, or Puck.

  Nick--a water-wraith or Kelpie. There are nicks in sea, lake, river,
    or waterfall. Sometimes represented as half-child, half-horse, the
    hoofs being reversed.

  Nis, or Nisse--a Scandinavian fairy friendly to farm-houses.

  Trolls--similar to Duergar; dwarfs of Northern mythology living
    in hills and mounds. They are represented as stumpy, misshapen,
    humpbacked, inclined to thieving and fond of carrying off children
    or substituting one of their own offspring for that of a human
    mother. They are said to dislike noise very much.

  Stromkarl--a Norwegian musical spirit, like Neck.


=Irish and Scotch Fairies=

  Banshee--domestic Spirit of certain Irish or Highland Scotch
    families; supposed to take an interest in their welfare.

  Boggart (Scotch)--a local hobgoblin or spirit.

  Bogie (Scotch, Welsh, and Irish)--a scarecrow, a goblin.

  Brownie--the house spirit in Scottish superstition. Called in England
    Robin Goodfellow. Farms are his favorite abode.

  Jack-a-lantern--a bog or marsh spirit who delights to mislead.

  Lepracaun, or Leprechaun (Irish)--a fairy shoemaker.


=Filipino Fairies and Other Minor Supernatural Creatures=

The list that follows is necessarily very brief, for every tribe of the
Philippine Islands has its host of mischievous creatures, whose chief
delight is to annoy or frighten men. Others are of a more malignant
nature, however; some cause sickness; some insanity; and occasionally
some cause death, for the Filipinos as well as the Hungarians have
their vampires.

The name of the tribe in which the belief in the spirit is most common
is given in parentheses after the description:

  Salut--the spirits of pestilence in general and cholera in
    particular. They are described as tall, thin persons dressed in
    flowing black robes, who walk the streets at night and knock at the
    doors of the houses to which they wish to carry death. (Tagalog,
    Pampango, Bicol.)

  Matanda sa punso--a little old man who lives in a mound of earth. He
    loves children, and is willing to help those who respect him and
    his house. (Tagalog.)

  Lampong--a tall harmless creature with a horse's head and feet but
    a man's body. He lives in the woods, can travel very rapidly, and
    is deathly afraid of a rosary. He possesses some magic power.
    (Pangasinan.)

  Camana--an evil spirit that lives in gloomy places. It can assume the
    form of any small animal, or can make itself invisible. If a person
    who comes across the camana does not propitiate it with food or
    something entertaining, he will become sick; and he can be cured
    only by an old woman who is a manganito. (Parts of Zambales.)

  Patianak--Accounts about patianak are very contradictory. It is most
    commonly believed, however, to be a mischievous fairy that assumes
    the form of a small child and misleads travelers at night. It has a
    mirthful laugh that is very attractive. The only way for the victim
    to drive the fairy away and to find the right road is for him to
    take off his coat and wear it inside out. (Tagalog and Bicol.)

  Mamamarang--a sorceress who fights with travelers in lonely places
    and tries to kill them that she may eat them. (Visayan.)

  Managbatu--a spirit in the form of a man, which lives in trees and at
    midnight throws stones and clods at the houses near his dwelling.
    He can cause sickness to those that try to injure him. (Cagayan.)

  Cafre--an enormous black man that smokes long cigars. He does very
    little harm, but delights in frightening people. Some say he can
    transform himself into almost anything from a pig to a ball of
    fire. He appears only at night, of course. (Pampango, Tagalog,
    Bicol.)

  Tigbalang--a demon who lives in trees, especially the baliti tree.
    His body is covered with long hair and one of his feet is a horse's
    hoof. His chief delight is to lead people astray and make them
    crazy, or to ravage banana plantations, to empty water jars, shake
    houses, and disturb people generally. (Tagalog.)

  Tigabulak--a demon who in the form of an old man entices children
    with candy and cakes. After he has led them far from home, he puts
    them in a sack and carries them to his dwelling. Then he kills them
    and makes money out of their blood. (Tagalog.)

  Caibaan--little mischievous field spirits who play tiny guitars.
    They steal dishes and hide them, and indulge in other pranks.
    (Pangasinan and Ilocano.)


=Russian Fairies and Witches=

  Domovoy--the Russian brownie that lives behind the stove. If he is
    neglected, he waxes wroth and knocks the tables and benches around
    at night.

  Baba-yaga--an ogress who lives on the edge of the forest, in a hut
    built so as to turn with the wind like a weathercock.

  Rusalki--water sprites.

  Vodianoi--river genii.

  Lieshii and the Liesnik--forest demons.

  Vampires--ghosts who steal by night from their tombs, and suck the
    blood of the living during their sleep.


=Arabian Fairies and Witches=

  Jinn--a sort of fairies of Arabian mythology--the offspring of fire.
    (The singular of jinn is jinnee.)

  Afreet--a sort of Arabian ghoul or demon--the epitome of what is
    terrible and monstrous in Arabian superstition.

  Peri (plural of Peris)--Peri are delicate, gentle, fairy-like beings
    of Eastern mythology, begotten by fallen spirits. With a wand they
    direct the pure in mind the way to heaven.


=Miscellaneous Fairies and Other Supernatural Creatures=

  Esprit Follet--the house-spirit of France.

  Familiar spirit--a spirit or demon supposed to be summoned by a
    necromancer or a soothsayer from the unseen world to attend upon
    him as a servant.

  Fay--the French word for fairy, anglicised.

  Gnome--one of a fabulous race of dwarfed and misshapen earth-spirits
    or goblins, reputed to be special guardians of mines and miners.
    (<French _gnome_, from the Greek.)

  Hag--a forbidding or malicious old woman; a witch. (<A. S. _haegtes_,
    a fury.)

  Hamadryad--a wood-nymph fabled to live and die with the tree she
    inhabited, the oak being considered as the tree preferred. (Greek
    mythology.)

  Hornie, or Horny--the devil; so called because commonly represented
    with horns.

  Imp--an evil spirit of low rank; a small, puny, or contemptible
    devil. (Russian folk tales often make use of this spirit.)

  Undine--a female water-spirit without a soul, with which she might
    be endowed only by marrying a mortal and bearing a child. (<Latin
    _unda_, wave.)

  Werwolf--a person who, according to mediæval superstition, became
    voluntarily or involuntarily a wolf and in that form practiced
    cannibalism. (<A. S. _wer_, man + _wulf_, wolf.)

  Wraith--a fantom of a living person, supposed to be ominous of that
    person's death.

  Lamia--a female demon or vampire that enticed youths and fed upon
    their flesh and blood. (Classical mythology.)

  Merrow--a mermaid. (Irish mythology.)

  Monaciello--the house-spirit of Naples.

  Nightmare--an evil spirit once supposed to oppress people during
    sleep. Called also Incubus. (<A. S. _niht_, night + _maere_, a
    nightmare.)

  Ogre--a demon or monster that was supposed to devour human beings.
    (<French _ogre_. The derivation is uncertain.)

  Ouphe--an elf or fairy. (<the Scandinavian. A variation of _oaf_ =
    elf.)

  Pigwidgeon--a very small fairy.

  Sprite--a spirit of the earth or air.

  Sylph--originally, a being, male or female, living in and on the air
    and intermediate between material and immaterial beings. (Used by
    Paracelsus. The word is undoubtedly of Greek origin.)


=The Boggart=

In the house of an honest farmer in Yorkshire, named George Gilbertson,
a Boggart had taken up his abode. He here caused a good deal of
annoyance, especially by tormenting the children in various ways.
Sometimes their bread and butter would be snatched away, or their
porringers of milk be capsized by an invisible hand; for the Boggart
never let himself be seen; at other times the curtains of their beds
would be shaken backwards and forwards, or a heavy weight would press
on them and nearly suffocate them. The parents had often, on hearing
their cries, to fly to their aid. There was a kind of closet, formed
by a wooden partition on the kitchen stairs, and a large knot having
been driven out of one of the deal boards of which it was made, there
remained a hole. Into this one day the farmer's youngest boy stuck
the shoe horn with which he was amusing himself, when immediately it
was thrown out again, and hit the boy on the head. The agent was, of
course, the Boggart, and it soon became the children's sport (called
_laking with Boggart_) to put the shoe horn into the hole and have it
shot back at them.

The Boggart at length proved such a torment that the farmer and his
wife resolved to quit the house and let him have it all to himself.
This decision was put into execution, and the farmer and his family
were following the last loads of furniture, when a neighbor named John
Marshall came up: "Well, Georgey," said he, "and soa you're leaving
t'ould hoose at last?" "Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm forced tull it; for
that villain Boggart torments us soa, we can neither rest neet nor
day for't. It seems loike to have such a malice again t'poor bairns,
it ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on't, and soa, ye see,
we're forced to flitt loike." He scarce had uttered the words when a
voice from a deep upright churn cried out: "Aye, aye, Johnny, we 're
flitting, ye see." "Od hang thee," cried the poor farmer, "if I'd known
thou'd been there, I wadn't ha' stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it's no use,
Mally," said he to his wife, "we may as weel turn back to t'ould hoose
as be tormented in another that's not so convenient."

    From "English Fairy and Other Folk Tales." Selected and edited by
    Edwin Sidney Hartland (Walter Scott Pub. Co.).


=Cafre and the Fisherman's Wife=

Once in the little village of Babancal there lived a happy couple. They
were poor and it was necessary for them both to work for their living.
The husband's occupation was farming during the wet season and fishing
during the dry season. The wife kept the house, helped the husband in
some of his work, and in addition, made mats of _buli_, _pandan_, or
_ticay_, and sacks of _buli_.

One night, at about six o'clock after a slight supper, when it was
_dolom_ (moonless), the husband went to fish. The wife remained alone
at home and sat waiting for the husband, and, at the same time, making
a mat. The house was lighted with a home-made lamp of bamboo and earth.
The lampwick of ragged doth dipped in oil made from the fruit of the
bitaog tree gave a very poor light.

At about midnight some one threw a _dalag_ (a kind of fish) through
the window. The wife was frightened and surprised. In a minute she
recovered herself.

"Come in, Gregorio," she said, for she thought her husband was outside.

No one answered.

"Stop this nonsense. You know it is late now," she said angrily. "You
had better come in and let us cook the fish and eat our supper." She
did not rise from her seat and went on with her work.

In a few minutes a rod with another _dalag_ hanging on it was thrust
into the room. The fish fell on the floor before her.

"Oh, how foolish! Come in, I say," she said.

Hardly had she uttered the last word when the fish on the hook came
down upon her head. She muttered some oaths and tried to catch the fish
and take hold of the rod. But before she could do so, it was raised.
Then she got up, took the lamp, and went to the window.

When she peeped out, she saw Cafre, the Spirit, grinning at her. His
smile showed his large white teeth, forming a strong contrast with
his dark complexion and the darkness of the night. The woman was
frightened. She trembled and could not move an inch. She bent down her
head to avoid his gaze. At last when she raised her eyes, he was gone.

                                                     --Benito C. Ebuen.


=The Friendship of an Aswang and a Duende=

About a half mile from Noveleta there is a small pond. The tall bamboo
trees that grow at the edge of the water bow their heads toward each
other so that they form a complete vaulted arch over the pond. There
are but small spaces left between the thick leaves above and so the
sunshine can hardly go through them. The lilies, the sea weed, and
the falling leaves of the bamboo trees, decaying under the water have
deposited a deep layer of sediment.

A long time ago a shooting meteor from heaven fell on the water of
this pond. This meteor bore within it a beautiful nymph named Bituin.
Her slender white body, whose skin was very delicate, was covered with
beautiful leaves of the lilies whenever she came out of the water.
Every night numberless fireflies lighted her dwelling with their fresh
rays. Bituin had a large diamond, which she always put on a floating
leaf at the center of the pond to serve as a light when it was dark.

Bituin had no neighbors for a number of years, and so she was not
familiar with the form of man. However, as time glided on she was known
by many, who began to love her. She did not dare to speak with men,
because she was not familiar with the ugly complexion of the skin of
mortals. One night an aswang was passing by this pond, and he heard the
musical vibration of the bamboo leaves in harmony with the whistling
sound of the wings of fireflies. He stopped and admired the beautiful
nymph, who was sitting on the water, watching the wonderful rays of
light from her large diamond. He was led to wonder at her beauty, and
he fell in love with her. He asked Bituin to approach him, but his
words had hardly died from his ugly lips when Bituin upon hearing his
unfamiliar voice disappeared. There began the sadness of this aswang.
Every night he passed by the pond only to see and to speak with Bituin,
the beautiful and elusive nymph. Yet all his hopes and efforts were in
vain.

This aswang laid himself to die near a heap of hay. Here lived an army
of small men called duendes. The duendes are usually good to those who
are very strongly in love with women. At midnight one of these little
creatures came out of the hay with a flute longer than himself. Little
duende blew the flute, and the aswang thinking that the sweet vibration
of the air came from the lips of Bituin, at once raised up his head and
looked around. Aswang being a wild man said, "How is it that you little
duendes are so troublesome?" "Master," said the little duende, "I came
here to restore the broken heart of a lover and it is you." "How now
can you comfort me?" said the aswang. "Come with me," said the little
duende, "and show me where Bituin lives."

So they started toward the pond. On their way the duende, being as
small as a little doll, often lost himself from the sight of his friend
aswang. The duende was full of fun and jokes, and he was happy all
the way. When they came near the pond little duende jumped over the
thorny bushes that fringed the dwelling of Bituin. Now he rode on a
lily leaf floating on the water, and he was singing a song at the same
time that he was playing on his flute. He gathered some lily flowers
and put one of them on his head. Duende skipped over the sea weeds as
light as could be. Strange to say, the attractive music caught the
ears of Bituin, and so she appeared before the duende. The music was
so sweet, so charming, and so pleasant to her ears that fear of such
a being never entered her thoughts. She approached the little duende,
but he would not allow her to touch his enchanting flute. Aswang could
not come inside. He tried to jump over the bushes, but he knew that he
could not. All at once he roared with a sharp tone that put Bituin to
flight, and she never returned again.

Duende blamed the aswang for roaring, but the broken-hearted aswang
in anger said, "Why did you not catch hold of her?" Duende did not
answer and tried to flee, but aswang held him by the neck and tore him
to pieces. So from that time on the duendes have not often been heard
of; and, if they ever come, they do evil things and cause misfortune
to little children. None of the aswangs since has ever been afraid of
small creatures.

                                                     --Emanuel E. Baja.


=A Tianac Frightens Juan=

One harvest day, one of our neighbors, whose name is Juan, built a nipa
hut on a farm amid his rice plantation. There he slept alone during the
harvest time to look after his grain.

One night about twelve o'clock he began to feel the cold north wind,
and the leaves began to rustle. By and by the wind stopped. He tried
to sleep, but he could not, for the mosquitoes were too thick. He then
went out of his hut and gathered some dry twigs and grasses and made
a small fire to drive the mosquitoes away. When the fire began to
kindle, he sat before his hut, facing a small hill. Not long afterward
he heard the laughing of a child from the top of the hill. The child
seemed to be very happy, for it laughed as hard as it could. Juan then
began to wonder who the child was, for he knew that no one was living
near him. Soon the laughing grew louder and louder and Juan began to be
frightened. He supposed that the child was approaching him, but at once
the laughing stopped and again everything was silent about the field.
He looked around him several times because he did not know what kind of
creature that child was, and he feared that she might take hold of him
from behind.

While Juan was thinking of what to do, a girl with white complexion and
golden hair appeared before him laughing as hard as she could. Juan
then was about to run away and call for help, but he knew that there
was no one to help him, so he gathered all his strength and courage and
approached the girl with his _bolo_ in hand and said, "Tell me who you
are or else this night is your last." The girl did not answer him, but
continued laughing. He struck at her, but she at once vanished away
and reappeared behind him laughing as hard as she could. He struck at
her several times. He did not touch her at all and she laughed louder.
Juan then threw his _bolo_ at her and ran home shouting as he went
along calling for help, "St. John, St. Peter, St. Nicholas, come and
help me!" When he came to the forest a cricket alighted on his coat
and began to sing. He mistook it for the girl, so he ran very fast.
When he came to the town, the policemen tried to stop him, but they
could not. He tried to tell them that a girl was singing behind him,
but he was so terribly frightened that his calling to the gods confused
him, and while he was running he shouted, "St. John sings, St. John
sings, etc.," until he came to his house. His family asked him what the
matter was, but he could not speak because of fatigue. By this time the
cricket had flown away. Later the family found out that Juan had seen a
_tianac_.

                                                      --Santiago Ochoa.


=The Black Cloth of the Calumpang Tree=

Once there lived on a lonely farm about two miles from the town of San
Juan two brothers whose names were Mariano and Pedro. They were the
sons of a farmer named Rafael.

Along the road leading from this farm to the town there was not a
single house. There was a big calumpang tree by this road about a mile
from the farm. Some of its large branches almost touched the ground.
Many stories had been told about this calumpang; some said that they
saw a ghost in the form of a white dog under it; others said they saw
it in the form of a tall, thin black man sitting sideways on a big
branch with eyes as large as saucers and with a big cigar a meter long
in his mouth.

One day Mariano with his little brother Pedro went to the town to
attend a procession. It was night when they started for home. On their
way when they were out of the town, they heard a noise on one side of
the road not far from them. It seemed to them that the noise was caused
by the walking of a carabao, which was going along the road in the
same direction they were going. They could not tell whether it was a
carabao or not, for the grass was very tall. At last at an open side of
the road, where the noise was, Pedro saw a little white dog. "Mariano,
Mariano, see that little dog," whispered Pedro, touching the back of
his brother with his finger. Pedro looked at it with great surprise. He
could hardly believe that the little creature could make such a loud
noise. The oftener they looked at the dog, the larger it appeared.
Pedro now began to think that this dog was the one that somebody had
seen under the calumpang. He was afraid; he would not go behind nor
before his brother; his hair stood on end, and he felt as if he were
wearing a hat having a large brim; his heart beat faster than before,
but he said not a word. The appearance of the dog reminded Mariano of
the black man of the calumpang. For this reason he was more afraid than
his little brother.

After a while a noise was again heard on the other side of the road.
There appeared a white hog about the size of a carabao. It was also
going in the same direction as the two brothers were. The hog was
grunting, while there was seen coming from his mouth a continuous
discharge of living charcoals. The minute the boys stopped, the dog
and the hog stopped also. The two brothers intended to go back, but
suddenly they heard another noise--_pac, pac, pac_. They looked behind
them and saw a tall black horse mounted by a man dressed like the
prince usually seen in comedies. The man's feet were so long that they
almost touched the ground. The two brothers could do nothing but walk
faster, in order that the horseman might not overtake them.

When they came near the calumpang, a black cloth was extended across
the road. This cloth prevented their further advance, for it would bind
them in case they should touch it. Mariano was then so much frightened
that he could not keep from trembling. He felt as if the very hand of
the black man of the calumpang was holding his head.

"Father, father!" cried Pedro with a prolonged voice, but nobody
answered. The dog growled; the horse pounded the ground with his feet;
the hog snorted, while a greater amount of charcoal than before poured
out of its mouth; the black cloth waved, producing a sound like the
groaning of a sick man. Pedro grabbed his brother by the waist so
tightly that Mariano could hardly breathe. Then Mariano remembered that
he had in his pocket the remainder of a candle which a sexton had given
him at the procession. He quickly lighted it. Instantly the ghosts
disappeared. Mariano and Pedro reached home, but alas! they could
neither eat nor sleep, for it seemed to them as if the ghosts were
still around them.

                                                       --Eusebio Ramos.


IV. The Nursery Saga or Märchen

[Origin]

The ethnologists are not agreed concerning the history of nursery
sagas, or _märchen_, as they call them. Whether such stories as
"Jack-the-Giant-Killer" are reduced and modified forms of once greater
sagas or whether they are immature stories arrested in their growth
toward sagas, the scientists are still discussing. But happily for the
narrator, as we noticed before, the question of origin is not of prime
importance. He need consider it only so far as it helps to reveal the
distinctions of the type.

As the generic title indicates, nursery sagas are tales told to
children after lessons are done. Nobody wants instruction; nobody wants
facts. "Once upon a time in a certain village" is definite enough.
What the listener desires is action, things a-doing, Jack to kill the
giant, Cinderella to marry the prince, Tom Thumb to get safely home.
The end is always happy, no matter how many troubles the hero or
heroine encounters during the course of the narrative. The brothers
Grimm expressed their realization that such an end is essential to a
_märchen_. Their devoted scientific collecting and their charmingly
sympathetic retelling have given back not only to Germany but also to
the whole world much of its otherwise lost pleasure.

[English nursery sagas]

Good native nursery sagas are scarce in English. Many of our best
known, like Cinderella, are importations. "Jack-the-Giant-Killer" and
"Jack and the Bean-Stalk" and "Rumpelstiltskin"--or "Tom Tit Tot," as
the older version has it--are recorded, however, as of English origin.
They have been handed down verbally and in chapbooks and various other
written forms for hundreds of years.

[Distinguishing elements--the kind of hero]

The most important distinguishing element of a nursery saga is the
kind of hero. He is always human, very often sagacious of himself as
well as finally fortunate because of the aid of some supernatural
being or charm; but before the beginning of his adventure he is pretty
generally considered foolish or a lazy ne'er-do-well. He is always of
obscure origin, and is persistently ignored by history. The place where
he lives or where he performs his deeds is selected at random, is of
no practical importance, and might just as well have been any other.
If the locality is definite and the details of the story are really
pertinent, we have crossed the borderland into legend, which is very
near to nursery saga. Indeed, say the students of folk-lore, the same
story is often told in one country as a nursery saga and in another as
a dignified national epic.

[Rhymes]

The uncouth rhymes occurring here and there within the story are to
the nursery saga what the refrain is to the ballad--a sure sign of its
type. All the original tales I dare say had rhymes at first, even if
many are without them to-day.

The artificial nursery saga is not always marked off closely from the
fairy story. Some writers do not appear to have felt the traditional
distinctions; but, when a differentiation is made, it is on the basis
of the chief actor. The irresistible Alice is a true nursery saga
heroine. Whether in "Wonderland" or "Through the Looking Glass" her
adventures are her adventures, and not a fairy's. And although the
dialogue of the characters is imposed by the brilliant naïveté of the
author, it is yet clearly within our classification--as the delectable
rhymes attest.

[Repetition of situation]

Another characteristic you will observe is the repetition of situation:
Cinderella goes to the ball more than once; Jack-of-the-Bean-Stalk
visits the castle in the sky three times; the king's wife is allowed
two false guesses; and there are Cormelian's and Thunderdell's heads to
be cut off as well and Gallingantus's.

Two of our worthy literary men, G. K. Chesterton and Bernard Shaw, have
recently bandied words over the value and significance of such heroes
as Jack. When you come to write an original nursery saga, you can
decide for yourself whether you want your hero to conquer a foe greater
and stronger than he or whether you want your hero to conquer a foe
lesser than he because he himself is greater and stronger than all his
foes and conquers by the magic force of his personality. In making the
decision, however, you should remember that "greater" and "lesser" are
terms subject to a number of varying interpretations.

[Supernatural element]

After you have decided which kind your hero is to be, you must set
about making him human despite the wonderful deeds you mean him to do.
The more human, the more interesting; but he must be naturally human,
not merely philosophically so. The homeliest touches of every-day life
are exactly in keeping with your subject. No poetry here. If you have
metrics interspersed, they must be "from jigging veins or rhyming
mother wits." Nothing higher than "Fee, fi, fo, fum," or "Ninny, ninny
not," or "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold," or "It is not so, nor
'twas not so, but indeed God forbid it should be so." Although your
hero is to be human, he need not stand alone; he may have supernatural
aid. A fairy, a witch, a charm, or anting-anting may help him. Success,
of course, however, must ultimately depend upon his own bravery and
wit. What makes the nursery saga different from the fairy story is
just the element of the independence and prominence of the human hero.
If supernatural agents are present in the nursery saga, they are only
assistants: they are not the chief actors; in fact, they are usually at
first opponents. The human person is the chief actor.

Tolstoy's Ivan the Fool surely wins by the force of his personality
alone. He is one of the _pure_ fools who think no evil and therefore
make men good. Although he has the power the imps have given him to
call up soldiers, rub gold out of oak leaves, and to cure the sick, he
uses this power only for fool-wise ends: he heals beggars, gives away
the gold, and makes the soldiers sing. Despite its didactic purpose,
this is a typical _märchen_ in having the human fool hero in repeated
situations, chanting crude rhymes, and being assisted finally by the
supernatural agents that first opposed him.

[A few specific suggestions]

When you come to the writing, remember that your story is for a
child, grown-up or not grown-up, and that you must therefore make
the language simple and vivid. Use a good many crude similes and
metaphores. Be concrete in comparisons about size, shape, color, garb,
and the like. Though you select your hero with care, you need make
no fine distinctions of character, since broad strokes will be most
effective. Endow your personages, both the hero and his enemy, with a
few mannerisms and let them display these often. Get quickly into the
action of the story and keep things lively to the end.

[Working definition]

Here is the working definition: A nursery saga is a narrative of
imaginary events wherein is celebrated a hero of a more-or-less humble
origin, a child's hero, who, by his own wit and energy, together with
the possession of a charm, is enabled to do stupendous deeds, which
bring to him material happiness.


=Princess Helena the Fair=

We say that we are wise folks, but our people dispute the fact, saying,
"No, no, we were wiser than you are." But shaskas tell us that before
our grandfathers had learned anything, before their grandfathers were
born----

There lived in a certain land an old man of this kind who instructed
his three sons in reading and writing and all book learning. Then he
said to them, "Now, my children, when I die, mind you, come and read
prayers over my grave."

"Very good, father, very good," they replied.

The two elder brothers were such fine strapping fellows, so tall and
stout! But as for the youngest one, Ivan, he was like a half-grown lad
or a half-fledged duckling, terribly inferior to the others. Well,
their old father died. At that very time there came tidings from the
king that his daughter, the Princess Helena the Fair, had ordered a
shrine to be built for her with twelve columns, with twelve rows of
beams. In that shrine she was sitting upon a high throne and awaiting
her bridegroom, the bold young youth who with a single bound of his
swift steed should reach high enough to kiss her on the lips. A stir
ran through the whole youth of the nation. They took to licking their
lips and scratching their heads, and wondering to whose share so great
an honor would fall.

"Brothers," said: Vanyusha (Ivan), "our father is dead; which of us is
to read prayers over his grave?"

"Whoever feels inclined, let him go!" answered the brothers.

So Vanya went. But as for his elder brothers they did nothing but
exercise their horses and curl their hair and dye their mustaches.

The second night came.

"Brothers," said Vanya, "I've done my share of reading. It is your turn
now; which of you will go?"

"Whoever likes can go and read. We've business to look after; don't you
meddle."

And they cocked their caps and shouted and whooped and flew this way
and shot that way and roved about the open country.

So Vanyusha read prayers this time also--and on the third night, too.

Well, his brothers got ready their horses, combed out their mustaches
and prepared to go next morning to test their mettle before the eyes of
Helena the Fair.

"Shall we take the youngster?" they thought. "No, no. What would be the
good of him? He'd make folks laugh and put us to confusion; let's go by
ourselves."

So away they went. But Vanyusha wanted very much to have a look at the
Princess Helena the Fair. He cried, cried bitterly, and went out to his
father's grave. And his father heard him in his coffin, and came out to
him, shook the damp earth off his body, and said, "Don't grieve, Vanya.
I'll help you in your trouble."

And immediately the old man drew himself up and straightened himself
and called aloud and whistled with a ringing voice, with a shrill
whistle.

From goodness knows where appeared a horse, the earth quaking beneath
it, a flame rushing from its ears and nostrils. To and fro it flew, and
then stood still before the old man, as if rooted in the ground, and
cried, "What are thy commands?"

Vanya crept into one of the horse's ears and out of the other, and
turned into such a hero as no skazka can tell of, no pen describe! He
mounted the horse, set his arms akimbo, and flew, just like a falcon,
straight to the home of the Princess Helena. With a wave of his hand,
with a bound aloft, he failed only by the breadth of two rows of beams.
Back again he turned, galloped up, leapt aloft, and got within one beam
row's breadth. Once more he turned, once more he wheeled, then shot
past the eye like a streak of fire, took an accurate aim, and kissed
the fair Helena right on the lips!

"Who is he? Who is he? Stop him!" was the cry. Not a trace of him was
to be found!

Away he galloped to his father's grave, let the horse go free,
prostrated himself on the earth, and besought his father's counsel. And
the old man held counsel with him.

When he got home, he behaved as if he hadn't been anywhere. His
brothers talked away, describing where they had been, what they had
seen, and he listened to them as of old.

The next day there was a gathering again. In the princely halls there
were more boyars and nobles than a single glance could take in. The
elder brothers rode there. Their younger brother went there, too,
but on foot, meekly and modestly, just as if he hadn't kissed the
Princess, and seated himself in a distant corner. The Princess Helena
asked for her bridegroom, wanted to show him to the world at large,
wanted to give him half her kingdom; but the bridegroom did not put
in an appearance! Search was made for him among the boyars, among
the generals; everyone was examined in his turn--but with no result!
Meanwhile, Vanya looked on, smiling and chuckling, and waiting till the
bride should come to him herself.

"I pleased her then," says he, "when I appeared as a gay gallant; now
let her fall in love with me in my plain caftan."

Then up she rose, looked around with bright eyes that shed a radiance
on all who stood there, and saw and knew her bridegroom, and made him
take his seat by her side, and speedily was wedded to him. And he--good
heavens! How clever he turned out, and how brave, and what a handsome
fellow! Only see him mount his flying steed, give his cap a cock, and
stick his elbows akimbo! Why, you'd say he was a king, a born king!
You'd never suspect he was once only Vanyusha.

    From "Russian Fairy and Folk Tales." Translated and edited by W. R.
    S. Ralston (Hurst and Company).


=Juan the Guesser=

Once there lived a youth by the name of Juan. He was the only son of
a family and so he was dearly loved. One day his father said to him,
"Juan, you are quite old now so you have to study." "Yes, father," said
Juan obediently. Juan was then sent to a large town to school. But he
did not study; he spent all his time going to places of amusement. When
vacation was coming near, Juan bought a reader so that he could give
proof that he studied. His father was very anxious to see him and so
prepared a large fiesta in honor of his arrival. When Juan arrived,
he would not speak his dialect, and if he was asked something he just
answered "Si, señor." Everybody then was astonished; for all thought
that he had learned so much that he had forgotten his own dialect.

One day Juan threw his father's plow into a well because he wanted to
show the people that he knew how to divine. The father came to him then
and said, "Dear Juan, will you tell me where I can find the plow which
I lost yesterday?" "Ah, father!" said Juan, "there is no difficulty in
finding it; fetch my book and I will look it up." The father obeyed
instantly and Juan looked in his book and said:

    "A B C, A B C,
      Oh, my father's plow is lost!
    A B C, A B C,
      It has the well for a host."

"Well, my book tells me that it is in the bottom of the well." The
father ordered the servants to look in the well, and sure enough they
found the plow in it. The father was very proud of his son now, for he
had had a real proof of his ability. So Juan was called prophet and his
name was heard everywhere.

Once the princess of his country lost a very valuable ring, and the
king offered to marry her to the one who could find the ring. But he
ordered that anyone who might attempt and not guess rightly should be
beheaded. Many of the wise men in the kingdom attempted to guess, but
nobody was right and so they had to be killed. The rumors of Juan's
knowledge reached the king's ears, so he sent a carriage to his home
in order to bring him to the palace. Juan did not want to go because
he knew that he would surely be killed. He could not disobey the king,
however, and so he got into the carriage. As soon as he entered the
carriage he became very sad and thoughtful and repented of having
tricked his father. When they were quite near the town of the king,
Juan opened his book and groaned sadly:

    "Someone is to die,
    Not far from here, oh, my!"

Instantly the carriage stopped and the driver presented himself before
Juan and said, "Oh, sir! I beg you to pardon me; I am the one who stole
the princess's ring. She was washing her hands in a dish one day and
took the ring off her hand, and then threw the water away. While I was
cleaning the garden I saw it and picked it up. Kindly forgive me, here
is the ring!" Juan did not take the ring, but said, "I forgive you now;
I thought you would not tell me anything about it, and I was going to
tell the king to have you killed, for I knew, that you were the one who
stole it; my book said so. As soon as we arrive at the palace, place
the ring under the stairs and cover it with a cocoanut shell." The
driver was very happy and promised to do everything he was commanded.

Juan was received with honors in the palace and when he was asked about
the ring, he told everything about the theft of it from the information
he had got from the driver and said, "My book tells me all of this and
says that now it is under a cocoanut shell under the stairs." Everybody
went down to look for it and they found it. Once more now Juan's
knowledge was talked of everywhere. According to the king's promise, he
was married to the princess. The marriage ceremony was celebrated with
much pomp and splendor, and many kings from different countries came to
attend it.

Once a neighbor king came to Juan's country. When he went to the
palace and met the other king, he said, "If your son-in-law is really
a prophet, I propose to you a wager. I have three watermelons in my
ship; one of them has one seed, the other has two, and the other has
three. Should your son-in-law guess which has one, which has two, and
which has three seeds, I will give you half of my kingdom. But if he
fails, you will have to give me half of yours." The king was well
pleased to hear the proposal, and being confident of Juan's knowledge,
he accepted it. Fortunately, while the two kings were conversing, the
vassals of the foreign king stood near the door of Juan's room and
talked about the watermelons. One of them said, "If I were the one to
guess I would say that the smallest has three seeds, the largest has
two, and the middle-sized has one, then I should be very rich and would
be as powerful a king as our master." Juan, after hearing all that the
men had said, went to his bed and pretended to be asleep. When the
foreign king had gone away, his father-in-law went to awake him in his
room, and told him everything about the challenge. Juan said that he
was afraid of no defiance so long as he had his book. The next morning,
when the king and he went to the boat, Juan told exactly the number
of seeds in each watermelon, according to what he had heard, after
reading, or rather feigning to read, some characters in his book. The
fruits were cut open then and it was found out that Juan was right. The
king, his father-in-law, was very happy and liked Juan very much, for
he said that Juan was, without any doubt, the wisest man the world ever
knew.

Not long after this another king came on a large ship loaded with
money. He came to propose another challenge. He said that he had
three earthen jars, filled with salt, water, and vinegar. And if Juan
should guess what each contained, the load of this ship would be his
father-in-law's; but if he should fail, the king had to give him in
turn another ship full of money also. The king accepted the proposal
immediately; but Juan was very sad because he knew that the king would
order him to be beheaded if he should not guess rightly. So he decided
to commit suicide before the day when he should appear before the
contending monarchs. During the night he went down silently and threw
himself in the river behind the palace, in which the foreign ship was
anchored. He tried to drown himself, but he could not, for he knew how
to swim. He heard then some men talking in the ship, and one of them
said, "If that guesser could just know that the jar with white marking
on the neck contains salt, and the one which has the largest lid holds
vinegar, he would be the richest man on earth." Juan swam quietly back
after hearing this and slept. The next morning Juan and the king went
to the ship, and Juan, after turning back and forth the leaves of his
reader, told rightly the contents of every jar. The king was very happy
and held a large festival in honor of the wise Juan the Prophet.

Juan was afraid to hazard his life any more, so he burned his magic
volume. From that time on he never guessed any more, because he said
that his book was gone and so his knowledge, too.

                                                 --Bienvenido Gonzales.


=The Shepherd Who Became King=

Many years before the birth of Christ, when the victorious legions
of Rome were gradually conquering the then known world, there lived
in a foreign country a cruel and despotic king. He had a daughter in
the very bloom and freshness of youth. She was so beautiful that many
a young man of the country asked her father to allow him to be his
son-in-law. The suitors were so many that the king determined to marry
his daughter to somebody. But he could not find the right man. He sent
proclamations to the different provinces of his kingdom, telling the
people that he intended to marry his daughter to the man who could
accomplish three things which the king would require the competitor to
do; but if the competitor should fail to do the three things within the
required time, his head should be cut off. Many young men attempted,
but they were all killed.

Near the king's palace there was living at that time a shepherd. This
man had, since his boyhood, devoted his life to the interests of his
fellow countrymen. Everybody loved him.

One day while he was tending his sheep out in the fields, an old woman
saw him and said, "Receive this pipe as a present from me. Whenever you
want anything from any animal, blow this pipe and the desired animal
will come to you. Keep this carefully for it will be of great service
to you." The shepherd thanked her and went away. He wanted to know
whether the woman was telling the truth or not. So he blew the pipe
and said, "Come here, all the serpents." He no sooner said these words
than hundreds of serpents came to him hissing and twisting. Then he
dismissed them.

He decided to compete for the hand of the princess. So he went to the
palace in the evening and expressed his desire. "Ha! ha!" said the
king, "do you want to have your head cut off, young man?" "We will see
the result," said the shepherd proudly. "All right," said the king;
"the first thing you must do is to eat in one day all of the bread
there is to be found in my granary. You must either eat the bread or
lose your head."

"I will go to the granary now and begin eating," said the shepherd.

"Well, go!" said the king, and he told a soldier to conduct the
shepherd to the granary. The shepherd was locked up in the granary with
nobody but himself and the bread. He took out the pipe which he had
concealed under his coat. He blew the instrument and said, "Come here,
all of the rats." He had just finished his command when thousands of
rats came to him. He told them to eat all of the bread. The rats were
so numerous that all of the bread was eaten before daybreak. Not a
single crumb was left. Many rats arrived too late to get their share.

When the king and his court went to the granary in the morning, they
were surprised to see that the building which was full of bread the day
before was now totally empty. "All right," said the king, "you have to
do the second thing. You must separate in one day the grains of corn
from the grains of rice. Go to my granary, where you will find the corn
and the rice. Remember the punishment."

"All right," said the shepherd; "I'll go to the granary this evening
and begin my work."

So he went to the building where the corn and the rice were and there
he was locked up again. He then blew his pipe and said, "Come here, all
of the ants." Just then millions of ants arrived. He told the big ants
to pick up all of the grains of corn and place them on one side of the
granary. To the small ants he assigned the work of selecting the grains
of rice and placing them on the other side of the building. The ants
were so numerous that the entire work was finished before morning.

The king and his court were surprised to see that the shepherd had done
his work. "Very well," said the king, "you have to accomplish the third
and last thing and then you may marry my daughter."

"I'll do the work this afternoon," said the shepherd. "Good!" said the
king. "Come here this afternoon at two o'clock. I'll give you twelve
wild hares. Tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock you must return them to
me without a change in any of them. The number must be exact."

At two o'clock in the afternoon the shepherd went to the palace. The
king gave him the twelve hares. They were no sooner in the hands of the
shepherd than they ran away. The king and his court laughed loudly and
said, "He will not catch them. He is sure to fail in his work."

"We will see," said the shepherd proudly. He then went to his cottage.
He blew his pipe and said, "Come all of the twelve hares of the king."
He had no sooner said these words than the twelve hares came to him and
began to jump about him.

An hour later the king sent one of his servants to see whether the
shepherd was out looking for the hares or not. When the servant reached
the shepherd's cottage, he was surprised to see the hares sleeping
quietly by the side of the shepherd. The servant went back to the king
and related to him all that he saw. The king grew pale and did not
know what to do. He told the princess to go to the shepherd and try to
get one of the hares. So the princess disguised herself as a country
girl and went to the shepherd's cottage. The shepherd recognized her
immediately. Her solicitations were all in vain. At last the shepherd
said, "I'll give you one of the hares if you scrub my kitchen for me."
To prevent herself from being married to the shepherd she said "Yes."
So the shepherd told her to do her work. When she had finished her
work, the shepherd gave her one of the hares. When she was a hundred
yards from the shepherd's cottage, the shepherd blew his pipe and said,
"Come here, the hare with the princess." He had just finished speaking
when the hare ran away from the princess to the side of the cottage.

The princess was crying when she reached the palace and told the king
how she had been fooled. The king determined to get one of the hares
by means of money. So he disguised himself as a merchant, mounted a
horse with two panniers slung on the sides, and went to the shepherd's
cottage. But the shepherd recognized him at once. His solicitations
also were in vain. Even the bag of gold was useless. The shepherd would
not allow himself to be fooled. At last he said, "I'll give you one of
the hares if you wash my feet." To prevent the marriage of the princess
with the shepherd, the king agreed. So he dismounted and washed the
shepherd's dusty feet. Then the shepherd gave him one of the hares. The
King put the animal in one pannier and went away. But his undertaking
was unsuccessful. The note of the pipe and the cry of the shepherd
excited the hare, who jumped out of the pannier and ran away.

The king went to the palace with a sad face. He told his courtiers how
unsuccessful he had been, and went to his private room. The next day at
two o'clock in the afternoon the shepherd returned the twelve hares.
Not a single hare was changed.

But the king still refused to fulfill his promise. He told the shepherd
to fill a bag with all the bad words he knew. The shepherd uttered
every kind of bad words; but the bag was still empty. But one thing
came to his mind. He said loudly, "The princess scrubbed my kitchen
yesterday afternoon." The princess jumped from her seat and said, "The
bag is full."

"No," said the king. "Continue." "The king," said the shepherd,
"wa--wa--wash----" The king jumped from his throne and said, "That's
enough," and tied the bag. The marriage was then arranged and the next
day the shepherd and the princess were married.

From this time on the shepherd and princess lived happily for many
years. He succeeded his father-in-law as king.

                                                 --Vincente M. Hilario.




CHAPTER II

THE SYMBOLIC-DIDACTIC GROUP


We now turn to a set of stories with a new basis, the symbolic-didactic
narratives: fables, parables, and allegories. By the word "symbolic"
we shall understand that the stories mean something more than appears
on the surface. By "didactic," the fact that the narratives are told
for the purpose of teaching a lesson. The hearer no more believes in
the mere literal occurrence than does the narrator himself. The meaning
is the concern of both. For the time being, the story-teller has set
himself up as a preacher, or the preacher as a story-teller. His object
is to make vivid and dramatic a lesson in manners, morals, religion,
politics, or art.


I. The Fable

[Æsop]

The fable is a very old type of narrative, so old that critics are not
sure of the place of its origin. Some think that it rose at the court
of Crœsus with Æsop and spread eastward and westward. Others maintain
that it came from India to the court of the Lydian king, and was
adopted by Æsop, the king's state orator, as a most convenient device
for impressing political lessons on a restless people in a scattered
empire. Others say that there never was a man Æsop at all. But legend
goes into detail to the effect that this ancient politician was once a
slave and that he rose from his servile condition to be the counsellor
of kings by the sheer force of his brains and an appreciation of
practical problems (much as our self-made men of today have risen).
Once even, when sent as a royal messenger to a rebellious and distant
part of the empire, he quelled a mob and saved his own life by his
ready wit in telling a story and applying the moral. He wrote nothing
himself, legend goes on to admit, but he scattered his practical
narratives far and wide, and they were finally collected as a distinct
species of literature.

[Other early fabulists]

Whatever the truth of the legend may be, it is certain that there were
in the Greek language early collections of fables called "Æsop." More
than three hundred years before Christ, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
translated stories from "Æsop." Plutarch and Lucian, in the second
century after Christ, remade them. In the thirteenth century Marie de
France versified a hundred of them, using an old English source which
we cannot now find. She called her collection Ysopet, or "Little Æsop."
Finally in 1447, Planudes, a monk of Constantinople, put forth in prose
a collection of about three hundred stories, which bears the name of
"Æsop."

[Hitopadesa and Panchatantra]

The East never stopped to cavil about the source of fables. It has
always loved the type. The Hindoos have two very ancient Sanscrit
collections of fable-like discourses--the "Panchatantra" (Five Books),
written in prose, and the "Hitopadesa" (Friendly Instruction), in
verse. These differ from ordinary sets of fables in having the
principle of connection throughout and in being, instead of mere
brief tales, rather romantic and dramatic dialogues and expositions
designed as text-books for the instruction of princes and those called
to govern. Many selections, however, have been taken out, translated,
modified, and used either as whole stories or as elements of larger
ones.

[Reynard the Fox and beastiaries]

The very widely read and extensively translated eleventh century
"Reynard the Fox" is a beast-epic, and not a fable in the technical
sense of the term. As likewise the bestiaries are not fables. Those
quaint medieval collections of false lore, modeled probably on
some earlier Greek or Latin _physiologus_, were meant as doctrinal
expository allegories rather than zoological treatises or than
narratives which would fall within our present classification. Yet they
are allied to this group in that they are symbolic and didactic and
permit unnatural natural history.

[Some more writers of fables]

There have always been men who wrote of their own times original
satires in the form of fables, exposing vice and folly. Phædrus, a
freedman of Augustus, wrote five such books in the reign of Tiberius.
Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Poggio knew and used the type. The
greatest name in modern literature in connection with the fable is that
of the Frenchman Jean de la Fontaine, who lived at the court of Louis
Fourteenth. He expressed in exquisite verse-narrative very high social
maxims. Many of our finest well-known fables are paraphrases of his
lines. His own favorite was the "Oak and the Reed." He is supposed
to have drawn his inspirations from Phædrus. Our own English writers,
Gay and Pope, Addison and Prior, Steele and Dodsley, Moore, Goldsmith,
Cowper, and others, wrote fables both in prose and verse. Indeed,
worthy old Henryson, of "Robin and Makyne" fame, wrote in the fifteenth
century a book of "Morall Fables of Esope the Phrygian" in Chaucerian
stanzas. One of these poems he calls the "Uplondish Mous and the Berger
Mous." Kriloff, the Russian fabulist, who died in the middle of the
nineteenth century, disputes the highest place with La Fontaine in the
minds of many critics, especially for his originality. A twentieth
century humorous set of rational apologues is George Ade's "Fables in
Slang."

The popular "Uncle Remus" stories are negro animal-myths rather than
fables. Though Kipling's first "Jungle Book" narratives are in effect
_sui generis_, they belong with fable typically if anywhere, as the
unnatural very natural beast philosophy evinces. "His Majesty's
Servant," the last of the volume, is easily classified. Some of the
later tales are animal-myths, however--to wit, "How Fear Came" and
"How the Camel Got His Hump;" and some, like "The Miracle of Purun
Bhagat," are legends; but the talk and actions of the animals in all
are fable-wise. The French, it seems, have lately pushed the type
the farthest, though in a logical direction. They have retained the
animal talk and the satire, but have cast away the narrative. Under the
patronage of Rostand, Sir Chanticler has come before the footlights.
This play happens to be an anomalous union of the two old distinct
meanings of the word "fable"--one, the undelying story of a drama; the
other, a symbolic, usually satiric, didactic tale.

[Working definition]

In the narrative sense of the term, a fable is a very brief invented,
double-meaning story in which a lesson of every day practical morality
is taught. The kind of lesson is one of the points that distinguish
fable from parable and allegory. The fable never aims higher than
inculcating maxims of prudential conduct--industry, caution, foresight,
and the like--and these it will sometimes recommend at the expense of
the higher, self-forgetting virtues. A typical fable reaches just the
pitch of morality which the world will approve. In spirit the fable
is often humorous, often ironical. In diction it is always simple,
forceful, and appropriate.

Three classes of fables have been noticed: (1) the rational--in
which the actors and speakers are solely human beings or the gods
of mythology, (2) the non-rational--in which the heroes are solely
animals, trees, vegetables, or inanimate objects, (3) the mixed--in
which the rational and non-rational are combined.

[Classes of fables]

Now what distinguishes all these from myth and legend is the presence
of the evident and acknowledged didactic purpose. What distinguishes
the first class, the rational fable, from a parable is the low plane
of the motive. Above the utilitarian the fable never rises. If the
fable teaches honesty, it teaches it merely as the best policy. What
distinguishes the non-rational and the mixed fables from allegory is
both the limitation of the moral and the kind of hero. The lesson of
the fable is always piquant, single, and clear. The actors in a fable
are always things concrete in nature as well as in the story.

The most popular, and hence the most typical of the three classes of
fables, is the second, often called also the "beast fable." The beast
fable departs somewhat from the laws of nature. In the dialogue,
animals and inanimate objects act like human beings. A fox and a bear,
for instance, will philosophize on politics. A lion and a mouse will
exchange courtesies. But it is a remarkable feature of this type of
story that we do not resent the incongruity. And that we do not resent
it is because there is a truthfulness that is more interesting to us
than is the natural order of the universe--namely, the truthfulness of
characterization. Here the verisimilitude must be complete. Although
acting the part of rational beings, the animals must be true to our
accepted notion of their animal nature--a fox must be foxy; a bear,
bearish; a lion, haughty; a mouse, timid; a cat, deceptive; a monkey,
mischievous; a canary, dependent; an eagle, lofty; and so on, and so
on. It is not necessary that they have no other characteristics, but it
is necessary that they possess the commonly ascribed ones.

[How to write an original fable]

To write what is strictly a fable, a person will need to observe the
distinctions of the type in general as cut off from parable on the one
hand and allegory on the other, and to observe the distinctions of the
subdivisions within the type. Then he must decide, of course, which
subdivision he is going to follow, must select his moral, pick out his
actors, think over their characteristics, and finally narrate a brief
occurrence in a vivid, homely style. The dialogue, while correct,
should be very colloquial. It is well for one to pay especial attention
to author's narrative, likewise, that it may be informing though
limited. After all is told, the writer may or may not affix a maxim at
the end, definitely and neatly stated. In either case, however, the
lesson taught should be unmistakable. Original and spirited fables
could be written in the field of civic morals, about which the world
has just begun to think seriously. Despite the good work that is being
done in the name of charity, there is room surely for pleasant satire
when a Happy Childhood Society gives elaborately dressed dolls to naked
babies.

If one chooses to write a rational fable, where the actors are human
beings, one must be careful not to write a parable. The lesson of a
fable is always unsentimentally practical--not spiritual. Where the
actors are gods, or gods and men, the student-writer must distinguish
fable from myth. He should not aim at explaining a universal
phenomenon, but simply at teaching a single, acute, work-a-day lesson.


=Armenian proverbs that might be used for fable maxims=

1. When a man sees that the water does not follow him, he follows the
water.

2. Strong vinegar bursts the cask.

3. Dogs quarrel among themselves, but against the wolf they are united.

4. Only a bearded man can laugh at a beardless face.

5. Make friends with a dog, but keep a stick in your hand.

6. One should not feel hurt at the kick of an ass.

7. Running is also an art.

8. He who speaks the truth must have one foot in the stirrup.

9. Before Susan had done prinking, church was over.

10. When you are going in, first consider how you are coming out.

11. The ass knows seven ways of swimming, but when he sees the water he
forgets them all.

12. A shrewd enemy is better than a stupid friend.

13. Because the cat could get no meat he said, "Today is Friday."

14. A goat prefers one goat to a whole herd of sheep.

15. A near neighbor is better than a distant kinsman.

16. When I have honey, the flies come even from Bagdad.


_RATIONAL, WITH THE ACTORS GODS AND MEN_

=Jupiter and the Countryman=

Jupiter, to reward the piety of a certain countryman, promised to
give him whatever he would ask. The countryman desired that he might
have the management of the weather in his own estate. He obtained his
request, and immediately distributed rain, snow, and sunshine among his
several fields as he thought the nature of the soil required. At the
end of the year when he expected to see a more than ordinary crop, his
harvest fell infinitely short of that of his neighbors. Thereupon he
desired Jupiter to take the weather again into his own hands, for the
countryman knew that otherwise he should utterly ruin himself.

                                                    --Spectator No. 25.


_NON-RATIONAL--INANIMATE OBJECT_

=The Drop of Water=

A drop of water fell out of a cloud into the sea, and finding itself
lost amid such a countless number of its companions, broke out in
complaint of its lot. "Alas! what an insignificant creature am I
in this vast ocean of waters! My existence is of no concern to the
universe; I am reduced to a kind of nothing, and I am less than the
least works of God." It so happened that an oyster, which lay in the
neighborhood of this drop, chanced to gape and swallow it up in the
midst of its humble soliloquy. The drop lay a great while hardening in
the shell till by degrees it was ripened into a pearl. The pearl fell
into the hands of a diver, after a long series of adventures, and is at
present the famous ornament fixed on the top of the Persian diadem.

                     --Persian fable. Adapted in the Spectator No. 293.


_POLITICAL SATIRE_

=The Grandee at the Judgment-Seat=

Once in the days of old a certain Grandee passed from his richly dight
bed into the realm which Pluto sways. To speak more simply, he died.
And so, as was anciently the custom, he appeared before the justice
seat of Hades. Straightway he was asked, "Where were you born? What
have you been?"

"I was born in Persia, and my rank was that of a Satrap. But, as my
health was feeble during my lifetime, I never exercised any personal
control in my province, but left everything to be done by my secretary."

"But you--what did you do?"

"I ate, drank, and slept; and I signed everything he set before me."

"In with him then at once to Paradise."

"How now, where is the justice of this?" thereupon exclaimed Mercury,
forgetting all politeness.

"Ah, brother," answered Eacus, "you know nothing about it. But don't
you see this? The dead man was a fool. What would have happened if
he, who had such power in his hands, had unfortunately interfered in
business? Why, he would have ruined the whole province. The tears
which would have flowed then would have been beyond all calculation.
Therefore, it is that he has gone into Paradise, because he did not
interfere with business."

I was in court yesterday, and I saw a judge there. There can be no
doubt that he will go into Paradise.

                                                             --Kriloff.


_BEAST FABLES_

=The Lion and the Old Hare=

On the Mandara mountain there lived a Lion named Fierce-of-Heart,
and he was perpetually making massacre of all the wild animals. The
thing grew so bad that the beasts held a public meeting, and drew up a
respectful remonstrance to the Lion in these words:

"Wherefore should your Majesty thus make carnage of us all? If it may
please you, we ourselves will daily furnish a beast for your Majesty's
meal." Thereupon the Lion responded, "If that arrangement is more
agreeable to you, be it so;" and from that time a beast was allotted to
him daily, and daily devoured. One day it came to the turn of an old
hare to supply the royal table, who reflected to himself as he walked
along, "I can but die, and will go to my death leisurely."

Now Fierce-of-Heart, the lion, was pinched with hunger, and seeing the
Hare so approaching, he roared out, "How darest thou thus delay in
coming?"

"Sire," replied the Hare, "I am not to blame. I was detained on the
road by another lion, who exacted an oath from me to return when I
should have informed your Majesty."

"Go," exclaimed King Fierce-of-Heart in a rage; "show me instantly
where this insolent villain of a lion lives."

The Hare led the way accordingly until he came to a deep well, whereat
he stopped, and said, "Let my lord the King come hither and behold
him." The Lion approached, and beheld his own reflection in the water
of the well, upon which, in his passion, he directly flung himself, and
so perished.

                          --Hitopadesa. Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold.


=The Fox and the Crab=

The Fox and the Crab lived together like brothers; together they sowed
their land, reaped the harvest, thrashed the grain and garnered it.

The Fox said one day: "Let us go to the hill-top, and whoever reaches
it first shall carry off the grain for his own."

While they were (starting) to mount the steep, the Crab said:

"Do me a favor; before we set off running, touch me with your tail, so
that I shall know it and be able to follow you."

The Crab opened his claws, and when the Fox touched him with his tail,
he leaped forward and seized it, so that when the Fox reached the goal
and turned around to see where the Crab was, the Crab fell upon the
heap of grain and said: "These three bushels and a half are all mine."
The Fox was thunderstruck and exclaimed:

"How did you get here, you rascal?"

This fable shows that deceitful men devise many methods and actions for
getting things their own way, but that they are often defeated by the
feeble.

                      --Turkish Fable. Translated by Epiphanius Wilson.


_RATIONAL, WITH THE ACTORS MEN_

=The Fool Who Sells Wisdom=

A certain fool kept constantly passing through the streets of a town.

"Who will buy wisdom?" he cried in a loud voice. A citizen met him on
his way, accosted him, and presented him with some small pieces of
money.

"Sell me a little wisdom," he said.

"Here it is," replied the other, cuffing him heartily, and immediately
putting into his hands a long thread.

"If you wish in the future to be wise and prudent," said the hawker to
him, "always keep as far away from fools as the length of this thread."

Moral: We should avoid all connection and communication with fools and
cranks.

                                                                --Ibid.


_ALMOST A PARABLE_

=The Archer and the Trumpeter=

The Archer and the Trumpeter were travelling together in a lonely
place. The Archer boasted of his skill as a warrior, and asked the
Trumpeter if he bore arms.

"No," replied the Trumpeter, "I cannot fight. I can only blow my horn,
and make music for those who are at war."

"But I can hit a mark at a hundred paces," said the Archer. As he
spoke, an eagle appeared, hovering over the tree tops. He drew out an
arrow, fitted it on the string, shot at the bird, which straightway
fell to the ground, transfixed to the heart.

"I am not afraid of any foe; for that bird might just as well have been
a man," said the Archer proudly. "But you would be quite helpless if
anyone attacked you."

They saw at the moment a band of robbers, approaching them with drawn
swords. The Archer immediately discharged a sharp arrow which laid low
the foremost of the wicked men. But the rest soon overpowered him and
bound his hands.

"As for this trumpeter, he can do us no harm, for he has neither sword
nor bow," they said, and did not bind him, but took away his purse and
wallet.

Then the Trumpeter said: "You are welcome, friends, but let me play you
a tune on my horn."

With their consent he blew loud and long on his trumpet, and in a short
space of time the guards of the King came running up at the sound, and
surrounded the robbers and carried them off to prison.

When they unbound the hands of the Archer, he said to the Trumpeter:
"Friend, I have learned to-day that a trumpet is better than a bow; for
you have saved our lives without doing harm to anyone."

This fable shows that one man ought not to despise the trade of
another. It also shows that it is better to be able to gain the help of
others than to trust to our own strength.

                                                                --Ibid.


=The Courtship of Sir Butterfly=

It was a beautiful May morning. The air was soft and balmy, still
retaining the freshness of the evening. Sir Butterfly woke up very
early to go to the garden and pay a visit to the beautiful flowers
that grew there. The garden looked inviting. For there was already
Miss Sampaguita, fresh as the morning with little drops of dew on her
cheeks; there was the tall and graceful Miss Champaka; there was Miss
Ilang-ilang, giving perfume to the balmy air that kissed her; there was
Miss Sunflower with her face toward the Eastern Gate--all of them were
expecting early and courteous visitors.

However, Sir Butterfly was a shrewd critic, and could find faults in
each one of these beauties. But when he came before Miss Rose, he
found himself at a loss what to say. In fact, he was fascinated by her
beauty, and soon began to flutter about her. After a while he addressed
her in this way:

    "Fair Rose, thou art the queen of flowers;
    This throne I give alone to thee;
    And this I'll say at all hours,
    The sweetest nectar thine must be.

    "Thy garment of the purest green
    Befits right well thy being a queen;
    And this I have to say to thee,
    The sweetest nectar thine must be.

    "Thy cheeks are rosy, lips are red
    With tints of freshness never dead;
    Come, give me a kiss, sweet Rose,
    Of thine own nectar sweet, a dose."

Here Miss Rose interrupted him. "Nay, nay, please do not flatter me,"
she said in a tone of affected coquetry.

But Sir Butterfly continued his recitation:

    "Thy graceful form invites me
    A dear embrace to give thee."

Saying this, he drew near her and passed his arms around her body.
But what an embrace! The thorns held him fast; he was now a wounded
prisoner. In a tone of anger and despair he cried: "Let me free, you
ugly, ugly Miss Rose!"

MORAL: The seemingly desirable is not always desirable, or
circumstances alter estimates.

                                                     --Máximo M. Kalaw.


=The Hat and the Shoes=

Once a man owned two faithful servants, a hat and a pair of shoes. The
shoes had always been jealous of the hat: in the first place, because
the master carried the hat instead of the hat's carrying him; secondly,
because the hat was given a great deal of care and had a regular place
where it was put; while the shoes, who carried both the master and the
hat, were just thrown anywhere after their service.

Of course the shoes did not feel satisfied with such partial treatment,
and had long wished to have a short talk with the hat to discuss this
matter of importance; but they had always been put far apart.

One day, while their master was asleep and while they were having a
rest, a child got hold of the hat and the shoes as playthings. The
shoes were then glad of this; for they could have a hearty chat. Soon
afterwards, the child grew tired of playing and feel asleep. They then
discussed their respective positions.

"Why is it, my friend," asked the shoes, who began the discussion,
"that you are always carried by our master and taken good care of?"

"Don't be envious of my position, my friend shoes. Our master takes
such good care of me because I protect the most important part of his
body, while you, you just serve his feet," replied the hat.

"You are mistaken. Yes, you are entirely mistaken. I serve not only his
feet, but his legs, body, and hands, and head too, and what is more, I,
a servant, also serve you who are like myself," argued the shoes. The
hat was ashamed because of what the shoes had expounded and was unable
to continue the discussion.

MORAL: When you occupy a position of dignity, don't think that those
below you are your servants and their work is of little value; for
generally those men are the ones who support you, and their services
may be of more importance than yours.

                                                       --José R. Perez.


=The Crocodile and the Peahen=

Once there lived a young crocodile on the bank of the Pasig River. He
was so fierce and so greedy that no animals dared to approach him. One
day while he was resting on a rock, he thought of getting married. He
said aloud, "I will give all that I have for a wife." As he pronounced
these words, a coquettish peahen passed near him. The naughty crocodile
expressed his wish again. The coquette listened carefully, and began to
examine the crocodile's looks.

She said to herself, "I will marry this crocodile. He is very rich.
Oh, my! If I could only have all those pearls and diamonds, I should
be the happiest wife in the world." She made up her mind to marry the
crocodile. She then alighted on the rock where the crocodile was, who
made his offer again with extreme politeness, as a hypocrite always
does. She thought that the big eyes of the crocodile were two beautiful
diamonds and that the rough skin was made of pearls, so she accepted
the proposal. The crocodile asked the peahen to sit on his mouth, that
she might not spoil her beautiful feathers with mud. The foolish bird
did as she was told. What do you think happened! He made a good dinner
of his new wife.

MORAL: Be attracted by quality rather than wealth.

                                                   --Elisa R. Esquerra.


=The Old Man, His Son, and His Grandson=

In olden times, when men lived to be two or three hundred years old,
there dwelt a very poor family near a big forest. The household had but
three members--a grandfather, a father, and a son. The grandfather was
an old man of one hundred and twenty-five years. He was so old that
the help of his housemates was needed to feed him. Many a time, and
especially after meals, he related to his son and to his grandson his
brave deeds while serving in the king's army, the responsible positions
he filled after leaving a soldier's life; and he told entertaining
stories of hundreds of years gone by. The father was not satisfied with
the arrangement, however, and planned to get rid of the old man.

One day he said to his son, "At present, I am receiving a peso daily,
but half of it is spent to feed your worthless grandfather. We do not
get any real benefit from him. To-morrow let us bind him and take him
to the woods, and leave him there to die."

"Yes, father," said the boy.

When the morning came, they bound the old man and took him to the
forest. On their way home the boy said to his father, "Wait, I will
go back, and get the rope." "What for?" asked his father, raising
his voice. "To have it ready when your turn comes," replied the boy,
believing that to cast every old man into the forest was the usual
custom. "Ah! if that is likely to be the case with me, back we go, and
get your grandfather again."

                                                   --Eutiquiano Garcia.


II. Parable

[Parable contrasted with fable]

The parable, like the fable, is a short didactic story; but the
lesson of the parable is always spiritual, though not necessarily
religious. The fable never rises above the common-place: it preaches a
worldly morality. Self-interest and prudence are its tenets; it often
satirizes; it laughs at mankind. The parable, on the contrary, is
always serious: it is earnest and high in its purpose. It tries to win
mankind to generosity and self-forgetting, or tries to shame him for
his neglect by presenting good deeds in contrast with his, or tries
to drive him forth to an awe-struck repentance by a representation of
righteous anger.

The actors in a parable never violate the laws of nature. If animals
appear, for instance, they do not talk. They follow as the friends
or subjects of man, as in actual life. Man's dominion over them is
spiritual; hence they may have a place in the parable along with him
but not without him.

[Characteristics of parables]

Where the parable departs from the true story is in the fact that the
men in the parable are types, and the deeds are symbolic. We have not
Mr. John W. Richards, a particular farmer and an individual, plowing
a field of corn in Mason County, Illinois, on July 3; but instead we
have such statements as these: "The Farmer went out to plow his corn,"
"The Sower went out to sow the seeds," "A Householder hired laborers
for his vineyard;" or "Once a King had two servants," or "The Prodigal
sat among the swine in a far country." If the name of an actor is ever
individual--like that of Abraham, for instance, in Franklin's prose
parable, or Abou Ben Adhem in Leigh Hunt's poem--the actor himself is
nevertheless representative. Abraham stands for the whole Jewish people
in its exclusiveness; and Abou Ben Adhem, for all doubters who yet love
their fellow-men. A character's seeing of angels or hearing of the
voice of the Deity does not break the versimilitude of parables; for
these matters are readily taken subjectively.

The spiritual truth of a parable is generally independent and separable
from the story, which can always be read as narrative of actual events,
though it is meant to be symbolic. The interpretation comes from
without. It is either left to be inferred by the reader or is written
before or after the narrative in the form of a summarizing figure of
speech or a detailed collated exposition. You remember that Christ took
his disciples aside and explained his parables to them.

[Tolstoy]

Count Tolstoy has written many parables. He combines his teaching with
virile realism until he is as enthusiastically read as are the popular
and less spiritual authors. "What Men Live By" is an exquisite example
of his teaching, and, while it embodies a church legend, is a regular
parable in form. It has the requisite generic atmosphere about it: the
shoemaker and his wife, the rich purchaser, the kind foster-mother,
and the children are all types. The intense realism comes in in the
representation of Russian life. The lesson is given in an orderly
exposition after the narrative of events is finished.

[Suggestions on writing parables]

In writing an original parable, one should avoid the diction of
the Bible, that is, should avoid phraseology archaic or especially
religious; but it would be well to imitate the simplicity and
straightforwardness of the Biblical narrative. A modern parable writer
to be successful would avoid mawkishness, and what is popularly
designated as "preaching,"--but he would shadow forth nevertheless
very clearly a high, spiritual truth. He would study living examples
carefully so as to express inevitable actions in a few luminous words.
There are many noble lessons to be taught by the actions of typical men
in typical situations.

[Working definition]

The adjectives symbolic, serious, spiritual, typical, and natural might
be embodied in a working definition thus: A parable is a narrative of
imaginary events, a symbolic didactic story, wherein the actors are
always types of men or types of men and animals (never exclusively
of animals), and whereof the lesson is always spiritual, single, and
separate, and the tone is always serious, and the events always appear
natural and customary.


A list of proverbs that might be expanded into parables

1. God understands the dumb.

2. What a man acquires in his youth serves as a crutch in his old age.

3. Begin with small things that you may achieve great.

4. He who steals an egg will steal a horse also.

5. One can spoil the good name of a thousand.

6. One bad deed begets another.

7. The grandfather ate unripe grapes and the grandson's teeth were set
on edge.

8. What is play to the cat is death to the mouse (modern, political
parable).

9. When a man grows rich, he thinks his walls are awry.

10. Better lose one's eyes than one's calling.

11. What the wind brings it will take away.

12. No one is sure that his light will burn till morning.

13. The scornful soon grow old.

14. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

15. Love ever so well, there is also hate; hate ever so much, there is
also love.

16. To rise early is not everything; happy are they who have the help
of God.

17. By asking, one finds the way to Jerusalem.

18. When God gives, he gives with both hands.

19. Until you see trouble you will never know joy.

20. We are intelligence, that we may be will.

21. Act only on that maxim which thou couldst will to become a
universal law.


=The Three Questions=

It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right
time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to
listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what
was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he
might undertake.

And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed
throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to any one
who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who
were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most
important thing to do.

And learned men came to the King, but they all answered his questions
differently.

In reply to the first question, some said that to know the right time
for every action, one must draw up in advance, a table of days, months
and years, and must live strictly according to it. Only thus, said
they, could everything be done at its proper time. Others declared
that it was impossible to decide beforehand the right time for every
action; but that, not letting oneself be absorbed in idle pastimes,
one should always attend to all that was going on, and then do what
was most needful. Others, again, said that however attentive the King
might be to what was going on, it was impossible for one man to decide
correctly what is the right time for every action, but that he should
have a Council of wise men, who would help him to fix the proper time
for everything.

But then again others said there were some things which could not wait
to be laid before a Council, but about which one had at once to decide
whether to undertake them or not. But in order to decide that, one must
know beforehand what was going to happen. It is only magicians who know
that; and, therefore, in order to know the right time for every action,
one must consult magicians.

Equally various were the answers to the second question. Some said,
the people the King most needed were his councillors; others, the
priests; others, the doctors; while some said the warriors were the
most necessary.

To the third question, as to what was the most important occupation:
some replied that the most important thing in the world was science.
Others said it was skill in warfare; and others, again, that it was
religious worship.

All the answers being different, the King agreed with none of them, and
gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right answers to
his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his
wisdom.

The hermit lived in a wood which he never quitted, and he received none
but common folk. So the King put on simple clothes, and before reaching
the hermit's cell dismounted from his horse, and, leaving his bodyguard
behind, went on alone.

When the King approached, the hermit was digging the ground in front
of his hut. Seeing the King, he greeted him and went on digging. The
hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the
ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.

The King went up to him and said: "I have come to you, wise hermit,
to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the right
thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom
should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And what
affairs are the most important, and need my first attention?"

The hermit listened to the King, but answered nothing. He just spat on
his hand and recommenced digging.

"You are tired," said the King, "let me take the spade and work a while
for you."

"Thanks," said the hermit, and, giving the spade to the King, he sat
down on the ground.

When he had dug two beds, the King stopped and repeated his questions.
The hermit again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out his hand for
the spade, and said:

"Now rest awhile--and let me work a bit."

But the King did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One hour
passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the
King at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said:

"I come to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can
give me none, tell me so, and I will return home."

"Here comes some one running," said the hermit, "let us see who it is."

The King turned around, and saw a bearded man come running out of the
wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood was
flowing from under them. When he reached the King, he fell fainting on
the ground moaning feebly. The King and the hermit unfastened the man's
clothing. There was a large wound in his stomach. The King washed it
as best as he could, and bandaged it with his handkerchief and with a
towel the hermit had. But the blood would not stop flowing, and this
King again and again removed the bandage soaked with warm blood, and
washed and rebandaged the wound. When at last the blood ceased flowing,
the man revived and asked for something to drink. The King brought
fresh water and gave it to him. Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had
become cool. So the King with the hermit's help, carried the wounded
man into the hut and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed the man
closed his eyes and was quiet; but the King was so tired with his walk
and with the work he had done, that he crouched down on the threshold,
and also fell asleep--so soundly that he slept all through the short
summer night. When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could
remember where he was, or who was the strange bearded man lying on the
bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes.

"Forgive me!" said the bearded man in a weak voice, when he saw that
the King was awake and was looking at him.

"I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for," said the King.

"You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who
swore to revenge himself on you because you executed his brother and
seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the hermit, and I
resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did
not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and I came upon
your bodyguard, and they recognized me, and wounded me. I escaped from
them, but should have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I
wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now if I live, and if
you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid
my sons do the same. Forgive me!"

The King was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and
to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said
he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him, and
promised to restore his property.

Having taken leave of the wounded man, the King went out into the porch
and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished once more
to beg answer to the question he had put. The hermit was outside, on
his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before.

The King approached him, and said:

"For the last-time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man."

"You have already been answered," said the hermit still crouching on
his thin legs, and looking at the King, who stood before him.

"How answered? What do you mean?" asked the King.

"Do you not see," replied the hermit. "If you had not pitied my
weakness yesterday, and had not dug these beds for me, but had gone
your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented
of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you
were digging the beds; and I was the most important man, and to do me
good was your most important business. Afterwards, when that man ran to
us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if
you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made
peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for
him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one
time that is important--Now! It is the most important time because it
is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he
with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings
with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good,
because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"

                                                --Count Leo M. Tolstoy.

    "Twenty-Three Tales from Tolstoy," translated by L. and A. Maude
    (Oxford Press).


=A Master and His Servant=

Once a rich man was riding on horseback over a desert. He was going to
the palace to be knighted by the king. With him was his trusty servant,
who was to take care of their baggage and their food. As the master's
horse was stronger than the servant's, the master went very far ahead.
At last he came to a lonely tree by the road. He intended to stop in
the shade, but when he got there, he found a poor trader almost dying
of hunger. He had pity on him, so he threw him a piece of cake, which
fell on his breast. Alas! the poor man could not move his hands to pick
it up. The master, however, would not dismount and help the wretched
man, but started on, leaving him about to die.

Soon the servant came to the same place. His heart was greatly moved
upon seeing the traveler's pitiful appearance. As the servant was about
to drink a few drops of water that still remained in a bottle, the
suffering man looked at him. Therefore, he dismounted from his horse,
and poured the water into the man's mouth. After a while the man could
move his body a little. The servant thought that with a cup of pure
warm water the poor traveler would recover his strength. But no water
could be found in the desert. So he killed his horse, took the blood
from its heart, and gave it to the traveler. The servant did not leave
the traveler until he could get up without help. At last the servant
started on his journey with the baggage on his head, leaving his dead
horse and the traveler in the middle of the desert. He left to the
traveler some bread, clothes, the saddle and his hat.

It was evening when he arrived at the palace. His master had been
waiting for him impatiently. Without asking a question, the master
began to whip his servant, because he had lost everything except their
baggage. The servant would have suffered more had not the king chanced
to see him. Both were brought before the king, who asked the servant
what the matter was. The poor servant knelt before the king with his
hands crossed over his breast, and then told the whole story. Seeing
that the servant was as respectful, brave, and kind as a knight ought
to be, the king made him a noble instead of his master.

                                                       --Eusebio Ramos.


=The Parable of the Beggar and the Givers=

"Good people, alms! Alms for the poor!" whined an uncouth beggar who
stood huddled close, to the cold stones of a shop wall, and there
sought shelter from the wind.

Two brothers, well clad and warm, walking homeward together, turned
and looked to see whence the appeal came. The elder carelessly tossed
a silver piece into the out-stretched palm, and muttered, "Odious
beggars!" Then he hastened on. The younger man, however, stopped and
asked how such willing pauperism had gained ascendancy over pride.
The alms-seeker then told a story of search for employment, of
repeated failures, and of the final surrender of self-esteem. The youth
pitied the vagrant, and offered to furnish him a method of gaining
independence. He readily accepted the help and a new worker began to
labor in the vineyards of the brothers.

Some years later, when the time arrived for the people to send a new
burgher to the capital to represent them, men came from the city to
ask the fruit-gatherers which of their employers should be the choice
for the office. Then the chief of the workmen spoke out, "The elder
will fling you a coin and a curse. The younger will give you laws and
improvements for your city. He will teach you to earn the coin for
yourself."

The next year the giver of charity went to the great council in Berlin,
while the giver of alms superintended the vine-growing and envied his
brother's good fortune.

                                                   --Dorothea Knoblock.


III. Allegory

The word allegory is used widely to signify any figurative and symbolic
writing (proverb, parable, metaphor, simile, or allegory proper); but
we are going to use it in its distinctive and academic sense as a
rhetorical and narrative type.

[Characteristics]

Like the fable and the parable, the allegory teaches a lesson; like
them it is a story, but longer than either, more detailed than either.
Connected with the actors in it are generally abstract ideas used
figuratively, directly personified as people on adventures or used to
form the atmosphere, the goal of attainment, the place of destination,
the road over which the hero travels. For instance, Youth sets out
from the House of Innocence over the Road of Life and strays into
the Path of Temptation that leads through the Wood of Error. Here he
meets Falsehood and Shame, and overcomes them, for the time at least,
and passes through the clearing of Experience toward the Castle of
Perseverance, grim and dark and uninviting, that stands hard by, yet
beyond, the House of Mirth, etc., etc.

When you write an allegory, you will not be so trite as this
illustrative example, but will get a good idea, a good spiritual
lesson, and will teach it with a unique and original plot in which
the adventures themselves are interesting. The world's greatest prose
allegory, "Pilgrim's Progress," has always been read for the story.
The "Faerie Queene" as a metrical romance and a triple allegory of
religion, Elizabeth's court, and the perfect man, has been a storehouse
for prose narrators as well as for poets for three hundred years.
Practically all the old morality plays were allegories. "Everyman," the
best extant, is very vital indeed when put on the stage.

[Plato's "Vision of Er"]

Plato's great myth-allegory in the "Republic" was designed by him to
teach his people his theory of the transmigration of souls and how they
might safely pass over the river of Forgetfulness without being defiled
and might hold fast to the heavenly way and follow after Justice and
Virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure
every sort of good and every sort of evil. Popularly the story is known
as a vision; but Socrates, Plato's literary character who tells the
story, calls it a tale, a tale of a brave man Er, the Son of Armenius,
who, on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, returned
to life and told what he had seen in the other world.

This device of a vision was widely adopted, doubtless indirectly from
Plato, as a good framework for allegory. We find the medieval poets
dreaming dreams and letting their souls depart from their bodies pretty
generally.

[Modern Allegories]

The romance and the allegory were the prime medieval types, and we
find them persisting together or apart in our own English literature
from William Langland's "Piers the Plowman" with its Tower of Truth,
Conscience, Envy, Advice of Hunger, and the like, to Henry Van Dyke's
"Blue Flower" with its crystal river flowing from a mysterious source.
"The Hunter" and the "Artist's Secret" by Olive Schreiner and "Poems
in Prose" by Oscar Wilde are exquisite modern examples. Nathaniel
Hawthorne wrote scarcely anything that is not inlaid with allegory. The
"Great Stone Face" is a fine instance of how concrete pure allegory
can be. It teaches a beautifully spiritual truth by the portrayal of
American customs and everyday human shortsightedness. A good German
prose allegory is "Peter Schlemihl: or, The Man Who Sold his Shadow."
Stevenson's tremendous study, "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde," is really allegory.

A review of the names of the older but famous allegories will be
perhaps more interesting and suggestive than the perusal from beginning
to end of any one of them would be, for they are for the most part
long and tedious.

[Some famous English allegories]

In early Anglo-Saxon verse we find appearing the favorite device of
allegory, the vision. In the "Dream of the Rood" the author tells of
how he saw a strange Tree, the gallows of shame, now the glorious Tree
of the Savior, and how it told its life-history. "The Address of the
Soul to the Body" is a grim allegorical dialogue. In "The Phoenix," the
fabulous bird represents Christ, as does also the Panther in the other
poem, the sweet-breathed, lonely, harmless beast. These are all verse,
and with the exception of the "Dream of the Rood" hardly narrative. The
last two are really English bestiaries. "The Romaunt of the Rose," the
greatest medieval allegory, in its English form, contains seventy-six
hundred ninety-eight lines. You will find all these included in
Chaucer's work, but only seventeen hundred five are his.[1] The
"Parlament of Foules" and the "House of Fame," however, are his, but
not "The Court of Love," "the Flower and the Leaf," "The Cockowe and
the Nightingale." Between Chaucer and Spenser come Dunbar's "Thistle
and the Rose" and "The Golden Targe;" Lydgate's "Temple of Glass;"
Hawes's "Pastime of Pleasure;" Douglas's "Palace of Honour" and "King
Hart;" Lyndesay's "Dream" and "Complaint of Papingo;" Barclay's "Ship
of Fooles;" Sackville's "Induction" to the "Mirror for Magistrates."
After Spenser, besides Phineas Fletcher's "The Purple Island" and
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," come Addison's "Vision of Mirza,"
Parnell's "Paradise of Fooles," Thomson's "Castle of Indolence,"
Johnson's "Journey of a Day," Collin's "The Passions," and Aikin's "The
Hill of Science."

In the beautiful Elizabethan English translation we have also the
allegories of the Bible, of which the "Twenty-third Psalm" is doubtless
the best known example, as it is perhaps the best loved quotation
from the Old Testament. All the psalms put their truths allegorically
in the broad literary sense. Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the other prophets
often speak in strict allegorical narratives, which they explain either
immediately or later. The great literary beauty of the "Revelation"
depends on the exquisite use of allegory; the leaves of the tree of
life are for the healing of the nations; the water of the river of life
is for everyone that thirsteth.

[Allegory and parable distinguished]

Mention of Hawthorne's use of allegory calls to mind the distinction a
student of narrative types must make between parable on the one hand
and a particular kind of allegory on the other, that kind in which
there are no abstractions. He asks himself, What is the difference
when both narratives have only people for actors? He finds the answer
in the fact that the actors of the parable are always representatives
of a type, doing nothing outside the type, nothing individual, while
the actors of that sort of allegory in which there are no personified
abstractions are always individual men even though they may have
universal vices or virtues; that is, they perform individual deeds
and go through peculiar experiences, that not all the men of their
class could perform and go through. But although more individual,
the allegory is less human than the parable; for the happenings of
the parable are always probable, while those of the allegory may be
probable, improbable, or so fantastic as to be wholly impossible.

The allegory is usually longer also than the parable. Besides, unlike
the parable, the allegory demands no interpretation from without, but
carries its interpretation along from name to name. Hence the allegory
can be said to be an extended metaphor, and the parable, a long half
simile. On the other hand, many proverbs are concise parables and many
are also brief allegories.

[Allegory and fable distinguished]

Allegory meets fable on the fact that both may be satiric; but stands
aside from fable on the fact that allegory is much longer and employs
personified abstractions as characters. Hawthorne's "Celestial
Railroad" is an example of humorous-satiric allegory. Parable, we
recall, is always spiritual, allegory often so, and fable never.

[Working definition]

When you set out to write, therefore, you will have in mind a general
summary somewhat like this: An allegory is a narrative of imaginary
events designed to teach a series of utilitarian or spiritual
truths--the actors in the events being either individuals with typical
follies, vices, and virtues, or personified abstractions that go
through individual and particular experiences.

[How to write allegory]

To proceed to write original allegory you will need to pay especial
attention to (1) the series of lessons you mean to teach: Shall it be
in the realm of politics, trade, education, or general morals? (2) The
tone of your teaching: Shall it be humorous or grave? (3) The kind
of personages: Shall they be real persons made more-or-less typical
and abstract, or shall they be abstractions made more-or-less concrete
and individual? (4) The course of the action: What shall happen? There
must be something a-doing that is in itself interesting and that has a
beginning, a middle, and an end. You must not fall into the error of
merely enumerating and cataloguing. You must have a definite action
going forward in which your personages take a necessary part. Allegory
fell into disrepute in the past because of the attempts of lazy and
careless writers. There is evidence of its revival as a popular type. A
present-day writer in the _Atlantic Monthly_ has shown us how vigorous,
informing, and pungent it may be: "The Novelist's Allegory" is
entirely worth while with its good old-fashioned flavor. (5) You must
pay attention to the characterizations: you must see to it that the
speeches you put into the mouths of your creatures could be delivered
by them in the world or society you have got together. Everything in
the action--the time, the place, the characters of the persons--must
conform to the ideal nature of the subject. The laws of the actual
universe you may violate, but not the laws of your imaginary universe.
Moreover, the nearer the actual and the imaginary come together on
essentials, the more effective your preaching will be. What you write
as author's narrative must be vital and contributive.

Make your description of dress and gesture so vivid that it will
quicken the imagination of your readers. Never yourself think of your
personages as abstractions. Let them live and move before you as real
beings; then tell about them.

A testimony to the return of allegory into good favor is its use on
the stage. We no longer are afraid to see that Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" is
an allegorical satire and not the bucolic love tale that some persons
try to make it, and that even the wonderful scene of Ase's death is
pathos serving satire. Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird," which is unmistakable
allegory, has pleased the latest theater-going public high and low.

[Present-day interest in primitive types]

This thought leads to a word in general on primitive types. Although
it is becoming the fashion to be interested in them, and hence many
poor specimens both in prose and verse will get into print, yet the
writing of such simple and idealistic things by way of reaction from
our intense and often hectic realism, is surely in the main wholesome,
regardless of the value of the individual pieces. Years ago Count
Tolstoy said, "The artist of the future will understand that to compose
a fairy-tale, a little song which will touch, a lullaby or a riddle
which will entertain, a jest which will amuse, or to draw a sketch
such as will delight dozens of generations or millions of children
and adults, is incomparably more important and more fruitful than to
compose a novel, or a symphony, or paint a picture of the kind which
diverts some members of the wealthy classes for a short time and is
then forever forgotten. The region of this art of the simplest feelings
accessible to all is enormous, and it is as yet almost untouched." Of
course the hope of literary excellence for such an epoch, if it comes,
will lie in the possibility of the pieces being kept as Tolstoy's own
are, very near to the naïve.


=The Artist=

One evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image of
_The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment_. And he went forth into the
world to look for bronze. For he could think only in bronze.

But all the bronze of the whole world had disappeared, nor anywhere in
the whole world was there any bronze to be found, save only the bronze
of the image of _The Sorrow that endureth Forever_.

Now this image he had himself, and with his own hands, fashioned, and
had set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life. On the
tomb of the dead thing he had most loved had he set this image of his
own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love of man that
dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of man that endureth forever. And
in the whole world there was no other bronze save the bronze of this
image.

And he took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great furnace,
and gave it to the fire.

And out of the bronze of the Image of The Sorrow that endureth forever,
he fashioned an image of _The Pleasure that abideth for a moment_.

                                                         --Oscar Wilde.

    "Poems in Prose" (Fortnightly Review, July 1, 1894).


=The House of Judgment=

And there was silence in the House of Judgment, and the Man came naked
before God.

And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.

And God said to the Man, "Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast
shown cruelty to those in need of succor, and to those who lacked
help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee
and thou did'st not hearken, and thine ears were closed to the cry
of my afflicted. The inheritance of the fatherless thou did'st take
unto thyself, and thou did'st send the foxes into the vineyard of thy
neighbor's field. Thou did'st take the bread of the children and give
it to the dogs to eat, and my lepers who lived in the marshes, and were
at peace and praised me thou did'st drive forth on the highway, and on
mine earth out of which I made thee thou did'st spill innocent blood."

And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I."

And again God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.

And God said to the Man, "Thy life hath been evil, and the Beauty I
have shown, thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden, thou
did'st pass by. The walls of thy chamber were painted with images, and
from the bed of thine abominations thou did'st rise up to the sound of
flutes. Thou did'st build seven altars to the sins I have suffered, and
did'st eat of the thing that may not be eaten, and the purple of thy
raiment was broidered with the three signs of shame. Thy idols were
neither of gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that dieth.
Thou did'st stain their hair with perfumes, and put pomegranates in
their hands. Thou did'st stain their feet with saffron and spread
carpets before them. With antimony thou did'st stain their eyelids and
their bodies thou did'st smear with myrrh. Thou did'st bow thyself to
the ground before them, and the thrones of thy idols were set in the
sun. Thou did'st show to the sun thy shame and to the moon thy madness."

And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I."

And the third time God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.

And God said to the Man, "Evil hath been thy life, and with evil did'st
thou requite good, and with wrong-doing kindness. The hands that fed
thee thou did'st wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou did'st
despise. He who came to thee with water went away thirsting and the
outlawed men who hid thee in their tents at night thou did'st betray
before dawn. Thine enemy who spared thee thou did'st slay in an ambush,
and the friend who walked with thee thou did'st sell for a price, and
to those who brought thee Love, thou did'st ever give Lust in thy turn."

And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I."

And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man and said, "Surely I will
send thee to Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee."

And the Man cried out, "Thou can'st not."

And God said to the Man, "Wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and
for what reason?"

"Because in Hell I have always lived," answered the Man.

And there was silence in the House of Judgment.

And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, "Seeing that I may
not send thee into Hell, surely I will send thee unto Heaven. Even unto
Heaven will I send thee."

And the Man cried out, "Thou can'st not."

And God said to the Man, "Wherefore can I not send thee unto Heaven and
for what reason?"

"Because never, and in no place, have I been able to imagine it,"
answered the man.

And there was silence in the House of Judgment.

                                                                --Ibid.


=The Chain That Binds=

It was morning when the youth started out from his father's house and
sought the highway. Those the young man met on the road inquired of
him, "Where are you going? What do you seek?"

He answered, "I seek Freedom!"

"Freedom!" exclaimed his questioners. "Are you not free? Are we not all
our own masters?"

The young man smiled. "I do not mean freedom of thought and speech.
That you may have. What I seek is liberation from heredity and
environment, from the physical, intellectual, and spiritual laws that
tyrannize over us and make us slaves."

His listeners turned away, some laughed, and some scorned, and some
wept, and the young man traveled on. But all along the road he met
those that scorned him and laughed at him, and soon his steps lagged,
and his feet seemed leaden. Looking down, he saw a chain binding his
ankles--the chain of Public Opinion. Now he must delay. Angrily he tore
at the chain until the hasps broke, and he stood unbound.

Then he made haste; for he had already lost much time. Soon he met a
vender of goods, and the vender stopped and besought the youth to buy
a jewel. The young man desired the jewel, and he thought, "Why can I
not beat this man and steal his jewel?" But lo, his hands were fettered
with the chain of Conscience, and he wrenched the chain till it fell
apart. Then he beat the man and took his jewel and went on his way.

Ahead of him he saw a cloud, and from the cloud arose a mist, and the
mist formed itself into many shapes, strange signs and symbols, the
like of which he had never seen before. The youth cried out, "This is a
new faith; I will embrace it." But his arms were bound behind him with
the chain of Superstition; and he strove to break the chain, but when
the lock gave way, the cloud and mist had disappeared.

Thus year after year sped on; the youth became a man; the man grew old
before his time. When he broke a fetter, a new one took its place. The
chains that bound him were innumerable. One by one he broke the laws
that society and the ages had formed for him, but each wish that he
gratified gave place to another.

The chains that he had worn and wrenched weighed on him. His flesh and
spirit were chafed and sore. Weak and disheartened he sank down, and
the memory of his fruitless life recurred to him. A voice arrested him,
and looking up he saw a man older and more withered than he was.

And the stranger said, "Behold the chain that binds you now." The
Seeker-after-Freedom looked down. His ankles were encumbered by the
heaviest chain he had yet worn.

The old man continued. "You flaunted yourself in the face of your
fellows. You boasted that you were greater than they. You are, in that
you are the arch-sinner. You have sought to destroy those gifts with
which the Almighty endowed you. You found it easy to break the fetter
of Love, of Conscience, of Remorse. This chain you cannot break. You
welded it yourself. The strength of an armed force cannot tear it
asunder; the fires of Perdition cannot melt it."

The traveler died, bound with the chain of Insatiable Desire.

                                                --Elizabeth Sudborough.


=The Love Which Surpassed All Other Loves=

The girl's heart was lonely. She had never had the comforts of a home.
And there was a yearning for some love which would fill her life. So
she determined to set out in search of such a love. In her wanderings
she met many hardships, and was scorned by everyone as a simpleton.

After she had wandered a year, one day a great eagle flew to her, and
said, "I know what you are seeking. I can satisfy your wants. I am the
governing force of the world; I am Love of Gold. Take me, and while I
am with you, all will be well with you."

For a moment the girl was dazzled by the comforts which seemed
stretched out before her if she would accept this Love. But her heart
was not satisfied, and she shook her head. The eagle flew away with a
taunting laugh.

Another year passed and still she had met nothing to quiet her longing.
But one day as she was walking through a village, she saw a happy
family seated on the door-step of a neat cottage. While she was looking
at this group, she heard a voice, and, glancing down, saw a beautiful
little wren.

"I am the Love of a Mother's Heart," said the little bird. "When all
others fail, I still remain true. Take me and hide me in your bosom,
that your mother's heart may be tender to you."

Tears came to the girl's eyes, for the little bird had touched a wound
in her life, the neglect of her by her mother. But her longing was not
yet satisfied, and so she passed on.

At the end of another year she was walking along the side of a quiet
pond. She stopped and looked at the water, envying it its peace. A
blue-jay was perched on the branch of a tree nearby, and soon he spoke
to her. "I am the Love of Man for Woman. I have been known since the
beginning of time. Let me be with you, that you may be a good wife."

The girl was strongly tempted to take this Love of which she had heard
so much. Perhaps this was, after all, the Love she was seeking. As she
meditated, the old longing came back with redoubled force. It would
not do to make this Love a part of her life, so she sadly left the
blue-jay, and went on.

The next year came, and the girl had become a woman, but her heart
was still empty of love. She entered a quiet grove one evening, and,
wearied, sat down on a log.

A lovely nightingale came and perched itself on her shoulder, and in
a sweetly comforting tone said, "Many have had the same longing which
you have had; but few have possessed the courage to resist temptations
offered by other loves. I am the Love of Woman for Woman, the Love of
True Friendship. I am greater and more enduring than any other love.
Take me and hide me in your heart. You will be happy then as few are
privileged to be."

The girl was comforted, and she took the beautiful bird and placed it
next her heart. At last her longing was satisfied, and she praised God
for His Gift.

                                                    --Florence Gifford.




CHAPTER III

THE INGENIOUS-ASTONISHING GROUP


This large division of narratives of imaginary events is somewhat
hard to name briefly, though it is definitely enough marked off as a
distinct class when we consider the tone, the source, and the purpose.
The whole air of these extravagant tales is that of sophistication. No
reader however ignorant would mistake them for stories of primitive
people. Though they sometimes contain supernatural creatures as actors,
though they recount stupendous deeds, though they often proceed in
simple diction, yet the reader is never confused as to the state of
mind of the narrator. It is plain that, however much he may seem to
wish to create credulity in the mind of the reader, the story-teller
has none in his own mind. He is a non-believer--or better perhaps, a
"make-believer," in the children's sense of the term. The source of his
narrative is ingenuity, and the purpose is astonishment or satire. In
the present study we shall notice four smaller divisions of this group:
(1) the tale of mere wonder, (2) the imaginary voyage with a satiric
or instructive purpose, (3) the tale of scientific discovery and
mechanical invention, (4) the detective story and other tales of pure
plot.


I. The Tale of Mere Wonder

[Collections of wonder stories]

In the species Tales of Mere Wonder, we mean to classify those stories
of marvels that are told with the simple purpose of astonishing.
The adventures of Sinbad the Sailor are typical. He comes upon a
bird's egg, for instance, which he at first mistakes for the dome of
a cathedral, or walks in a valley covered with diamonds the size of
apples. The "Persian Tales" like the Arabian "Thousand and One Nights"
are stories of wonder and enchantment. Though they are very old,
many of them much older than their written form and traceable to the
traditions of various countries, these Oriental stories as we have them
to-day are not folk-tales in the strict sense of the term. They are put
into a frame-work and are acknowledged to be narratives of ingenuity.
The two earlier sets, translated into French, produced many imitations.
Besides these there are the "Tartar Tales," the "Chinese Tales," "Mogol
Tales," the "Turkish Tales," and so on. The most literary and perhaps
the most valuable from the point of view of real thinking displayed in
them are the very modern Oriental stories of George Meredith, published
under the title "The Shaving of Shagpat." They are all wonder tales
though extremely philosophical. Robert Louis Stevenson has given us the
"New Arabian Nights."

[Suggestions for writing]

To write one of these exaggerations you need only recall your own or
other persons' attempts at the fireside when the stock of folk stories
has run low. You address your efforts to your eight and ten-year-old
brothers who have got past Jack-the-Giant-Killer and are in the stage
of development that the people of the twelfth century were to whom
Marie de France told her fables and her stories of mere wonder. The
fine ladies and gentlemen of Henry the Second's day loved to hear of
costly robes and magic carpets and jewelled beds worth half a kingdom,
that came at the touch of a ring or at the murmuring of a secret
phrase. Unfortunate princes, too, they enjoyed being told about, who
allowed themselves to be misled by wily councilors, and lost for a time
their kingdoms; beautiful princesses who sat enchanted in gorgeous
underground palaces, waiting their deliverers; wonderful plants with
otherwhere unheard-of properties; and animals with stupendous powers,
like the monstrous birds that the Arabian writer says carried Nimrod
through the air in a cage or with out-stretched wings sheltered
Solomon's army from the sun. Chaucer, you know, began and

          "left half told
    The story of Cambuscan bold,
    Of Camball and of Algarsife,
    And who had Canace to wife,
    That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
    And of the wondrous horse of brass
    On which the Tartar king did ride."

This horse had a screw in his ear. If one got upon his back, turned
the screw, and whispered a word, one might be instantly in the kingdom
one named. If you can not dream out an original oriental story of your
own, you might finish this of Chaucer's--The Squire's Tale. Remember
that probability is not called for, but only magnificence, splendor,
magic, daring, and success on the part of your hero or heroine. Either
may have wealth untold, dominion unlimited, and knowledge supernatural.
Your diction may range from the simplest and the baldest to the most
luxuriant and extravagant. Whatever matches your subject, no matter how
extravagantly improbable, will be acceptable.

[Medieval tales of chivalry]

Like the stories of mere wonder in--fact a blending of them with
legend--were the medieval tales of chivalry in the later and perverted
editions. The elements are the same as those of the wonder tale, with
the addition of riotous history; that is, the using of any deed of any
hero for him or for someone else, with all the glamour of magic and
luxuriance thrown about it.

[Heroic romances]

To modern readers a very uninteresting perversion of this type of
narrative is the heroic romance of the second and third quarters of
the seventeenth century, best represented perhaps by _Le Grand Cyrus_
of Madam de Scudéri. Nobody, I suppose, to-day who had not a theory to
prove could be persuaded to wade through the 6,679 pages of the ten
octavo volumes of this walty story. But although the particular style
of writing of Scudéri and her contemporaries has passed away, and
fortunately never can return--thanks to Molière and Boileau--fantastic
and gorgeous prose history had great popularity both on the Continent
and in England for fifty years. The attitude of mind of those narrators
is found in many moderns; namely, a desire to deal only with titled
folk, or at least millionaires, for fear that heroes of lower social
standing or smaller bank accounts might be dull.

Our present-day mixers of fact and non-fact lean toward the probable,
of course, rather than the marvelous, and would resent being classed
with the heroic romancers; but any narrator would be proud to be able
to tell well, as everybody with a child-like heart is delighted to
listen to, an out-and-out story of mere wonder.


=Story of the City of Brass=

There was in olden times in Damascus of Syria a caliph named
Abdel-Melik, the son of Marwan. One day as he was sitting with the
great men of his empire, many of them being kings and sultans, a
discussion took place among them about the tales of ancient nations.
They called to mind the stories of Solomon, the son of David, and
the power God gave him over genies and wild beasts and birds and
other creatures, and they said, "We have heard, from those who lived
before us that God bestowed not upon any one the like of that which he
bestowed upon Solomon. So great was his power that he used to imprison
genies and evil spirits in bottles of brass, and pour molten lead over
them, and seal this cover with his seal."

Then Talib, one of the sultans, related that a man once embarked in a
ship with a company of others, and they sailed away towards the island
of Sicily, until a storm arose which drove them out of their course and
carried them to the shores of an unknown land. This happened during
the darkness of the night. In the morning, there came out to them from
caves in that land, black men who wore no clothes, and who neither
spoke nor understood any language. They had a king of their own race,
and he knew Arabic. The king, with a party of his companions, came to
the ship, saluted and welcomed those who were in it, and inquired who
they were and to what country they belonged. When they informed him, he
said to them, "No harm shall befall you. There hath not come to us one
of the sons of Adam before you."

The king then entertained them with a banquet, and after this the
people of the ship went to amuse themselves on the shore. There they
found a fisherman who had cast his net into the sea to catch fish.
He drew the net up, and in it was a bottle of brass stopped with
lead, which was sealed with the seal of Solomon, the son of David.
The fisherman broke the seal, and there came forth from the bottle a
blue smoke which united with the clouds of heaven, and instantly they
heard a horrible voice saying, "Repentance! repentance! O prophet of
God!" Then they saw the smoke form into a man of frightful appearance
and gigantic size, whose head reached as high as a mountain, and
immediately he disappeared from before their astonished eyes.

The blacks thought nothing of this event, but the people of the ship
were terrified at the spectacle, and they went to the king to inquire
about it. In answer to their inquiries the king said, "This is one of
the genies who rebelled against King Solomon, and Solomon, to punish
them, imprisoned them in bottles and threw them into the sea. When the
fisherman casts his net, it generally brings up one of these bottles,
and when the bottle is broken, a genie comes forth, and thinking that
Solomon is still living, he repents and cries out, "Repentance! O
Prophet of God!"

The Prince of the Faithful, Abdel-Melik, wondered very much at this
story, and he said, "I desire to see some of these bottles." Talib
replied, "O Prince of the Faithful, thou canst do so. Send to thy
viceroy in the western country, the Emeer Moosa, ordering him to
journey to the sea we have mentioned, and to bring what thou desirest
of these bottles." The Prince of the Faithful approved of this advice,
and he sent Talib himself with a letter to the Emeer Moosa.

When the Emeer received the letter he read it, and he said to Talib,
"I hear and obey the command of the Prince of the Faithful." Then
he called together his great men, and he inquired of them about the
bottles of King Solomon, and they told him to send for Abdes-Samad,
"for," said they, "he is a knowing man and has traveled much. He
is acquainted with the deserts and wastes and the seas, and their
inhabitants, and their wonders, and their countries, and their
districts. Send for him, and he will direct thee to the object of thy
desire." So the Emeer sent for Abdes-Samad, and when he came he said to
him, "O Abdes-Samad, our lord the Prince of the Faithful has commanded
us to get for him some of the bottles of Solomon. I have little
knowledge of the place where they are to be found, but it has been told
to me that thou art acquainted with that country and routes. Wilt thou
then help us to accomplish the wish of the Prince of the Faithful?"
To this Abdes-Samad replied, "O Emeer, the route is difficult, far
extending, and there are few tracks. It is a journey of two years going
and the same returning, and on the way there are dangers and horrors
and extraordinary and wonderful things. Nevertheless, since it is the
wish of the Prince of the Faithful, I am willing to undertake the
journey with thee."

Then they began to make preparations, and as soon as everything was
ready, the Emeer Moosa and Talib and Abdes-Samad set forth, accompanied
by a troop of soldiers, and taking with them all things necessary for
their expedition. They journeyed on till they came to a great palace.
As the gates were opened, and they saw no guards at the doors, they
dismounted from their horses and entered. The rooms were all of vast
size and richly furnished, and the ceilings and walls were decorated
with gold and silver, but in the whole building they did not see a
single human being. In the midst of the palace was a chamber covered
with a lofty dome, rising high into the air, around which were four
hundred tombs. They went into one chamber, and they found in it a table
with four feet made of alabaster, and having this inscription engraved
on it

    "Upon this table a thousand one-eyed kings have eaten and a
    thousand kings each sound in both eyes. All of them have quitted
    the world and taken up their abode in the burial grounds and the
    graves."

The Emeer Moosa and his companions took this table with them and
went forth from the palace. Then they proceeded on their journey and
traveled for three days, when they came to a high hill. On the top of
the hill was a horseman of brass with a spear in his hand. The spear
had a flat, wide head, and it was so bright that it almost dazzled
the eyes of the Emeer and his companions. Nevertheless they looked at
it closely, and they were astonished at finding the following words
inscribed upon it:

    "O thou who comest unto me, if thou know not the way that leads to
    the City of Brass, rub the hand of the horseman, and he will turn,
    and then will stop, and in whatever direction he faces when he
    stops, travel in that direction without fear, for it will lead thee
    to the City of Brass."

When he read this the Emeer Moosa rubbed the hand of the horseman.
Immediately the figure turned round with the speed of lightning, and
when it stopped it faced a different direction from that in which they
had been traveling. The party therefore turned to the way pointed out
by the brazen horseman, and proceeded on their journey. One day they
came to a round pillar of black stone, on the top of which appeared
the upper half of the body of a black giant, or genie, with the lower
part sunk down in the pillar. He was an object frightful to behold. He
had two huge wings and four arms. Two of the arms were like those of a
man, and the other two were like the legs of a lion. He had hair upon
his head like the tails of horses, two eyes like two burning coals, and
he had a third eye in his forehead, like the eye of a lynx, from which
sparks of fire shot forth.

When the Emeer Moosa's party saw this genie they almost lost their
senses through fear, and they turned round to flee away, but the Emeer
told them that in the state in which he was he could do them no harm.
Then Abdes-Samad drew near to the pillar, and raising his voice he said
to the genie, "O thou person, what is thy name, what is thy nature,
and what has placed thee here in this manner!" Immediately the genie
answered saying, "I am a genie and my name is Dahish." [And then he
told them his nature and what had placed him there.]

And then Abdes-Samad said to the genie in the pillar, "Are there in
this place any of the genies confined in bottles of brass from the
time of Solomon?" He answered, "Yes, in the sea of El-Karkar, where
dwell some of the descendants of Noah, whose country the deluge did
not reach. They are separated from the rest of the sons of Adam." "And
where," said Abdes-Samad, "is the way to the City of Brass, and the
place in which are the bottles? What distance is there between us and
it?" The genie answered, "It is near."

The party then proceeded in their journey, and in a little while they
saw in the distance a great black object, and in it there seemed to
be two fires corresponding with each other in position. "What is this
great black object," asked the Emeer Moosa, "and what are these two
corresponding fires?" "Be rejoiced, O Emeer," answered Abdes-Samad;
"it is the City of Brass, and this is the appearance of it that I find
described in the book of hidden treasures--that its wall is of black
stones and it has two towers of brass, which resemble two corresponding
fires; hence it is named the City of Brass."

Hastening on they arrived at the city, and they found that it was
strongly fortified, and that its buildings were lofty, rising high
into the air. Its walls were one hundred and twenty feet high, and it
had five and twenty gates. They stopped before the walk and endeavored
to find one of the gates, but they could not. Then Emeer Moosa said
to Abdes-Samad, "I do not see any gate to this city." Abdes-Samad
answered, "I find it described in the book of hidden treasures that it
has five and twenty gates, and that none of them may be opened but from
within the city."

Then the Emeer Moosa took Talib and Abdes-Samad with him, and they
ascended a mountain which was close by. And looking down upon the city,
they saw it was greater and more beautiful than anything they had ever
beheld. Its palaces were lofty, its domes were shining; rivers were
running within it, and there were delightful gardens with trees bearing
ripe fruit. But they did not see a human being within its walls. It was
empty, still, without a voice, or a cheering inhabitant but the owl
hooting in its gardens, and birds skimming in circles in its areas, and
the raven croaking in its great streets.

After coming down from the mountain they passed the day trying to
devise means of entering the city. At last it occurred to them to make
a ladder, and the Emeer called to the carpenters and blacksmiths and
ordered them to construct a ladder covered with plates of iron. This
work occupied a month, and when it was finished, the ladder was set up
against the wall, and one of the party ascended it. When he reached the
top he stood, and, fixing his eyes towards the city, clapped his hands
and cried out with a loud voice, "Thou art beautiful!" Then he cast
himself down into the city and was killed. Seeing this the Emeer Moosa
said, "If we do this with all our companions, there will not remain one
of them, and we shall be unable to accomplish the wish of the Prince
of the Faithful. Let us depart and have no more to do with this city."
But one of them answered, "Perhaps another may be more steady than he."
Then a second ascended, and he did the same as the first, and then a
third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and they continued to ascend by that
ladder to the top of the wall, one after another, until twelve men of
them had gone, acting as the first had acted.

Abdes-Samad now arose and said, "There is none can do this but myself."
So he ascended the ladder, reciting verses of the Koran until he
reached the top, when he clapped his hands and fixed his eyes. The
people therefore called out to him, "O Abdes-Samad, do not cast thyself
down. If you fall, we all perish." Then Abdes-Samad sat down upon the
wall for a long time, reciting verses of the Koran, after which he
rose and cried out, "O Emeer, no harm shall happen to you, for God
has averted from me the effect of the artifice and fraud of the Evil
One." The Emeer then said to him, "What hast thou seen, O Abdes-Samad?"
He answered, "When I reached the top of the wall, I saw ten damsels,
beautiful to behold, who made a sign to me with their hands as though
they would say, 'Come to us.' And it seemed to me that beneath me
was a sea, or great river, and I desired to cast myself down as our
companions did. But I saw them dead, and I recited some words of the
Koran, and so I cast not myself down. Therefore the damsels departed.
There is no doubt that this is an enchantment contrived by the
inhabitants of the city to keep every one from entering it."

Abdes-Samad then walked along the wall till he came to the two towers
of brass, when he saw that they had two gates of gold, without locks
upon them, or any sign of the means of opening them. He remained
looking at them a long time, and at last he saw in the middle of one of
the gates a figure of a horseman of brass, having one hand stretched
out as though he were pointing with it, and on the hand these words
were inscribed:

    "Turn the pin that is in the middle of the front of the horseman's
    body twelve times, and then the gate will open."

Abdes-Samad, having read this inscription, examined the horseman, and
found in the middle of the front of this body a pin, strong, firm, and
well fixed. He turned it twelve times, and immediately the gate opened
with a noise like thunder. Abdes-Samad entered, and he walked on until
he came to stairs, which he descended. At the foot of the stairs he
found a place with handsome wooden benches on which there were dead
people, and over their heads were shields, and swords, and bows, and
arrows. One of the dead men, who appeared to be the oldest, was upon
a high bench above the rest. Abdes-Samad thought that the keys of the
city might be with this man. "Perhaps," said he to himself, "he was the
gatekeeper, and these were under his authority." He therefore went up
to the man, and raised his outer garment, and he found the keys hung to
his waist. At the sight of them Abdes-Samad rejoiced exceedingly, and
he took the keys and approached the gate in the wall of the city. He
found that the keys fitted the locks, so he turned them, and pulled
the gate, which opened with a great noise. Then he cried out with a cry
of joy, and the Emeer Moosa rejoiced at the safety of Abdes-Samad, and
the opening of the gate of the city. The people thanked Abdes-Samad
for what he had done, and they all hastened to enter the gate. But the
Emeer Moosa cried out to them, saying, "O people, some accident may
happen, and if all enter, all may perish. Therefore, let half of us
enter and half remain outside."

The Emeer Moosa then entered the gate, and with him half of his troops,
carrying their weapons of war. They saw their companions lying dead,
and they buried them. They then entered the market of the city, which
contained a number of lofty buildings. The shops were open, the scales
hung up, and the stores full of all kinds of goods, but the merchants
were all dead. They passed on to the silk market, in which were silks
and brocades interwoven with gold and silver upon various colors, and
the owners were dead, lying upon skins, and appearing almost as though
they would speak. Leaving these they went on to the market of the money
changers, all of whom they found dead, with varieties of silks beneath
them, and their shops filled with gold and silver. After going through
several other markets they came to a lofty palace, which they entered.
There they found banners unfurled, and swords, and bows, and shields
hung up by chains of gold and silver. In the passages of the palace
were benches of ivory, ornamented with plates of brilliant gold and
with silk, on which were dead men, whose skins had dried upon their
bones. Going into the interior of the palace they came to a great
hall, and four large and lofty chambers, each one fronting another,
and decorated with gold and silver and various colors. In the midst of
the hall was a great fountain of alabaster, over which was a canopy of
brocade, and in the chambers were decorated fountains, and tanks lined
with marble, and channels of water flowed along the floors, the four
streams meeting together in a great tank made of colored marbles.

The Emeer Moosa and his companions now entered the first chamber, and
they found it filled with gold and silver, and pearls and jewels,
and jacinths and precious minerals. They found in it chests full of
red and yellow and white brocades. They then went into the second
chamber, and opened a closet in it, and it was filled with weapons of
war, consisting of gilded helmets, and coats of mail, and swords, and
lances, and other instruments of war and battle. Then they passed to
the third chamber, in which they found closets having upon their doors
closed locks, and over them were curtains worked with various kinds of
embroidery. They opened one of these closets, and found it filled with
weapons decorated with varieties of gold and silver and jewels. From
there they went to the fourth chamber, and it was full of utensils for
food and drink, consisting of various vessels of gold and silver, and
saucers of crystal, and cups set with brilliant pearls, and cups of
carnelian. They took what suited them of these things, and each of the
soldiers carried off what he could.

Then they passed on, and found a chamber constructed of polished marble
adorned with jewels. They thought that upon the floor was running
water, and if any one walked upon it he would slip. The Emeer Moosa
therefore ordered Abdes-Samad to throw upon it something, that they
might be enabled to walk on it, and he did so, and they passed on.
And they found in it a great dome constructed of stones gilt with red
gold. The party had not beheld in all that they had seen anything more
beautiful than this. In the midst of it there was a great dome-crowned
structure of alabaster, around which were lattice windows, decorated
and adorned with oblong emeralds. In it was a pavilion of brocade,
raised upon columns of red gold, and within this were birds, the feet
of which were emeralds. Beneath each bird was a net of brilliant
pearls, spread over a fountain, and by the brink of the fountain was
placed a couch adorned with pearls and jewels and jacinths, on which
sat a damsel resembling the shining sun. Eyes had not beheld one more
beautiful. She wore a garment of brilliant pearls, on her head was a
crown of red gold, on her neck was a necklace of jewels, and upon her
forehead were two jewels the light of which was like that of the sun.
She seemed as though she were looking at the people round about her,
and observing them to the right and left.

When the Emeer Moosa beheld this damsel, he wondered extremely at her
loveliness, and he saluted her respectfully. But Talib said to the
Emeer, "This damsel is dead. There is no life in her. How, then, can
she return the salutation?" And he added, "O Emeer, she is skillfully
embalmed. Her eyes were taken out after her death, and quicksilver put
beneath them, after which they were restored to their places; so they
gleam, and whenever the air puts them in motion the beholder imagines
that she twinkles her eyes, though she is dead." Then they saw that the
couch upon which the damsel sat had steps, and upon the steps were
two slaves, one of them white and the other black. In the hand of one
of them was a weapon of steel, and in the hand of the other a jeweled
sword that dazzled the eyes. Before the two slaves was a tablet of gold
on which was the following inscription:

    "O thou, if thou know me not, I will acquaint thee with my name and
    descent. I am Tedmur, the daughter of the King of the Amalekites. I
    possessed what none of the kings possessed, and ruled with justice.
    I gave and bestowed, and lived a long time in the enjoyment of
    happiness and an easy life, and emancipated female and male slaves.
    Thus I did until death came to my abode, and the case was this:
    Seven years in succession came upon us, during which no water
    descended on us from heaven, nor did any grass grow for us on the
    face of the earth. So we ate what food we had in our dwellings,
    and after that we fell upon the beasts and ate them, and there
    remained nothing. Upon this I caused the wealth to be brought, and
    measured it with a measure, and sent it by trusty men, who went
    about with it through all the districts, not leaving unvisited a
    single large city, to seek for some food. But they found none, and
    they returned to us with the wealth, after a long absence. Then
    we exposed to view our riches and our treasures, locked the gates
    of the fortresses in our city, and we all died, as thou beholdest
    and left what we had built and what we had treasured. This is our
    story. Whoever arrives at our city, and enters it, let him take of
    the wealth what he can, but not touch anything that is on my body,
    for it is the covering of my person, and the attire with which I am
    fitted forth from the world. Therefore, let him not seize aught of
    it; for he would destroy himself."

The Emeer Moosa, when he read these words, was greatly astonished. Then
he said to his companions, "Bring the sacks, and fill them with part
of these riches and these vessels and rarities and jewels." But Talib
said to him, "O Emeer, shall we leave this damsel with the things that
are upon her? They are things that have no equal, and they are more
than the riches thou hast taken, and will be the best present for the
Prince of the Faithful." But the Emeer replied, "Seest thou, not that
which the damsel hath given as a charge, in the inscription upon this
tablet?" Talib, however, said, "And on account of these words wilt thou
leave these riches and these jewels, when she is dead? What then should
she do with these things, which are the ornaments of the world, and the
decoration of the living? With a garment of cotton this damsel might be
covered, and we are more worthy of the things than she." Then he drew
near to the steps, and ascended them until he reached the spot between
the two slaves, when suddenly one of them smote him upon his back and
the other smote him with the sword that was in his hand, and struck
off his head, and he fell down dead. Seeing this the people were much
terrified, and the Emeer Moosa commanded them to leave the city and
close the gate as it was before.

They then proceeded on until they came in sight of a high mountain
overlooking the sea. In it were many caves in which was a people of
black, clad in hides, whose language was not known. And when the
blacks saw the troops they ran away from them, while their women and
children stood at the entrance of the cave. So the Emeer Moosa said, "O
Abdes-Samad, what are these people?" And he answered, "These are the
objects of the inquiry of the Prince of the Faithful." They therefore
alighted and the tents were pitched and they had not rested when the
king of the blacks came down from the mountain, and drew near to the
troops. He was acquainted with the Arabic language, and when he came
to Emeer Moosa he saluted him, and the Emeer returned his salute and
treated him with honor. Then the king of the blacks said to the Emeer,
"Are ye of mankind, or of the genies?" The Emeer answered, "We are of
mankind, but as to you, there is no doubt that ye are of the genies,
because of the greatness of your size." But the king of the blacks
replied, "Nay, we are a people of the race of Adam, of the sons of Ham,
the son of Noah. And this sea is known by the name of El-Karkar."

The Emeer then said to him, "We are the messengers and servants of the
Caliph Abdel-Melik, and we have come on account of the bottles of brass
that are here in your sea, in which are the genies imprisoned from the
time of Solomon, the son of David. He hath commanded us to bring him
some of them, that he may see them. Wilt thou help us in this matter?"
The king of the blacks replied, "Most willingly." Then he ordered the
divers to bring up from the sea some of the bottles of Solomon, and
they brought up twelve bottles, which the king gave to the Emeer. The
Emeer Moosa was delighted, and Abdes-Samad also, and the soldiers,
on account of the accomplishment of the wish of the Prince of the
Faithful. The Emeer then presented to the king of the blacks many gifts.

Then they bade him farewell, and they journeyed back until they came
to the land of Syria, and went to the palace of the Prince of the
Faithful. The Emeer Moosa told him of all that he had seen, and of the
case of Talib. And the Prince of the Faithful said to him, "Would that
I had been with you that I might have beheld what ye beheld." He then
took the bottles, and proceeded to open one after another, and the
genies came forth from them saying, "Repentance! O Prophet of God! We
will not return to the like conduct ever." After this the Prince of the
Faithful caused the riches to be brought before him, and divided them
among the people.

This is the end of that which hath come down to us of the history of
the City of Brass.

    "Stories from the Arabian Nights." Selected and edited by M.
    Clarke. (American Book Company.)


=The Magic Ring, the Bird, and the Basket=

The night was clear and cool when Juan and his father went to bed. Soon
they fell asleep, lulled by the wind whistling among the trees. When
midnight came, they were aroused from their sound sleep by the shouting
of men and the roaring of fire. Juan and his father jumped out of the
house to save themselves. As they were hiding under a bamboo tree, four
men came and tied the hands of the father and son with vines. Juan was
strong enough to break the vines, but he did not try to, for fear that
the robbers would kill them. The four men carried the poor captives to
their boat and sailed away. Many of Juan's friends and relatives were
also captured.

As they were sailing southward a terrible storm came. All the boats
were sunk by the merciless waves. Before Juan reached the bottom, for
he could not swim, a very big shark swallowed him. The shark, after
swallowing Juan, went to its home in a big cave under the water. While
he was kicking in the stomach of the shark, his knife fell from his
pocket and the vines with which his hands were tied, broke. He opened
his knife with his hands and teeth, and cut a hole through the stomach
of the shark. Instead of floating to the surface of the water, Juan
began to sink and sink as if something were pulling him downward. At
last he came to a dry place. He met nobody there except a gray-bearded
man, who asked him where he was going. Juan told his story.

"You are unfortunate, my boy," said the old man, "you will have a very
hard time in reaching your home."

"But how may I reach home again?" said Juan.

The old man told him to climb the high mountain which could be seen
from where they were standing. "When you reach the top, jump into the
hole and you will be thrown up to the other world." When Juan was about
to go, the old man gave him a ring. "This ring," he said, "is powerful.
You can conquer the fiercest demon on earth with the help of this
ring. Ask from it anything, food, clothes, and other things, and you
will have what you want. If you want to go to some place, you can reach
it in a second. This ring will carry you to the top of the mountain."

When the old man was through giving the instructions, Juan found
himself on the top of the mountain. Then he jumped into the hole.
Suddenly he was blown up through the water and up in the air. He
fell back on the water. He wished he were on land and instantly he
was carried to a small village full of savages. Juan performed many
miracles for the savages, so they elected him king.

One day they went hunting and soon they caught a deer. While they were
taking off the hide, a big bird swooped and took the deer with it.
Juan clung to the horns of the deer trying to take it from the bird,
but in vain. The bird did not mind Juan for he was very small compared
with it. It alighted on a very high cliff, left Juan and the dead deer
there, and flew away. On the cliff was the bird's nest, and in it were
three diamond-like round eggs which were about three feet in diameter.

Juan asked his magical ring to give him a very big basket. The basket
came. Then he rolled the eggs into the basket. Juan seated himself
between the eggs and asked his ring again to take him and the basket
home. The basket was so heavy that the ring could not make it fly very
fast. While they were sailing in the air, the bird came with its mate.
They held the handle of the basket with their beaks and carried the
basket back to the cliff. The power of the magical ring was helpless
because the birds were very strong. Juan, then, wished to be clad in
armor. So said, so done. But he had no sword, so he asked the ring to
give him one. When the birds reached the cliff, they alighted. Juan
stepped from the basket and drew his sword. Whenever the birds pecked
him, he would strike them on their necks with his sword. After fighting
with him for more than half a day, the birds fell helpless on the rock.

Then the victor, Juan, asked the ring again to take him and the basket
to his old home. When he reached the place, the once flourishing
village was gone. Only a few huts were left standing.--Facundo Esquivel.


II. The Imaginary Voyage with a Satiric or Instructive Purpose

To the class of marvelous tales belong also what are known in France
as "Voyages Imaginaires." In so far as the adventurers meet with
super-extraordinary beings, or ride on fleas of the dimensions of
elephants, or have monstrous spiders weave for a field of battle a web
between the moon and the morning star, or in so far as they sail on
seas of milk to islands of cheese and altogether suspend the semblance
of possibility--in so far are they heroes of absurd tales of wonder.
But the narrators of the stories of imaginary voyages for the most
part had primarily other objects than mere amusement in view; namely,
ridicule of the extravagant narrative by means of imitation and
exaggeration, or ridicule of political and philosophic tenets by absurd
application; or the story-tellers had instruction to give in civic and
social theories by presenting the ideal in contrast with the real.

[Source of the type]

The first example and perhaps the source of this whole species of
narrative is the "True History" of Lucian, which, is professedly
fabulous and satiric. Lucian says that by his seas of milk and islands
of cheese and the like, he is ridiculing the extravagant relations
of the old poets and historians who tell incredible tales. Hundreds
of years after Lucian, Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville by their
marvelous accounts of remote countries set themselves in the class
Lucian satirized. But we will take them up later, since they were real
travellers simply exaggerating what they had seen in order the more
surely to please a perverted historical taste. We are dealing now with
acknowledged imagination. There are many famous imaginary voyages
professedly satiric besides Lucian's. Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac's
"History of the States and Empires of the Moon" is a satire on the
pedantry and scholastic disputations of his age, the early seventeenth
century, concerning the uninhabitableness of the lunar world. To the
moon Bergerac makes an excursion and settles matters for himself. "Niel
Klim's Underground Journey," by Ludvig Holberg of Denmark, is another
famous imaginary trip.

[Swift and Defoe]

But no nation has surpassed England, and none indeed has even equalled
her, in the production of this class of stories. "Gulliver's Travels,"
"Gaudentio de Lucca," and "Robinson Crusoe" are supreme. Swift's
marvelous tale is, of course, satire; Berkley's extravagant one,
philosophy and polemic; Defoe's seemingly true narration, religious
dissent. But in the minds of the critics--and in the mind of every
school boy, I suppose--there is the judgment that Defoe succeeded in
writing the best pure "story" story in all the world. On the one hand,
accordingly, by its content of a sea voyage and a wreck on an unknown
shore and by the controversial purpose of its author, and by the fact
that it became the progenitor of a long line of marvelous narratives,
the story of "Robinson Crusoe" links itself with the species of
imaginary voyages and stands forth as the highest, though because of
its virtues not the most representative, attainment of the class. On
the other hand, "Robinson Crusoe" by its unaffected simplicity of
diction, by its many minute circumstances, by its particularity as
to persons, places, dates, and references, stands at the head as the
greatest and best representative of another type of narratives,--the
story of probable adventures. But one would finally class Defoe's story
with realistic romance.

More typical of the present species, because more extravagant and not
so seemingly actual, is the somewhat charming though long-forgotten
story of the "Voyage of Peter Wilkins," written about 1750 by R.
Paltock or Pultock. In this narrative the author created a new species
of beings, which have been ranked among the most beautiful offsprings
of imagination. In the "Curse of Kehama" Southey acknowledged them as
the origin of the Glendoveers,

    "The loveliest race of all of heavenly birth,
    Hovering with gentle motion o'er the earth,
          Amid the moonlight air,
    In sportive flight, still floating round and round."

In Paltock's story they are not fairies, but flying men and women.

In imitation of Bergerac's voyage to the moon there appeared
descriptions of journeys to the various heavenly bodies. The planet
Venus, for instance, afforded opportunity for satire on amatory
tendencies; Mercury, on fraud and avarice; and so on through the other
planets and vices. Ridicule of the predominant passions of individuals
was come at also. The arrant boaster is delectably set forth in the
"Adventures of Baron Munchausen."

To narrate an imaginary voyage, therefore, on lines laid down in the
past, you must take to yourself to begin with either a political and
social theory or a general spirit of ridicule, either an instructive or
a corrective temper.

If you take a political and social theory to establish you must show it
in operation in a realm where there is perfect and ideal wisdom, where
the obstacles in the world do not hold, as they do not in the Happy
Valley, Utopia, and the New Atlantis.

[Suggestion on how to write a satiric imaginary voyage]

If you undertake to ridicule present mistaken tendencies and follies,
your task will be a little harder. First you must work out your
argument somewhat in detail before you begin your voyage, since you
will need to fit adventures, objects, people, and speeches, either by
way of exaggeration or oppositeness, to their modern counterparts.
Next, you should have definitely in mind a few prominent leaders
in the movement or a few promoters of the policy you mean to laugh
at. You may take the portrait and characteristics of these men as
basis, and exaggerate and modify to suit your purpose. Just as a
good cartoonist must know anatomy and the rules of correct drawing,
so a caricaturist and satirist must know real people. It will happen
probably that readers not in the secret of your originals will fail to
recognize them surely, as people now fail to recognize de Bergerac's
and Swift's; yet your story can not but be the livelier and better for
your concrete thinking. And as we now read the "Journey to the Moon"
and "Gulliver's Travels" for the amusing adventures, so your audience
will enjoy your story for the same reason and no other. But you can
hardly create amusing adventures without something to create them of,
and the lives of real people are to be the stuff. This suggestion is
merely the embodiment of the psychological fact that all the chimeras
that man ever thought of are but modifications of real images. Then it
will be well also to remember the convenience of allegory and to use it
upon occasion. In fact, many imaginary voyages are but rough-and-ready
allegories. Yet you must be careful not to over-do the allegory; for
in the fourth place, you should strive for minute versimilitude. The
nearer like the details of a real journey your small incidents are, the
better your readers will be pleased with your large incidents. It is
the little surprises of familiarity among strangeness that create the
emotion of pleasure.

Last of all, and first of all, and altogether requisite is this virtue:
To be a good narrator of imaginary voyages, you must be, like Defoe,
the "best of liars." Nothing is too stupendous to tell if you only know
how to tell it.


=Mellonta Tauta=

  On Board Balloon "Skylark,"
                                                         April 1, 2848.

Now, my dear friend--now, for your sins, you are to suffer the
infliction of a long gossiping letter. I tell you distinctly that I am
going to punish you for all your impertinences by being as tedious, as
discursive, as incoherent, and as unsatisfactory as possible. Besides,
here I am, cooped up in a dirty balloon, with some one or two hundred
of the _canaille_, all bound on a _pleasure_ excursion (what a funny
idea some people have of pleasure!), and I have no prospect of touching
_terra firma_ for a month at least. Nobody to talk to. Nothing to do.
When one has nothing to do, then is the time to correspond with one's
friends. You perceive then, why it is that I write you this letter--it
is on account of my _ennui_ and your sins.

Get ready your spectacles and make up your mind to be annoyed. I mean
to write at you every day during this odious voyage.

Heigho! when will any _Invention_ visit the human pericranium?
Are we forever to be doomed to the thousand inconveniences of the
balloon? Will _nobody_ contrive a more expeditious mode of progress?
The jog-trot movement, to my thinking, is little less than positive
torture. Upon my word, we have not made more than a hundred miles the
hour since leaving home! The very birds beat us--at least some of them.
I assure you that I do not exaggerate at all. Our motion, no doubt,
seems slower than it actually is--this on account of our having no
objects about us by which to estimate our velocity, and on account of
our going with the wind. To be sure, whenever we meet a balloon we
have a chance of perceiving our rate, and then, I admit, things do not
appear so very bad. Accustomed as I am to this mode of traveling, I
cannot get over a kind of giddiness whenever a balloon passes us in a
current directly overhead. It always seems to me like an immense bird
of prey about to pounce upon us and carry us off in its claws. One went
over us this morning about sunrise, and so nearly overhead that its
drag-rope actually brushed the net-work suspending our car, and caused
us very serious apprehension. Our captain said that if the material of
the bag had been the trumpery varnished "silk" of five hundred or a
thousand years ago, we should inevitably have been damaged. This silk,
as he explained it to me, was a fabric composed of the entrails of a
species of earth-worm. The worm was carefully fed on mulberries--a
kind of fruit resembling a water-melon--and, when sufficiently fat,
was crushed in a mill. The paste thus arising was called _papyrus_ in
its primary state, and went through a variety of processes until it
finally became "silk." Singular to relate, it was once much admired
as an article of _female dress_! Balloons were also very generally
constructed from it. A better kind of material, it appears, was
subsequently found in the down surrounding the seed-vessels of a plant
vulgarly called _euphorbium_, and at that time botanically termed
milk-weed. This latter kind of silk was designated as silk-buckingham,
on account of its superior durability, and was usually prepared for use
by being varnished with a solution of gum caoutchouc--a substance which
in some respects must have resembled the _guttapercha_ now in common
use. This caoutchouc was occasionally called Indian rubber or rubber
of twist, and was no doubt one of the numerous _fungi_. Never tell me
again that I am not at heart an antiquarian.

Talking of drag-ropes--our own, it seems, has this moment knocked a
man overboard from one of the small magnetic propellers that swarm
in the ocean below us--a boat of about six thousand tons, and, from
all accounts, shamefully crowded. These diminutive barques should be
prohibited from carrying more than a definite number of passengers.
The man, of course, was not permitted to get on board again, and was
soon out of sight, he and his life-preserver. I rejoice, my dear
friend, that we live in an age so enlightened that no such a thing
as an individual is supposed to exist. It is the mass for which the
true Humanity cares. By-the-by, talking of Humanity, do you know that
our immortal Wiggins is not so original in his views of the Social
Condition and so forth, as his contemporaries are inclined to suppose?
Pundit assures me that the same ideas were put nearly in the same way,
about a thousand years ago, by an Irish philosopher called Furrier, on
account of his keeping a retail shop for cat peltries and other furs.
Pundit _knows_, you know; there can be no mistake about it. How very
wonderfully do we see verified every day, the profound observation
of the Hindoo Aries Tottle (as quoted by Pundit): "Thus must we say
that, not once or twice, or a few times, but with almost infinite
repetitions, the same opinions came round in a circle among men."

_April 2d._--Spoke to-day the magnetic cutter in charge of the middle
section of floating telegraph wires. I learn that when this species
of telegraph was first put into operation by Horse, it was considered
quite impossible to convey the wires over sea, but now we are at
a loss to comprehend where the difficulty lay! So wags the world.
_Tempora mutantur_--excuse me for quoting the Etruscan. What would
we do without the Atlantic telegraph? (Pundit says Atlantic was the
ancient adjective.) We lay to a few minutes to ask the cutter some
questions, and learned, among other glorious news, that civil war is
raging in Africa, while the plague is doing its good work beautifully
both in Yurope and Ayesher. Is it not truly remarkable that, before
the magnificent light shed upon philosophy by Humanity, the world was
accustomed to regard War and Pestilence as calamities? Do you know that
prayers were actually offered up in the ancient temples to the end that
these evils (!) might not be visited upon mankind? Is it not really
difficult to comprehend upon what principle of interest our forefathers
acted? Were they so blind as not to perceive that the destruction of a
myriad of individuals is only so much positive advantage to the mass!

_April 3d._--It is really a very fine amusement to ascend the
rope-ladder leading to the summit of the balloon-bag, and thence survey
the surrounding world. From the car below you know the prospect is
not so comprehensive--you can see little vertically. But seated here
(where I write this) in the luxuriously-cushioned opened piazza of the
summit, one can see everything that is going on in all directions.
Just now there is quite a crowd of balloons in sight, and they present
a very animated appearance, while the air is resonant with the hum of
so many millions of human voices. I have heard it asserted that when
Yellow or (Pundit will have it) Violet, who is supposed to have been
the first aeronaut, maintained the practicability of traversing the
atmosphere in all directions, by merely ascending or descending until
a favorable current was attained, he was scarcely hearkened to at all
by his contemporaries, who looked upon him as merely an ingenious sort
of madman, because the philosophers (!) of the day declared the thing
impossible. Really now, it does seem to me quite unaccountable how
anything so obviously feasible could have escaped the sagacity of the
ancient _savans_. But in all ages the great obstacles to advancement
in Art have been opposed by the so-called men of science. To be sure,
our men of science are not quite so bigoted as those of old--oh, I
have something so queer to tell you on this topic. Do you know that
it is not more than a thousand years ago since the metaphysicians
consented to relieve the people of the singular fancy that there
existed but _two possible roads for the attainment of Truth_! Believe
it if you can! It appears that long, long ago, in the night of Time,
there lived a Turkish philosopher (or Hindoo possibly), called Aries
Tottle. This person introduced or at all events propagated what was
termed the deductive or _a priori_ mode of investigation. He started
with what he maintained to be _axioms_, or "self-evident truths," and
thence proceeded "logically" to results. His greatest disciples were
one Neuclid, and one Cant. Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme until
the advent of one Hog, surnamed the "Ettrick Shepherd," who preached
an entirely different system, which he called the _a posteriori_ or
inductive. His plan referred altogether to Sensation. He proceeded by
observing, analyzing, and classifying facts--_instantiae naturae_, as
they were affectedly called--into general laws. Aries Tottle's mode,
in a word, was based on _noumena_; Hog's on _phenomena_. Well, so
great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its
first introduction, Aries Tottle fell into disrepute; but finally he
recovered ground and was permitted to divide the realm of Truth with
his more modern rival. The _savans_ now maintained the Aristotelian
and _Baconian_ roads were the sole possible avenues to knowledge.
"Baconian," you must know, was an adjective invented as equivalent to
Hog-ian and more euphonious and dignified.

Now, my dear friend, I do assure you, most positively, that I represent
this matter fairly, on the soundest authority; and you can easily
understand how a notion so absurd on its very face must have operated
to retard the progress of all true knowledge--which makes its advances
almost invariably by intuitive bounds. The ancient idea confined
investigations to _crawling_; and for hundreds of years so great was
the infatuation about Hog especially, that a virtual end was put to all
thinking, properly so called. No man dared utter a truth to which he
felt himself indebted to his _Soul_ alone. It mattered not whether the
truth was even _demonstrably_ a truth, for the bullet-headed _savans_
of the time regarded only the road by which he had attained it. They
would not even look at the end. "Let us see the means," they cried,
"the means!" If, upon investigation of the means, it was found to come
under neither the category Aries (that is to say, Ram), nor under the
category Hog, why then the savans went no farther, but pronounced the
"theorist" a fool, and would have nothing to do with him or his truth.

Now, it cannot be maintained even that by the crawling system the
greatest amount of truth would be attained in any long series of ages,
for the repression of _imagination_ was an evil not to be compensated
for by any superior _certainty_ in the ancient modes of investigation.
The error of these Jurmains, these Vrinch, these Inglitch, and these
Amriccans (the latter, by the way, were our own immediate progenitors),
was an error quite analogous with that of the wiseacre who fancies
that he must necessarily see an object the better the more closely
he holds it to his eyes. These people blinded themselves by details.
When they proceeded Hoggishly, their "facts" were by no means always
facts--a matter of little consequence had it not been for assuming that
they were facts and must be facts because they appeared to be such.
When they proceeded on the path of the Ram, their course was scarcely
as straight as a ram's horn, for they never had an axiom which was an
axiom at all. They must have been very blind not to see this, even in
their own day; for even in their own day many of the long "established"
axioms had been rejected. For example, "_Ex nihilo nihil fit_"; "a body
cannot act where it is not"; "there cannot exist antipodes"; "darkness
cannot come out of light"--all these, and a dozen other similar
propositions, formerly admitted without hesitation as axioms, were,
even at the period of which I speak, seen to be untenable. How absurd
in these people, then, to persist in putting faith in "axioms" as
immutable bases of Truth! But even out of the mouths of their soundest
reasoners it is easy to demonstrate the futility, the impalpability
of their axioms in general. Who was the soundest of their logicians?
Let me see! I will go and ask Pundit and be back in a minute.... Ah,
here we have it! Here is a book written nearly a thousand years ago and
lately translated from Inglitch--which, by the way, appears to have
been the rudiment of the Amriccan. Pundit says it is decidedly the
cleverest ancient work on its topic, Logic. The author (who was much
thought of in his day) was one Miller, or Mill; and we find it recorded
of him, as a point of some importance, that he had a mill-horse called
Bentham. But let us glance at the treatise!

Ah! "Ability or inability to conceive," says Mr. Mill, very properly,
"is in no case, to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth." What
modern in his senses would ever think of disputing this truism? The
only wonder with us must be, how it happened that Mr. Mill conceived it
necessary even to hint at anything so obvious. So far, good--but let
us turn over another paper. What have we here? "Contradictories cannot
both be true--that is, cannot coexist in nature." Here Mr. Mill means,
for example, that a tree must be either a tree or not a tree--that it
cannot be at the same time a tree and not a tree. Very well; but I ask
him why. His reply is this--and never pretends to be anything else
than this--"Because it is impossible to conceive that contradictories
can both be true." But this is no answer at all, by his own showing;
for has he not just admitted as a truism that "ability or inability
to conceive is in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic
truth"?

Now I do not complain of these ancients so much because their logic
is, by their own showing, utterly baseless, worthless and fantastic
altogether, as because of their pompous and imbecile proscription
of all other roads of Truth, of all other means for its attainment
than the two preposterous paths--the one creeping and the one of
crawling--to which they have dared to confine the Soul that loves
nothing so well as to soar.

By the by, my friend, do you not think it would have puzzled these
ancient dogmaticians to have determined by which of their two roads it
was that the most important and most sublime of all their truths was,
in effect, attained? I mean the truth of Gravitation. Newton owed it
to Kepler. Kepler admitted that his three laws were guessed at--these
three laws of all laws which led the great Inglitch mathematician to
his principle, the basis of all physical principle--to go behind which
we must enter the Kingdom of Metaphysics: Kepler guessed--that is to
say, imagined. He was essentially a "theorist"--that word now of so
much sanctity, formerly an epithet of contempt. Would it not have
puzzled these old moles, too, to have explained by which of the two
"roads" a cryptographist unriddles a cryptograph of more than usual
secrecy, or by which of the two roads Champollion directed mankind to
those enduring and almost innumerable truths which resulted from his
deciphering the Hieroglyphics?

One word more on this topic and I will be done boring you. Is it not
passing strange that, with their eternal prattling about roads to
Truth, these bigoted people missed what we now so clearly perceive to
be the great highway--that of Consistency? Does it not seem singular
how they should have failed to deduce from the works of God the vital
fact that a perfect consistency must be an absolute truth! How plain
has been our progress since the late announcement of this proposition!
Investigation has been taken out of the hands of the groundmoles and
given, as a task, to the true and only true thinkers, the men of ardent
imagination. These latter _theorize_. Can you not fancy the shout
of scorn with which my words would be received by our progenitors
were it possible for them to be now looking over my shoulder? These
men, I say, _theorize_; and their theories are simply corrected,
reduced, systematized--cleared, little by little, of their dross of
inconsistency--until, finally, a perfect consistency stands apparent
which even the most stolid admit, because it is a consistency, to be an
absolute and an unquestionable truth.

_April 4th._--The new gas is doing wonders, in conjunction with the new
improvement with gutta percha. How very safe, commodious, manageable,
and in every respect convenient are our modern balloons? Here is an
immense one approaching us at the rate of at least a hundred and fifty
miles an hour. It seems to be crowded with people--perhaps there are
three or four hundred passengers--and yet it soars to an elevation
of nearly a mile, looking down upon poor us with sovereign contempt.
Still, a hundred or even two hundred miles an hour is slow traveling
after all. Do you remember our flight on the railroad across the
Kanadaw continent? Fully three hundred miles the hour--_that_ was
traveling. Nothing to be seen, though--nothing to be done but flirt,
feast and dance in the magnificent saloons. Do you remember what an
odd sensation was experienced, when, by chance, we caught a glimpse of
external objects while the cars were in full flight? Everything seemed
unique--in one mass. For my part, I cannot say but that I preferred
the traveling by the slow train of a hundred miles the hour. Here we
were permitted to have glass windows--even to have them open--and
something like a distinct view of the country was attainable.... Pundit
says that _the route_ for the great Kanadaw railroad must have been
in some measure marked out about nine hundred years ago! In fact,
he goes so far as to assert that actual traces of a road are still
discernible--traces referable to a period quite as remote as that
mentioned. The track, it appears, was _double_ only; ours, you know,
has twelve paths; and three or four new ones are in preparation. The
ancient rails are very slight, and placed so close together as to be,
according to modern notions, quite frivolous, if not dangerous, in the
extreme. The present width of track--fifty feet--is considered, indeed,
scarcely secure enough. For my part, I make no doubt that a track of
some sort must have existed in very remote times, as Pundit asserts;
for nothing can be clearer, to my mind, than that, at some period--not
less than seven centuries ago, certainly--the Northern and Southern
Kanadaw continents were _united_; the Kanawdians, then, would have been
driven, by necessity, to a great railroad across the continent.

_April 5th._--I am almost devoured by _ennui_. Pundit is the only
conversible person on board; and he, poor soul, can speak of nothing
but antiquities. He has been occupied all the day in the attempt to
convince me that ancient Americans _governed themselves_! Did ever
anybody hear of such an absurdity? That they existed in a sort of
every-man-for-himself confederacy, after the fashion of the "prairie
dogs" that we read of in fable. He says that they started with the
queerest ideas conceivable, viz: that all men are born free and
equal--this in the very teeth of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly
impressed upon all things both in the moral and physical universe.
Every man "voted," as they called it--that is to say, meddled with
public affairs--until at length, it was discovered that what is
everybody's business is nobody's, and that the "Republic" (so the
absurd thing was called) was without a government at all. It is
related, however, that the first circumstance which disturbed, very
particularly, the self-complacency of the philosophers who constructed
this "Republic" was the startling discovery that universal suffrage
gave opportunity for fraudulent schemes, by means of which any desired
number of votes might at any time be polled, without the possibility
of prevention or even detection, by any party which should be merely
villainous enough not to be ashamed of the fraud. A little reflection
upon this discovery sufficed to render evident the consequences, which
were that rascality _must_ predominate--in a word, that a republican
government _could_ never be anything but a rascally one. While the
philosophers, however, were busied in blushing at their stupidity
in not having foreseen these inevitable evils, and intent upon the
invention of new theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a
fellow of the name of _Mob_, who took everything into his own hands
and set up a despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous
Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a
foreigner, by the by) is said to have been the most odious of all men
that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant in stature--insolent,
rapacious, filthy; had the gall of a bullock with the heart of a
hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died, at length, by dint of his
own energies, which exhausted him. Nevertheless, he had his uses, as
everything has, however vile, and taught mankind a lesson which to this
day it is in no danger of forgetting--never to run directly contrary to
the natural analogies. As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found
for it upon the face of the earth--unless we except the case of the
"prairie dogs," an exception which seems, to demonstrate, if anything,
that democracy is a very admirable form of government--for dogs.

_April 6th._--Last night had a fine view of Alpha Lyrae, whose disk,
through our captain's spy glass, subtends an angle of half a degree,
looking very much as our sun does to the naked eye on a misty day.
Alpha Lyrae, although so very much larger than our sun, by the by,
resembles him closely as regards its spots, its atmosphere, and in
many other particulars. It is only within the last century, Pundit
tells me, that the binary relation existing between these two orbs
began even to be suspected. The evident motion of our system in the
heavens was (strange to say!) referred to an orbit about a prodigious
star in the center of the galaxy. About this star, or at all events
about a center of gravity common to all the globes of the Milky Way and
supposed to be near Alcyone in the Pleiades, every one of these globes
was declared to be revolving, our own performing the circuit in a
period of 117,000,000 of years! _We_, with our present lights, our vast
telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it difficult to
comprehend _the ground_ of an idea such as this. Its first propagator
was one Mudler. He was led, we must presume, to this wild hypothesis
by mere analogy in the first instance; but, this being the case, he
should have at least adhered to analogy in its development. A great
central orb was, in fact, suggested; so far Mudler was consistent. This
central orb, however, dynamically, should have been greater than all
its surrounding orbs taken together. The question might then have been
asked, "Why do we not see it?" _We_, especially, who occupy the mid
region of the cluster--the very locality _near_ which, at least, must
be situated this inconceivable central sun. The astronomer, perhaps,
at this point, took refuge in the suggestion of non-luminosity; and
here analogy was suddenly let fall. But even admitting the central orb
non-luminous, how did he manage to explain its failure to be rendered
visible by the incalculable host of glorious suns glaring in all
directions about it? No doubt what he finally maintained was merely
a center of gravity common to all the revolving orbs--but here again
analogy must have been let fall. Our system revolves, it is true, about
a common center of gravity, but it does this in connection with and
in consequence of a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances
the rest of the system. The mathematical circle is a curve composed of
an infinity of straight lines; but this idea of the circle--this idea
of it which, in regard to all earthly geometry, we consider as merely
the mathematical, in contradistinction from the practical, idea--is,
in sober fact, the _practical_ conception which alone we have any
right to entertain in respect to those Titanic circles with which we
have to deal, at least in fancy, when we suppose our system, with
its fellows, revolving about a point in the center of the galaxy. Let
the most vigorous of human imaginations but attempt to take a single
step toward the comprehension of a circuit so unutterable! It would
scarcely be paradoxical to say that a flash of lightning itself,
traveling _forever_ upon the circumference of this inconceivable
circle, would still _forever_ be traveling in a straight line. That
the path of our sun along such a circumference--that the direction of
our system in such an orbit--would, to any human perception, deviate
in the slightest degree from a straight line even in a million of
years, is a proposition not to be entertained; and yet these ancient
astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears, into believing that
a decisive curvature had become apparent during the brief period of
their astronomical history--during the mere point--during the utter
nothingness of two or three thousand years! How incomprehensible, that
considerations such as this did not at once indicate to them the true
state of affairs--that of the binary revolution of our sun and Alpha
Lyrae around a common center of gravity!

_April 7th._--Continued last night our astronomical amusements. Had
a fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much
interest the putting of a huge impost on a couple of lintels in the new
temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think that creatures
so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so little resemblance to
humanity, yet evinced a mechanical ingenuity so much superior to our
own. One finds it difficult, too, to conceive the vast masses which
these people handle so easily, to be as light as our own reason tell us
they actually are.

_April 8th._--Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. A balloon from Kanadaw
spoke us today and threw on board several late papers; they contain
some exceedingly curious information relative to Kanawdian or rather
Amriccan antiquities. You know, I presume, that laborers have for
some months been employed in preparing the ground for a new fountain
at Paradise, the Emperor's principal pleasure garden. Paradise,
it appears, has been, _literally_ speaking, an island time out of
mind--that is to say, its northern boundary was always (as far back as
any record extends) a rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm of the sea.
This arm was gradually widened until it attained its present breadth--a
mile. The whole length of the island is nine miles; the breadth varies
materially. The entire area (so Pundit says) was, about eight hundred
years ago, densely packed with houses, some of them twenty stories
high: land (for some most unaccountable reason) being considered as
especially precious just in this vicinity. The disastrous earthquake,
however, of the year 2050, so totally uprooted and overwhelmed the
town (for it was almost too large to be called a village) that the
most indefatigable of our antiquarians have never yet been able to
obtain from the site any sufficient data (in the shape of coins, medals
or inscriptions) wherewith to build up even the ghost of a theory
concerning the manners, customs, etc., etc., etc., of the aboriginal
inhabitants. Nearly all that we have hitherto known of them is that
they were a portion of the Knickerbocker tribe of savages infesting
the continent at its first discovery by Recorder Riker, a knight of
the Golden Fleece. They were by no means uncivilized, however, but
cultivated various arts and even sciences after a fashion of their
own. It it related of them that they were acute in many respects, but
were oddly afflicted with monomania for building what, in the ancient
Amriccan, was denominated "churches"--a kind of pagoda instituted
for the worship of two idols that went by the names of Wealth and
Fashion. In the end, it is said, the island became, nine-tenths of it,
church. The women, too, it appears, were oddly deformed by a natural
protuberance of the region just below the small of the back--although,
most unaccountably, this deformity was looked upon altogether in the
light of a beauty. One or two pictures of these singular women have, in
fact, been miraculously preserved. They looked very odd, _very_--like
something between a turkeycock and a dromedary.

Well, these few details are nearly all that have descended to us
respecting the ancient Knickerbockers. It seems, however, that while
digging in the center of the emperor's garden (which, you know,
covers the whole island), some of the workmen unearthed a cubical and
evidently chiseled block of granite, weighing several hundred pounds.
It was in good preservation, having received, apparently, little injury
from the convulsion which entombed it. On one of its surfaces was a
marble slab with (only think of it!) _an inscription_--_a legible
inscription_. Pundit is in ecstasies. Upon detaching the slab, a cavity
appeared, containing a leaden box filled with various coins, a long
scroll of names, several documents which appear to resemble newspapers,
with other matters of intense interest to the antiquarian! There can be
no doubt that all these are genuine Amriccan relics belonging to the
tribe called Knickerbocker. The papers thrown on board our balloon
are filled with fac-similes of the coins, MSS., typography, etc., etc.
I copy for your amusement the Knickerbocker inscription on the marble
slab:

                This Corner Stone of a Monument to the
                               Memory of
                          GEORGE WASHINGTON,
              was laid with appropriate ceremonies on the
                      19th day of October, 1847,
                  the anniversary of the surrender of
                            Lord Cornwallis
                  to General Washington at Yorktown,
                              A. D. 1781,
                       under the auspices of the
                Washington Monument Association of the
                           City of New York.

This, as I give it, is a verbatim translation done by Pundit himself,
so there _can_ be no mistake about it. From the few words thus
preserved, we gleam several important items of knowledge, not the least
interesting of which is the fact that a thousand years ago _actual_
monuments had fallen into disuse--as was all very proper--the people
contenting themselves, as we do now, with a mere indication of the
design to erect a monument at some future time; a cornerstone being
cautiously laid by itself "solitary and alone" (excuse me for quoting
the great Amriccan poet Benton!) as a guarantee of the magnanimous
_intention_. We ascertain, too, very distinctly, from this admirable
inscription, the how as well as the where and the what, of the great
surrender in question. As to the _where_, it was Yorktown (wherever
that was), and as to the _what_, it was General Cornwallis (no doubt
some wealthy dealer in corn). _He_ was surrendered. The inscription
commemorates the surrender of--what?--why, "of Lord Cornwallis." The
only question is what could the savages wish him surrendered for. But
when we remember that these savages were undoubtedly cannibals, we
are led to the conclusion that they intended him for sausage. As to
the _how_ of the surrender, no language can be more explicit. Lord
Cornwallis was surrendered (for sausage) "under the auspices of the
Washington Monument Association"--no doubt a charitable institution
for the depositing of cornerstones. But, Heaven bless me! what is the
matter? Ah, I see--the balloon has collapsed, and we shall have a
tumble into the sea. I have, therefore, only time enough to add that,
from a hasty inspection of the fac-similes of newspapers, etc., etc.,
I find that the great men in those days among the Amriccans, were one
John, a smith, and one Zacchary, a tailor.

Good-bye, until I see you again. Whether you ever get this letter or
not is point of little importance, as I write altogether for my own
amusement. I shall cork the MS. up in a bottle, however, and throw it
into the sea.

                         Yours everlastingly,
                               PUNDITA.
                                                     --Edgar Allan Poe.


=Busyong's Trip to Jupiter=

Singular indeed among such ordinary men as we come across in our
everyday life Busyong might have seemed to us, both on account of his
features and of his attitude. He had wrinkles on his face which showed
that he had smiled and laughed much in his life; but his expression
was rather sardonic. He was a lively man, with a keen sense of what
is serious and what is ludicrous. Owing to this peculiarity Busyong
did not have many acquaintances among his tribe. However, he did not
feel lonesome or forlorn; often he amused himself in observing in his
people what he regarded as the overstepping of limits of propriety
and decency. He was not a man of vast knowledge, yet he had exquisite
common sense, which his few good friends admired.

Busyong entertained the idea of visiting the brightest planet, next
to Venus, of our solar system, namely, Jupiter; for he had read in a
certain book that Jupiter is inhabited, and the inhabitants can float
in the air because of their lightness. "This is something to me," he
said to himself. "Let us see what sort of people they are." So, led by
curiosity, Busyong after several attempts succeeded in finding means
by which he could go to Jupiter. He made a large balloon-like machine.
When Busyong had prepared everything necessary for this aerial voyage,
he began ascending from the top of Mt. Makiling at sunset. Nobody
witnessed him, because he did not make the purpose of his voyage known
to anybody. While he was ascending, he was delighted to observe the
earth growing smaller and smaller. The machine of the balloon was so
powerful that by turning a sort of button to its maximum capacity, as
Busyong did, he had the balloon soon piercing the clouds and like a
large condor soaring in the sky. When Busyong found out that he could
hardly breathe, he accelerated the speed of the balloon, so that in a
few moments he found himself in a different atmosphere where he could
breathe as well as before when he was yet near the earth. He was now
near Jupiter, whose brightness had served him as a lighthouse. He had
puffed out some of the vapor in the balloon, so that he might go down
nearer the planet. It being very early in the morning, he resolved to
take a rest; for he was tired of seeing nothing but stars and sky.

Presently, after about two hours, when the sun was just appearing from
behind the planet, Busyong woke up. He was glad; for he had dreamt that
he should see things which he had never seen before. After rubbing his
eyes with a handkerchief, he began to look around him. With the aid
of a telescope which he had brought he saw to his surprise large and
small bodies of land and water, which he took for continents, islands,
oceans, and lakes, respectively. Descending lower, he perceived
mountains, some of which were hidden by clouds, and others that were
unhidden, covered with trees. When he had directed his telescope
towards a valley, he noticed to his happiness a poor dwelling of some
human being. It was a hut with a roof similar to _nipa_ and with a
wooden ladder, near which was a cock. The sight of this dwelling gave
rise in Busyong mind to a train of ideas regarding the inhabitants of
the planet. So far it certainly looked like the country he had come
from: it might still be the Philippines. Busyong decided to alight
from his balloon on the top of a mountain near the hut. After he had
eaten his breakfast, he began to descend the mountain. It was not long
before he reached its foot through devious paths.

When he appeared before the entrance of the cottage and looked in, he
found a haggard middle-aged man, a sluttish old woman, and a wan-faced
boy, all of a swarthy appearance, sitting on the floor. They were
eating their frugal breakfast, which consisted of fried rice, coffee,
and dried fish. They did not use spoons, but their plain dirty-nailed
fingers. Busyong was surprised to find so great a similarity both in
the form of the house and in the manner of eating between these people
and those of his own country. Presently upon his saluting these inmates
with a _magandang araw po_, a small lean red dog began to bark at him.
The man, who was sitting in a squatting posture, turned his face and
remained for a few moments staring at Busyong with a little fright
mingled with wonder. Unfortunately when the old woman had cleaned her
shriveled hands unconsciously with a piece of brown ragged cloth, the
dog vomited on it without being noticed by any one of the family. Then
with her disheveled hair she stood up to receive Busyong, who was a
stranger to them; but the man prevented her from doing so. The man did
not appear to understand Busyong, who again bade him a good morning,
and so Busyong resolved to talk to him like a mute by signs. Having
noticed a large farm not very far from the hut, Busyong beckoned the
man, and made signs, asking him who the owner of the field was. The
man, who seemed to be a farm laborer, pointed to him the way to the
rich farmer's house. Busyong soon left him still staring with a vacant
countenance and wide-open mouth.

Busyong had noticed the folly of the old woman when she wiped her hands
with the dirty piece of cloth. It was not long after he had started to
go that he heard such loud retchings from the hut that he stopped and
turned around. He returned anxious to see what the matter was. When
he appeared before the entrance of the cottage, he saw the peasant,
who kept asking his wife in a compassionate manner what was the matter
with her. The man received no answer; for his wife kept on retching so
constantly that she thought that, like a sea cucumber, she had everted
all her alimentary canal or was going to do so. The poor husband was
so perplexed that he did not know what to do with her; sometimes he
patted her breast; sometimes he rubbed her back as if he were stroking
the _bulik sa pula_ (a cock spotted with white and red, but mostly with
red) that was near the ladder of the hut.

Presently, when the peasant saw Busyong observing his action, he drew
near to him and said something in a tremulous voice. Busyong explained
to the man by motions that the cause of all the trouble was perhaps the
vomit of the dog on the piece of cloth. The man hurried to convince
himself; and in his great anger he would have killed the poor animal,
were it not for Busyong, who stopped him. The husband and the wife,
whose convulsions had calmed somewhat, were angry with the dog, and
even their little boy, pouting with smeared face, showed his anger by
squalling at and whipping the animal; but at the same time the man
and the old woman were afraid that Busyong might call an ambulance to
take them all to a hospital or police station. In the midst of this
excitement Busyong availed himself of the opportunity to "strike when
the emotional iron was hot." He exhorted the family concerning the
custom of eating with fingers in such a philippic as might have had
a very deep impression on the minds of all his hearers if they had
understood him.

Busyong then departed, and he said to himself nodding, "Aha, I remember
my grandmother often said to me when she would tell me amusing stories
that in the vineyard of the Lord there are all sorts of things. I see
now that her statement seems to hold good even in this new planet."
When he had walked some distance, he looked around him, and took his
handkerchief out of a pocket of his coat and with it wiped off the
perspiration on his face. Feeling himself warm, he whiffed and said,
"I see, this country appears to have the same warm climate as that of
my native land. I wonder if the people here are all brown like the
farm-laborer and me." After a few minutes' walk he saw a large town at
a short distance, and among the small houses he perceived a steep roof
which he took for the steeple of the church of the village. The first
house he came to in the town was that of the rich farmer. It was a
two-storied square wooden structure; in front of it was a small garden,
and behind a small orchard. Busyong knocked at the door, and in a few
moments a servant appeared.

"Is the farmer in?" Busyong inquired, hardly expecting to be
understood. He knew no language but his own, and had to try to get
along with that.

"Yes, sir," answered the servant, whose curiosity was awakened by the
rather unfamiliar appearance of Busyong, but who seemed to wonder not
at all at his speech.

"Tell him, please, that a stranger desires to speak with him."

Without uttering a word, the servant went to comply with Busyong's
request.

"Yes, invite him to come in," said the old farmer to his servant. "And,
Andoy," he added, "tell Islao to come here to try these new sound
assorters."

"Yes, sir," was the boy's reply as he went down the stairs.

The servant first led Busyong before the farmer.

"Here, Islao, see if you can put these new filterers into your ears
without discomfort. I've improved on the others considerably, I think,"
said the old man as Busyong stepped into the room.

"Good morning, sir," said Busyong very respectfully, taking the
proffered package and bowing, though he understood not a word.

"Oh! excuse me, sir, excuse me! I mistook you for my son," exclaimed
the farmer, but seeing that Busyong was confused he motioned him
to sit down, and then drawing from his ears a tiny pair of soft
elastic-looking objects, put them back and motioned Busyong to
imitate him by applying what was in the package to his own ears.
Being naturally very curious and desiring above all things to make a
good impression on the inhabitants of this strange planet, Busyong
obeyed. But what was his astonishment to find that he now began to
understand perfectly what the old man was saying, whom before he had
not comprehended in the least, although the old fellow was already well
launched on a long exposition. Busyong's understanding began to work
at about this point: "You see, I have greatly improved them. There
has always hitherto been a sort of buzzing accompaniment. You don't
feel any, do you? You understand me perfectly, don't you? I told my
son Islao the difficulty could be overcome, But, you see, people have
been so accustomed to getting along with the noise that they stopped
being impatient at it. But I said since we had all the language sounds
assorted and distributed to their proper concept centers, there was
no reason why we should not be able to conduct outward the so-to-say
'mechanical' sounds. You understand me perfectly, don't you, sir, and
with no buzzing. Is not that so?"

"Yes, truly; but much to my astonishment," replied Busyong, "for a
moment ago I did not understand you, and now I do. On our planet I
have heard of light or ray filterers that would distribute colors on
a sensitive camera plate, but this is the first time I've heard of a
language filterer, though I see that it works perfectly. But, sir, I
remember that you were very busy when I came in, and now I am bothering
you."

"Oh, no, sir; keep your seat, keep your seat, please. This is the time
when I attend to visitors; from nine to twelve o'clock in the morning
and from three to five o'clock in the afternoon; and even at any other
time I am disposed to receive a guest, especially a stranger."

"Thank you, sir. My intrusion is perhaps justifiable by my being a
stranger to this planet."

"A stranger to this planet! Will you explain yourself? Otherwise I
shall think you are some ghost."

"Why, yes, I'll make myself clear as I can. I arrived here just this
morning from the planet Earth. Near the foot of that neighboring
mountain I saw the hut of your farm laborer, who showed me your house."

"But how did you come to this planet!"

"By a special balloon which I made myself."

"Oh, yes, I remember now; I remember to have read--I do not recollect
the name of the book--that such an aerial voyage from the earth to this
planet or _vice versa_ is possible. Oh, please, stay here with us; we
shall be very glad to have you remain with us."

"Thank you, sir; yes, I'll stay here. Especially if you will explain
to me this wonderful device by means of which I can understand your
language and you mine. Now on Earth we have to go to the labor of
memorizing a whole dictionary if we wish to converse with a fellow
mortal of another nationality."

"Oh, yes; that's very bad. A great loss of time and energy. A long
while ago, after we had perfected mechanical talking machines, somebody
realized that we were wasting a great amount of time conversing with
machinery when we couldn't understand our fellow men. So he set
himself to thinking and he soon saw that the difference in languages
is not a difference in ideas, but in sounds. So if he could just
filter the sound waves as they entered the cranium, he could trust
to consciousness to do the rest; for it always responds to phenomena
after its own nature, not after the nature of the phenomena that it
takes up--as the philosophers had long before proved. But I must stop
talking. I want to hear about the Earth. I dare say your planet is much
wiser than ours. Ours is very foolish in many ways, as you will see
before long." And the farmer got up to order one of his servants to
prepare a room for Busyong.

The family of the old man, consisting of a wife and a grown-up son and
a young daughter, then spent most of the day in eagerly questioning
Busyong about the earth and its inhabitants. Night came on and the
farmer remained alone conversing with Busyong beside a window until
very late. They were beginning to feel sleepy when a confused noise of
stringed instruments was heard from a neighboring house. Busyong soon
lost his drowsiness.

"What is that music for? What does it mean at such at an hour as this?
'Tis one o'clock," Busyong said.

"These people are courting a lady, and their cackling is intended to
win the love of the maiden--nay, I should say to annoy and disturb the
neighbors from their rest; for that's really what they do," replied
the old man with indignation. "This custom," he added, "although not
widespread in this country, is yet after all very troublesome and
indeed very ridiculous also."

"Now, I wonder if these people know the woman for whom they are
offering their sacrifices."

"That is another folly about them. That is often the case; these people
work hard making a loud noise with their wooden rattles in order to
attain their purpose, but they don't have the slightest idea of the
real character of the woman for whom they die deliriously; nay, they
don't know even how she looks; whether she is ugly and haggard or
whether she is like Venus, charming with beauty."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, O Folly! But let us not fret ourselves at the errors
of mankind, for they seem to be natural both to this planet and to that
of mine. Hark! who is that singing now so affectedly?"

"That is the head of the band, the Faust. Listen to his fastidious
voice and the _balder-dash_ with which it is accompanied."

Silence reigned for a time between the old man and Busyong. Upon
hearing no longer the music which had occasioned his remarks the old
man said, "Thanks to Dios, I think they are gone. Now let us go to bed.
You must be very tired, Busyong. Good night."

"Good night," replied Busyong.

Next morning the old man told his son Islao to take a walk with
Busyong around the town. In this exploration, for such did it appear
rather than just a mere promenade to Busyong, who was a stranger to
the planet, Islao led his friend directly to his large farm of rice.
Then they went to the busiest part of the large town, where Busyong
was delighted to observe the different kinds of stores--dry goods
and hardware. When they came to a very lively street, Busyong found
occasion to laugh in his characteristic sarcastic manner at the
tremendous numbers of different kinds of signboards, some hanging flat
against the doors of the stores, and some sticking out a long distance
or even stretching across the entire width of the street. The size of
the signboards ranged from the smallest of those which professional men
use to the very large ones with which the managers of theaters announce
a dramatic performance.

While the two friends were walking slowly along the street, for there
were many people out, their attention was very curiously attracted by
the appearance of a scrawny young man, who came mincing by them. They
stopped beside a telegraph post, while the young man went on, meeting a
friend at a short distance, to whom he said, "Hallo, Tetoy (Aniceto).
_Donde vamus you?_" "Hallo, Balatong," replied the friend. The rest of
their conversation went on in a low tone in their peculiar dialect.
Busyong and Islao overheard only their slipshod greetings.

"Islao, who is that man--that one who wears the hat with a wide ribbon
whose colors are light blue and green, and black with white stripes
resembling the skin of a skunk?" inquired Busyong.

"What man? Excuse me, I was looking at somebody else," said Islao. "Do
you mean that one who wears a bright red, yellow, and green----"

"Crumpled small fish net around his collar I should say; yes, exactly,
that one. Who's he?"

"Ha, ha, ha; oh, yes. He is one of the suitors of the girl who lives in
front of our house. Balatong, I think is his name."

"Aha, the one who cackled last night, as your father said?"

"I don't know," laughing.

"And that other one with cross eyes, whose trousers are folded up five
times, I think, showing his stockings, which are like the tidies of a
chair back--who's he?"

"Who? That one who wears broad ribbon-like strings on his shoes?
I don't know him. Don't you think he looks like a woman--I mean
both of them--with their way of dressing? Aha, one of them--not the
cross-eyed--has powder on his face, I think."

"Oh, yes, yes. You know, in my native country in the planet Earth only
women are fond of and use such gaudy colors and such kind of stockings;
and, indeed, they are only proper for women. But we used to----"

"But that's not all here; the worst is when these people use
stockings--as I have had occasion to notice many times--stockings
which are elaborately ornamented with the queerest fantastic designs;
such as a burning dainty heart, a dove carrying a bunch of _dama de
noche_ with its toes--rather, a falcon or vulture I should say--great
goodness!--make the dove carry a flower in its claws!"

"Aha, is that so? Why, thanks to goodness, in my native land no such
queer people are to be found now, except very, very few. There used to
be--but do you know what we call them in pure, simple Tagalog? We call
them _binabae_; that is a bit worse than the English term 'sissy.' But
from your own experience, tell me, Islao, what living being other than
man have you observed making such a liberal display of gaudy colors in
that most affected manner?"

"Why, among plants you mean? Like the parasite with beautifully colored
flowers hanging on that window?"

"Well, not so low in the organic world as that," laughing heartily. "I
don't mean a plant; I mean----"

"Oh, I get your point. You mean among birds like the gayly colored
rooster of that man who is now hawking in that store, don't you?"

"Exactly, upon my wish, you have slipped from your tongue what I was
precisely going to say."

"And I think you know why the birds, most especially the males, do have
such bright colors."

"Why, yes; I suppose those smart young men have the same view in mind
as that of the male birds, and meditate and dream that it is 'not
proper at all for a man to be alone,' as, thinking of Priscilla, Miles
Standish would say."

"Possibly, possibly," laughing. Islao did not understand the allusion,
but he let it pass.

"Now be careful; don't speak loud," whispered Busyong.

Presently the two friends who were the object of Busyong and Islao's
rather severe remarks shuffled towards Busyong and Islao, stopping near
the telegraph post beside them. The two chums were going to separate
when one of them, the cross-eyed, jabbered, "Oh, you _teni espijo_, ah?
_Porque? You ajos malo, eh?_"

A sudden insuppressible peal of laughter was heard from Busyong and
Islao, who soon tried to act as if they did not hear the blunder.

"_Cosa ajos?_ Am no cook as you," said the other grinning over his
glasses a little more easily than the first one.

"_Cosa esti?_" asked the cross-eyed one, pointing to his eyes with his
dirty-nailed finger.

"T'at is call 'esquinting eyes.'"

"Ah, yes. _Porque got espijo_ you, esquinting ais?"

"Oh, you don' know its value; t'at is to add weight," erecting his body
and raising his low chest, but forgetting that the other had called him
cross-eyed.

Their gabble would have lasted longer if it were not for two ladies who
passed between them. Balatong, as the young man who wore spectacles
was called, started to mince along the busy street, scowling at Busyong
and at Islao, who were suppressing their laughter as best they could,
as he strutted before them. In a few moments Busyong and Islao began
also to move about, and soon kept pace with two bald-headed men who
happened to be walking the street in the same direction as theirs.
Presently, one of the old men observed Balatong, who was peering at
and caressing with a handkerchief one of his tapped shoes which had
been stepped upon by a "brat," to use his own expression, as he had
struggled along, distorting carefully his body to force a way through
an idle crowd. Then in a sarcastic but indignant manner and forgetting
what his companion was speaking about, the man said, "Oh, look at that
Enigo. See how the lower edge of his long cloak flaps like a sail
battered by the wind!"

"No," said the other old man, "that is not a cloak, but a plain coat."

"Well, I thought it was a cloak like those used by the people in the
neighboring continent in time of cold weather. That's the reason why
I said he was Enigo, for he uses a cloak now when it is warm, and I
suppose he would use light clothes when it is cold."

"That is the fashion they say--and the latest one, too."

"Go to, the fashion!"

Meanwhile Busyong nudged Islao and whispered close to his ear, "Did you
hear what these old men were talking about?"

Islao nodded, smiling.

Then the two old men climbed into a vehicle very much like a
_carretela_, and drove away. Busyong and Islao went into a saloon of
fresh drinks and asked for a refreshment similar to milkshake.

"The owner of this saloon is a woman, according to the signboard at the
door," remarked Busyong.

"Yes," said Islao, smiling; "I am sorry to say."

In the meantime Balatong stopped in front of a dry goods store on the
opposite sidewalk and began to ruminate on his image as reflected in
the glass of a counter, and at times twitched his scrawny body. Busyong
and Islao were observing him. After a while a clerk of the store opened
the door of the counter and turned a button on the back of a puppet,
which hereto had been unnoticed by Balatong. Soon the dainty hands of
the puppet, which were raised in front of its small breast, began to
move back and forth, especially the delicate fingers, as if the whole
figure had come to life. Balatong looked at the doll rather pleased
at first. But when he noticed the remarkable similarity of all the
clothes of the puppet with his own clothes, he began to be aroused and
to feel offended, insomuch that he could not help going into the store
to complain. He approached the man who had made the hands of the puppet
move and called him to come outside. The man, who thought that he was
going to show something on the counter which he wished to buy, followed
him obediently. They stuttered in their native tongue, which ran thus
in English:

"I think that that puppet is intended to offend me, because
it is dressed exactly in the same way as I am; that is,
with the same clothes, necktie, and hat, which I bought
from this very store some time ago. However, you have
willfully--made--the--pup--pup--pup--pet--move its hands in such a way
as that--pointing to himself and then to me--that is as much as to say
I am a puppet," said Balatong, who began to be angry with the man, who
was laughing candidly.

The man went back into the store, shrugging his square shoulders and
paying no attention to the complaint of Balatong. Balatong insisted,
squalling at the door in an aggressive attitude, "Aren't you goin' to
take 'way the puppet from t'at counter?"

"_E ko visa_," muttered the clerk in his native dialect as he was
dusting the chairs in the store.

Presently Busyong and Islao, who all this while had been mute
spectators of the fray, came out of the saloon with a view to settle
the dispute peacefully and justly, for, after all, they pitied
Balatong, who, they thought, had got now into an inextricable strait.
Islao, who could speak a little the peculiar dialect of the clerk,
addressed the clerk confidentially in his own tongue, asking him what
was the matter. The man answered in the same language which Busyong
understood thus: "Why, this friend orders me to remove the puppet from
that counter; for he says that he is not pleased with it."

"Well, well, is that the whole cause of this fuss?" asked Busyong,
smiling.

Meanwhile Balatong was setting forth to Islao earnestly all his
complaint with many, many studied complicated movements of both hands
and body. Islao waited for him to finish stuttering, for he wanted to
talk with him. Then, suspecting from the tone of his voice a smack
of Kamkangan blood in Balatong, Islao thought it best to feign
comradeship for the sake of persuading him to behave in a more manly
way. So, when Balatong had finished jabbering, Islao addressed him in
the most friendly manner, saying laconically, "_Abe, e ka makisankut
ketang é mo balú._[2]"

Upon hearing these words, which he at first pretended not to have
understood, Balatong suddenly became excited and perplexed. He gnashed
his widely separated teeth, clenched his fists, and looked up into
Islao's face with fiery eyes, saying, "Why d'you insult an' curse me?
If I ha-have done wron', show me how; an' if not, _qua de causa_?"

Busyong and Islao smiled pityingly and ironically instead of being
offended. On the other hand, bursting into a peal of laughter, the
juvenile clerk said jocosely in a sort of Kamkanga dialect the
following: "Aroo, our _abe_ is an evangelical man--fine!--nay, he is a
priest. How was it?--_qua re cosa_--ha, ha, ha."

Balatong became the more angry with the clerk inasmuch as he saw that
the clerk was poking fun at him.

"I don' want to be the laughing stock of anybody," said Balatong
indignantly.

"Don't be touchy, _abe_," said the clerk in his own dialect.

All of a sudden the exasperated Balatong seized a big stone from the
street and dashed it against the glass of the counter, which broke into
a thousand pieces. The people of the store and some passers-by were
alarmed at the violent action of Balatong. Presently a robust old man
came hurriedly shuffling with his wooden shoes towards Balatong, and
would have strangled him were it not for the opportune presence of a
fat man who was one of the idle crowd that had been gathering at the
door of the shop.

The fat man, who was carrying under his arm two large scissors in
a folded white coat, interposed himself between the aggressor and
Balatong, saying in dialect, "For the sake of our beloved country!
Don't behave that way, fellow patriot! Don't, especially with one of
the same skin as yours and in whose veins runs the same pure blood
as that of yours. For the noblest ideal of our _Talukap_[3] party,
countrymen, bethink yourselves!"

"Surely," replied the old man, whose anger was appeased by the slushy
encomium of the intruder. "But this fellow here does not seem to be
like a true native of this country, for look at what he has done with
that counter, simply because he says he isn't pleased with that puppet
there."

"Well, well," said in a friendly manner the intruder as he faced
Balatong, "why do you behave that way?"

"Sherup! don' interfere with me; you had better mind only your
incisors," retorted Balatong, imitating with his bony fingers the
movement of the scissors he meant.

Busyong and Islao suddenly burst into prolonged laughter, while the
rest remained silent drivelling with wide-opened mouths as they beheld
the two men laughing heartily.

"Do you see! This friend is angry with me according to the tone of his
voice. What did he say?" asked the fat man turning towards Busyong and
Islao.

Islao nudged Busyong to get him to come out of the store.

"Come, come, let us go home, lest we hurt with our laughing their
susceptible feelings, especially of that young dandy--pardon me, I mean
doctor," said Islao aside to Busyong when they reached the corner of a
street and turned to the left.

"O Momus, son of Mox!" exclaimed Busyong smiling after a short time,
"how jocund indeed must you be with the people here!"

"Surely, he must be," said Islao.

"By the way, I remember that the tailor--that is, the fat man--seemed
to boast a political party."

"Oh, yes!"

"What is that party?"

"It is called the National Talukap Party. You know, this country is a
democracy in name, but an oligarchy in fact, as the people here say,
for the government is in the hands of only a very few of the native
countrymen; most of the power is in foreign hands. So the _Talukap_
party aims to reverse the condition of things; nay, to have the control
of the government wholly in the hands of the people of this country.
I am warmly in favor of this policy. But what I do find objectionable
in this Talukap party is their affectation and tautology, and their
pretension and empty show in their outward conduct. For my part, I
believe in doing things silently but effectively. On the other hand,
I am not in favor of the other party, which is called the National
Kinagisnan Party, whose policy is to be contented slavishly with the
present condition of things or with whatever condition for the time
being. The people who belong to this Kinagisnan party are very few in
comparison with those that belong to the Talukap party. Being in very
close contact with the sovereign, the Kinagisnan people are very apt to
become flatterers."

"Moreover, the ideal of your Talukap party, I think, becomes less
feasible, if not impossible, when you consider these dandies like those
two chums over there who are clasping one another by the waist. Indeed,
they live in a very peculiar world by themselves."

"And with Momus, I suppose, as their Supreme Being."

"Ha, yes, I should think so, too. But after all they are not to be
blamed. Everything goes step by step. Even my native country in the
planet Earth has had the same defects practically as these people here.
Now I am glad that there in my native land the people, especially
the young men, have reached, by education and the bitter lesson of
experience, of course, a stage where their old views of the world have
become greatly changed, most especially in this respect: now they
hate affectation under any form whatever, whether in dress, manners,
knowledge or in deeds."

"Why, that is a condition to be envied greatly."

By this time the two friends, Busyong and Islao, were standing in front
of the farmer's house. The old man and his wife were awaiting them
in order that all might dine together. The rest of the day glided by
pleasantly.

Next morning Busyong decided to return to the planet Earth, although
the old farmer and his son tried to delay him longer in Jupiter.
He promised to come back to them. While in his large balloon, and
recollecting vividly all the things he had observed in the country he
was leaving, Busyong let his mind run upon the following ancient lines:

    "Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
      Life is but an empty dream!
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
      And things are not what they seem.
    Life is real! Life is earnest!"

Just then he remembered with a start that when he had begun to crank
his balloon he had taken out his sound assorters and laid them on the
edge of the car. He had wanted to hear the familiar noise without
distribution in order to feel that all was safe. And now when he looked
for those precious assorters he could not find them. They must have
fallen overboard. And worst of all, he had neglected to get the whole
explanation from the Jupiterite.

                                                      --Manuel Candido.


III. Tale of Scientific Discovery and Mechanical Invention

[Beginning in imaginary voyages]

Tales of scientific discovery and mechanical invention appeal to us
as being extremely modern. Yet the essential elements had a beginning
at least two centuries and a half ago. The quality of the marvelous
is easy enough to trace; and the logicalness hardly less so. We find
both in the imaginary voyages. De Bergerac discovers that he can lift
himself from the earth by the expansion of phials of dew affixed to
his person, and from this experiment he goes on to invent an elastic
machine which bears him to the moon. Klim, too, arrives at his
wonderful adventures by a scientific beginning: he sets out to explore
a rocky orifice in the Weathercock Mountain, and causes himself to be
let down by a rope. The rope snaps, and he is precipitated into an
intra-terrestrial astral system, where he begins immediately to revolve
around a planet Azar, his biscuits which he had attempted to throw
away performing meanwhile an orbit around his own body. He alights,
of course, finally by accident, and goes on with his governmental
experiences.

[Difference one of emphasis]

These learned elements in the imaginary voyages point definitely to
our modern stories. The difference lies in the emphasis: our modern
stories are severely and consistently logical, and interest centers in
the machine or the scientific theory. The reader does not ask to go on
long journeys to see chimeras, but he asks to see ultra-logical man.
He does not encourage the author in being satiric; he wants him to be
inventive, to be more ingenious than the race has been. The reader
wants the author to show him what man would be if he were consistently
progressive and wise, what he would come to if he worked day and night
at his science and applied what he learned,--indeed, what he already
knows. For it is an open secret in the scientific world that there
is hardly a wonderful modern machine that is not an almost foolishly
simple application of a well-known law. Take our marvelous future
trains, for instance, that are to run on one rail and be as wide and
commodious as houses--they are but to follow a principle that every
school-boy sees in operation when he spins a top. I dare say, if some
person would only write a story telling us where to affix the wheel and
the balance, we might convert our present houses into private Pullmans,
as it were, that could at any time transport us, family and all, with
everyone of our personal and familiar conveniences intact therein, to
any spot we chose, the only extra expense to us for each trip being a
slight rent for wheel space for the time that we were running over the
single-rail track that led thitherward.

[Essential elements]

Shading off from the imaginary voyage type, therefore, is this modern
one which I have designated by the somewhat long title, tales of
scientific discovery and mechanical invention. By this title I mean to
distinguish stories in which the occurrences, though startling, are
perfectly logical in sequence, granted the premise--extraordinary, but
not improbable under the conditions set forth. The words discovery
and mechanical express the fact that the sustaining structure of a
story such as these is often some invention superimposed upon modern
science. In the use of electricity, for instance, the characters in the
narrative go one step further than Mr. Edison; in the construction and
operation of the flying-machine, several steps further than the Wright
brothers; in the discovery of elements, someone finds something more
useful and of greater power than radium; or, after long experimenting,
he mixes a paint so black or so white that the object beneath it
becomes invisible; and so on and so on--but all plausible, all with
precise truth-likeness.

[Stories of this type]

Many of our present-day magazine stories are of this type. Of
the earlier modern, the "Diamond Lens" by Fitz-James O'Brien is
interesting. "The Spider's Eye" is still sometimes read. "The Life
Magnet" is well known. A burlesque verse tale of mechanical invention
is "The Wonderful One Hoss Shay" by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The prince
of all ingenious story-tellers, however, is Frank R. Stockton.

To construct a narrative of this class, you must of course first get
your underlying theory. Experiments in the chemical and physical
laboratory will afford many a starting point. They will at least
suggest the realm in which to proceed. Astronomy, meteorology, geology,
mechanics, mineralogy, geometry, optics, domestic science even,--select
a simple problem in any of these and begin to imagine.

[Suggestions on how to write the type]

After you have the starting point, it is a good idea to fix your goal.
Where should you like to go, what should you like to do, what powers
should you like to have above those of your fellows? Do you wish to
overcome the restrictions of distance, absence, darkness, death, birth,
poverty, the past, the future, the present?

With these points of your theory settled, you must then look to the
course of events. Shall the incidents befall you while discovering or
while applying the scientific fact, while constructing or while working
your machine? Shall you be looking forward or shall you be looking back
upon the events? Next you must find the point of greatest stress.
The climax of a story with the first alternative will evidently be
reached at the culmination of the inventor's labors; with the second
alternative, at the most exciting adventure in the use of the machine
or in the direct application of the scientific fact.

The logical close of the story is in both cases the disappearance
of the machine or the scientist; but you will be repaid by thinking
carefully over this matter and being here as elsewhere as ingenious and
original as you can.

Your deductions must appear to be sound. Of course, your reasoning may
have to be largely specious and in the gross, as it were, unless you
are a better inventor than the inventors. But you have this advantage
over the practical man: you can avoid the greater difficulties
by keeping silent about them; and for actual achievement you can
substitute assertion. You must seem on the surface, however, to be
perfectly logical. The reader will not question you too closely, if you
are only spirited and entertaining. But the next is a point that you
must note without fail.

If the reader's interest in any particular part of your narrative will
depend upon an understanding of a bit of mechanism or a scientific
theory, you must be careful to supply the information beforehand.
However trite to a mechanic or a scientist the principle may be, you
must not assume that the casual reader knows it. He probably does not
know it, or if he does, more than likely he has forgotten it. On the
other hand, you must not appear to be self-assertively instructing
him. What you can do is this: you can politely seem to be recalling
something to his memory, and can thus make the point clear, so that
your future use of it will not fall flat.

To add a semblance of reality, it will be permissible to employ a few
technical terms; but these also must be indisputably clear in meaning,
and their use must not be pedantic. You should study, however, to
put into the mouths of your characters the vocabulary that would be
actually used by the kind of people you represent.

Genial humor is a fine asset to a writer of this type of narrative.
If you can be artistically serious and philosophically gay at the
same time you will not fail to please. The relationship of stories of
scientific discovery and mechanical invention to imaginary voyages is
testified to by the reader's expectation of a display of wit. But in
the scientific, ridicule is softened down to genial logic. Although
the aim in this kind of narrative is good construction rather than
character-sketching, yet every neat touch of portraiture that you can
add will help draw your composition away from the mere exercise and
toward the literary production.

If you should choose your theory in the realm of art, you would by that
very choice raise your story above the ordinary--I mean to say, of
course, you would if you knew anything about art. Mr. Alexander Wilson
Drake knows a great deal about art and has given us, besides many
other beautiful surprises in _Saint Nicholas_ and the _Century_, some
narratives embodying exquisite theories of shadow and color.


[Illustration]


=The Curious Vehicle=

    Reprinted by permission of the Century Company.

It was midnight in early December. A dense silver mist hid the sleeping
city, the street-lamps gave a faint yellow glimmer through the almost
impenetrable gloom, the air was like the cold breath from the dying,
the fog hanging in great drops on my clothing. Stray policemen had
taken refuge in sheltering doorways, and my own footsteps echoed with
unfamiliar and uncanny sound down the long street--the only sound that
broke the midnight stillness, save the hoarse whistles of wandering and
belated ferryboats on the distant river.

As I emerged from a narrow street into the main thoroughfare, my
shivering attention was attracted to a curious covered vehicle standing
in the bright glare of an electric light. It was neither carriage nor
wagon, but an odd, strongly made affair, painted olive green, with
square windows in the sides, reaching from just above the middle of the
roof, and a smaller window in the back near the top. On each side of
the middle window were two panels of glass. From the middle window only
a dim light shone, like the subdued light from a nurse's lamp. On the
seat in front, underneath a projecting hood, sat a little old black
man wrapped in a buffalo-robe and a great fur coat partly covered with
a rubber cape or mackintosh, and with a fur cap pulled down over his
ears. The horse was heavily blanketed, and also well protected with
rubber covers. Both man and beast waited with unquestioning patience.
Both seemed lost in reverie or sleep.

With chattering teeth I stood, wondering what could be going on in that
queer box-like wagon at that time of night. The silence was oppressive.
There stood the dimly lighted wagon; there stood the horse; there sat
the negro--and I the only observer of this queer vehicle.

I stepped cautiously to the side of the wagon, and listened. Not a
sound from within. Shivering and benumbed, I, too, like the policemen,
took refuge in a doorway, and waited and watched for some sound or sign
from that mysterious interior. I was too fond of adventure to give it
up. It seemed to me that hours passed and I stood unrewarded. Just as
I was reluctantly leaving, much chagrined to find that I had waited
in vain, I saw, thrown against the window for a few moments only, a
curious enlarged shadow of a man's head. It seemed to wear a kind of
tam-o'-shanter, below which was a shade or visor sticking out beyond
the man's face like the gigantic beak of a bird. A mass of wavy hair
and beard showed underneath the cap. Suddenly the shadow disappeared,
much to my disappointment, and although I watched in the fog and
dampness for half an hour longer, it did not again appear.

I wandered home, puzzled and speculating, but determined that I would
wait until morning if I were ever fortunate enough to come across
the vehicle again. Weeks passed before the opportunity occurred, and
even then, had it not been for a very singular incident, I doubt if I
should ever have fathomed the mystery of the curious vehicle.

It was Christmas eve, the night bitterly cold. I had clothed myself
in my thickest ulster. My feet were incased in arctics, my hands in
warm fur gloves, and with rough Scotch cap I felt sure I could brave
the coldest night. Thus equipped, I started out, and when I returned
at midnight in the beginning of a whirling, almost blinding snowstorm,
the Christmas chimes were ringing, and the whole air seemed filled with
Christmas cheer.

Turning a corner, I discovered the vehicle in the same place and
position. This time, as I had before resolved, I would wait until
morning if necessary. So I began pacing up and down the sidewalk in
front of the vehicle, taking strolls of five or ten minutes apart, and
then returning. I walked until I was almost exhausted. In spite of my
heavy ulster I began to feel chilly, so I again took refuge in the
doorway of a building opposite.

Should I give it up, I asked myself, after waiting so long? I stood
debating the question. No, I would wait a little longer; so, puffing
my pipe, I shivered, and watched for developments. At last I was about
determined that I must go or perish, when suddenly I saw through the
blinding snow the shadow of a pair of hands appear at the dimly lighted
window, adjusting a frame or inner sash. You can imagine my interest in
the proceedings.

Just at this moment a street sparrow, numb with the cold, and crowded
from a window-blind by its companions, dropped, half falling, half
flying, to the sidewalk directly in front of the window of the vehicle.
It sat blinking in the bright rays of the electric light, quite
bewildered, turning its little head first one way, then the other. In
the meantime the shadows of the two hands were still visible. The
sparrow, probably attracted by the light and the movement of the hands,
suddenly flew up, not striking the glass, but hovering with a quick
motion of the wings directly in front of the window, its magnified
shadow thrown on it by the rays of the electric light. Then the bird
dropped to the ground. The occupant was evidently much startled by the
large shadow coming so suddenly and at such a time of night. The shadow
of his hands quickly disappeared, and so did the frame. In another
moment the door of the vehicle opened, giving me a glimpse of a cozy
and remarkable interior. It seemed, in contrast with the cold and storm
without, filled with warmth and sunshine. It was like a pictorial
little room rather than the inside of a wagon or carriage. The occupant
looked out in a surprised, excited, and questioning way, as much as to
say, "What could that have been?" His whole manner implied that he had
been disturbed.

This was my opportunity, and, seizing it instantly, I walked boldly to
the door of the vehicle, and said, "It was a little sparrow benumbed
with the cold, that fluttered down to the sidewalk, where it lay for a
moment, until, probably attracted by the light, it hovered for a few
seconds before your window, then fell to the ground again."

I felt the man eying me intently, studying me with a most searching
glance. Was he in doubt as to my sincerity? Was it a hidden bond of
sympathy between us that made him suddenly relent and invite me to
enter his vehicle? What else could have prompted him? For my own part,
I instinctively felt for the man, without knowing why, a deep pity.

"Please step inside," he said; "it is cold."

And so, at last, I was really admitted, invited into the little
interior--that little interior which had piqued my curiosity for so
long a time. Yes, I was admitted at last, and now had a chance to look
about, and to study the general appearance of the occupant as he moved
over for me to sit beside him on the roomy, luxurious seat. What a
curious personality! He was a tall, raw-boned man of strong character.
His soft, gray beard and hair made a marked contrast to the dark
surroundings. Now I understood the shadow which I had seen thrown on
the window for a few seconds. He wore a tam-o'-shanter cap, and beneath
it, to protect his eyes from the lamp-light, a large visor, or shade,
which threw his entire face into deep shadow, giving him the look of
a painting by an old master. He had on a loose coat of some rough
material.

Surely the interior of no conveyance could be more interesting than
this. In the front, just back of the driver, were two square windows
with sliding wooden shutters, and between the two was a little square
mirror. Above these was a rod, from which hung a dark-green cloth
curtain which could be drawn at will. Underneath was a chest, or
cabinet, of shallow drawers filling the entire width of the carriage,
with small brass rings by which to pull them out. On top of this
cabinet stood several clear glass jars half filled with pure water.
There were two or three oil-lamps with large shades hung in brackets
with sockets like steamer-lamps, only one of which was lighted.
Underneath the seat was a locker. On the floor of the conveyance, along
its four sides, were oblong bars of iron, and in the center was a warm
fur rug. One side only of the carriage opened. On the side opposite the
door was a rack reaching from the window to the floor, in which stood
six or eight light but strongly made frames, over which was stretched
the thinnest parchment-like paper. The top of the vehicle was tufted
and padded. The prevailing color was dark green. In shape it was
somewhat longer and broader than the usual carriage. There was a small
revolving circular ventilator in front, over the mirror, which could be
opened or closed at will, and which could also be used by the occupant
for conversing with the driver.

The man arose, and, opening the ventilator, told the coachman to
drive on. Meanwhile I enjoyed the wonderful effect of the little
interior--its rich gloom, the strong light from the shaded lamp which
was thrown over the floor, the bright electric light gleaming through
the falling snow into the window on my left.

The night, being so disagreeable, made the interior seem very bright
and comfortable by contrast, as the man closed the sliding wooden
shutters, separating us entirely from the snowstorm without. There was
an artificial warmth which I could not understand, and with it all a
sense of security and coziness. The stranger's manner was both gentle
and reassuring. We rode in silence over the rough pavement until we
reached the smooth asphalt. Then he began:

"I do not consider myself superstitious, but somehow I don't like
it--that little bird hovering in front of my window. It seems like a
bad omen, and it was a shadow which startled me. My life seems haunted
with shadows, and they always bring misfortune to me."

We were both silent for a time, when he went on: "How curious life is!
Here am I riding with you, a total stranger, long past midnight. You
are the first I have ever admitted into this wagon, with the exception
of my faithful Cato, who is driving. If one could only see from the
beginning how strangely one's life is to be ordered."

The stranger's voice was rich and deep. I hoped he would continue so
that I might get some idea of him and his peculiar mode of life, and
what was going on night after night in this interior. I waited for him
to proceed.

"Have you known trouble or sorrow in your life?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied; "I have lost nearly all who were dear to me in this
round world."

"Then," said he, "I will tell you my story with the hope that it will
be both understood and appreciated. I loved from childhood a charming
girl, sweet and pure. I need not go into the detail of all that
boyish love, but in my early manhood and her early womanhood we were
married--and what a sweet bride she was!

"We lived in an old white farmhouse in a village near the great city--a
beautiful place, a long, low, two-story-and-attic, farmhouse, probably
fifty or sixty years old. How well I can see it--its sloping roof,
the extension, the quaint doorway with side-lights and with a window
over the top, the front porch with graceful shaped newels, the long
piazza running the entire length of the extension, great chimneys at
each end, and enormous pine-trees in front of the house! The house
stood on a little elevation, with terraced bank, and with a pretty
fence inclosing it. Beyond was an old well with lattice-work sides
and door, and a pathway trodden by the foot of former occupants, long
since dead. In front of the house were circular beds of old-time
flowers--sweet-williams, lady's-slippers, larkspur, and foxglove. At
the rear, great banks of tiger-lilies threw their delicate blue shadows
against the white surface of our little home. In one corner of our
garden we had left the weeds to grow luxuriantly, like miniature forest
trees, and found much pleasure in studying their beautiful forms. How
fine they looked in silhouette against the sunset sky! On one side of
the old-fashioned doorway were shrubs and a rose-of-Sharon tree, and on
the other, honeysuckle and syringa-bushes. There were also many kinds
of fruit and shade-trees.

"How happily we walked up and down the shady lanes of that little
village! For us the birds sang sweetly. We took delight in our flowers
and everything about us. In the evening we would enjoy the sunsets,
returning home arm in arm in the afterglow, to sit in the cool of the
evening on the piazza and to listen to the wind as it sighed through
the pines. What music they made for us! We compared it with what poets
of all ages had sung of them, and went to sleep, lulled to rest by the
wind through their soft boughs."

He paused again, evidently thinking of the happy time.

"How can I tell you," he resumed, "of the life that went on in
that simple old farmhouse? Our pleasant wood-fire on the hearth;
a few photographs from the old masters on the walls; our favorite
books of poetry and fiction, which we read together during the long
winter evenings, while the pine-trees sighed outside, and all was so
comfortable and cozy within; or the lovely walks in spring and summer,
through the byways of the pretty little village, with its hedgerows,
blackberries, and wild flowers. How we watched for the first violets,
and what joy the early blossoms gave us! What pleasure we took in those
delightful years, and how smoothly our lives ran on! Each day I went
to the city, and was always cheered by the thought that my sweet wife
would be at the station to meet me. How pure she looked in the summer
evening, clad in her thin white dresses, with a silver fan and brooch,
her dark hair and eyes like those of a startled fawn!

"Well, I need not dwell longer on all this. It was only for a few short
years, when one cruel, cold day, about the happy Christmas-time, she
was taken ill, and grew steadily worse, and all that could be done for
her would not save her. She died. I can see her now--her dark hair
laid back on the pillow, and the peaceful, happy smile on her face.
We buried her beneath the snow, in the old graveyard overlooking the
river, and I went home broken-hearted."

I heard the poor fellow sigh, and for a time he was silent as the
carriage went on through the snow. "What can be the connection of this
queer craft with what he is telling me?" I thought. When he resumed, he
said:

"For months I tried to live on in the little house, but life became
terrible. In the evenings, as I sat by the pleasant log-fire, I would
imagine I heard her footsteps on the stairs, and her voice calling me.
I did my best to conquer my grief, but it was of no use. The light
seemed gone out of my life. At last I could stand it no longer, and I
moved all my worldly possessions to another house in the same village.
I could not bear to think of going away from the place entirely.

"When the springtime came again, and the lovely flowers were in bloom,
and the birds were singing their sweet songs; when the wind breathed
softly through the pine-trees, and she was gone, the sunsets were in
vain, and all nature seemed mourning. After this I busied myself with
all kinds of occupation, but without success. Life became sadder and
sadder, until finally in despair I took a foreign trip. I traveled far
and wide, but always with the same weary despondency and gloom. The
image of my loved one was always with me. Nothing in life satisfied me.
I wandered through country after country, looking at the old masters,
grand churches, listening to cathedral music, but always before me was
the same picture--the old, white farm-house, the great mournful pines,
and with it all the memory of the sweet life now departed, for which
nothing could make amends."

Then he was silent, and as we drove over the soft, snow-covered asphalt
he became absorbed in thought.

"After a year or so of restless travel I drifted back to my own country
and to the little village. Night after night I wandered around the
empty house where we had lived, and through the little garden, and
would stand at midnight listening to the sad sighing of the wind
through the pine-trees, which to me sounded like a requiem for the
dead. Many a moonlight night have I stood gazing into the windows, and
imagined her looking out at me as in the happy days of old, and I would
walk up and down the path thinking, oh, how sadly! of the times we used
to return by it from our evening walks.

"Finally the little village became hateful to me. I could endure it
no longer, and I shook its dust from my feet. With reluctance I moved
away into the heart of the great city, but with the same longing in my
heart--the same despair. I hunted up my two faithful black servants
who had lived with us for several years. I bought a house in the old
part of the city, and there we now live, and I am well cared for by
them. Let me read you portions of a letter from her--one of the last
she wrote," and he took from his pocket a little morocco book with
monogram in silver script letters. He rose and asked the driver to
stop, and, turning the light up, said: "This will give you some idea
of the sweet life, with its love of nature, that went on in and about
that little cottage. The letter was written to me when I was in another
city." He read as follows:

"My dear, I can hardly tell you how lovely the shadows looked as I
strolled around our little house this evening, and was filled with
delight by their beautiful but evasive forms. To begin with, you
remember the exquisite, almost silhouette, shadow of the rose-of-Sharon
bush by the front door. I gave it a long study to-night. Its fine,
decorative character reminded me of a Japanese drawing, only it is far
more delicate and subtle. If this could be painted in soft gray on the
door-posts and around the little side windows, how it would beautify
our plain dwelling, and what a permanent reminder it would be of our
delightful summer days!

"But if I spend too much time on a single shadow, I shall have no room
left to tell you of the greater ones we have enjoyed together.... From
the path near the gate, and looking toward the house, I saw to-night,
and seemed to feel for the first time, the wonderful tenderness of the
great shadow which nearly covers the end and side of our home. How
mysterious our kitchen became, with its shed completely inclosed in
velvety gloom, suggesting both sorrow and tragedy; while the other end
of the house was covered with fantastic forms, soft and ethereal, and
with a delicacy indescribable.... But when the moon came up, and the
soft shadows of the pines were cast on the pure white weather-boards
of our little home,--the shadows of our own pines, the pines we love
so well, and through whose branches we have heard music sweet and
low, soft and sad,--then I thought of you as I studied their masses
tossing so gently, their movement almost imperceptible, and I longed
for you as I studied their moving forms, their richness, variety, and
texture--for you tell me of their artistic beauty--your delicate,
poetic appreciation of their loveliness.... And at last, may the sun
and moon shine brightly and cast beautiful shadows among and over the
tombstones for you and for me, my dear, and may a blessed hope make the
sunset of life glorious for us both."

When he had finished reading, and had asked the driver to drive on, he
became absorbed and silent, and I thought, "How strange to be riding
through the streets of the city after midnight in a whirling snow-storm
with a stranger, in a vehicle so remarkable, listening to such a
pathetic love-story, such a beautiful description of quiet domestic
life." It was a charming idyl.

"You can get an idea from this," he said, "of the delightful, contented
life which went on in the little cottage," and he sat holding the
book in his hands as though he were living it all over again, while
the bright silver script monogram gleamed and glistened on the cover
until he turned down the light, and for a time we drove over the smooth
asphalt in utter silence.

"Do you wonder," he suddenly asked, "that the shadow of that little
bird has caused me uneasiness, and yet do you not see that almost the
last letter she wrote to me was filled with omens, shadows? It is but
natural that I should have some feeling about it--and yet, why should I
care? I have only myself and my two old servants who could be affected
by it, bad or good. For myself, my only desire is to live long enough
to complete my work; then I am both ready and willing to go. I shall
welcome death with delight."

I had become so absorbed in his story that I had forgotten all about my
surroundings; but now as he paused I again asked myself what strange
connection had this sad story, and the letter, and all that he had been
telling me, with the wagon; for I was sure that in some queer way the
story would help to explain it all.

"While in Europe," he went on, "I studied the old masters a great
deal, particularly the halos and nimbuses surrounding the heads of
the saints. I cannot begin to tell you how interesting they became to
me. I was struck with the exquisite workmanship bestowed on many of
them, but fine as they were, they never came up to my idea of what
a halo should be. As my loved one was so pure and gentle, I always
thought of her as a saint (and indeed she is such), and I would become
interested and imagine what kind of halo I would surround her with if
I were painting her--not one of the halos of the old masters seemed
fine enough or ethereal enough for her. I had always been fond of art,
and had been considered a fair amateur artist. One evening after I
had moved to the city, and while riding in a cab (oh, how gloomy!) on
a snowy evening something like this very night, I looked through the
window at an electric light, and there I saw the loveliest halo, in
miniature. Such tints! A heavenly vision! I thought of the old masters,
of the beautiful Siena Madonnas, and with sudden joy I thought: Why
should I not paint the image of her I love? Why should I not clothe
her in Madonna-like robes, with a halo which could come only out of
the nineteenth century? Why should she not have a halo far outshining
and far surpassing in beauty halo ever painted by mortal man?' I
rode nearly the whole night through, evidently to the despair of the
driver, as I repeatedly asked him to stop opposite electric lights and
street-lamps.

"From that day I had a new purpose in life. I had this wagon built just
as you see it. For months I thought of it. Over and over again I drew
my plans before the vehicle was actually constructed. Then I began
my work. Old Cato, who is driving, sits night after night, unmindful
of the cold, wrapped in his great fur coat, and he waits and I work
through the midnight hours to conceive and make real the new Madonna."

What a strange, subtle connection the whole thing had, as he suddenly
tapped on the small window and we stopped directly in front of an
electric light! As he opened the sliding shutter I saw, through the
frosted window and the feathery snow, such a vision of loveliness--a
little halo that could scarcely be described in words. It was like a
miniature circular rainbow, intensified and glorified by the glittering
rays of the penetrating electric light.

"What could be more beautiful than that? Isn't it exquisite?" he asked.
"Did ever painted saint have a halo like that?"

I held my breath, for I had never seen anything so beautiful.

"I have worked at it for a long time. I have not yet accomplished
it, but I hope to. I am coming nearer to it every night in which
I can work. There are not many during the winter; the conditions
of atmosphere and temperature must be just right. On foggy nights,
or when the air is filled with light, flying snow--these are the
nights in which the little halos glow around the electric lights,
street-lamps, and lights in show-windows. Oh," he said, "they fill me
with a happiness and delight I cannot describe, as I try all kinds of
experiments to transfix the beautiful colors of their delicate rays!

"Let me show you," he went on, and he lifted one of the frames which
I have already described, covered with a thin parchment-like paper.
This he carefully buttoned to a groove in the window. On the surface
of the stretched parchment the little halo glowed with its prismatic
tints, and again I held my breath at the beauty of it. I, too, was
becoming a halo-worshiper. Then he lifted from the rack on the side,
and held up to the light, first one and then another of the frames, on
the parchment surface of which he had actually traced lines of color,
against the gloom beyond, radiating lines crossing and re-crossing,
glowing with rainbow tints seen through and against the window.

"Do you know anything of Frankenstein's wonderful Magic Reciprocals,
sometimes called Harmonic Responses?"[4] he asked. "How I longed for
his marvelous power, so that I might experiment with them. But they
were far beyond my skill, and also, perhaps, too scientific and
geometric for my purpose; and so I was forced to discard them and
begin afresh in my own way. I have had reasonable success, although
I have not yet reached the purity of color nor the brilliancy that I
wish. I do not know that mortal man ever can. I have tried all sorts
of experiments--lines of silver crossed with lines of gold; prismatic
threads of silk; and now I have abandoned them all, and am beginning
again, perhaps for the fortieth time. But if I am only able to do it,
nothing can give me greater happiness. I can close my eyes in peace at
last."

After he had shown me his experiments, he removed the little frame from
the window, closed the sliding shutter on the side, and, turning the
circular ventilator, asked the driver to drive on.

"Now for an extended view," he said, and he opened the shutter of one
of the front windows, and then of the other on each side of the mirror.
What a vista of loveliness! A long perspective of glowing halos,
vanishing down the street through the flying snow, until they were mere
specks of light in the distance. The whole atmosphere was filled with
circular rainbows, and again he dwelt on their beauty. They glowed
with ultramarine, with delicate green, with gold and silver, and like
light from burnished copper, and our little vehicle seemed a moving
palace of delight as we drove on through the blinding storm. Turning
into one of the narrower streets, away from the electric lights, we
saw the long line of receding gas-lamps, each with its softly subdued
nimbus, and he said in a low and gentle voice, almost a whisper, "The
street of halos."

When he had closed the shutters again he said, "Let me show you my
cabinet of colors and working tools." He pulled out a shallow drawer,
and there, on small porcelain plaques (the kind used by water-color
painters), side by side, in regular order, was every shade of red,
from the faintest pink to the deepest crimson. He opened the next
drawer, and instead of the red was an arrangement of blues, from
delicate turquoise to deepest ultramarine. In the third drawer was an
arrangement of yellows, running from Naples to deepest cadmium.

"I deal in primary colors," he said, "for what would you paint rainbows
in but red, blue, and yellow?"

Then he opened the fourth drawer, and there, laid with precision, were
long-handled brushes from the finest sable (mere pin-points) up to
thick ones as large as one's finger. There were flat ones and round
ones, short ones and long ones. As he opened the fifth drawer, "For
odds and ends," he said. This was a little deeper than the others, and
in it were sponges fine and coarse, erasers, scrapers, and boxes of
drawing-tacks of various sizes. In the last drawer were soft white rags
and sheets of blotting-paper of assorted sizes.

After he had shown me the contents of the cabinet he said, "I have been
quite disturbed by the shadow of that little bird. Will you join me
in a glass of old sherry?" He opened the locker underneath the seat,
and brought out an odd-shaped bottle, which he unscrewed, handing me a
small, thistle-shaped glass and a tin box containing crackers.

"It is a bad night," he said, "a very bad night. I feel it, even with
the warmth of this interior. Those long bars of iron are filled with
hot water, which usually keeps me very warm."

Then he passed through the ventilator, to the driver, some crackers
and sherry. After he had closed it, and put away the bottle, box, and
glasses, we both mused a long time, the halo-painter completely lost
in reverie, and I thinking of the undying love of such a man--a man
who could love but one, and for whom no other eyes or voice could ever
mean so much. With him love was an all-absorbing passion. He had given
his heart without reserve, and for him no other love could ever bloom
again. I thought of him sitting, night after night, in his solitary
vehicle working at the halo--a new halo which should surround the head
of her he loved. I thought of him in the lonely early morning hours,
working at a nimbus which was far to outshine in beauty and delicacy
any painted or dreamed of by God-fearing saint-painters of old.

He opened the shutters, and the light from the lamp began to grow
dimmer as the early morning light shone faintly through the windows. I
noticed the deep furrows of care and sorrow which marked his strong,
pathetic face, purified by suffering and lighted by divine hope--the
face of one who lived in another world, and for whom all of life was
centered in his ideal--one who was in the world, but not of it.

As he bade me good-by, his face beamed in the early Christmas morning
light with indescribable tenderness; and as the little wagon with its
faithful old black driver disappeared through the snow, I thought again
and again of the beautiful, touching love of the man who would sit
night after night trying to realize his dream of beauty, to clothe in
the garb of a saint the form of her he loved.

                                                  --Alexander W. Drake.


=The Spyglass of the Past=

It is possible for a man to have two hobbies. Dr. Aukirt demonstrated
the fact. No one would have thought that the quiet man, who was so
often poring over the Egyptian cases at the British Museum, was an
optician; but then the truth is apt to be unsuspected. He used to say
that it was all a mistake--that he was an explorer pure and simple,
but that he explored the past and the heavens instead of the forest
and rivers. At any rate, an archeologist he was, and a noted one
too, or the British government would not have put him at the head of
the expedition to excavate the ruins of Karnac, that greatest of all
temples.

The men had gone to their camp as usual, but Dr. Aukirt remained
behind. During the day an interesting inscription had been uncovered,
and the moon shone in among the pillars of Karnac before the explorer
thought of leaving the scene of the day's work. As he turned to go,
he noticed a slight movement at his feet, and stopped. A tiny stream
of sand was sliding slowly into a crevice between two stones in the
pavement, and was disappearing beneath him. He seized a pick and at
length was able to dislodge the block. A flight of steps led down
into the darkness. He soon stood at the foot of the stairway with the
wealth of his discovery about him. The light from his pocket lamp was
reflected from the thousands of silver points in the ceiling of _lapis
lazuli_ and from the porphyry pillars with their exquisite capitals
of lotus leaves. Under a frieze of small windows was a divan with the
imprint of a head so plainly visible in the draperies that it seemed as
though the sleeper must have but just arisen, but the fabric crumbled
to dust under the Doctor's hand.

At the other side of the room was a table, evidently a student's desk,
with a litter of writing materials and curious instruments. Across
an unfinished papyrus lay a brass tube with a lens at each end. Dr.
Aukirt picked up the strange telescope and instinctively applied it
to his eye, although he was convinced that he should be unable to see
anything, for the body of the glass was a double curve, like a much
elongated S. But as he pointed the lens toward the divan, a priestly
figure seemed to be sleeping there, and this room brightened, light
streamed in through the windows which had been hidden by the sand of
hundreds of years. The Doctor looked up; everything was dusty and
deserted.

When he reached the open air again, he saw that the sun was rising away
at the rim of the desert; and once more he looked through the new-found
spy-glass. The surface of the Nile that had been so peaceful a moment
ago, was aswarm with boats. Figures of dusky slaves with sad Hebraic
features passed and repassed with their burdens. He turned to the ruin
which he had just left, and beheld a stately temple with the sunbeams
flashing from its carved and polished façade.

The puzzled and astonished archeologist went to his tent with his
treasures, the papyrus and the glass, and for weeks he studied them
that he might learn to use the instrument. Sometimes it seemed to him
as though his search were to be rewarded, but the truth constantly
eluded him, although by a smaller and smaller margin, or so he was
pleased to think. One day he brought his glass once more to the banks
of the Nile near Karnac. Victory seemed very near just now. Carefully
he opened the instrument to its full extent--and saw a savage people
warring with each other on the peaceful river bank. Then came a
stronger tribe, and then a stronger still, until at length he saw
the mighty procession of the Pharaoh coming to inspect the temple of
Karnac. He saw the rise and fall of nations: the slow march of the ages
passed before his vision like the gliding of a dream. The Egyptian
had written truth: "I have made an instrument which will gather up
the scattered and tangled images of the past, and focus them upon the
present."

Appalled at the magnitude of his discovery, Dr. Aukirt stood in
silence, and then the thought came, "Victory is not complete, the
instrument can be so adjusted as to presage the future." He made what
seemed to him the necessary changes; but when he attempted to look
through his glass again, there was no light; the lens was broken.

                                                 --Hazel Adelle Orcutt.


=Up a Water-Spout=

I was a poor, hard-working sailor on a fishing smack plying between
Nantucket Island and Cape Cod. My parents before me had been of scanty
means, living from hand to mouth, and I was compelled early in life
to provide for myself. Naturally, I had little education; that is,
education from books; but if traveling possesses half the advantages
attributed to it in that line, I own I must be the best educated man--I
say this with all modesty--on this small globe of ours.

Once a year the captains of the several boats with their respective
crews made a more extended trip down the coast for pickerel. This year
with the usual company of fishing-craft we sailed southward toward the
Bahamas.

Favorable winds hastened our journey until at a point just off Cape
Fear we ran into a dead calm. For four days we never moved. The heat
was scorching. The boards warped and cracked, and not even a flapping
sail indicated the slightest disturbance in the air. All the boats had
dropped anchor within hailing distance of each other, so with the aid
of the dories to carry us around from one ship to another we passed the
time quite agreeably.

On the fifth morning, however, a thick rim of cloud covered the western
horizon and seemed to be moving rapidly toward us. Almost in the center
of this cloud projected a small point of mist. It grew and widened,
then shrank back to half its size, finally running down a long, slender
finger until it reached the water. Instantly foam and spray began to
rise, and we knew that we were in the path of a water-spout. All
anchors had been hoisted and the captains were giving hoarse orders
to put on every inch of sail. But there seemed to be an upper current
that was carrying that water-spout right among us; yet we were still
becalmed and helpless.

As it approached it grew in circumference into a huge column of water,
foaming and swirling in a horrible manner. Every man rushed for the
cabin. We tightly closed the doors and windows. Then--we waited. The
boat gave a sharp twist as we entered the whirling pool, and a great
wave passed over us.

Silently we sat there expecting the boat to be swamped and broken into
bits. But this is far from what really took place; for after the first
shock, we felt the boat to be rising. Trembling and cautious we peeped
out of the window. All the other boats were circling around in the air
near us, and were rising too. We seemed to be surrounded by a hollow
cylinder of water, also rising like ourselves. It seemed impossible,
and yet we were forced to recognize the fact that we were inside the
water-spout, and the suction that was drawing up the water, had picked
our vessel up bodily and was carrying us--where? Where, indeed? Miles
we went. Finally we left behind the column of water which had been
growing thinner and thinner, and we passed swiftly through clouds and
mists. Gradually these cleared away and the earth came into view. For
three months our journey lasted. We wandered here and there over the
earth wherever currents bore us. Luckily, we had an extraordinarily
large supply of provisions on board.

One day we saw a dim speck in the distance and the watch involuntarily
cried out, "A sail." We laughed, but sure enough, within a few hours,
another boat wheeled up along side. We had no way of stopping, so our
communication was short. It was found out that they had met the same
fate as we, and had, like us, probably been reported at home as lost
at sea. They said that if by any chance we should return to earth, we
should tell their friends that they were quite happy, only, were weary
of such constant travel, but must continue it, they supposed, unless
sometime in their course they might come upon another water-spout to
afford them a passage to earth again. And I might add here, if we had
not been thus fortunate, we should still be journeying monotonously
through the heavens.

But the circumstance of all our trip that I felt would interest you
most, is the fact that we saw and talked with Captain Anson. You
remember Captain Anson, the man who set out in an airship to find the
South Pole? Well, he has found it. He declares that it is a veritable
Eden to which man can gain admittance only by passing through a
water-spout, and it seems that his machine was thus transported, being
caught in a spout while crossing an inland lake. Also he wished us to
tell the people at home not to expect his return, for, he declares,
he is supremely happy and has found a place far superior in climate
and beauty to anything yet discovered on the earth. There, he asserts
further, and we know this to be true for we beheld it ourselves, the
problem of supplying energy is not a problem at all; for as a result
of the magnetic force, so strong everywhere there, perpetual motion
machines are used entirely for mechanical purposes. And I might add
here that it was only through this magnetic attraction for the bolts
in our ship that we were able to stop at all. But here we hovered for
several days until a particularly strong current seized the boat and
carried us on. We sped from ocean to ocean, time and time again until
we, too, were almost in despair, of ever seeing the earth again, except
by a bird's-eye view.

But one cloudy day, as we were shipping quietly through the mist, we
all experienced a sensation of falling. The mist began to grow thicker,
and we were again surrounded by curved walls of rising water. We were
filled with a sense of familiarity, for we recognized our water-spout.
Having reached the bottom, with one short dive we were through that
wall of water, and were sailing swiftly across the Atlantic in an
opposite direction from the water-spout, which was fast disappearing
over the horizon. We looked at it with regret; for we realized that
probably never again should we have the opportunity of another such
trip, unless perhaps sometime in our future journeyings we should come
upon its like.

If fortune should never so favor us, then the way to that delightful
land of the South Pole would be closed forever.

But if any of you feel inclined to travel, and see the world in a
large perspective, go to some body of water, and watch for one of
these natural elevators, and if one does happen in your way, be sure
that all the hatches and windows are closed, and then steer straight
for the center of that swirling mass; for this is a pleasant mode of
travel--slow, and doesn't jar.

                                                      --Edna Collister.


=IV. The Detective Story and Other Tales of Pure Plot=

[Detective story: Connection with stories of ingenuity]

A few detective stories could be classed with our last preceding type
as well as with this. Those like F. R. Burton's suppressed prize
contribution to a Western newspaper might be put under mechanical
inventions; that is, all that contain, like his, a practicable
theory. The report goes that Mr. Burton and a friend worked together
and produced a story of bank robbers who overcame the time-lock
device. So explicitly was the ingenious method written out that the
editors decided not to publish it, convinced that if they spread the
knowledge abroad no time-lock thereafter would be secure. "The Black
Pearl" by Victorien Sardou, on the other hand, might be called a
scientific-discovery detective tale. It perfectly combines the two
elements--mystery and the astounding action of a nature phenomenon.

Not all detective stories, however, are so dangerous or so interesting
as these. Most, rather, are amusing or merely entertaining; but we
class them in the ingenious group because of the effort at pure plot.
There are many crude attempts at writing detective stories, and
the cheap, ten-cent-novel kind disgusts persons of taste; but the
popularity of the type attests its excellence. When in the hands of
such men as Edgar Allan Poe and A. Conan Doyle, it yields an artistic
short-story. "The Purloined Letter" and the "Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes" are worthy of their fame. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and
the "Mystery of Marie Rogêt" are not so pleasant, but are equally
ingenious.

Of course, the author of the ordinary tale of this type has the
advantage over the real detective, since the author first creates the
mystery before solving it. His ingenuity, therefore, will lie revealed
in the construction of the crime which he pretends to be unearthing and
explaining. Evidently, though, his process of mind can be no different
from that of the actual analyzer, who must unravel what to him is a
real mystery. He, too, if he is to succeed, must re-image the whole
train of events, not as points or dots, but as vivid scenes. Thus
only will both workers come at small incidents that are original and
ingenious and essentially pertinent. It happened that Poe, in the story
of Marie Rogêt, was acting the part of a real detective, since he was
reasoning upon an actual mystery, the details of which had baffled
the police. In his imaginary case he reinstalled the crime as he felt
it must have taken place, and, strange to say--or rather not strange
to say, for Poe had the qualities of more than a paper detective--the
facts, by a woman's confessions later, were found to be exactly as Poe
had imagined them, even in minor details.

[Other stories of plot]

But stories that emphasize plot do not wholly lie in the detective's
realm. There is the pure reasoner's great domain of fancy. "The Lady
or the Tiger" illustrates the class completely, even by the whimsical
ending. The man that could make up that situation could have solved it,
or have carried it on interminably, as he laughingly shows you in the
"Discourager of Hesitancy." His "Transferred Ghost" is another quirk,
of "reasonable" fantasy. Poe's "Gold Bug" is almost pure plot and has
the interesting device of the cryptogram in addition. Pushkin's "Snow
Storm" is built upon a queer coincidence.

The story that emphasizes plot is primarily a narrative of a series of
happenings, and only incidentally the record of character or place. The
author has no interest in what kind of men perform the deeds, except
that they shall be the general large types: the soldier and his friend,
the lover and his rival, the magistrate and the citizen, the sovereign
and his subject, the doctor and his patient, and so on. Interest
centers in the question, What will they do next? not, What are they and
what will they become?

[Romance]

In longer prose the story with a plot is the romance, the modern
romance. In it, too, the author is concerned mainly with the course of
events. Take "Ivanhoe" or "The Prisoner of Zenda," for instance, and
what have you?--actors about whom there is no question of character
growth. What they were at the beginning, that they are at the
end--except, perhaps, Rebecca. In romance the happenings are largely
adventure. As they become preposterous the narrative borders on the
mere wonder type.

[A few suggestions]

To write a detective tale or other story of pure plot, you must first
get your plot--as the old fisherman would say about the eel when you
wish to skin it. If you can grasp one and hold it, you are an expert.
The difficulty will be that you will probably find your plot a shadow,
when you hoped for a good solid piece of reasoning. In the detective
tale you must propound your mystery at the beginning of the narrative
and then work backwards to the first step. In the other story, you
must start out with the simplest and seemingly most insignificant
incident and work steadily up to a fantastic or astounding climax. In
the second you naïvely keep adding one to one, as it were, and get a
hundred; in the first, you subtract one after one from your hundred
until you get a unit.


=Thou Art the Man=

I will now play the Œdipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound
to you--as I alone can--the secret of the enginery that effected the
Rattleborough miracle--the one, the true, the admitted, the undisputed,
the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to infidelity among
the Rattleburghers and converted to the orthodox of the grandames all
the carnal-minded who had ventured to be sceptical before.

This event--which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of unsuitable
levity--occurred in the summer of 18--. Mr. Barnabas Shuttleworthy--one
of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of the borough--had
been missing for several days under circumstances which gave rise
to suspicion of foul play. Mr. Shuttleworthy had set out from
Rattleborough very early one Saturday morning, on horseback, with the
avowed intention of proceeding to the city of----, about fifteen miles
distant, and of returning the night of the same day. Two hours after
his departure, however, his horse returned without him, and without the
saddle-bags which had been strapped on his back at starting. The animal
was wounded too, and covered with mud. These circumstances naturally
gave rise to much alarm among the friends of the missing man; and
when it was found, on Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his
appearance, the whole borough arose _en masse_ to go and look for his
body.

The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the
bosom friend of Mr. Shuttleworthy--a Mr. Charles Goodfellow, or, as
he was universally called, "Charley Goodfellow," or "Old Charley
Goodfellow." Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether
it was that the name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the
character, I have never yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is
unquestionable, that there never yet was any person named Charles who
was not an open, manly, honest, good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow,
with a rich, clear voice, that did you good to hear it, and an eye that
looked you always straight in the face, as much as to say: "I have a
clear conscience myself, am afraid of no man, and am altogether above
doing a mean action." And thus all the hearty, careless, "walking
gentlemen", of the stage are very certain to be called Charles.

Now, "Old Charley Goodfellow," although he had been in Rattleborough
not longer than six months or thereabouts, and although nobody knew
anything about him before he came to settle in the neighborhood, had
experienced no difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of
all the respectable people in the borough. Not a man of them but would
have taken his bare word for a thousand at any moment; and as for the
women, there is no saying what they would not have done to oblige him.
And all this came of his having been christened Charles, and of his
possessing, in consequence, that ingenuous face which is proverbially
the very "best letter of recommendation."

I have already said that Mr. Shuttleworthy was one of the most
respectable and, undoubtedly, he was the most wealthy man in
Rattleborough, while "Old Charley Goodfellow" was upon as intimate
terms with him as if he had been his own brother. The two old gentlemen
were next-door neighbors, and, although Mr. Shuttleworthy seldom,
if ever, visited "Old Charley," and never was known to take a meal
in his house, still that did not prevent the two friends from being
exceedingly intimate, as I have just observed; for "Old Charley" never
let a day pass without stepping in three or four times to see how his
neighbor came on, and very often he would stay to breakfast or tea, and
always to dinner; and then the amount of wine that was made way with
by the two cronies at a sitting, it would really be a difficult thing
to ascertain. "Old Charley's" favorite beverage was _Chateau Margaux_,
and it appeared to do Mr. Shuttleworthy's heart good to see the old
fellow swallow it, as he did, quart after quart; so that, one day,
when the wine was _in_ and the wit, as a natural consequence, somewhat
_out_, he said to his crony, as he slapped him upon the back: "I tell
you what it is, 'Old Charley,' you are, by all odds, the heartiest old
fellow I ever came across in all my born days; and, since you love to
guzzle the wine at that fashion, I'll be darned if I don't have to make
thee a present of a big box of the Chateau Margaux. Od rot me," (Mr.
Shuttleworthy had a sad habit of swearing, although he seldom went
beyond "Od rot me," or "By gosh," or "By the jolly golly"). "Od rot
me," says he, "if I don't send an order to town this very afternoon
for a double box of the best that can be got, and I'll make ye a
present of it, I will!--ye needn't say a word now--I _will_, I tell ye,
and there's an end of it; so look out for it--it will come to hand some
of these fine days, precisely when ye are looking for it the least!" I
mention this little bit of liberty on the part of Mr. Shuttleworthy,
just by way of showing you how _very_ intimate an understanding existed
between the two friends.

Well, on the Sunday morning in question, when it came to be fairly
understood that Mr. Shuttleworthy had met with foul play, I never
saw any one so profoundly affected as "Old Charley Goodfellow." When
he first heard that the horse had come home without his master, and
without his master's saddle-bags, and all bloody from a pistol-shot,
that had gone clean through and through the poor animal's chest without
quite killing him--when he heard all this, he turned as pale as if the
missing man had been his own dear brother or father, and shivered and
shook all over as if he had had a fit of the ague.

At first he was too much overpowered with grief to be able to do
anything at all, or to decide upon any plan of action; so that for a
long time he endeavored to dissuade Mr. Shuttleworthy's other friends
from making a stir about the matter, thinking it best to wait a
while--say for a week or two, or a month, or two--to see if something
wouldn't turn up, or if Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn't come in the natural
way, and explain his reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare
say you have often observed this disposition to temporize, or to
procrastinate, in people who are laboring under any very poignant
sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to be rendered torpid, so that they
have a horror of anything like action, and like nothing in the world
so well as to lie quietly in bed and "nurse their grief," as the old
ladies express it--that is to say, ruminate over the trouble.

The people of Rattleborough had, indeed, so high an opinion of the
wisdom and discretion of "Old Charley," that the greater part of
them felt disposed to agree with him, and not make a stir in the
business "until something should turn up," as the honest old gentleman
worded it; and I believe that, after all, this would have been the
general determination, but for the very suspicious interference of
Mr. Shuttleworthy's nephew, a young man of very dissipated habits,
and otherwise of rather bad character. This nephew, whose name was
Pennifeather, would listen to nothing like reason in the matter of
"lying quiet," but insisted upon making immediate search for the
"corpse of the murdered man." This was the expression he employed, and
Mr. Goodfellow acutely remarked at the time, that it was "a _singular_
expression, to say no more." This remark of "Old Charley's" too,
had great effect upon the crowd; and one of the party was heard to
ask, very impressively, "how it happened that young Mr. Pennifeather
was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances connected with
his wealthy uncle's disappearance, as to feel authorized to assert,
distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle _was_ 'a murdered man.'"
Hereupon some little squibbling and bickering occurred among the
various members of the crowd, and especially between "Old Charley"
and Mr. Pennifeather--although this latter occurrence was, indeed,
by no means a novelty, for little good-will had subsisted between
the parties for the last three or four months; and matters had been
gone so far that Mr. Pennifeather had actually knocked down his
uncle's friend for some alleged excess of liberty that the latter had
taken in the uncle's house, of which the nephew was an inmate. Upon
this occasion "Old Charley" is said to have behaved with exemplary
moderation and Christian charity. He arose from the blow, adjusted his
clothes, and made no attempt at retaliation at all--merely muttered
a few words about "taking summary vengeance at the first convenient
opportunity,"--a natural and very justifiable ebullition of anger,
which meant nothing, however; and, beyond doubt, was no sooner given
vent to than forgotten.

However these matters may be (which have no reference to the point
now at issue), it is quite certain that the people of Rattleborough,
principally through the persuasion of Mr. Pennifeather, came at length
to the determination of dispersion over the adjacent country in search
of the missing Mr. Shuttleworthy. I say they came to this determination
in the first instance. After it had been fully resolved that a search
should be made, it was considered almost a matter of course that the
seekers should disperse--that is to say, distribute themselves in
parties--for the more thorough examination of the region round about.
I forgot, however, by what ingenious train of reasoning it was that
"Old Charley" finally convinced the assembly that this was the most
injudicious plan that could be pursued. Convince them, however, he
did--all except Mr. Pennifeather; and, in the end, it was arranged that
a search should be instituted, carefully and very thoroughly, by the
burghers _en masse_, "Old Charley" himself leading the way.

As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer
than "Old Charley," whom everybody knew to have the eye of a lynx;
but, although he led them into all manner of out-of-the-way holes and
corners, by routes that nobody had ever suspected of existing in the
neighborhood, and although the search was incessantly kept up day and
night for nearly a week, still no trace of Mr. Shuttleworthy could be
discovered. When I say no trace, however, I must not be understood
to speak literally; for trace, to some extent, there certainly was.
The poor gentleman had been tracked, by his horse's shoes (which were
peculiar), to a spot about three miles to the east of the borough,
on the main road leading to the city. Here the track made off into a
bypath through a piece of woodland--the path coming out again into the
main road, and cutting off about half a mile of the regular distance.
Following the shoemarks down this lane, the party came at length to
a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the brambles, to the right
of the lane, and opposite this pool all vestige of the track was
lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of some nature
had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and heavy body,
much larger and heavier than a man, had been drawn from the bypath to
the pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice, but nothing was
found; and the party were upon the point of going away, in despair
of coming to any result, when Providence suggested to Mr. Goodfellow
the expediency of draining the water off altogether. This project was
received with cheers, and many high compliments to "Old Charley" upon
his sagacity and consideration. As many of the burghers had brought
spades with them, supposing that they might possibly be called upon
to disinter a corpse, the drain was easily and speedily effected; and
no sooner was the bottom visible, than right in the middle of the mud
that remained was discovered a black silk velvet waistcoat, which
nearly every one present immediately recognized as the property of Mr.
Pennifeather. This waistcoat was much torn and stained with blood,
and there were several persons among the party who had a distinct
remembrance of its having been worn by its owner on the very morning of
Mr. Shuttleworthy's departure for the city; while there were others,
again, ready to testify upon oath, if required, that Mr. P. did not
wear the garment in question at any period during the remainder of
that memorable day; nor could any one be found to say that he had
seen it upon Mr. P.'s person at any period at all subsequent to Mr.
Shuttleworthy's disappearance.

Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr. Pennifeather, and it
was observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which
were excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and when asked
what he had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of saying a word.
Hereupon, the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him
deserted him at once to a man, and were even more clamorous than his
ancient and avowed enemies for his instantaneous arrest. But, on the
other hand, the magnanimity of Mr. Goodfellow shone forth with only the
more brilliant lustre through contrast. He made a warm and intensely
eloquent defense of Mr. Pennifeather, in which he alluded more than
once to his own sincere forgiveness of that wild young gentleman--"the
heir of the worthy Mr. Shuttleworthy"--for the insult which he (the
young gentleman) had, no doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper
to put upon him (Mr. Goodfellow). "He forgave him for it," he said,
"from the very bottom of his heart; and for himself (Mr. Goodfellow),
so far from pushing the suspicious circumstances to extremity, which he
was sorry to say, really had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr.
Goodfellow) would make every exertion in his power, would employ all
the little eloquence in his possession to--to--to--soften down, as much
as he could conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really
exceedingly perplexing piece of business."

Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain,
very much to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your
warm-hearted people are seldom opposite in their observations--they run
into all sorts of blunders, _contre-temps_ and _mal-apropos-isms_, in
the hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend--thus, often with
the kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice
his cause than to advance it.

So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of
"Old Charley"; for, although he labored earnestly in behalf of the
suspected, yet it so happened, somehow or other that every syllable he
uttered of which the direct but unfitting tendency was not to exalt
the speaker in the good opinion of his audience, had the effect of
deepening the suspicion already attached to the individual whose cause
he pled, and of arousing against him the fury of the mob.

One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator was his
allusion to the suspected as "the heir of the worthy old gentleman, Mr.
Shuttleworthy." The people had really never thought of this before?
They had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered
a year or two previously by the uncle (who had no living relative
except the nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked upon this
disinheritance as a matter that was settled--so single-minded a race
of beings were the Rattleburghers; but the remark of "Old Charley"
brought them at once to a consideration of this point, and thus gave
them to see the possibility of the threats having been nothing more
than a threat. And straightway hereupon, arose the natural question
of _cui bono?_--a question; that tended even more than the waistcoat
to fasten the terrible crime upon the young man. And here, lest I
may be misunderstood, permit me to digress for one moment merely to
observe that the exceedingly brief and simple Latin phrase which I
have employed, is invariably mistranslated and misconceived. "_Cui
bono_" in all the crack novels and elsewhere--in those of Mrs. Gore,
for example (the author of "Cecil"), a lady who quotes all tongues from
the Chaldaean to Chickasaw, and is helped to her learning, "as needed,"
upon a systematic plan, by Mr. Beckford--in all the crack novels,
I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens to those of Turnapenny and
Ainsworth, the two little Latin words _cui bono_ are rendered "to what
purpose?" or (as if _quo bono_), "to what good?" Their true meaning,
nevertheless, is "for whose advantage." _Cui_, to whom; _bono_, is it
for a benefit. It is a purely legal phrase, and applicable precisely in
cases such as we have under consideration, where probability of the
doer of a deed hinges upon the probability of the benefit accruing to
this individual or to that from the deed's accomplishment. Now in the
present instance, the question _cui bono?_ very pointedly implicated
Mr. Pennifeather. His uncle had threatened him, after making a will in
his favor, with disinheritance. But the threat had not been actually
kept; the original will, it appeared, had not been altered. Had it
been altered, the only supposable motive for murder on the part of the
suspected would have been the ordinary one of revenge; and even this
would have been counteracted by the hope of reinstation into the good
graces of the uncle. But the will being unaltered, while the threat
to alter remained suspended over the nephew's head, there appears at
once the very strongest possible inducement for the atrocity; and so
concluded very sagaciously, the worthy citizens of the borough of
Rattle.

Mr. Pennifeather was, accordingly, arrested upon the spot, and the
crowd, after some further search, proceeded homeward, having him in
custody. On the route, however, another circumstance occurred tending
to confirm the suspicion entertained. Mr. Goodfellow, whose zeal led
him to be always a little in advance of the party, was seen suddenly
to run forward a few paces, stoop, and then apparently to pick up
some small object from the grass. Having quickly examined it, he
was observed too, to make a sort of attempt at concealing it in his
coat pocket; but this action was noticed, as I say, and consequently
prevented, when the object picked up was found to be a Spanish
knife which a dozen persons at once recognized as belonging to Mr.
Pennifeather. Moreover, his initials were engraved upon the handle.
The blade of this knife was open and bloody.

No doubt now remained of the guilt of the nephew, and immediately upon
reaching Rattleborough he was taken before a magistrate for examination.

Here matters again took a most unfavorable turn. The prisoner, being
questioned as to his whereabouts on the morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy's
disappearance, had absolutely the audacity to acknowledge that on that
very morning he had been out with his rifle deer-stalking, in the
immediate neighborhood of the pool where the bloodstained waistcoat had
been discovered through the sagacity of Mr. Goodfellow.

This latter now came forward, and, with tears in his eyes, asked
permission to be examined. He said that a stern sense of the duty he
owed his Maker, not less than his fellow-men, would permit him no
longer to remain silent. Hitherto, the sincerest affection for the
young man (notwithstanding the latter's ill-treatment of himself,
Mr. Goodfellow), had induced him to make every hypothesis which
imagination could suggest, by way of endeavoring to account for what
appeared suspicious in the circumstances that told so seriously against
Mr. Pennifeather; but these circumstances were now altogether too
convincing--too damning; he would hesitate no longer--he would tell all
he knew, although his heart (Mr. Goodfellow's), should absolutely burst
asunder in the effort. He then went on to state that on the afternoon
of the day previous to Mr. Shuttleworthy's departure for the city, that
worthy old gentleman had mentioned to his nephew, in his hearing (Mr.
Goodfellow's), that his object in going to town on the morrow was to
make a deposit of an unusually large sum of money in the "Farmers' and
Merchants' Bank," and that, then and there, the said Mr. Shuttleworthy
had distinctly avowed to the said nephew his irrevocable determination
of rescinding the will originally made, and of cutting him off with
a shilling. He (the witness) now solemnly called upon the accused to
state whether what he (the witness) had just stated was or was not the
truth in every substantial particular. Much to the astonishment of
every one present, Mr. Pennifeather frankly admitted that it was.

The magistrate now considered it his duty to send a couple of
constables to search the chamber of the accused in the house of his
uncle. From this search they almost immediately returned with the
well-known steel-bound, russet leather pocket-book which the old
gentleman had been in the habit of carrying for years. Its valuable
contents, however, had been abstracted, and the magistrate in vain
endeavored to extort from the prisoner the use which had been made of
them, or the place of their concealment. Indeed, he obstinately denied
all knowledge of the matter. The constables also discovered, between
the bed and sacking of the unhappy man, a shirt and neck-handkerchief
both marked with the initials of his name, and both hideously besmeared
with the blood of the victim.

At this juncture, it was announced that the horse of the murdered man
had just expired in the stable from the effects of the wound he had
received, and it was proposed by Mr. Goodfellow that a _post-mortem_
examination of the beast should be immediately made, with the view, if
possible, of discovering the ball. This was accordingly done; and,
as if to demonstrate beyond a question the guilt of the accused, Mr.
Goodfellow, after considerable searching in the cavity of the chest,
was enabled to detect and to pull forth a bullet of very extraordinary
size which, upon trial, was found to be exactly adapted to the bore of
Mr. Pennifeather's rifle, while it was far too large for that of any
other person in the borough or its vicinity. To render the matter even
surer yet, however, this bullet was discovered to have a flaw or seam
at a right angles to the usual suture, and upon examination, this seam
corresponded precisely with an accidental ridge or elevation in a pair
of moulds acknowledged by the accused himself to be his own property.
Upon finding of this bullet, the examining magistrate refused to listen
to any further testimony, and immediately committed the prisoner for
trial--declining resolutely to take any bail in the case, although
against this severity Mr. Goodfellow very warmly remonstrated, and
offered to become surety in whatever amount might be required. This
generosity on the part of "Old Charley" was only in accordance with the
whole tenor of his amiable and chivalrous conduct during the entire
period of his sojourn in the borough of Rattle. In the present instance
the worthy man was so entirely carried away by the excessive warmth of
his sympathy, that he seemed to have quite forgotten, when he offered
to go bail for his young friend, that he himself (Mr. Goodfellow) did
not possess a single dollar's worth of property upon the face of the
earth.

The result of the committal may be readily foreseen. Mr. Pennifeather,
amid the loud execrations of all Rattleborough, was brought to trial at
the next criminal sessions, when the chain of circumstantial evidence
(strengthened as it was by some additional damning facts, which Mr.
Goodfellow's sensitive conscientiousness forbade him to withhold from
the court), was considered so unbroken and so thoroughly conclusive,
that the jury, without leaving their seats, returned an immediate
verdict of "_Guilty of murder in the first degree_." Soon afterward
the unhappy wretch received sentence of death, and was remanded to the
county jail to await the inexorable vengeance of the law.

In the meantime, the noble behavior of "Old Charley Goodfellow"
had doubly endeared him to the honest citizens of the borough. He
became ten times a greater favorite than ever; and, as a natural
result of the hospitality with which he was treated, he relaxed,
as it were, perforce, the extremely parsimonious habits which his
poverty had hitherto impelled him to observe, and very frequently
had little _réunions_ at his own house, when wit and jollity reigned
supreme--dampened a little, of course, by the occasional remembrance of
the untoward and melancholy fate which impended over the nephew of the
late lamented bosom friend of the generous host.

One fine day, this magnanimous old gentleman was agreeably surprised at
the receipt of the following letter:

               Charles Goodfellow, Esq., Rattleborough.
                         From H., F., B. & Co.
           Chat. Mar. A.--No. 1--6 doz. bottles. (½ gross.)

  "Charles Goodfellow, Esquire:

    "Dear Sir--In conformity with an order transmitted to our firm
    about two months since, by our esteemed correspondent, Mr.
    Barnabas Shuttleworthy, we have the honor of forwarding this
    morning, to your address, a double box of Chateau-Margaux, of the
    antelope brand, violet seal. Box numbered and marked as per margin.

                                                       "We remain, sir,
                                               "Your most ob'nt ser'ts,
                                             "Hoggs, Frogs, Bogs & Co."

  "City of----,
  June 21, 18--.

    "P. S.--The box will reach you by wagon, on the day after your
    receipt of this letter. Our respects to Mr. Shuttleworthy.
                                                     "H., F., B. & Co."

The fact is, that Mr. Goodfellow had, since the death of Mr.
Shuttleworthy, given over all expectation of ever receiving the
promised Chateau-Margaux; and he, therefore, looked upon it now as
a sort of especial dispensation of Providence in his behalf. He was
highly delighted, of course, and in the exuberance of his joy, invited
a large party of friends to a _petit souper_ on the morrow, for the
purpose of broaching the good old Shuttleworthy's present. Not that he
said anything about "the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy" when he issued the
invitations. The fact is, he thought much and concluded to say nothing
at all. He did not mention to any one--if I remember aright--that he
had received a present of Chateau-Margaux. He merely asked his friends
to come and help him drink some of a remarkably fine quality and rich
flavor that he had ordered up from the city a couple of months ago,
and of which he would be in the receipt upon the morrow. I have often
puzzled myself to imagine _why_ it was that "Old Charley" came to
the conclusion to say nothing about having received the wine from his
old friend, but I could never precisely understand his reason for the
silence, although he had _some_ excellent and very magnanimous reason,
no doubt.

The morrow at length arrived, and with it a very large and highly
respectable company at Mr. Goodfellow's house. Indeed, half the borough
was there--I myself among the number--but, much to the vexation of the
host, the Chateau-Margaux did not arrive until a late hour, and when
the sumptuous supper supplied by "Old Charley" had been done very ample
justice by the guests. It came at length, however--a monstrously big
box of it there was, too--and as the whole party were in excessively
good humor, it was decided, _nem. con._, that it should be lifted upon
the table and its contents disembowelled forthwith.

No sooner said than done. I lent a helping hand; and, in a trice,
we had the box upon the table, in the midst of all the bottles and
glasses, not a few of which were demolished in the scuffle. "Old
Charley," who was pretty much intoxicated, and excessively red in the
face, now took a seat, with an air of mock dignity, at the head of the
board, and thumped furiously upon it with a decanter, calling upon
the company to keep order "during the ceremony of disinterring the
treasure."

After some vociferation, quiet was at length fully restored, and, as
very often happens in similar cases, a profound and remarkable silence
ensued. Being then requested to force open the lid, I complied, of
course, "with an infinite deal of pleasure." I inserted a chisel, and
giving it a few slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box flew
suddenly off, and, at the same instant, there sprang up into a sitting
position, directly facing the host, the bruised, bloody, and nearly
putrid corpse of the murdered Mr. Shuttleworthy himself. It gazed for a
few seconds, fixedly and sorrowfully, with its decaying and lack-lustre
eyes, full into the countenance of Mr. Goodfellow; uttered slowly,
but clearly and impressively, the words, "Thou art the man!" and
then, falling over the side of the chest as if thoroughly satisfied,
stretched out its limbs quivering upon the table.

The scene that ensued is altogether beyond description. The rush for
the doors and windows was terrific, and many of the most robust men
in the room fainted outright through sheer horror. But after the
first wild, shrieking burst of affright, all eyes were directed to
Mr. Goodfellow. If I live a thousand years, I can never forget the
more than mortal agony which was depicted in that ghastly face of his,
so lately rubicund with triumph and wine. For several minutes he sat
rigidly as a statue of marble; his eyes seeming, in the intense vacancy
of their gaze, to be turned inward and absorbed in the contemplation of
his own miserable, murderous soul. At length their expression appeared
to flash suddenly out into the external world, when, with a quick
leap, he sprang from his chair, and falling heavily with his head and
shoulders upon the table, and in contact with the corpse, poured out
rapidly and vehemently a detailed confession of the hideous crime for
which Mr. Pennifeather was then imprisoned and doomed to die.

What he recounted was in substance this: He followed his victim to the
vicinity of the pool; there shot his horse with a pistol; despatched
its rider with the butt end; possessed himself of the pocket-book;
and, supposing the horse dead, dragged it with great labor to the
brambles by the pond. Upon his own beast he slung the corpse of Mr.
Shuttleworthy, and thus bore it to a secure place of concealment a long
distance off through the woods.

The waistcoat, the knife, the pocket-book, and bullet had been placed
by himself where found, with the view of avenging himself upon Mr.
Pennifeather. He had also contrived the discovery of the stained
handkerchief and shirt.

Toward the end of the blood-chilling recital the words of the guilty
wretch faltered and grew hollow. When the record was finally exhausted,
he arose, staggered backward from the table, and fell--_dead_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted, although
efficient, were simple indeed. Mr. Goodfellow's excess of frankness had
disgusted me, and excited my suspicions from the first. I was present
when Mr. Pennifeather had struck him, and the fiendish expression which
then arose upon his countenance, although momentary, assured me that
his threat of vengeance would, if possible, be rigidly fulfilled. I
was thus prepared to view the _maneuvering_ of "Old Charley" in a very
different light from that in which it was regarded by the good citizens
of Rattleborough. I saw at once that all the criminating discoveries
arose, either directly or indirectly, from himself. But the fact which
clearly opened my eyes to the true state of the case, was the affair
of the bullet, found by Mr. G. in the carcass of the horse. I had not
forgotten, although the Rattleburghers had, that there was a hole
where the ball had entered the horse, and another where it went out.
If it were found in the animal then, after having made its exit, I saw
clearly that it must have been deposited by the person who found it.
The bloody shirt and handkerchief confirmed the idea suggested by the
bullet; for the blood on examination proved to be capital claret, and
no more. When I came to think of these things, and also of the late
increase of liberality and expenditure an the part of Mr. Goodfellow, I
entertained a suspicion which was none the less strong because I kept
it altogether to myself.

In the meantime, I instituted a rigorous private search for the corpse
of Mr. Shuttleworthy, and, for good reasons, searched in quarters as
divergent as possible from those to which Mr. Goodfellow conducted his
party. The result was that, after some days, I came across an old dry
well, the mouth of which was nearly hidden by brambles; and here, at
the bottom, I discovered what I sought.

Now, it so happened that I had overheard the colloquy between the two
cronies, when Mr. Goodfellow had contrived to cajole his host into the
promise of a box of Chateau-Margaux. Upon this hint I acted. I procured
a stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the corpse;
and deposited the latter in an old wine box--taking care so to double
the body up as to double the whalebone with it. In this manner I had
to press forcibly upon the lid to keep it down while I secured it with
nails; and I anticipated, of course, that as soon as these latter were
removed, the top would fly off and the body up.

Having thus arranged the box, I marked, numbered and addressed it
as already told; and then writing a letter in the name of the wine
merchants with whom Mr. Shuttleworthy dealt, I gave instructions to my
servant to wheel the box to Mr. Goodfellow's door, in a barrow, at a
given signal from myself. For the words which I intended the corpse to
speak I confidently depended upon my ventriloquial abilities; for their
effect, I counted upon the conscience of the murderous wretch.

I believe there is nothing more to be explained. Mr. Pennifeather was
released upon the spot, inherited the fortune of his uncle, profited by
the lessons of experience, turned over a new leaf, and led happily ever
afterward a new life.

                                                     --Edgar Allan Poe.


=The Picture of Lhasa=

"Jim, Jim, come here quick! She's in sight! Oh, hustle!"

"Well, she'll stay where she is until I get there, won't she?" came a
drawl from a little lower down on the precipitous path, as the speaker,
in spite of his indifferent words, made strenuous efforts to join his
companion on the rocky ledge with as little delay as possible. Behind
him, scarcely visible, lay the trail winding about along the sides of
the lofty mountains which have for so long been keeping this little
corner of the earth from the knowledge of Western nations, while, far
beneath him, rolled a little stream, the Kyi-chu, which dashed against
the rocks as though it were impatient to be out in a broader world.

"I'm glad she's in sight, Chad," Jim continued, when he had gained the
shelf of rock on which his companion stood, "but what is she, anyhow?
I don't believe you said," and he laughed, with his eyes fastened upon
the flash of reflected sunlight, his first sight of Lhasa and her
wonderful Buddhist Cathedral.

"Is the camera all right?" Chad's voice was anxious. "It would be a
pity to come so far and then have the plates no good."

"What's wrong with you, Chad? You don't intend to take a picture of a
place ten miles away, do you?"

"Of course not, you idiot, but I wish that you had kept the camera
yourself, instead of leaving it with John's load. I don't like the look
of his yellow cap just now."

"You're too suspicious, Chad. John's a good fellow; aren't you
Chinkey?" Jim called out as an evil-looking Chinaman came around a bend
in the trail.

The Chinaman's only response was a look of utter ignorance, at which
Jim laughed again, and said, "Just one look at the man ought to
convince you that he is too dull to frighten a Yankee. Besides, he
doesn't understand English, and can't possibly know that we are here to
get the picture of Lhasa, and that of the Grand Lama, too, if we can."
Had either of the men been looking, he might have seen the cunning in
the one black eye of the servant; but the expression passed unnoticed.

"Another day and we'll be near enough to begin on the pictures. I'll
be glad to start home, too. It has been a hard trip. I don't see why
Milligan couldn't have taken the pictures for his book himself,
instead of sending us off here for them."

"Jim, my boy, where's your regard for your daily bread--and the butter
therefor? Where should you be if you hadn't had this chance?"

"Well," Jim returned quickly, "I shouldn't have been ruining my
constitution in this infernal climate, at any rate."

Chad looked him over with profound gravity. "Well, Jim, I'm glad you
are telling me that you are cut out for an early grave; I should never
have believed it if you hadn't said so yourself."

"Wouldn't there be a rumpus if the Lamas knew about this trip of ours?"
Chad resumed as though fascinated with the idea. "I can see ourselves
calling each other lucky because we only got kicked over this precipice
here."

"You can occupy yourself with such thoughts if you want to," exclaimed
Jim; "but I'm going to hustle up that John Chinaman. It seems to me
he's pretty slow this evening, and I'm hungry."

"If your constitution is spoiled?" laughed Chad. "Well, good luck; call
me when you're ready," and the young reporter threw himself down upon
the rocks and looked off toward Lhasa. In a few minutes he heard Jim's
voice raised in alarm. "John! John! Oh, John-n!" As Chad sprang up and
started along the path, he met Jim coming back.

"Say, Chad, that rascal of a chink has vanished completely with a good
half of the supplies, and if you say, 'I told you so,' I'll light out
too!"

"Is the camera safe?" was Chad's instant response.

"Why, I guess so; the box is anyhow--I didn't look inside."

"Well, I guess we'll get along then. I ought to be able to cook well
enough to suit a man of your enfeebled condition," and Chad looked at
Jim's broad shoulders in some amusement in spite of the seriousness of
the situation.

"Really, Chad, is it safe to go on? Do you think we ought to risk it?"

"Risk it! Are we going to take three months for preparation, and then
come four thousand miles on a trip of this sort, only to give it up in
sight of the end, because a rogue runs off? Well, I guess not."

"All right," Jim returned laconically, "I just wanted to know how you
felt about it."

Some three hours later the two men were wrapped up in their furs ready
for the night. "Say, Chad," said Jim, as he lay watching the stars in
the clear sky, "what makes a Chinaman so afraid of a camera? I am quite
certain that you never told me."

"I believe that they think a man's soul is killed when his picture is
taken," said Chad sleepily. "'Buddha doesn't like it' is quite reason
enough for most of 'em." The last sentence was half lost in a snore,
and the Grand Lama was photographed a dozen times in Jim's dreams.

The next morning the two men set out again with the one donkey and
its load which the Chinaman left to them, and, after a few hours'
hard travel, they came to the mountain spur just above the capital of
Tibet. The city was well within range, and a few minutes after they had
arrived the camera was set up, and Chad was finding the focus. While
they were both occupied busily, a group of yellow-clad figures was
approaching from a lamasery that was half-hidden on the mountainside.
The leader of the band, a one-eyed Chinaman with an almost idiotic
expression, was evidently greatly respected by his followers; for the
party did not change its position without his direction. Slowly and
with the utmost caution they approached the unconscious workers and
surrounded them; then with a yell the mob of Buddhist priests was about
the camera. In another instant it was rattling down the mountainside,
Chad and Jim were firmly bound, and the march back had begun.

The few rays of sunlight that found entrance into the Buddhist lamasery
served only to reveal the filthiness of the place; but not even the
disgusting sights and odors could suppress the strangers' curiosity. In
the first room was an immense statue of Buddha with a large cylinder in
front of it. "A prayer wheel," whispered Chad. Jim nodded.

Suddenly Chad's eyes flashed with an inspiration. Turning to the leader
he exclaimed, "You speak English _now_, don't you?"

The man bowed gravely, courteously. The honorable strangers' honorable
conversation was greatly edifying, he murmured.

"Well, then," Chad continued, "Will you tell me why we are detained
here?"

"The insignificant custom of the Tibetans is to resent having their
souls destroyed." The voice was calm and matter-of-fact, but the words
were terrible to the two men looking into the circle of hostile faces
which showed so clearly their superstition and ignorance.

"You know, John, or Your Highness, if that suits your present position
better," the Chinaman's face remained impassive, "you know how
carefully we guarded the black box. Did you know that it was not an
ordinary instrument, but the home of a spirit more powerful than even
your Buddha there? The photographic spirit is the child of the Fire
God, and the Fire God protects all who guard his children. See, here is
a part of the Spirit's house," and Chad pulled an extra lens from his
pocket. "With this I can attract the god's attention, and he will do
my bidding." He placed the glass in the sunlight and the robe of the
nearest Lama began to smolder. The priests started back in great alarm,
but Chad continued with only a sufficient number of pauses for the
leading Lama to translate to the others. "While you were masquerading
as my servant, you saw how careful I was of the camera; you can judge
for yourself whether or not the Fiery One will protect me. What do you
think will be the fate of you who have destroyed this mighty spirit's
home? I will tell you. He will descend from the sky and will burn you
with a hotter fire than you have ever felt--a fire so hot that the
spirit of the camera cannot approach it in intensity." And the Lama
screamed as he felt the heat of the powerful ray upon his arm. "What do
you think? Will you anger this mighty one by further crimes against his
favorites?"

"Buddha will protect us," stolidly responded a priest.

"Ask your leader if Buddha could protect him from the burning of the
camera spirit, and then judge whether Buddha can guard you against the
power of the Fire Dragon when he is roused to vengeance.

Panic began to seize upon the priests. One by one they disappeared
until at length only the Chief Lama was left. "If the honorable
gentlemen will tarry for a few moments I will bring them their beasts."
When the donkeys were brought in, Chad looked their packs over and
prepared them for the journey, while Jim started back to the ledge,
hoping that part of their supplies might have been unmolested. When
Chad came around the rock ten minutes later, he stopped in amazement
and stared at the camera, which Jim had rescued from the tree in which
it had lodged uninjured save for a broken plate.

As Chad approached, Jim looked up and said, "I've got one; I'll bet
it's a dandy!"

                                                        --Hazel Orcutt.




CHAPTER IV

THE ENTERTAINING GROUP


In the group "entertaining" we may class all those narratives that
are told simply for the purpose of pleasing the reader and passing
away his time for him--tales of probable adventure, society stories,
humorous stories, and stories for special occasions, like Thanksgiving
and Christmas. The bulk of magazine fiction is of this kind. The chief
endeavor of the writer is to create the illusions of probability for a
series of events that after all is imaginary. However numerous may be
the actual incidents embodied, the course of the happening as a whole
is nevertheless made-up. There is always a heightening or lowering of
natural color, a modification of real occurrences, in order to produce
the desired effect; namely, acceptance by the reader of the whole
series, and especially the climax, which may be, for instance, the
capture of the wild animal, the culmination of the love episode, the
emphasis of the funny point, or the accident at the special celebration.


I. The Tale of Probable Adventure

Adventure narratives are essentially boys' stories--the grammar and
high school boys who are past the "foolishness" of fairy tales and
even of Oriental wonder stories, but are not yet appreciative of
realism, the quiet reflection of humdrum life. For many decades _The
Youth's Companion_ has furnished among its other good things excellent
stories of adventure probable and actual. Stevenson's masterpiece is,
of course, one of the two top-notches of excellence in the extended
form of this type of story. How the species may be historically but a
modification of the _voyages imaginaires_ is obviously suggested no
less by "Treasure Island" than by "Robinson Crusoe." It is the short
form of this type that we are dealing with at present.

[Definition]

Stories of probable adventure are narratives of exciting and
extraordinary events that, though really fictitious, might have
happened. We can tell many of them from true adventures only by the
testimony of the authors. "Captain Singleton's Tour Across Africa,"
critics have said, seems to the general reader quite as true an account
as Stanley's; while the "Memoirs of a Cavalier," which records the
adventures of a soldier in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, was long
mistaken for autobiography.

[The writing of a probable adventure]

To write a tale of this kind you must put yourself into the mood
of the bold hunter or traveller. You must imagine exciting things.
Many of your own experiences have just missed being astounding.
Add what-might-have-been, and you have a story of the type we are
discussing. You catch the bear or the bear catches you. You swim across
a turbulent river. You spend the night on an iceberg. You coast down
the frightful curves of the twenty-five miles of the Benguet road
with the steering gear of your automobile entirely useless. Remember,
though, that the adventure must seem real, however much you have drawn
on your reading and imagination. You must know enough of animal, plant,
and human life, and of geography, to be particular here and there and
thus give verisimilitude to your pictures. In order to get a subject,
suppose you think of what you consider the bravest physical act; then
build up around it a swift, crisp narrative. You may use technical
terms once in a while, such as a nervous story-teller would be likely
to fling off and then explain; only be sure they are intelligible very
soon.

An ordinary imagination supplemented by a "Baedeker" will enable any
one to construct an acceptable probable adventure. Superior excellence
will lie in the diction and style.

[A warning]

Because of the prevalence of this kind of narrative, you will need to
guard yourself with especial care against the temptation to plagiarize.
Be sure that your certification of authorship really tells the truth.
It is easier to be original than you think; as George Bernard Shaw
says, any man with brains can more easily compose a story or a play
than steal one.


=A Fight with a Bear=

One day, being in a forest a few leagues from Dusseldorf, as Gerard was
walking like one in a dream, thinking of Margaret and scarce seeing the
road he trod, his companion laid a hand on his shoulder, and strung his
cross-bow with glittering eye. "Hush!" said he, in a low whisper that
startled Gerard more than thunder. Gerard grasped his axe tight, and
shook a little; he heard a rustling in the wood hard by, and at the
same moment Denys sprang into the wood, and his crossbow went to his
shoulder, even as he jumped. =Twang!= went the metal string; and after
an instant's suspense he roared, "Run forward, guard the road! he is
hit! he is hit!"

Gerard darted forward, and, as he ran, a young bear burst out of the
wood right upon him; finding itself intercepted, it went upon its hind
legs with a snarl, and, though not half-grown, opened formidable jaws
and long claws. Gerard, in a fury of excitement and agitation, flung
himself on it, and delivered a tremendous blow on its nose with his
axe, and the creature staggered; another, and it lay groveling, with
Gerard hacking it.

"Hallo, stop! You are mad to spoil the meat."

"I took it for a robber," said Gerard, panting. "I mean I had made
ready for a robber, so I could not hold my hand."

"Ay, these chattering travelers have stuffed your head full of thieves
and assassins; they have not got a real live robber in their whole
nation. Nay, I'll carry the beast; bear you, though, my cross-bow."

"We will carry it by turns, then," said Gerard, "for 'tis a heavy load;
poor thing, how its blood drips. Why did we slay it?"

"For supper and the reward the baillie of the next town shall give us."

"And for that it must die, when it had but just begun to live; and
perchance it hath a mother that will miss it sore this night, and loves
it as ours love us; more than mine does me."

"What, know you not that his mother was caught in a pitfall last
month, and her skin is now at the tanner's? and his father was stuck
full of clothyard shafts t'other day, and died like Julius Cæsar, with
his hands folded on his bosom, and a dead dog in each of them?"

But Gerard would not view it jestingly. "Why, then," said he, "we have
killed one of God's creatures that was all alone in the world--as I am
this day, in this strange land."

"You young milksop," roared Denys, "these things must not be looked at
so, or not another bow would be drawn nor quarrel fly in the forest
nor battlefield. Why, one of your kidney consorting with a troop of
pike-men should turn them to a row of milk pails; it is ended; to Rome
thou goest not alone; for never wouldst thou reach the Alps in a whole
skin. I take thee to Remiremont, my native place, and there I marry
thee to my young sister. She is blooming as a peach. Thou shakest thy
head? Ah! I forgot; thou lovest elsewhere, and art a one-woman man, a
creature to me scarce conceivable. Well, then, I shall find thee, not
a wife, nor a leman, but a friend; some honest Burgundian who shall go
with thee as far as Lyons; and much I doubt that honest fellow will
be myself, into whose liquor thou hast dropped sundry powders to make
me love thee; for erst I endured not doves in doublet and hose. From
Lyons, I say, I can trust thee by ship to Italy, which being by all
accounts the very stronghold of milksops, thou wilt there be safe; they
will hear thy words, and make thee their duke in a twinkling."

Gerard sighed. "In sooth I love not to think of this Dusseldorf, where
we are to part company, good friend."

They walked silently, each thinking of the separation at hand; the
thought checked trifling conversation, and at these moments it is a
relief to do something, however insignificant. Gerard asked Denys to
lend him a bolt. "I have often shot with a long-bow, but never with one
of these."

"Draw thy knife and cut this one out of the cub," said Denys slyly.

"Nay, nay, I want a clean one."

Denys gave him three out of his quiver.

Gerard strung the bow and leveled it at a bough that had fallen into
the road at some distance. The power of the instrument surprised him;
the short but thick steel bow jarred him to the very heel as it went
off, and the swift steel shaft was invisible in its passage. Only the
dead leaves, with which November had carpeted the narrow road, flew
about on the other side of the bough.

"Ye aimed a thought too high," said Denys.

"What a deadly thing! No wonder it is driving out the long-bow--to
Martin's much discontent."

"Ay, lad," said Denys, triumphantly, "it gains ground every day, in
spite of their laws and their proclamations to keep up the yewen bow,
because, forsooth, their grandsires shot with it, knowing no better.
You see, Gerard, war is not pastime. Men will shoot at their enemies
with the hittingest arm and the killingest, not with the longest and
missingest."

"Then these new engines I hear of will put both bows down; for these,
with a pinch of black dust and a leaden ball, and a child's finger,
shall slay you Mars and Goliath and the Seven Champions."

"Pooh! pooh!" said Denys, warmly; "petrone nor harquebuss shall
ever put down Sir Arbalest. Why, we can shoot ten times while they
are putting their charcoal and their lead into their leathern smoke
belchers, and then kindling their matches. All that is too fumbling for
the field of battle; there a soldier's weapon needs be aye ready, like
his heart."

Gerard did not answer, for his ear was attracted by a sound behind
them. It was a peculiar sound, too, like something heavy, but not hard,
rushing softly over the dead leaves. He turned round with some little
curiosity. A colossal creature was coming down the road at about sixty
paces distance.

He looked at it in a sort of calm stupor at first; but the next moment
he turned ashy pale.

"Denys!" he cried. "O God! Denys!"

Denys whirled round.

It was a bear as big as a cart horse.

It was tearing along with its huge head down, running on a hot scent.

The very moment he saw it, Denys said in a sickening whisper:

"The cub!"

Oh! the concentrated horror of that one word, whispered hoarsely, with
dilating eyes! For in that syllable it all flashed upon them both
like a sudden stroke of lightning in the dark--the bloody trail, the
murdered cub, the mother upon them, and it. DEATH.

All this in a moment of time. The next she saw them. Huge as she was,
she seemed to double herself (it was her long hair bristling with
rage); she raised her head big as a bull's, her swine-shaped jaws
opened wide at them, her eyes turned to blood and flame, and she rushed
upon them, scattering the leaves about her like a whirlwind as she came.

"Shoot!" screamed Denys, but Gerard stood shaking from head to foot,
useless.

"Shoot, man! ten thousand devils, shoot! Too late! Tree! tree!" and he
dropped the cub, pushed Gerard across the road, and flew to the first
tree and climbed it, Gerard the same on his side; and, as they fled,
both men uttered inhuman howls like savage creatures grazed by death.

With all their speed one or other would have been torn to fragments at
the foot of his tree; but the bear stopped a moment at the cub.

Without taking her bloodshot eyes off those she was hunting, she smelt
it all round, and found, how, her Creator only knows, that it was dead,
quite dead. She gave a yell such as neither of the hunted ones had ever
heard, nor dreamed to be in nature, and flew after Denys. She reared
and struck at him as he climbed. He was just out of reach.

Instantly she seized the tree, and with her huge teeth tore a great
piece out of it with a crash. Then she reared again, dug her claws deep
into the bark and began to mount it slowly, but as surely as a monkey.

Denys's evil star had led him to a dead tree, a mere shaft, and of no
very great height. He climbed faster than his pursuer, and was soon at
the top. He looked this way and that for some bough of another tree
to spring to. There was none; and if he jumped down he knew the bear
would be upon him ere he could recover the fall, and make short work of
him. Moreover, Denys was little used to turning his back on danger, and
his blood was rising at being hunted. He turned to bay.

"My hour is come," thought he. "Let me meet death like a man." He
kneeled down and grasped a small shoot to steady himself, drew his long
knife, and clenching his teeth, prepared to job the huge brute as soon
as it should mount within reach.

Of this combat the result was not doubtful.

The monster's head and neck were scarce vulnerable for bone and masses
of hair. The man was going to sting the bear, and the bear to crack the
man like a nut.

Gerard's heart was better than his nerves. He saw his friend's mortal
danger, and passed at once from fear to blindish rage. He slipped down
his tree in a moment, caught up the cross-bow which he had dropped in
the road, and, running furiously up, sent a bolt into the bear's body
with a loud shout. The bear gave a snarl of rage and pain and turned
its head irresolutely.

"Keep aloof," cried Denys, "or you are a dead man."

"I care not," and in a moment he had another bolt ready and shot it
fiercely into the bear, screaming "Take that! that! that!"

Denys poured a volley of oaths down at him. "Get away, idiot!"

He was right; the bear finding so formidable and noisy a foe behind
him, slipped growling down the tree, rending deep furrows in it as
she slipped. Gerard ran back to his tree and climbed it swiftly. But
while his legs were dangling some eight feet from the ground the bear
came rearing and struck with her forepaw, and out flew a piece of
bloody cloth from Gerard's hose. He climbed and climbed, and presently
he heard as it were in the air a voice say, "Go out on the bough!" He
looked, and there was a long massive branch before him shooting upwards
at a slight angle; he threw his body across it, and by a series of
convulsive efforts worked up it to the end.

Then he looked round panting.

The bear was mounting the tree on the other side. He heard her claws
scrape; and saw her bulge on both sides of the massive tree. Her eye
not being very quick, she reached the fork and passed it, mounting the
main stem. Gerard drew breath more freely. The bear either heard him or
found by scent she was wrong; she paused; presently she caught sight of
him. She eyed him steadily, then quietly descended to the fork.

Slowly and cautiously she stretched out a paw and tried the bough. It
was a stiff oak branch, sound as iron. Instinct taught the creature
this; it crawled carefully out on the bough, growling savagely as it
came.

Gerard looked wildly down. He was forty feet from the ground. Death
below. Death moving slow but sure on him in a still more horrible
form. His hair bristled. The sweat poured from him. He sat helpless,
fascinated, tongue-tied.

As the fearful monster crawled growling towards him, incongruous
thoughts coursed through his mind. Margaret, the Vulgate, where it
speaks of the rage of a she-bear robbed of her whelps--Rome--Eternity.

The bear crawled on. And now the stupor of death fell on the doomed
man; he saw the open jaws and bloodshot eyes coming, but in a mist.

As in a mist he heard a twang; he glanced down; Denys, white and silent
as death, was shooting up at the bear. The bear snarled at the twang;
but crawled on. Again the cross-bow twanged; and the bear snarled and
came nearer. Again the cross-bow twanged, and the next moment the bear
was close upon Gerard, where he sat, with hair standing stiff on end,
and eyes starting from their sockets, palsied. The bear opened her jaws
like a grave, and hot blood spouted from them upon Gerard as from a
pump. The bough rocked. The wounded monster was reeling; it clung, it
stuck its sickles of claws deep into the wood; it toppled, its claws
held firm, but its body rolled off, and the sudden shock to the branch
shook Gerard forward on his stomach with his face upon one of the
bear's straining paws. At this, by a convulsive effort, she raised her
head up, up, till he felt her hot fetid breath. Then huge teeth snapped
together loudly close below him in the air, with a last effort of
baffled hate. The ponderous carcass rent the claws out of the boughs;
then pounded the earth with a tremendous thump. There was a shout of
triumph below, and the very next instant a cry of dismay, for Gerard
had swooned, and, without an attempt to save himself, rolled headlong
from the perilous height.

Denys caught at Gerard and somewhat checked his fall; but it may be
doubted whether this alone would have saved him from breaking his neck
or a limb. His best friend now was the dying bear, on whose hairy
carcass his head and shoulders descended. Denys tore him off her. It
was needless. She panted still, and her limbs quivered, but a hare was
not so harmless; and soon she breathed her last, and the judicious
Denys propped Gerard up against her, being soft, and fanned him. He
came to by degrees, but confused, and feeling the bear all round him,
rolled away, yelling.

"Courage," cried Denys, "_le diable est mort_."

"Is it dead, quite dead?" inquired Gerard from behind a tree; for his
courage was feverish, and the cold fit was on him just now, and had
been for some time.

"Behold," said Denys, and pulled the brute's ear playfully, and opened
her jaws and put in his head, with other insulting antics; in the midst
of which Gerard was violently sick.

Denys laughed at him.

"What is the matter now?" said he; "also, why tumble off your perch
just when we had won the day?"

"I swooned, I trow."

"But why?"

Not receiving an answer, he continued, "Green girls faint as soon as
look at you, but then they choose time and place. What woman ever
fainted up a tree?"

"She sent her nasty blood all over me. I think the smell must have
overpowered me. Faugh! I hate blood."

"I do believe it potently."

"See what a mess she has made me!"

"But with her blood, not yours. I pity the enemy that strives to
satisfy you."

"You need not to brag, Maitre Denys; I saw you under the tree, the
color of your shirt."

"Let us distinguish," said Denys coloring; "it is permitted to tremble
for a friend."

Gerard, for answer, flung his arm around Denys's neck in silence.

                                                       --Charles Reade.
    From "The Cloister and the Hearth."


=The Secret of the Jade Tlaloc=

"If only this paper on jade were finished!" sighed tall,
dignified, blond Dolores. "These notes sound so interesting. 'Jade
implements,'" she read, "'found in Mexico--source of mineral not yet
discovered--theory that implements are relics of Eastern invasion
disproved--jade said to exist in America,' My! I do think jade is the
most delightful subject for investigation."

"Um-m!" Elsa, who, like her Spanish mother, was small, quick, dark,
and adventure-loving, did not consider jade a particularly fascinating
topic for study. "Now if--we--a--we--a----" she ruminated.

"If we--a----?" Dolores's sentences were always clearly thought out
before she spoke them.

"If we--a--now if we could finish that paper, we might be able to
sell it, you know," Elsa went on. "We certainly haven't an enviably
large fortune." She reached into one of the dark pigeon-holes of her
father's ponderous desk. "Ook-ook!" she pursed up her full red lips,
as she held a yellow scroll from her and gingerly flicked away the
dust which had collected upon it since her father's death. "Now here's
what I call interesting. An old letter or something, written on
agave-leaf paper." From their long association with their father in his
archeological researches, the girls had gained a more than superficial
knowledge of Aztec customs and antiquities. "'We, the Aztecs, are a
proud race,'" she readily translated. "'It is not for the Spaniards to
glory in complete victory over us, for though they have conquered our
bodies, they have not conquered our spirits. Well may they rejoice in
the ruining of our beautiful cities. But when they search, and search
in vain, for the wealth which they know has been ours, how they will
rage! But their anger shall be as vain as their searching. Those of
us who are left will not see the invaders glorying in what was once
the splendor of the Aztecs. Rather will we bury, and hide from all
future generations, if need be, the secrets of our riches. It is that
my descendants may one day scoff at the descendants of those who have
made me, who was a prince, a slave, that I am making this record. Among
the mountains which the Spaniards have called the "Corderillas" is one
in whose top is a hole of great depth, from which it is said, there
once flowed streams of liquid fire, the vengeance of the gods upon
the people. This mountain stands between two sister mountains of far
greater height than itself, and is near the middle of the range.' Why,
that might be Ahualtaper, right near here." Elsa had the topography of
the country around their home very clearly mapped out in her mind.

Dolores nodded. "Go on," she said.

"'Half-way up the side which faces the rising sun,'" Elsa continued,
"'is a ledge, upon which is a rock, apparently one with the
mountainside, and in which, when viewed from a distance, can be seen a
resemblance to the cross of Tlaloc. One day a descendant of mine will
find and displace this rock; whereupon, the entrance to the tomb of my
ancestors will be revealed. There are many such tombs and many such
mountains as those which I have described, but which I have not named.
However, in the particular burial place to which I refer is a jade
image of the god Tlaloc. It is studded with valuable turquoise. Where
this image is found will also be found what should be the source of
untold wealth to the discoverer.

"'In warning, let me say that none but the eldest son of a family must
ever know of this document; and should he be tempted, ever, to part
with it, let him remember that bodily want is preferable to the curses
of the dead!'"

The two girls remained silent for a few moments. "Well," asked Elsa, at
last, "what do you think of that?"

Dolores turned again to the desk. "It is interesting," she replied,
"but of what use can it ever be to us? We could never find the place.
Why, we've been in dozens of burial grottos already, and they are all
pretty much alike." She opened another drawer. "Here is father's diary."

The book fell open at the page upon which the last entry had been
made. "'May 15'--the day father became ill--'poor wrinkled old Gomez
died today,'" she read. "'He wanted to give me information about a
jade Tlaloc, some famous image which has been lost. He tried with his
last breath to do me the service of aiding me in my research. He gave
me also a very ancient manuscript. I do not know where he got it. I
hardly feel equal, to-night, to the task of translating it. Perhaps
Elsa will do the translation tomorrow. If I could find such an idol, it
would be of great value to me in my treatise on jade.'"

Elsa waited long enough only for Dolores to stop reading. "Dolores, we
must find that idol."

Dolores looked gravely at her sister. "This is really a serious matter,
Elsa. It would save us from the necessity of working if we could find
it. But how can you and I alone accomplish anything? We should have to
go into the mountains, and have a donkey, and camp in the open air,
and----"

"Well," Elsa impatiently interrupted the enumeration of objections,
"what of that? You and father and I used often to go into the
mountains, and have a donkey, and camp in the open air; and father
always depended more upon us than we upon him. You think it over while
I get tea." Elsa left her sister sitting alone and looking out of the
study windows to the solemn rugged Corderillas.

Dolores did consider the matter, with the result that, after a few
weeks of study, of consulting maps and plans, and of preparation for
the journey, the sisters were ready to begin the daring exploit whose
aim was to complete the investigations which their father had begun.

Clad in rough, unsightly denim, and leading a burro which carried a
very considerable store of provisions, they clambered up the jagged
sides of Ahualtapec; they tore their way through thickets and fell upon
cacti.

"We're lost," panted Dolores, finally, as she pulled the many thorns
from her clothing. "Elsa, we're lost."

They had stopped, at about noon on the tenth day of their trip, to
rest, and again to consult their maps.

Elsa stood upon a ledge and looked across to where, between two lofty
mountains, rising to the south of Ahualtapec, a smaller rock mass
showed itself, like a much overgrown hill-the shell of a long extinct
volcano, and a very counterpart of Ahualtapec.

"Dolores," she pointed straight before her, "do you remember? A stone
in which, when viewed from a distance, can be seen a resemblance to the
cross of Tlaloc?"

"Oh, dear," complained Dolores, dejectedly, "and all this time wasted!"

"Now, Dolores!" small Elsa turned about determinedly, "you ought to
shout for joy, for that certainly must be it. The rocks are bare around
that spot, and you can see it plainly from here. It's on a ledge, too,
just like the one we're on. We will start this very minute, Dolores."

Delaying long enough only for Elsa, who had a fine sense of location,
to impress upon her mind the position of the cross, they began once
more the tedious scrambling, tearing, tumbling down slopes and up
slopes, across streams and through, streams; but they did not lose
themselves again.

"Do you suppose," Dolores anxiously asked, "that we can ever move it?"
as she saw how the ages had packed, and hardened the damp soil about
the base of the boulder.

"We must." Elsa was resolved not to be defeated. "We absolutely must,"
she reiterated.

"How?" demanded Dolores.

Elsa's reply was to unstrap a bag from the burro's back, to take from
it two trowels, and silently to offer one to Dolores. No explanation
was necessary. For five days the girls scraped and dug away the
hardened soil from the lower part of the cross-shaped stone, until at
last the block began to tremble as though about to fall.

"Dolores! Dolores! It's top heavy, bless it!" Elsa was
enthusiastically, insanely happy.

The fact that the stone was top-heavy made it possible for the girls,
by dint of much tugging, heaving, and pushing, to roll it over the
ledge, and to send it bumping down the mountainside. A narrow passage,
wide enough to admit only one at a time, was thus opened. Pine torches
were lit. Even Dolores was excited. They squeezed into the entrance,
Elsa first. They rushed through the short tunnel, until, at the end,
Elsa stumbled and sank to her knees.

"Oh, my! Dolores, just look!" she was holding her torch down to see
what had caused her fall. "It's it," she remarked, disregarding
rhetoric, while she pointed to a small turquoise-studded image of
Tlaloc, the Neptune of the Aztecs.

The girls carried the idol into the little ante-room which was always
a part of the burial grotto of an Aztec noble family. How pleasant,
how cool, and damp it seemed in here, after their hot toil outside.
The sisters had been in too many tombs to know any fear, to have any
feeling of the presence of the dead. Their own breathing sounded loud
and labored amid the silence of the cave.

Dolores sat down on the moist floor, and examined the statues; she was
thinking of the treasure; but Elsa, now that she was sure of finding
the gold, or the jewels, or whatever the promise might have meant,
desired to explore the grotto.

From the little ante-room she passed into the larger chamber. Here, for
the first time, she felt chilled; she seemed so alone. She was sure she
felt a ghost whisper near her. Her feet slipped on the wet earth. On
the further side of the tomb she saw upon the ground an urn, on which
rested a skull. By the shape of the urn and by the arrangement of the
ornaments above it Elsa knew that it contained the ashes of a warrior.
A drop of water splashed down from the ceiling and aroused her. She
held her torch aloft. She looked unbelievingly at the roof. Then she
walked slowly around the room, wonderingly, feeling and scrutinizing
the walls.

"Dolores!" she called, "come quick!"

Dolores was not long in coming.

"And here is also what should be the source of untold wealth to the
discoverer," Elsa was murmuring. "Dolores, do you see that green, that
dull gray? How it shines? Don't you know, Dolores? It's jade, royal
jade, Dolores!"

                                                   --Dorothea Knoblock.


II. The Society Story

[What the society story is]

Society stories are those non-consequential narratives of modern
fashionable life which have in their very lightness their sole excuse
for being. They are set up as only partial reflections of the actual.
Since their chief purpose is to please, they have no studied realism
in them. All things intense and unattractive are omitted. If trouble
appears, it is but as "sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh," as
one of their authors might promptly quote, and everything is brought to
harmonize with everything else at last. Richard Harding Davis for his
"Van Bibber" tales seems to have found a wide public.

[The pastoral romance]

An older representative of the society story is the pastoral romance,
once a very popular form of the love tale. In it we have a picture of
country life, but it is not the hard, toil-beleaguered life of the real
peasant. It is the imaginary out-of-doors living-for-a-few-days of the
courtier who masquerades as a shepherd and sits cavalierly on a grassy
bank with a golden crook in his hand, sighing out his heart in silvery
madrigals. His lady-love is no ordinary milk-maid, but a courtly
princess on vacation. In this romantic land of shepherd loves, nothing
realistic enters. The talk in even the first examples is philosophic
and in the later becomes euphuistic as well. The critics maintain that
the pastoral romance as a type does not go more than ten years back of
the middle of the fourteenth century, although we have "Aucassin and
Nicolette" of the thirteenth and "Daphnis and Chloe" of the fifth. The
prime fact of the history of the pastoral romance as a society story
is that it grew up as a revolt against the licentious realism of the
Italian novellieri. The "Arcadia" by Sannazaro, written about 1500, is
the book that made the epoch and established the rule for pastoral
romance in all languages. Sannazaro took what had been foreshadowed
by Boccaccio in the "Ameto" in 1340, and, enriching it with elements
derived from Theocritus and Virgil, created the "perfect" example. From
Sannazaro, Sir Philip Sidney borrowed the spirit, many episodes, and
part of the name for his notable combination of prose and verse--the
"Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." Shakespeare, too, derived much from
this important Italian book. For one thing, he took the name Ophelia;
for another, his charming society pastoral drama "As You Like It" goes
historically back to Sannazaro's "Arcadia" for its lyrics, out-of-doors
courting, its real shepherds, its obvious love of nature, its touch of
magic, and its wholesome morality. The lack of allegorical significance
is also straight example from Sannazaro; but the love chain, the
disguised shepherd princesses, the humorous element in connection
with the coarse shepherds, a touch of adventure, and the cavalier
tone are of later Spanish and English contamination, immediately
through Lodge's prose romance "Rosalynd," and more remotely through
Greene's three pastorals--"England's Mourning Garment," "Menaphon,"
and "Pandosto,"--and through Cervantes's "Galatea" and Montemayor's
"Diana," and Ribeyro's Portuguese "Fragments."

Though the pastoral romance, as we notice, became more and more
artificial, it always remained pure in tone. It centered itself in
idealism and stood against the low, utterly debased, more realistic
novella, which was its predecessor and continued rival for popularity.
The pastoral held the field as the chief and most influential prose
form in Spain until the picaresque romance came to be recognized as a
distinct genre.

[Suggestions for writing]

To write a modern society story that will be worth while is no easy
task; for here an author readily descends to banalities, and the class
itself is hardly acceptable to the serious critic. Yet stories of
this kind are so popular and form (I am sorry to say) so large a part
of the reading of our young women--and our young men, too, for that
matter--that the type surely has come to stay for sometime and must be
taken account of. To make your story commendable, then, you will need
to be original and striking in your choice of situation and to write
with a succinctness and verve that will animate even the commonplace.
Be careful not to be sentimental. If you touch on love, do so with
dignity--with either clean, pure humor, or unaffected seriousness.
Try hard to save your hero from being a cad. The namby-pamby,
third-generation-millionaire protagonist, if not altogether
uninteresting, is surely exasperating to a sensible reader. By playful
imitation, you might write a good satire on this class of story. If you
do so, you will need to be familiar with one or more of the popular
examples in order to use them specifically. Or you might try your hand
at a pastoral, just for the history of the thing. If you care to adhere
to certain elements of the genre, you could put together under this
guise allegorical scenes in which the present lords of the earth figure
as weak or lusty shepherds piping a tune to the watch-dogs of war, the
sheep of commerce, and the Goddess of Getting-On. If you wish to be
more than half serious, you can find countenance in a number of our
most recent light stories that undoubtedly turn toward the pastoral.
This type, too, will give you a chance at a mixture of prose and verse.
Here you can put in some of those fetching sylvan lyrics that you must
have composed long before now and have always been afraid to mention.


=The Fur Coat=

    Translated by Mrs. J. M. Lancaster. Copyright, 1903, by The Current
    Literature Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission.

_Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch_

                                                   BERLIN, November 20.

DEAR GUSTAV--I have some news to tell you to-day which will certainly
surprise you. I have separated from my wife, or rather we have
separated from each other. We have come to an amicable agreement
henceforth to live entirely independent of each other. My wife has gone
to her family in Freiburg, where she will no doubt remain. I am for
the present in our old house; perhaps in the spring I may look for a
smaller house--perhaps not, for I can hardly hope to find so quiet a
workroom as I now have, and the idea of moving appals me, especially
when I think of my large library. You will, of course, want to know
what has happened, though, to tell the truth, nothing has happened.
The world will seek for all possible and impossible reasons why two
people who married for love and who have for eleven years lived what
is called happily together should now have decided to part. Yes, this
world which thinks itself so wise, but whose judgments are nevertheless
so petty, so superficial, will doubtless be of the opinion that there
is something hidden--will include this case too in one of the two great
categories prepared for such affairs, because it can not conceive of
the fact that life in its inexhaustible variety never repeats itself
and that the same circumstances may assume different aspects according
to the character and disposition of those interested. I need not tell
you this, my dear Gustav. You will understand how two finely organized
natures should rebel against a tie which binds them together after they
have once become fully convinced that in all matters of real importance
a mutual understanding is possible.

My wife and I are too unlike. Between her views of life and mine there
yawns an impassable gulf. The first few years I hoped to influence
her, to win her to my ways of thinking--she seemed so docile, so
yielding, took so warm an interest in my work, so willingly allowed
herself to be taught by me. Not till after our children's death did
she begin to change. Her grief at this loss--a grief which neither of
us has ever been able to live down--matured her, made her independent
of me. A tendency to morbid introspection took possession of her,
and gave increased tenacity to those ideas and convictions which my
influence had hitherto held in check, though not wholly eradicated. She
plunged deeper and deeper into those mists of sentimentally fantastic
imaginings, passionately demanding my concurrence in her views. She
lost all interest in my professional work, evidently regarding the
results of my researches in natural science as troops from an enemy's
camp. At last there was hardly a subject in the wide realm of nature
and human existence on which we agreed. To be sure we never came to
an open quarrel, but the breach between us was constantly widening.
Every day we saw more and more plainly that though we lived side by
side, we no longer belonged to each other. This discovery irritated
and distressed us, and at last forced all other feelings into the
background. If we had not once loved each other so dearly, or even
if we had now ceased to feel a mutual respect, this state of affairs
might perhaps have lasted for years, but our ideas of the true meaning
of marriage were too lofty, our sense of our own dignity as human
beings too profound to permit us to be content with so incomplete a
realization of our ideals. I hardly know who spoke first, but our
resolution was at once taken, and the decisive words uttered as calmly
and naturally as the overripe fruit falls from the tree. For the first
time in many years we were able with perfect unanimity of sentiment
to discuss a subject of the greatest importance to us both, and this
fact alone soothed our overwrought nerves. We parted yesterday with the
utmost decorum, without a word of reproach, a note of discord.

The many beautiful memories of our early married life, of the long
years we had lived together, made it difficult to refrain from some
manifestation of tenderness, and I assure you that I never felt greater
respect for my wife than at the moment when, all petty considerations
cast aside, the true magnanimity of her nature asserted itself. Her
manner, what she said, and also what she did not say, robbed the
situation of all trace of the commonplace, and gave it dignity. Deeply
moved, almost in tears, we clasped hands in farewell, so we may
look back upon the closing scene of our wedded life with unalloyed
satisfaction.

I had already, with her consent, referred all business details to our
lawyers, for we were not even to communicate with each other by letter.

Life must begin again for both of us, and already I breathe more
freely. The Rubicon is passed. I believe that you will congratulate me.


_Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch_

                                                   BERLIN, December 12.

DEAR GUSTAV--Pardon me that I have so long delayed thanking you for
your answer of friendly sympathy to my last letter.

I have been in no condition to write, and even now find it difficult.
You congratulate me without reserve on a step which you regard as
essential to my welfare and to my intellectual development, but you do
not take into consideration what it means to separate from one who has
for eleven years been one's constant companion, day and night. Indeed,
it is only during these last dreary weeks that I, myself, have realized
what the change signifies to me. Habit is all powerful, especially with
men who, like you and me, live in the intellectual world and so require
a solid sub-structure.

How are we to take observations from the tower battlements when its
foundations are not firmly established? Of course, I am as certain as
ever I was that our decision is for the best interests of us both, but
in this queer world of ours we can take no step without unlooked-for
results.

I am bothered from morn till night with trifles to which I have never
given a thought since my bachelor days--things which I will not
mention, so absurdly insignificant are they--and yet they rob me of my
time and destroy my peace. I am at a loss what steps to take to rid
myself of the thousand petty cares and annoyances which my wife has
hitherto borne for me. These servants! Now that the cat is away they
think that they can do just as they please, and you have no idea of the
silly obstacles over which I am continually stumbling, of the wretched
pitfalls which beset my path. Here is one instance out of many: For
several days it has been very cold, and I can not find my fur coat.
With the chambermaid's assistance I have turned the whole house upside
down, until she finally remembered that my wife, last spring, sent it
to a furrier's to be kept from the moth. But to which furrier? I have
been to a dozen and can not find it.

If I had only not agreed with my wife that we were, under no
circumstances, to write to each other, I should simply ask her--but
it is best so. No strain of the commonplace must mingle with the sad
echoes of our farewell. No--a farce never follows a drama. Perhaps she
might even imagine that I seize the first pretext to renew relations
with her.

Never!

To-day it is six below zero.


_Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand_

                                                   BERLIN, December 14.

DEAR EMMA--You will be greatly surprised at receiving a letter from
me in spite of our mutual agreement, but do not fear that I have
any intention of opening a correspondence with you. Our relations
terminated with all possible dignity, and the sealed door shall never
be re-opened. I have but to ask a simple question which you alone
can answer. What is the name of the man to whom you sent my fur coat
last spring? Lina has forgotten the address. Hoping soon to receive an
answer, for which I thank you in advance,

                                                                   MAX.


_Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand_

                                                 FREIBURG, December 15.

DEAR MAX--His name is Palaschke, and he is on Zimmer Street. I can not
understand Lina's forgetfulness, as she took the coat there herself.

                                                                  EMMA.


_Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand_

                                                   BERLIN, December 17.

DEAR EMMA--I must trouble you once more--for the last time. Herr
Palaschke refuses to let the coat go without the ticket, as he has had
several disagreeable experiences which have made it necessary to be
very strict. But where is the ticket? I spent the whole morning looking
for it, and, of course, Lina has not the slightest idea where it is.
She flew into a rage when I found a little fault with her, and she
leaves the house to-morrow. I prefer paying her till the end of her
engagement, and in addition shall give her a moderate Christmas gift,
for I can not stand for a great length of time such an impertinent
person about me.

Well--be so kind as to write me a line telling me where to find the
ticket. I have already taken a severe cold for want of the fur coat.

Hoping that you are well and quite comfortable with your family.

                                                                   MAX.


_Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand_

                                                 FREIBURG, December 19.

DEAR MAX--The ticket is either in the second or third upper drawer of
the little wardrobe in the dressing-room or in my desk, in the right or
left pigeon-hole. I could find it in a minute if I were there. Lina has
great faults, but she is very respectable. I doubt whether you can do
better, and now, just before Christmas, you will not be able to replace
her. You should have put up with her at least a fortnight longer, but
it is none of my business. I hope your cold is better. I am quite well.

                                                                  EMMA.


_Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand_

                                                   BERLIN, December 21.

DEAR EMMA--The ticket is not to be found either in the wardrobe or in
the desk. Perhaps it slipped out when you were packing, and was thrown
away. I can think of no other explanation.

To-morrow or next day I will again go to Herr Palaschke, and try to
wheedle him out of my property by all possible blandishments and
assurances, but to-day I am confined to my room, for my cold has
resulted in a severe attack of neuralgia.

I had a dreadful scene with the cook yesterday. On the day of your
departure she gave me notice, and when I tried to persuade her to
remain she turned on me and told me in a very insolent manner that I
knew nothing about house-keeping, and that it was only out of sympathy
for you, dear Emma, that she had so long remained with us at such low
wages, and that she should leave immediately. I answered calmly, but
firmly, that she must stay till the end of her engagement. Then she
began to cry and storm, and at last was so outrageously impertinent as
to declare that even _you_ could not manage to live with me. I lost
my temper and must, I suppose, have called her an "impudent woman,"
though I can not remember saying it. Unfortunately for me I have had no
experience in dealing with viragos.

Two hours later, after supper, I rang and discovered that she was
already gone, bag and baggage, leaving in the kitchen a badly spelled
_billet doux_, in which she threatened me with a lawsuit for calling
her an "impudent woman," in case I should refuse to give her a
certificate of character.

I am now entirely without servants. The porter's wife blacks my shoes
for a handsome consideration, and brings me from the café meals which
ought to be condemned by the health inspector. As you have truly
remarked, it will be impossible to replace these women before the New
Year, but I have already written to a dozen employment bureaus, and
will go myself as soon as I am able to leave the house. This has grown
into a long letter, my dear Emma, but when the heart is full the pen
runs rapidly.

I also suspect that abominable cook of taking my gold sleeve
buttons--those left me by Uncle Friedrich--though I have, of course, no
proof. Have you any idea where they are? If so please drop me a line.
Good-by, my dear Emma, and I trust you are more comfortable than I am.

                                                              Your MAX.


_Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand_

                                                 FREIBURG, December 23.

DEAR MAX--I have read with much sympathy your account of your little
mishaps and annoyances. The cook often spoke to me very much as she
did to you, but I put up with it because she is a good cook, and only
cooks who know nothing are polite. Now you see what I have had to stand
for years, and that there are problems in that department also which
can not be solved by natural science.

I can not, at this instance, advise you what to do, and should not
consider myself justified in doing so now that our intimate relations
have been terminated in so dignified a manner, as you so truly remark
in your first letter. As for the furrier's ticket and the sleeve
buttons, I will wager that I could find them both in five minutes. You
_must_ remember how often you have hunted in vain for a thing which I
have found at the first attempt. Men occasionally discover a new truth
but never an old button.

Since a correspondence has been begun by you, I have a little request
to make. I forgot before I left to ask you for the letters which you
wrote me during our engagement, and which at my request you put in
your safe. They are my property, and I should like to have them as a
reminder of happier days. Will you be so kind as to send them to me?

Wishing you a Merry Christmas,

                                                                  EMMA.


_Prof. Max Wiegand to Frau Emma Wiegand_

                                                   BERLIN, December 25.

MY DEAR EMMA--Your kind wish that I might have a Merry Christmas has
not been fulfilled. I never spent so melancholy a Christmas Eve. You
will not wonder that I could not bear to accept the invitations of
friends--to be a looker-on at family rejoicings--so I stayed at home,
entirely alone. I found it utterly impossible to get a servant before
New Year's, and yesterday was even without a helper from outside.
The porter's wife put a cold supper on the table for me early in the
afternoon, for she was too busy later with Christmas preparations for
her children. A smoky oil lamp took the place of the Christmas tree
which you always adorned so charmingly and with such exquisite taste
every year, and there were none of those pretty surprises by which
you supplied my wants and wishes almost before I was conscious of
them. There was nothing on the Christmas table but my old fur coat,
which Herr Palaschke--softened by my entreaties and assurances and
perhaps also by the spirit of Christmastide--had allowed me to take the
preceding day. It was as cold as charity in the room, for the fire had
gone out and it was beyond my skill to rekindle it, so I put on the fur
coat, sat down by the smoky lamp, and read over the letters which I
wrote you during the time of our engagement and which I had taken from
their eleven years' resting-place to send to you to-day.

Dear Emma, I can not tell you how they have moved me. I cried like a
child, not over the tragic ending of our marriage alone, but at the
change in myself which I recognize. They are very immature and in many
ways not in accordance with my present way of thinking, but what a
fresh, frank, warm-blooded fellow I was then, and how I loved you! How
happy I was! How artlessly and unreservedly did I give myself up to my
happiness! Till now I have thought that there has been a gradual, slow
change in you alone, but now I see that I also have altered, and God
knows, when I compare the Max of those days with the Max of to-day, I
do not know to which to give the preference. In the sleepless nights
which I have lately spent, I have thought over the possibility of
transforming myself into the Max I then was, and grave doubts have
suggested themselves whether the differences in our views of matters
and things were really as great as they seemed to us, whether there
is not outside of them something eternally human, some neutral ground
where we might continue to have interests in common.

Try and see, dear Emma, whether such a voice does not speak also to
your soul. We can not undo the past, but nothing could give me greater
consolation in my present unhappy condition than to know that you could
say yes to this question, for your departure has left a void in my
house and in my life that I can never, never fill.

                                                  Thy most unhappy MAX.


_Frau Emma Wiegand to Prof. Max Wiegand_

                                                 FREIBURG, December 27.

DEAR MAX--I very willingly gave you information as long as it related
only to tickets and sleeve buttons, but I must decline answering the
question contained in your last letter. Did you really believe, you
old Pedant, that I left your home--which was also mine--because we
disagreed in our views of matters and things in general? Then you are
mightily mistaken. I left you because I saw more plainly every day that
you no longer loved me. Yes, I had become a burden to you--you wanted
to get rid of me. If in that dignified parting scene you had said one
single tender word to me, I should probably have stayed, but, as usual,
you were on your high horse, from which you have now had so lamentable
a tumble just because your servants have left you. _I_ too have served
you faithfully, though you do not seem to have recognized that fact.
_I_ never let the fire go out on your hearth. It was not _my_ fault
when it grew cold.

Who knows whether you would have noticed the void left by my going if
your fur coat had not also been missing? This gave you an opportunity
of opening a correspondence with me, and it seems to be only fitting
that it should now close, since you have once more regained possession
of your property. I, at least, have nothing more to say.

  Good-by forever,
                                                                  EMMA.


_Prof. Max Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch_

                                                     BERLIN, January 8.

DEAR GUSTAV--I have a great piece of news to tell you. My wife
returned to me yesterday, and at my earnest solicitation. I thought
I could no longer live _with_ her, but I find it equally impossible
to live _without_ her. I have just discovered that she too was very
unhappy during the time of our separation, but she would never have
acknowledged it, for hers is the stronger character of the two. I do
not know how to explain the miracle, but we love each other more dearly
than ever. We are celebrating a new honeymoon. The great questions of
life drove us apart, but is it only the little ones which have reunited
us? Would you suppose that one could find a half-desiccated heart
in the pocket of an old fur coat? The stately edifice of my worldly
knowledge totters on its foundations, dear Gustav. I have a great deal
to unlearn.

                                                                   MAX.
                                                        --Ludwig Fulda.


=The Lady in Pink=

If I hadn't had to stop in the middle of my painting and run down to
the house to get some more rose-madder I never in the world should
have seen her; I had to leave all my things up on the hill with little
David, and on the way down to the village I passed the place.

The only thing I remember now is that I was hurrying along by a stone
wall which was higher than my head and that above it dark pines
clustered in pointed masses against a blue and white sky--it was
just the kind of sky Bougereau would have loved, with soft, opaque
clouds--when I came past the gate, and one can never go by a gate,
you know, and not look in, and it was there that I saw her. She was
sitting on a bench built under a tree--the trunk of which did for the
perpendicular in the composition and gave such a good contrast in
color, too, for she--well, there she was just sitting there with her
hands in her lap, her head against the tree and her feet out in front
of her, and oh, dreams of loveliness--her dress was pink! Think of
that! Rose pink where it touched the grass, lavender pink where it fell
in shadows, shell pink where the sun flickered on it--and in her hand
she held a kind of golden straw hat, and that was just dripping with
roses, and they were the pinkest of all. Oh! it was a picture for the
gods. I made quick work of my errand and hastened back to tell David
about it.

"Well, I've seen it," I announced breathlessly, coming up the slope.

"Seen what?" asked David, not stopping from his clover chain.

"My masterpiece," I answered, squirting out much more of the
rose-madder than I needed--this paltry little sketch I was working on
now would have to be finished up and gotten out of the road for real
work.

"Where?" asked David, with the laconic briefness of childhood.

"Down inside the big gate--behind the stone wall."

"Oh, that's where the Cory's live--there's a stream there, with
pollywogs in it." David's mind was beginning to wander.

"But you never saw such a study in pink in all your life--think of
it--pink dress--all different shades of pink--pink roses for the
high-note, and then pale pink repeated in the cheeks and then way off
in the background there were some pink hollyhocks." "My, oh, my," I
added to myself, stubbing gamboge into the canvass to get a sunshiny
effect, "My, oh, my--she sat there just like a Grenze--a Gainsborough
lady, now, never would have had the courage to have leaned against the
tree in that lackadaisical manner; the Lady in Pink--Whistler painted a
Lady in White--I shall paint the Lady in Pink! Tomorrow I shall begin,
David," I said, "tomorrow I am going down to get my masterpiece."

"Well, but you can't go in the Cory's to get it," said David; "that's
private grounds."

Private grounds! The words stunned me. Couldn't an artist usually go
any place he liked?

"Private grounds!" I echoed, "oh, yes; why that's so. Why, what on
earth will I do?"

"I don't know," said David, with a half-rising inflection showing an
abstract sympathy.

"Think of that! And there it all is just waiting to be painted. Why,
look here, David, how on earth did you ever get in to know there were
pollywogs?"

"Oh," said David, "the folks were away."

"Well, I will wait then till they are all away! But, good heavens,
what am I thinking about! The garden isn't what I want--it's the Lady
in Pink." I began packing up my paints--there was no use trying to do
anything more now.

"Well, at any rate, we will go down tomorrow," said I, wiping some
brushes on my handkerchief, "and maybe in the meanwhile we can think up
a way to get in."

"Oh, let's go now," suggested David, seeing that things were really
moving.

"You mean it?" I asked, rather astonished at his sudden desire for
action.

"All right, then! You fold up the camp stool and umbrella and I'll take
the box and the pallet along with me."

"Dear me! What on earth now will we ever say when we get there?" I
began on the way down the hill.

"We might ask for a glass of milk."

"Oh, no, we can't do that--it isn't in the country."

"Well, I might ask for some hollyhocks."

"Well, I guess not! The hollyhocks can't be picked--they're part of the
masterpiece."

"Then you think something yourself," and David lapsed into a
discouraged silence.

But I couldn't think of anything save that I must and would have the
lady at any cost and though I couldn't see how I was going to get it,
I had a very clear picture of myself in the garden, painting away.

"You just wait till we get there," I said to David, as we stumped down
the walk together. David was used to my enthusiasms over all sorts
of things which he usually only vaguely assented that he could see,
and though he never said much when I fell to talking about principles
of art, I liked to have him with me always when I worked, because he
had such a joyous, fresh little face. I couldn't help but catch the
sunshine of it when I did an outdoor sketch; and if I had lived in the
days when no picture was complete without a Love in it, David would
always have been the one to have posed for me.

Presently we came near the gate and, to speak truly, I was becoming a
bit fearful as to just what was going to happen, but David, eager and
anticipatory, hopped on ahead of me and peered in.

"Oh!" he called back, "there isn't anything here at all."

"Oh, isn't there?" I said; "you don't mean to say it's gone in."

"If you mean the lady, she isn't here."

And true enough, when I came up there wasn't a soul in sight. How empty
the place looked! It was just like a disappointing exhibition--here
were all the people come to see the great works, and when the door
was reached, there hung a sign which said that the management was
sorry, but the best paintings had been delayed on the way, and
wouldn't be here till tomorrow at two o'clock! I gazed at my ruined
masterpiece--the background was all there, but there was no picture,
for what moaning had broad green masses of foliage and shaded distances
apart from a contrasting center of interest, of what meaning was there
anyhow in a landscape without a human touch?

David pressed his hand on the latch of the gate and it opened for him.
I have always liked to think since that he was the one that really
opened the way there.

"Let's go in," he said in a half challenging whisper, but with eyes
pleading authority from me.

I couldn't resist. "Well, all right--it will be like Corot wandering
around in the forest of Fontainbleau--and if anybody comes----" I
didn't know what I would do, so I took my pallet in my hand fancying to
myself it would do very well for a shield against any contingent. So we
slowly walked up the winding path together.

"The pollywogs are over there," said David, pointing a slender finger
toward the house.

"You never mind them," I answered, "what we are here for is to get the
setting of this picture. My! Almost any view would do--I never saw so
many colors in all my life. Look, David, at that bust over there with
the gray-green leaves brushing up against the gray stone--oh, there
ought to be a peacock under there, to give a strong iridescent blue
note--do you suppose there is a peacock around any place?" I said,
laying down my pallet and circling my eyes with my hands so as to
localize the color masses better.

But David was sorting pebbles on the walk and so I expected no answer
from him, but was scarcely prepared for the one I did receive.

"No, there is no peacock here, but--can I do anything for you?"

I swept around and there was that radiant figure in pink, melting
into the green behind her, the soft roundness of her figure echoed
in the larger circling outlines of the trees, her brown hair the
delicate counterpart in color of the ground she stood on, and her eyes,
deep ultramarine, the concentrated blue of all the pale sky--what a
picture, what a picture! My imagination flew to grasp it, and I forgot
everything but that I must have it, swept up clean from the pallet and
made living on the canvas.

"Yes," I said, "yes--there is something you can do for me. You can stay
right there--or you can go over there and sit down, while I get you,"
and I dashed back to the gate after my paints.

When I returned she was still standing and the corners of her lips were
twitching. They were very red. I began unpacking my tubes and unfolding
my easel. "Wouldn't you like to sit on the bench over there? You have
no idea how much the tree trunk will help out the composition." And I
begged her silently.

But she stood there perfectly still and looked at me with eyes full
of question; they had a moving highlight in them, like the sun on a
wave--if I could only catch that!

"You want to get me!" she finally stammered.

"Oh, yes!" I said, "don't you see? I was walking by the gate and I saw
you, and I want you to pose for me," and then as I saw her hesitate,
"oh, surely you don't mind being gotten?" With what a terror the
thought filled me--but I had to do it somehow.

"Well--only--but why don't you paint the little boy?"

"Oh, David! Oh, I paint him in everything--he comes in the sunshine
and the blowing wind and all the feeling of movement I ever get in a
picture--and then if people are happy when they look at the picture,
that is because David was with me when I painted it. David is a little
Love."

Well, she never said a word, but I think she understood what I meant,
because she went over and sat down and called David to her and began
talking with him. I am sure I had no idea what she was saying to him,
because I set to the work then with all my might. I sketched in the
figure, and set up my pallet with plenty of color and then flew to the
brushes; it seemed as if I could work with the culminative inspiration
of all the painting I had ever done.

While I was blocking in the hat with the roses, she looked up.

"Won't you tell me what it is going to be?" she asked with the air of
having thought of the question some time before.

"Well," I replied, knowing I would have to make a step somehow,
"Whistler painted a Lady in White, so I thought I would call this the
Lady in Pink; and if it comes out and I really get you----"

"If you really get me?"

"Why, yes; if I can just catch you the way I want you; that is one of
the troubles of the artist, you know--he never really is sure whether
he is going to be able to get what he wants or----"

"Not even when he is so eager about it?"

"No, not always then," I laughed, wondering though if she didn't know
that inspiration was in truth something more than eagerness.

"Not even--when he is painting in a garden--like this?"

Her eyes were brimming with a half-concealed mirth.

"Oh, this garden is a lovely place," I answered, "but it wouldn't make
all the picture--there's got to be some spirit in it beside--a kind of
informing mood. Now it is very quiet here and you are posing for me----"

"Oh! so I must be quiet, too?"

"Yes, I suppose so," I answered boldly enough; "only, of course, a
different kind of quiet, you know; for if the garden is still, that's
because--well, there isn't anybody mowing the grass, or there isn't any
wind or--oh, the quietness of a person sitting in a garden is quite a
different thing."

She kept looking at me all the time I was saying this, and then replied
slowly:

"I see; you don't want me just to sit still."

"Certainly not," I answered. "I want you to be--"

Her eyes suddenly became dreamy, and I felt much more at ease.

"It's like David and the sunshine," she went on.

"Yes, just exactly; you are to be the spirit of the garden, the
human symbol of its mood--its real meaning," and happy that she
understood the way I felt about David, I fell to laying on the paint
in broad, easy strokes, wondering how I could ever imitate the emerald
transparency of the trees.

She did not speak again and presently my glance returned to her. She
was holding David's cap in her hand and looking out--nowhere, I guess.
I stopped my work, stepping back to study it and survey the scene.

"I'm glad you like my garden," she finally said, smiling; and such a
smile as she gave me--it was like a stream of golden haze on a white
flower, a change very subtle, and yet so striking.

"Your garden is the very best place yet I've found to work in," I
said, well pleased. "It is just as fine a place as the Forest of
Fontainebleau, and Corot did some great masterpieces there."

"Well, then, this surely ought to be your masterpiece, because,
according to your own definition, you have all the conditions just
perfect; the garden, and David----"

"Besides you," I interrupted, looking at her through the point of the
easel, hoping to see the smile again; but she had suddenly changed
her position, quite unconscious that in doing so she had spoiled the
composition. But it made no difference, for I already had the posture,
and the dress with its lavender and shell-pink lights and all the green
behind--it was all there on the canvas, and the echo of it all on my
pallet just like the memory of an overture which has played with all
the various themes; and as to the rest--ah, she had indeed given me a
glimpse of the tender mood and the stilling charm with which I wished
to finish the picture. I was quite content.

Presently a tide of yellow evening light flooded into the garden,
making the ground luminous and throwing deep shadows everywhere. I laid
down my brushes.

"I shall have to stop now," I said, "evening is coming on--I shall have
to be going," and I whistled for David.

He came running across the grass, one hand full of hollyhocks. "Oh, my
stars, David!" I exclaimed, "what have you been doing?"

"Never mind," said the lady, "you know you have been helping yourself
to things, too," and she rose and came over.

"Oh, there I am," she said lightly, looking at what I had done.

"No, indeed," I hastened to assure her, "that isn't you--yet; so far it
is a composition in pink and green, but you aren't in it. When I put
in the sunlit background, then David comes, you know, and then when I
put a gentle repose in every line of the figure, and a dreamy, tender
sweetness in the face, then I will be painting the real spirit of the
garden--don't you see?"

And then, oh, my heart, she smiled again, but this time such a smile as
no man deserves twice--and stooped and kissed David.

"He says he wants to get me for his painting, David. Shall I let him?"

"Why, hasn't he gotten you already?" asked David, tying the hollyhocks
with grass.

"Yes, I think he has," she answered slowly. "David, you are a little
Love," she added.

"Yes, isn't he, though!" I said.

                                                       --Wilma I. Ball.


III. The Humorous Story

The humorous story is but the other side of the society story. It is
not a thorough study in realism either, for then it would be sad for
a large part--as George Meredith has shown us; but it is rather a
course of events more or less skilfully arranged to produce a laugh.
There is transposition here, suppression there, exaggeration in many
places. The reader joins the author in the conspiracy to concoct
fun, and as a result both have a good time. The refinement and taste
of these narratives range all the long distance from the vulgar
horse-play and impossible dialect of the newspaper "funny page" to the
genuine humor of Mrs. Stowe's "Sam Lawson" fireside stories and the
quiet pleasantness of Sarah Orne Jewett's character sketches in "The
Country of the Pointed Firs." Mark Twain began the foundation of that
distinction which he now has as the greatest of modern humorists in his
early volume of sketches, entitled "The Celebrated Jumping Frog."

[The fableau]

This type of story probably originated in the medieval French
_fableau_,[5] which was a short humorous tale of the people--one
recounting some ludicrous situation. It was generally written in
octosyllabic couplets, a metrical form which was admirably suited to
sharp, spirited narrative by reason of its skip, its carelessness, its
sauciness. Boccaccio and his long train of Italian and other followers
retold in prose many of these French stories; but it must be admitted
that the condensation and the rapidity of the older metrical tales
become diffuseness and sometimes tediousness in the prose version. The
fableau was sometimes satiric; usually baldly, even coarsely realistic.
Its purpose, however, was always to amuse. Chaucer retold five or
more fableaux. He is a jolly narrator, and carries one along often in
spite of one's prejudice in favor of modesty and decency. He is honest
enough, however, to warn the reader of possible unpalatableness and
modern enough to attempt to excuse himself on the basis of art.

[Picaresque romance]

That the picaresque romances embody such stories as the fableau is
perfectly evident. Dissect, for instance, "Lazarillo de Tormes," or
better, "Guzman de Alfarache," and you will see that the various
adventures of the heroes would make capital _fableaux_ or humorous
_contes_. The idea of combining low adventures into a series connected
with one hero comes down from the days of Nero, when Petronius Arbiter
wrote his "Satyricon." But the term picaresque romance refers to the
Spanish popular tales of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the
heroes of which are rascals, or picaros. As sharpers, they are the
prototypes of our more modern Yankee in fiction who always "does" the
other fellow before the other fellow "does" him. Some of them, like
the "Yank," are not so much mean as just bold and resourceful when
at a disadvantage. They go to court like the Connecticut Yankee and
see their betters, whom they criticise most straightforwardly. They
are older and naughtier Tom Sawyers and Huckleberry Finns. In short,
by their vernacular of the highway and by their impudent deeds they
stand in the historical line of types which includes the heroes of
the fableau and the heroes of the modern burlesque or comic tale. The
difference between humorous and comic and between comic and burlesque
is a difference of degree.

Of the direct imitations of these Spanish rogues there is the French
Gil Blas; there are the English Roderick Random, Jonathan Wild, and
Miss Becky Sharp; there is the Amateur Cracksman; and, come to think
about it, there is our own late American _Saturday Evening Post's_
ubiquitous Mr. Farthest North, promoter, success attend him!

To write a humorous story you will need to employ epigram, point,
climax, colloquialisms, and perhaps dialect. If you touch dialect,
however, take care to know what you are about; for nothing is more
repellent to a reader familiar with a particular vernacular than to be
confronted with pitiful and incorrect attempts at it. To write negro
dialect you should be as well versed as Joel Chandler Harris; to write
Irish, as apt as Samuel Lover or W. B. Yeats; to reveal children, as
sympathetic as Kate Douglas Wiggin; to give us boy's fun, as charming
and wholesome as Thomas Bailey Aldrich; to combine humor and the
ingenious tale, you should be as inventive as Frank R. Stockton; and
to smile at Americans and their foibles you should be as patriotic and
kindly as Charles Battell Loomis.

George Washington Cable, Ian Maclaren, Thomas Nelson Page, J. M.
Barrie, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman have written excellent dialect, but
they are not primarily humorists. They use the vernacular of the people
as aids to character revelation.

The difference between a humorous story and comic anecdote is the
difference of length and veracity. An anecdote purports to be true. A
humorous story, only "drawn from life."


=The Expatriation of Jonathan Taintor=

    Reprinted by permission from Loomis's "Cheerful Americans."
    Copyright, Henry Holt and Company.

While I was in London I met a New York friend who was stopping in that
America-in-London, Bloomsbury, and during our conversation he told me
that he had for a fellow-boarder no less a person than Jonathan Taintor.

I felt that I ought to know Jonathan Taintor, and I have since found
out that most people have heard something concerning him; but although
the name had a good old Connecticut sound, I could not fit Mr. Taintor
into any nook, so I frankly said to my friend: "Jonathan Taintor lies
in the future for me."

"Why, I'll have to introduce you. I believe he's been written up
before, but he's such a character that it will do you good to meet him.
Can't you come to dinner tonight?"

Now, I had been reckoning on going that evening to the opera at Covent
Garden; but characters do not pop around every corner, and, besides,
I had not seen my New York friend for a long time, so I accepted his
cordial invitation.

That evening at seven I went to the American boarding-house in Bedford
Place, just off High Holborn, and was soon sitting at dinner with my
friend.

Directly opposite me sat a man who might have left the valley of the
Connecticut five minutes before. There are Taintors all about the
Haddams that look just like him. He was short, thick-set, with dreamy
blue eyes, a ruddy face that betokened a correct life, a curved nose,
broad, straight, shaven upper lip, and a straggling silver chin-beard.

There was more or less twang in the tones of every one at the table,
but his voice had a special nasal quality that seemed to bespeak a
lifetime of bucolic Yankee existence. It was really so pronounced as to
sound stagy.

The talk at dinner was desultory, and Mr. Taintor said little. I
noticed that he had a dish of corned beef and cabbage, although the
pièce de résistance for the rest of us was beef with a Yorkshire
pudding. He left the table before coffee was served, but not before my
friend had asked him to join us later on the balcony for a smoke and
chat.

When we went up we found him already on the balcony, smoking a corn-cob
pipe of American manufacture. My friend introduced us, and he shook my
hand with one downward jerk. How often have I felt that pressure in the
rural districts of Connecticut!

When Mr. Taintor learned that I had been in London only a week and had
just come from Middletown, his face lighted up with interest, and he
said:

"You have passed my wife in the street. She often comes to town market
days."

"Oh, then she's not with you," was my somewhat idiotic reply.

"No, she ain't; an' unless the good Lord heaves enough sand into the
Atlantic to make the walkin' good, she won't never be with me."

"You must be anxious to get back? Been over here some weeks?" said I.

"A matter of thirty year," he replied, and sighed prodigiously.

"Why, you must be quite an Englishman by this time."

He looked troubled. "Dew I look English?" said he.

"No, no," I replied, comfortingly; "you might pass for Uncle Sam."

"Well, I hope I'll never pass fer anythin' wuss," said he. "It's jest
thirty year in November sence I left America, an' I've be'n in this
dreary taown ever sence; but I ain't never read an English noospaper
nor ridden in an English omnibus or horse-car or steam-car, neither,
an' I try to eat as much as possible what I would ef I was at home with
Cynthy. An' I'm a Republican clean through."

"Well, what's keeping you here?" said I.

Mr. Taintor pressed down the tobacco in his pipe to make it burn
better, and said: "I can't stan' the trip. Y'see, when we was married
we thought we'd cross the ocean on aour weddin'-trip. Father hed lef'
me comfor'ble, an' Cynthy hed be'n dead-set on crossin' all through
aour courtship. Fact is, her sister Sairy said 'at 'at was all she
was marryin' fer; but of course Sairy was a great joker, an' I knowed
better. Well, we went daown to Noo York the day before the steamer
sailed, an' we put up at a hotel there on Broadway, an' durin' the
evenin' some women got talkin' to Cynthy, an' told her haow awful sick
she was like to be ef she hedn't never be'n on the ocean before. Well,
it frightened her so that she backed plumb aout er the harness--said
she guessed we'd better go to Saratogy instead; an' the upshot was we
hed aour fust an' last quar'l then. I told her I'd bought the tickets
fer Europe an' we'd hev to go, an' she said she would n' expose herself
to two or three weeks of sickness under the idee it was a picnic
party, an' all I could say to her couldn't shake her. Well, it was bad
enough losin' the price of one ticket, but I couldn't lose the price
of two, an' so we finally come to an agreement. She was to go up to
Saratogy, although the season up ther' was over, an' I was to cross the
ocean alone. It was too late to git my money back, an', to tell the
truth, I allers did hate to give a plan up, 'thout I hed sufficient
reason; so nex' mornin' we went daown to the dock, fer we'd made up,
an' she was comin' ter see me off. She took on consid'able, an' I was
cut up myse'f, partic'larly when I thought of the ticket thet was bein'
thrown away. But she caught a glimpse of the waves behind a ferry-boat,
an' she turned white as a sheet an' shook her head; so I kissed her
good-by, an' the steamer sailed away with me on it, an' her a-wavin'
her arms an' cryin' on the dock."

"Poor fellow!" said I, sympathetically.

"Well, the amount of seasickness she saved herself by stayin' to hum
couldn't be reckoned 'thougt I was a scholar, which I ain't. I took to
my berth before we was aout of sight of land, an' ef the brimstun of
the future is any wuss 'an what I suffered, I don't want to die. But
I wished I could die all the way over. I come right here to London,
because there was a man I knew comin' here, too, an' I wrote to Cynthy
to come right over as soon as she could, an' we'd live aour lives aout
here; fer bad as it was here, nothin' on top of creation could temp' me
to go back, not even her pretty face."

He stopped a minute and half closed his eyes, and I fancy he was
calling her pretty face back through the thirty years.

"Well, well, that was hard lines," said I.

"Yes, but it was wuss when I got her reply. She told me she hed n't
hed a happy minute sence I left, although she hed gone up to Saratogy,
but the water tasted like something was into it, an' she'd come away
after one day, an' was now on the farm at Goodspeed's Landing. An' she
said thet ef _I'd_ be'n so sick _she 'd_ proba'ly die, an' she could
n't bear to think of bein' heaved into the Atlantic, an' must stop
where she was. Ah me! Sence then we 've be'n as lovin' as we could be,
writin' reg'lar an' rememberin' each other's birthdays an' aour weddin'
anniversaries; but we hain't sot eyes on each other, an' won't until we
're both safe on that other shore they tell us abaout. An' I hope thet
trip 'll be a smooth one."

"And what does Mrs. Taintor do all alone?"

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it into his pocket before
he replied:

"She runs the old farm as I never could have run it. She's a born
farmer, that wife of mine is. She has a hired man to help, but she does
a good share of the work herself, an' every year she sen's me half the
airnings; an' I live on here, hatin' it all an' hopin' for the time to
come when the ocean'll either dry up or freeze over, or that Cynthy
will overcome her dislike to the trip. Married life ain't e'zac'ly
pleasant so fur apart, but I c'n truthfully say we 've never quar'led
sence I come here, an' I ain't seen a woman sence I landed thet could
hold a candle to Cynthy. Cynthy is a pretty gal."

Shortly afterward the old man retired to his own room, and then my
friend, who had not spoken once since we came out, wickedly hinted
that maybe Mr. Taintor only imagined that he loved Cynthia, and
that they were happier separated; but I hate to spoil idyls in that
way. To me it is very beautiful, the thought of that dear old lady
in Connecticut, who runs the farm and writes loving letters to her
expatriated spouse and sends him a share of the profits, but who cannot
overcome her antipathy to the unstable sea. And when I think of Mr.
Taintor as he appeared that evening in Bloomsbury, with his honest
Yankee traditions, and his ardent love far his absent wife, I say,
"Hurrah for both of them!"

                                              --Charles Battell Loomis.


=Kileto and the Physician=

It was now about a month and a half since Kileto felt something harsh
in his throat. He took a mirror and opened his mouth as wide as
possible. On looking at the mirror he saw some of his large papillae.
He was so greatly frightened to see such "red bodies," as he called
them, that he exclaimed, "Ah, dear Life, you are going to depart soon!
But, anyhow, I will at once go to the doctors to have these things
identified." Without further delay, he went to a doctor, whose name I
must not mention, lest he be angry with me for publishing this piece of
news.

The doctor, after examining Kileto's throat, opened his book of
medicine and searched in it for half an hour. Then after he was tired
of not finding the right place to read, he said to Kileto, "Such
sickness as you have is rarely found in other men. Your disease
is called 'Sampaga' in our dialect. However, I will give you a
prescription." "Doctor," said Kileto, "do you think I shall ever be
cured of my sickness?" "Why, yes," answered the doctor; "only it will
take several months before your disease can be cured. Perhaps, with the
help of God and me, you will recover sooner. I want to ask you several
questions. Will you answer me patiently?"

"Yes," answered Kileto.

"Well, do you smoke cigarettes?"

"Yes, sir; three packages a day would not be sufficient."

"Well, this is the first habit you must abstain from. Do you chew
betel-nut?"

"Yes, sir."

"That is the second habit you must abstain from. Do you often go to
church?"

"Yes, sir; once in a year, if my wife happens to remind me of it."

"You!--a Catholic!--or a pagan?"

"I am both Catholic and pagan."

"Well, well, if ever you expect to recover, these three things you must
do--you must abstain from smoking, chewing betel-nut, and you must go
to church every Sunday, for the purification of your soul."

Kileto went home, somewhat relieved. He told his wife what the doctor
bade him do. He did all that the doctor had ordered. He went to the
church every day--morning and afternoon--praying the whole "rosario."
Moreover, he confessed his sins to the priest. He abstained from
smoking and from chewing betel-nut.

Every day, after he had gone to church, he went to consult the doctor,
who always gave him medicine. Almost all sorts of poisons to kill
bacteria were prescribed. One day the doctor said to Kileto, "Do not
come here for several days. I am going to study about your sickness. I
will tell you the truth--you will die when your sampaga bursts." This
statement of the doctor made Kileto very sad.

After a week, Kileto consulted the doctor again. "I think," said the
doctor, "I had better burn your 'sampaga.' What do you say?"

"Well, you may do whatever you think best."

"But no," rejoined the doctor; "I'd better inject medicine into your
body."

"All right, sir. I told you that you may do whatever you think best."
Then the doctor injected medicine into Kileto's body. Kileto, because
of the results of this injection, was displeased with the doctor, for
he could hardly walk home.

One day as Kileto's wife was looking in a mirror, she found the image
of her large papillae, which were like her husband's. Of course, she
was very much frightened, lest she also had "Sampaga." She took her
small boy of ten years to the window and looking at his tongue, found
out that he also had papillae. "These sampagas," she said, "must be
common." So she examined the tongues of everybody who came near her.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, "these things must be natural. Oh, God, you save
my husband! But I will fool my husband. I will tell him I have the same
disease that he has."

When her husband came, she immediately led him to the window and
showed her papillae. "You see," she said, "I have the same disease
as you have. How now? Then we shall die together." To frighten her
husband more, she said, "Open your mouth, and let me see how your
'sampagas' are getting along." Then Kileto opened his mouth. His wife
examined then, and said to him, "Your sampagas are increasing." At
this statement Kileto jumped with great horror, and said, "Oh, yes, my
end is coming." "Now I see," replied the wife, "how like a small boy
you are. I have been told by a student that with these 'red bodies' we
taste our food. So you need not be afraid. Just look at the tongues
of everybody, and you will see that they have the 'papillae,' as the
student calls them."

Kileto was convinced, and regretted the great error he had committed.
He had spent on medicine all his and his wife's earnings for two years.

One day Kileto, when left alone in the house, said to himself, "I know
now the reason why the doctor said that I would die when my 'sampagas'
burst. Of course, these are not 'sampagas'; and how could they burst?
These things grow with the man. I am uncertain, however, whether the
doctor had a private purpose in not telling me at once that the things
I have on my tongue are 'papillae,' or whether he had not acquired
enough knowledge in his medical studies to be able to distinguish the
papillae from the disease called 'sampaga.'

"But in spite of all the trouble he gave me--injecting medicine into
my limbs, which made me lame for three days, wringing, as it were,
all my money from my hands--I am grateful to him. Why? Because I was
made religious, going to church once every two days. I abstained from
chewing betel-nut, and smoking cigarettes, and now I care no more for
them."

Whenever the members of the family are in good humor, they talk of
this story and laugh until they are out of breath.

                                                       --Lorenzo Licup.


_A FILIPINO FABLEAU_[6]

=The Lame Man and the Deaf Family=

One cloudy afternoon while I was wandering along the road between Paco
and Pandacan, I met a lame man limping down the way. The man seemed
very tired, and he was carrying on his head a pot which I thought
contained water. The fellow was a mestizo and was dressed in a white
suit. Seeing me, he said, "Will you please show me a house where I can
ask for a drink of water?" I could not answer him at once, because I
nearly laughed in his face when I saw it was only his long _bigote_
that made his split upper-lip unnoticed at a distance. Wishing to have
some fun out of him I showed him the house that stood in an orchard on
one side of the road.

The house that I pointed out belonged to a family all the members
of which were deaf; namely, the father, the mother, and a daughter.
Because of a kind of sickness that occurred in the family some years
before, they had lost their sense of hearing. People had nicknamed them
the "Deaf Family."

The man, or Mr. Bigote as I shall call him in honor of his long
mustache, went limping directly to the house; and, without letting Mr.
Bigote notice me, I followed him and hid behind the tall grasses that
grew near the orchard. From my place I had a good view of the orchard
and could hear the conversation between Mr. Bigote and the members of
the family.

The orchard was a trapezium in shape. Except the front, which was
separated by a wire fence from the road, all sides of it were
surrounded by tall grasses. On each vertex of the trapezium stood an
ilang-ilang tree. At the center stood a small nipa house facing the
road. Around the house were several banana trees and camote plants. The
house was old, and yet its stairs were made of stone. Under the bamboo
floor of the building I could see a large blind dog. Near the foot of
the stairs the daughter of the Deaf Family was sitting on a stone,
giving food to her hog. It was a very fat hog, but neither ear nor tail
could be seen attached to its great body.

The dialogue was begun by Mr. Bigote. "Good morning, madam," he said
politely.

"We do not want to sell our hog, sir," answered the girl.

"I do not mean to buy your hog, but I only ask for a drink of water,
for I am very thirsty," said the lame man quietly.

"Sir, it is very fat, because I always feed it well. You will not see
its ears and tail because that bad dog ate them when their owner was
yet small," answered the girl, pointing to the blind dog that was
barking at Mr. Bigote.

Noticing that she did not hear him very well, Mr. Bigote shouted, "Let
me have a drink of water!"

"Mother, here is a man who wants to buy our hog," shouted the young
person to her mother, who was then, I supposed, cooking their lunch.

The mother peeped through the window and when she saw Mr. Bigote
exclaimed angrily, "What! Are you going to marry that _Bangus_? I will
wake your father. Tambucio, here is your daughter. She wants to marry a
_bangus_."

"I am only asking for a drink of water, madam," said Mr. Bigote.

But when the father saw his wife very angry at the man who was standing
near their stairs, he asked Mr. Bigote angrily, "Why did you hurt my
dog?"

"Do not be angry, sir. I come to ask for a drink of water and not to
harm your dog," answered Mr. Bigote.

Thinking that the man had said something bad to him, the father took a
piece of wood and went down stairs. Seeing the danger, Mr. Bigote ran
limping to the road, but the father followed him and struck the pot he
was carrying on his head. The pot, which I had thought contained water,
was broken, and I was very much surprised to see Mr. Bigote covered
with molasses.

                                                   --Santiago Y. Rotea.


IV. The Occasional Story

[The spirit of the occasional story]

A story for a special occasion may be of any narrative type the author
chooses: it may be a legend, a tale of mere wonder, a humorous story,
a study in realism, a weird tale, or a ghost story (if one should
select All Saints' Eve). Anything the author feels inclined to write
will fall within the class provided it have about it the general
atmosphere of a particular celebration. If that be the Fourth of July,
the reader expects patriotism or its popular substitute, firecrackers;
if Thanksgiving, gladness and generosity; if Christmas, reverence and
good-will, and for the Northern people some pagan jollity in addition,
for it is well recognized that we Anglo-Saxons have incorporated into
the Christian festival our Druidical Yule-tide; if New Year's, then
forgiveness and well-wishing to all and a sense of everybody's putting
his best foot foremost; if Easter, hope and the joy of spring-time.

[Its masters]

It might be well to think and read a little about Easter if you want to
write a special story. Not much has been done with that season, though
it is full of possibilities. It, too, is a combination of old and new
ideals. We have many beautiful Christmas legends and tales, even by the
great authors--Dickens, Thackeray and many of the French and Spanish
short-story tellers; and by our later writers, as well. Professor Van
Dyke, Professor Mabie, Kate Douglas Wiggin, William Canton, Bret Harte,
almost everyone who has written, in fact,--but Easter stories are
harder to find.

[Suggestions]

The English-speaking peoples have not so many special days as have the
Latin. The adherents of the Catholic church have all the Saints' days
to celebrate. These yield many pretty fancies. Keats has made famous
St. Agnes' Eve. The other religions, too, are worth thinking about.
The Mohammedans and the Buddhists are devotees, and have interesting
customs. Besides the religious memorials there are the nations'
hero days. And then, too, the special anniversaries of societies and
associations. One's own school commencement, the best event of one's
favorite college--there are surely many inspirations for occasional
stories.


=The Lost Child=

    Translated by J. Matthewman. Copyright, 1894, by The Current
    Literature Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission.

On that morning, which was the morning before Christmas, two
important events happened simultaneously--the sun rose, and so did M.
Jean-Baptiste Godefroy.

Unquestionably the sun, illuminating suddenly the whole of Paris
with its morning rays, is an old friend, regarded with affection by
everybody. It is particularly welcome after a fortnight of misty
atmosphere and gray skies, when the wind has cleared the air and
allowed the sun's rays to reach the earth again. Besides all of which
the sun is a person of importance. Formerly, he was regarded as a
god, and was called Osiris, Apollyon, and I don't know what else. But
do not imagine that because the sun is so important he is of greater
influence than M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy, millionaire banker, director
of the _Comptoir Général de Crédit_, administrator of several big
companies, deputy and member of the General Counsel of the Eure,
officer of the Legion of Honor, etc., etc. And whatever opinion the sun
may have about himself, he certainly has not a higher opinion than M.
Jean-Baptiste Godefroy has of _himself_. So we are authorized to state,
and we consider ourselves justified in stating, that on the morning
in question, at about a quarter to eight, the sun and M. Jean-Baptiste
Godefroy rose.

Certainly the manner of rising of these two great powers mentioned
was not the same. The good old sun began by doing a great many pretty
actions. As the sleet had, during the night, covered the bare branches
of the trees in the boulevard Malesherbes, where the _hôtel_ Godefroy
is situated, with a powdered coating, the great magician sun amused
himself by transforming the branches into great bouquets of red
coral. At the same time he scattered his rays impartially on those
poor passers-by whom necessity sent out, so early in the morning, to
gain their daily bread. He even had a smile for the poor clerk, who,
in a thin overcoat, was hurrying to his office, as well as for the
_grisette_, shivering under her thin, insufficient clothing; for the
workman carrying half a loaf under his arm, for the car-conductor as
he punched the tickets, and for the dealer in roast chestnuts, who was
roasting his first panful. In short, the sun gave pleasure to everybody
in the world. M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy, on the contrary, rose in
quite a different frame of mind. On the previous evening he had dined
with the Minister for Agriculture. The dinner, from the removal of
the _potage_ to the salad, bristled with truffles, and the banker's
stomach, aged forty-seven years, experienced the burning and biting of
pyrosis. So the manner in which M. Jean-Baptiste Godefroy rang for his
valet-de-chambre was so expressive that, as he got some warm water for
his master's shaving, Charles said to the kitchen-maid:

"There he goes! The monkey is barbarously ill-tempered again this
morning. My poor Gertrude, we're going to have a miserable day."

Whereupon, walking on tiptoe, with eyes modestly cast down, he entered
the chamber of his master, opened the curtains, lit the fire, and
made all the necessary preparations for the toilet with the discreet
demeanor and respectful gestures of a sacristan placing the sacred
vessels on the altar for the priest.

"What sort of weather this morning?" demanded M. Godefroy curtly, as
he buttoned his undervest of gray swansdown upon a stomach that was
already a little too prominent.

"Very cold, sir," replied Charles meekly. "At six o'clock the
thermometer marked seven degrees above zero. But, as you will see,
sir, the sky is quite clear, and I think we are going to have a fine
morning."

In stropping his razor, M. Godefroy approached the window, drew aside
one of the hangings, looked on the boulevard, which was bathed in
brightness, and made a slight grimace which bore some resemblance to a
smile.

It is all very well to be perfectly stiff and correct, and to know
that it is bad taste to show feeling of any kind in the presence of
domestics, but the appearance of the roguish sun in the middle of
December sends such a glow of warmth to the heart that it is impossible
to disguise the fact. So M. Godefroy deigned, as before observed, to
smile. If some one had whispered to the opulent banker that his smile
had anything in common with that of the printer's boy, who was enjoying
himself by making a slide on the pavement, M. Godefroy would have been
highly incensed. But it really was so all the same; and during the
space of one minute this man, who was so occupied by business matters,
this leading light in the financial and political worlds, indulged in
the childish pastime of watching the passers-by, and following with
his eyes the files of conveyances as they gaily rolled in the sunshine.

But pray do not be alarmed. Such a weakness could not last long.
People of no account, and those who have nothing to do, may be able to
let their time slip by in doing nothing. It is very well for women,
children, poets, and riffraff. M. Godefroy had other fish to fry; and
the work of the day which was commencing promised to be exceptionally
heavy. From half-past eight to ten o'clock he had a meeting at his
office with a certain number of gentlemen, all of whom bore a striking
resemblance to M. Godefroy. Like him, they were very nervous; they had
risen with the sun, they were all _blasés_, and they all had the same
object in view--to gain money. After breakfast (which he took after the
meeting), M. Godefroy had to leap into his carriage and rush to the
Bourse, to exchange a few words with other gentlemen who had also risen
at dawn, but who had not the least spark of imagination among them.
(The conversations were always on the same subject--money.) From there,
without losing an instant, M. Godefroy went to preside over another
meeting of acquaintances entirely void of compassion and tenderness.
The meeting was held round a baize-covered table, which was strewn with
heaps of papers and well provided with ink-wells. The conversation
again turned on money, and various methods of gaining it.

After the aforesaid meeting he, in his capacity of deputy, had to
appear before several commissions (always held in rooms where there
were baize-covered tables and ink-wells and heaps of papers). There he
found men as devoid of sentiment as he was, all utterly incapable of
neglecting any occasion of gaining money, but who, nevertheless, had
the extreme goodness to sacrifice several hours of the afternoon to the
glory of France.

After having quickly shaved he donned a morning suit, the elegant cut
and finish of which showed that the old beau of nearly fifty had not
ceased trying to please. When he shaved he spared the narrow strip
of pepper-and-salt beard round his chin, as it gave him the air of a
trustworthy family man in the eyes of the Arrogants and of fools in
general. Then he descended to his cabinet, where he received the file
of men who were entirely occupied by one thought--that of augmenting
their capital. These gentlemen discussed several projected enterprises,
all of them of considerable importance, notably that of a new railroad
to be laid across a wild desert. Another scheme was for the founding of
monster works in the environs of Paris, another of a mine to be worked
in one of the South American republics. It goes without saying that no
one asked if the railway would have passengers or goods to carry, or
if the proposed works should manufacture cotton nightcaps or distil
whisky; whether the mine was to be of virgin gold or of second-rate
copper: certainly not. The conversation of M. Godefroy's morning
callers turned exclusively upon the profits which it would be possible
to realize during the week which should follow the issue of the shares.
They discussed particularly the values of the shares, which they knew
would be destined before long to be worth less than the paper on which
they were printed in fine style.

These conversations, bristling with figures, lasted till ten o'clock
precisely, and then the director of the _Comptoir Général de Crédit_,
who, by the way, was an honest man--at least, as honest as is to
be found in business--courteously conducted his last visitor to
the head of the stairway. The visitor named was an old villain, as
rich as Crœsus, who, by a not uncommon chance, enjoyed the general
esteem of the public; whereas, had justice been done to him, he
would have been lodging at the expense of the State in one of those
large establishments provided by a thoughtful government for smaller
delinquents; and there he would have pursued a useful and healthy
calling for a lengthy period, the exact length having been fixed
by the judges of the supreme court. But M. Godefroy showed him out
relentlessly, notwithstanding his importance--it was absolutely
necessary to be at the Bourse at 11 o'clock--and went into the
dining-room.

It was a luxuriously furnished room. The furniture and plate would have
served to endow a cathedral. Nevertheless, notwithstanding that M.
Godefroy took a gulp of bicarbonate of soda, his indigestion refused
to subside, consequently the banker could only take the scantiest
breakfast--that of a dyspeptic. In the midst of such luxury, and under
the eye of a well-paid butler, M. Godefroy could only eat a couple of
boiled eggs and nibble a little mutton chop. The man of money trifled
with dessert--took only a crumb of Roquefort--not more than two cents'
worth. Then the door opened and an overdressed but charming little
child--young Raoul, four years old--the son of the company director,
entered the room, accompanied by his German nursery governess.

This event occurred every day at the same hour--a quarter to eleven,
precisely, while the carriage which was to take the banker to the
Bourse was awaiting the gentleman who had only a quarter of an hour to
give to paternal sentiment. It was not that he did not love his son. He
did love him--nay, he adored him, in his own particular way. But then,
you know, business is business.

At the age of forty-two, when already worldly-wise and _blasé_, he
had fancied himself in love with the daughter of one of his club
friends--Marquis de Neufontaine, an old rascal--a nobleman, but one
whose card-playing was more than open to suspicion, and who would have
been expelled from the club more than once but for the influence of M.
Godefroy. The nobleman was only too happy to become the father-in-law
of a man who would pay his debts, and without any scruples he handed
over his daughter--a simple and ingenuous child of seventeen, who was
taken from a convent to be married--to the worldly banker. The girl
was certainly sweet and pretty, but she had no dowry except numerous
aristocratic prejudices and romantic illusions, and her father thought
he was fortunate in getting rid of her on such favorable terms. M.
Godefroy, who was the son of an avowed old miser of Andelys, had always
remained a man of the people, and intensely vulgar. In spite of his
improved circumstances, he had not improved. His entire lack of tact
and refinement was painful to his young wife, whose tenderest feelings
he ruthlessly and thoughtlessly trampled upon. Things were looking
unpromising, when, happily for her, Madame Godefroy died in giving
birth to her firstborn. When he spoke of his deceased wife, the banker
waxed poetical, although had she lived they would have been divorced in
six months. His son he loved dearly for several reasons--first, because
the child was an only son; secondly, because he was a scion of two
such houses as Godefroy and Neufontaine; finally, because the man of
money had naturally great respect for the heir to many millions. So the
youngster had golden rattles and other similar toys, and was brought
up like a young Dauphin. But his father, overwhelmed with business
worries, could never give the child more than fifteen minutes per day
of his precious time--and, as on the day mentioned, it was always
during "cheese"--and for the rest of the day the father abandoned the
child to the care of the servants.

"Good morning, Raoul."

"Good morning, papa."

And the company director, having put his serviette away, sat young
Raoul on his left knee, took the child's head between his big paws, and
in stroking and kissing it actually forgot all his money matters and
even his note of the afternoon, which was of great importance to him,
as by it he could gain quite an important amount of patronage.

"Papa," said little Raoul suddenly, "will Father Christmas put anything
in my shoe to-night?"

The father answered with "Yes, if you are a good child." This was
very striking from a man who was a pronounced freethinker, who always
applauded every anti-clerical attack in the Chamber with a vigorous
"Hear, hear." He made a mental note that he must buy some toys for his
child that very afternoon.

Then he turned to the nursery governess with:

"Are you quite satisfied with Raoul, Mademoiselle Bertha?"

Mademoiselle Bertha became as red as a peony at being addressed, as if
the question were scarcely _comme il faut_, and replied by a little
imbecile snigger, which seemed fully to satisfy M. Godefroy's curiosity
about his son's conduct.

"It's fine to-day," said the financier, "but cold. If you take Raoul
to Monceau Park, mademoiselle, please be careful to wrap him up well."

Mademoiselle, by a second fit of idiotic smiling, having set at rest
M. Godefroy's doubts and fears on that essential point, he kissed his
child, left the room hastily, and in the hall was enveloped in his fur
coat by Charles, who also closed the carriage door. Then the faithful
fellow went off to the café which he frequented, Rue de Miromesnil,
where he had promised to meet the coachman of the baroness who lived
opposite, to play a game of billiards, thirty up--and spot-barred, of
course.

Thanks to the brown bay--for which a thousand francs over and above
its value was paid by M. Godefroy as a result of a sumptuous snail
supper given to that gentleman's coachman by the horse-dealer--thanks
to the expensive brown bay which certainly went well, the financier was
able to get through his many engagements satisfactorily. He appeared
punctually at the Bourse, sat at several committee tables, and at a
quarter to five, by voting with the ministry, he helped to reassure
France and Europe that the rumors of a ministerial crisis had been
totally unfounded. He voted with the ministry because he had succeeded
in obtaining the favors which he demanded as the price of his vote.

After he had thus nobly fulfilled his duty to himself and his country,
M. Godefroy remembered what he had said to his child on the subject
of Father Christmas, and gave his coachman the address of a dealer
in toys. There he bought, and had put in his carriage, a fantastic
rocking-horse, mounted on castors--a whip in each ear; a box of leaden
soldiers--all as exactly alike as those grenadiers of the Russian
regiment of the time of Paul I, who all had black hair and snub noses;
and a score of other toys, all equally striking and costly. Then, as
he returned home, softly reposing in his well-swung carriage, the rich
banker, who, after all, was a father, began to think with pride of his
little boy and to form plans for his future.

When the child grew up he should have an education worthy of a prince,
and he would be one, too, for there was no longer any aristocracy
except that of money, and his boy would have a capital of about
30,000,000 francs.

If his father, a pettifogging provincial lawyer, who had formerly dined
in the Latin Quarter when in Paris, who had remarked every evening
when putting on a white tie that he looked as fine as if he were going
to a wedding--if he had been able to accumulate an enormous fortune,
and to become thereby a power in the republic; if he had been able to
obtain in marriage a young lady, one of whose ancestors had fallen at
Marignan, what an important personage little Raoul might become. M.
Godefroy built all sorts of air-castles for his boy, forgetting that
Christmas is the birthday of a very poor little child, son of a couple
of vagrants, born in a stable, where the parents only found lodging
through charity.

In the midst of the banker's dreams the coachman cried: "Door, please,"
and drove into the yard. As he went up the steps M. Godefroy was
thinking that he had barely time to dress for dinner; but on entering
the vestibule he found all the domestics crowded in front of him in a
state of alarm and confusion. In a corner, crouching on a seat, was the
German nursery-governess, crying. When she saw the banker she buried
her face in her hands and wept still more copiously than before. M.
Godefroy felt that some misfortune had happened.

"What's the meaning of all this? What's amiss? What has happened?"

Charles, the _valet de chambre_, a sneaking rascal of the worst type,
looked at his master with eyes full of pity and stammered: "Mr. Raoul--"

"My boy?"

"Lost, sir. The stupid German did it. Since four o'clock this afternoon
he has not been seen."

The father staggered back like one who had been hit by a ball. The
German threw herself at his feet, screaming: "Mercy, mercy!" and the
domestics all spoke at the same time.

"Bertha didn't go to _parc Monceau_. She lost the child over there on
the fortifications. We have sought him all over, sir. We went to the
office for you, sir, and then to the Chamber, but you had just left.
Just imagine, the German had a rendezvous with her lover every day,
beyond the ramparts, near the gate of Asniéres. What a shame! It is a
place full of low gipsies and strolling players. Perhaps the child has
been stolen. Yes, sir, we informed the police at once. How could we
imagine such a thing? A hypocrite, that German! She had a rendezvous,
doubtless, with a countryman--a Prussian spy, sure enough!"

His son lost! M. Godefroy seemed to have a torrent of blood rushing
through his head. He sprang at Mademoiselle, seized her by the arms and
shook her furiously.

"Where did you lose him, you miserable girl? Tell me the truth before I
shake you to pieces. Do you hear? Do you hear?"

But the unfortunate girl could only cry and beg for mercy.

The banker tried to be calm. No, it was impossible. Nobody would dare
to steal _his_ boy. Somebody would find him and bring him back. Of that
there could be no doubt. He could scatter money about right and left,
and could have the entire police force at his orders. And he would set
to work at once, for not an instant should be lost.

"Charles, don't let the horses be taken out. You others, see that this
girl doesn't escape. I'm going to the Prefecture."

And M. Godefroy, with his heart thumping against his sides as if it
would break them, his hair wild with fright, darted into his carriage,
which at once rolled off as fast as the horses could take it. What
irony! The carriage was full of glittering playthings, which sparkled
every time a gaslight shone on them. For the next day was the birthday
of the divine Infant at whose cradle wise men and simple shepherds
alike adored.

"My poor little Raoul! Poor darling! Where is my boy?" repeated the
father as in his anguish he dug his nails into the cushions of the
carriage. At that moment all his titles and decorations, his honors,
his millions, were valueless to him. He had one single idea burning in
his brain. "My poor child! Where is my child?"

At last he reached the Prefecture of Police. But no one was there--the
office had been deserted for some time.

"I am M. Godefroy, deputy from L'Eure--. My little boy is lost in
Paris; a child of four years. I must see the Prefect."

He slipped a louis into the hand of the _concièrge._

The good old soul, a veteran with a gray mustache, less for the sake
of the money than out of compassion for the poor father, led him to
the Prefect's private apartments. M. Godefroy was finally ushered
into the room of the man in whom were centred all his hopes. He was in
evening dress, and wore a monocle; his manner was frigid and rather
pretentious. The distressed father, whose knees trembled through
emotion, sank into an armchair, and, bursting into tears, told of the
loss of his boy--told the story stammeringly and with many breaks, for
his voice was choked by sobs.

The Prefect, who was also father of a family, was inwardly moved at the
sight of his visitor's grief, but he repressed his emotion and assumed
a cold and self-important air.

"You say, sir, that your child has been missing since four o'clock."

"Yes."

"Just when night was falling, confound it. He isn't at all precocious,
speaks very little, doesn't know where he lives, and can't even
pronounce his own name?"

"Unfortunately that is so."

"Not far from Asnières gate? A suspected quarter. But cheer up. We have
a very intelligent _Commissaire de Police_ there. I'll telephone to
him."

       *       *       *       *       *

The distressed father was left alone for five minutes. How his temples
throbbed and his heart beat!

Then, suddenly, the Prefect reappeared, smiling with satisfaction.
"Found!"

Whereupon M. Godefroy rushed to the Prefect, whose hand he pressed till
that functionary winced with the pain.

"I must acknowledge that we were exceedingly fortunate. The little chap
is blond, isn't he? Rather pale? In blue velvet? Black felt hat, with a
white feather in it?"

"Yes, yes; that's he. That's my little Raoul."

"Well, he's at the house of a poor fellow down in that quarter who
had just been at the police office to make his declaration to the
Commissaire. Here's his address, which I took down: '_Pierron, rue des
Cailloux, Levallois-Perret._' With good horses you may reach your boy
in less than an hour. Certainly, you won't find him in an aristocratic
quarter; his surroundings won't be of the highest. The man who found
him is only a small dealer in vegetables."

But that was of no importance to M. Godefroy, who, having expressed
his gratitude to the Prefect, leaped down the stairs four at a time,
and sprang into his carriage. At that moment he realized how devotedly
he loved his child. As he drove away he no longer thought of little
Raoul's princely education and magnificent inheritance. He was decided
never again to hand over the child entirely to the hands of servants,
and he also made up his mind to devote less time to monetary matters
and the glory of France and attend more to his own. The thought also
occurred to him that France wouldn't be likely to suffer from the
neglect. He had hitherto been ashamed to recognize the existence of an
old-maid sister of his father, but he decided to send for her to his
house. She would certainly shock his lackeys by her primitive manners
and ideas. But what of that? She would take care of his boy, which to
him was of much more importance than the good opinion of his servants.
The financier, who was always in a hurry, never felt so eager to
arrive punctually at a committee meeting as he was to reach the lost
little one. For the first time in his life he was longing through pure
affection to take the child in has arms.

The carriage rolled rapidly along in the clear, crisp night air down
boulevard Malesherbes; and, having crossed the ramparts and passed the
large houses, plunged into the quiet solitude of suburban streets.
When the carriage stopped M. Godefroy saw a wretched hovel, on which
was the number he was seeking; it was the house where Pierron lived.
The door of the house opened immediately, and a big, rough-looking
fellow with red mustache appeared. One of his sleeves was empty. Seeing
the gentleman in the carriage, Pierron said cheerily: "So you are the
little one's father. Don't be afraid. The little darling is quite
safe," and, stepping aside in order to allow M. Godefroy to pass, he
placed his finger on his lips with: "Hush! The little one is asleep!"

Yes, it was a real hovel. By the dim light of a little oil lamp M.
Godefroy could just distinguish a dresser from which a drawer was
missing, some broken chairs, a round table on which stood a beer-mug
which was half empty, three glasses, some cold meat on a plate, and
on the bare plaster of the wall two gaudy pictures--a bird's-eye view
of the Exposition of 1889, with the Eiffel Tower in bright blue, and
the portrait of General Boulanger when a handsome young lieutenant.
This last evidence of weakness of the tenant of the house may well
be excused, since it was shared by nearly everybody in France. The
man took the lamp and went on tiptoe to the corner of the room where,
on a clean bed, two little fellows were fast asleep. In the little
one, around whom the other had thrown a protecting arm, M. Godefroy
recognized his son.

"The youngsters were tired to death, and so sleepy," said Pierron,
trying to soften his rough voice. "I had no idea when you would come,
so gave them some supper and put them to bed, and then I went to make
a declaration at the police office. Zidore generally sleeps up in the
garret, but I thought they would be better here, and that I should be
better able to watch them."

M. Godefroy, however, scarcely heard the explanation. Strangely moved,
he looked at the two sleeping infants on an iron bedstead and covered
with an old blanket which had once been used either in barracks or
hospital. Little Raoul, who was still in his velvet suit, looked so
frail and delicate compared with his companion that the banker almost
envied the latter his brown complexion.

"Is he your boy?" he asked Pierron.

"No," answered he. "I am a bachelor, and don't suppose I shall ever
marry, because of my accident. You see, a dray passed over my arm--that
was all. Two years ago a neighbor of mine died, when that child was
only five years old. The poor mother really died of starvation.
She wove wreaths for the cemeteries, but could make nothing worth
mentioning at that trade--not enough to live. However, she worked for
the child for five years, and then the neighbors had to buy wreaths for
her. So I took care of the youngster. Oh, it was nothing much, and I
was soon repaid. He is seven years old, and is a sharp little fellow,
so he helps me a great deal. On Sundays and Thursdays, and the other
days after school, he helps me push my handcart. Zidore is a smart
little chap. It was he who found your boy."

"What!" exclaimed M. Godefroy--"that child!"

"Oh, he's quite a little man, I assure you. When he left school he
found your child, who was walking on ahead, crying like a fountain.
He spoke to him and comforted him, like an old grandfather. The
difficulty is, that one can't easily understand what your little
one says--English words are mixed up with German and French. So we
couldn't get much out of him, nor could we learn his address. Zidore
brought him to me--I wasn't far away; and then all the old women in the
place came round chattering and croaking like so many frogs, and all
full of advice.

"'Take him to the police,'" said some.

But Zidore protested.

"That would scare him," said he, for like all Parisians, he has no
particular liking for the police--"and besides, your little one didn't
wish to leave him. So I came back here with the child as soon as I
could. They had supper, and then off to bed. Don't they look sweet?"

When he was in his carriage, M. Godefroy had decided to reward the
finder of his child handsomely--to give him a handful of that gold so
easily gained. Since entering the house he had seen a side of human
nature with which he was formerly unacquainted--the brave charity of
the poor in their misery. The courage of the poor girl who had worked
herself to death weaving wreaths to keep her child; the generosity of
the poor cripple in adopting the orphan, and above all, the intelligent
goodness of the little street Arab in protecting the child who was
still smaller than himself--all this touched M. Godefroy deeply and
set him reflecting. For the thought had occurred to him that there
were other cripples who needed to be looked after as well as Pierron,
and other orphans as well as Zidore. He also debated whether it would
not be better to employ his time looking after them, and whether money
might not be put to a better use than merely gaining money. Such was
his reverie as he stood looking at the two sleeping children.

Finally, he turned round to study the features of the greengrocer, and
was charmed by the loyal expression in the face of the man, and his
clear, truthful eyes.

"My friend," said M. Godefroy, "you and your adopted son have rendered
me an immense service. I shall soon prove to you that I am not
ungrateful. But, for to-day--I see that you are not in comfortable
circumstances, and I should like to leave a small proof of my
thankfulness."

But the hand of the cripple arrested that of the banker, which was
diving into his coat-pocket where he kept bank-notes.

"No, sir; no! Anybody else would have done just as we have done. I will
not accept any recompense; but pray don't take offense. Certainly, I
am not rolling in wealth, but please excuse my pride--that of an old
soldier; I have the Tonquin medal--and I don't wish to eat food which I
haven't earned."

"As you like," said the financier; "but an old soldier like you is
capable of something better. You are too good to push a handcart. I
will make some arrangement for you, never fear."

The cripple responded by a quiet smile, and said coldly: "Well, sir, if
you really wish to do something for me--"

"You'll let me care for Zidore, won't you?" cried M. Godefroy, eagerly.

"That I will, with the greatest of pleasure," responded Pierron,
joyfully. "I have often thought about the child's future. He is a sharp
little fellow. His teachers are delighted with him."

Then Pierron suddenly stopped, and an expression came over his face
which M. Godefroy at once interpreted as one of distrust. The thought
evidently was: "Oh, when he has once left us he'll forget us entirely."

"You can safely pick the child up in your arms and take him to the
carriage. He'll be better at home than here, of course. Oh, you needn't
be afraid of disturbing him. He is fast asleep, and you can just pick
him up. He must have his shoes on first, though."

Following Pierron's glance M. Godefroy perceived on the hearth, where
a scanty coke fire was dying out, two pairs of children's shoes--the
elegant ones of Raoul, and the rough ones of Zidore. Each pair
contained a little toy and a package of bonbons.

"Don't think about that," said Pierron in an abashed tone. "Zidore put
the shoes there. You know children still believe in Christmas and the
child Jesus, whatever scholars may say about fables; so, as I came back
from the _commissaire_, as I didn't know whether your boy would have to
stay here to-night, I got those things for them both."

At which the eyes of M. Godefroy, the freethinker, the hardened
capitalist, and _blasé_ man of the world, filled with tears.

He rushed out of the house, but returned in a minute with his arms full
of the superb mechanical horse, the box of leaden soldiers, and the
rest of the costly playthings bought by him in the afternoon, and which
had not even been taken out of the carriage.

"My friend, my dear friend," said he to the green grocer, "see, these
are the presents which Christmas has brought to my little Raoul. I want
him to find them here, when he awakens, and to share them with Zidore,
who will henceforth be his playmate and friend. You'll trust me now,
won't you? I'll take care both of Zidore and of you, and then I shall
ever remain in your debt, for not only have you found my boy, but you
have also reminded me, who am rich and lived only for myself, that
there are other poor who need to be looked after. I swear by these two
sleeping children, I won't forget them any longer."

Such is the miracle which happened on the 24th of December of last
year, ladies and gentlemen, at Paris, in the full flow of modern
egotism. It doesn't sound likely--that I own; and I am compelled to
attribute this miraculous event to the influence of the Divine Child
who came down to earth nearly nineteen centuries ago to command men to
love one another.

                                                     --François Coppée.


=The Peace of Yesterdays=

It was a wet, unpleasant evening in February, and little Miss Hicks,
hurrying homeward with her chop for to-morrow's dinner, felt wet and
unpleasant, too. Her jacket was too thin for such weather, and her
worn shoes, splashing over the muddy pavement, made her dread the
twinges of rheumatism which would surely follow. She paused a moment
for breath beneath the sheltering awning of a book-store, and, as she
shook her dripping skirts, she glanced into the gaily lighted windows.
It happened to be the evening before Valentine's day, and the windows
of the shop were filled with the usual "tokens of affection"; riotous
cupids with garlands of roses and forget-me-nots, reposing on beds of
celluloid; lovely scrolls in delicate pinks and blues with amorous,
gilded verses inscribed on them; wonderful creations in silks of
brilliant hue, at which all the small girls of the neighborhood gazed
covetously. On one side lay a heap of comic valentines in ugly, staring
reds and yellows, but Miss Hicks never noticed them, for she had eyes
only for the gorgeous visions on the other side. As she looked at them,
a flood of suddenly-released memories came into her head which made her
cheeks for a moment grow youthfully pink and her faded eyes glow like
stars.

The door of the shop closed with a final bang, and the lights went out
suddenly. But Miss Hicks only smiled happily to herself, as she hurried
through the remaining squares to her own dingy little house in dingy
little Lombard street. The dim street lamp showed a sign, battered and
discolored, of "Miss M. Hicks, Fashionable Milliner," and as the owner
of the shop opened the creaking door, stepped inside, and lighted a
lamp, a few old-fashioned hats and bonnets could be faintly discerned
on the narrow counter, while in the one small showcase were sundry
faded ribbons and drooping birds.

"It's a wonder to me," her nearest neighbors would often say, "how
that Miss Hicks manages to get along; kith nor kin she don't seem to
have none, and the customers she's got ain't enough to keep body and
soul together. But I've heard as how she gets an annuity from some
dead relatives and that probably helps her out, if she's real good at
scrimping and saving."

But in spite Of the solicitude of her neighbors, they never found out
any certain facts about the little woman in rusty black, who was always
either sitting at her window, sewing on the hats of her few customers,
or else taking a solitary stroll through the dingy, narrow streets. She
went walking usually when the daylight was nearly gone, for in a timid,
childish way she shrank from observation, and preferred to commune with
herself rather than join her neighbors in friendly gossip.

Generally she liked to be slow about preparing and eating her meals,
for in this way they took up quite a part of the long, lonely day; but
to-night she was in such a hurry about her few preparations and did
everything with such an air of abstraction that she nearly amputated a
finger while cutting bread, and entirety forgot to put anything in the
tea-pot except hot water. When at last the dishes had been washed and
carefully put away, each in its own proper place, when the sleek white
cat had been given a generous saucer of milk, then Miss Hicks, with
an air of trembling and hesitating eagerness, placed a chair against
the old-fashioned cupboard in the living-room, and reaching up, to the
peril of life and limb, drew forth from its inmost recesses a square
pasteboard box. She carefully wiped off the dust on its surface--it
was probably the only dusty article in her whole establishment--and,
carrying the box to the kitchen table, deposited it there with a loving
little pat.

But now, when her intentions seemed practically accomplished, something
held her back; it seemed an though invisible fingers were closing over
her own to keep her from opening the box, from prying into the things
which she had not had the courage to look at for such long, long years.
She thought, with a shiver, of these years. Fifteen of them! And so
clear does memory sometimes become that Miss Hicks could distinctly
remember when she had placed the last letter in the box--her "Treasure
Box" she had often called it lovingly--and as she thought of all that
had happened since she had put that letter in, of all the loneliness
and desolation of those fifteen years, she bent her head on the little
green box and cried softly.

After a while she raised her head, and with a quick flash of
determination in her grey eyes, took the lid from the box and turned
the contents out on the table. On top of the heap lay several yellowed
envelopes, quaintly embossed, with "Miss Mary Ellen Hicks" written on
them in faded, boyish writing. With a caressing touch Miss Hicks put
these aside and picked up a bent tintype of a boy with laughing eyes
and a tender, pleasant mouth. At this she looked a long time, at first
with a little answering smile for the smile in the picture, then with
misty reminiscent eyes. More modern valentines came next in the pile;
much more elaborate, too, these were, and the verses seemed chosen by
a more discriminating eye. She put them all aside, with a sigh and a
loving look for each, and picked up the one at the very bottom; the
envelope bore a western postmark and was not elaborate nor fanciful as
the others had been, nor were the contents anything more than a sheet
of paper folded around the picture of a man--a man who, in spite of
the lines of weariness in his face, had still the boyish eyes and kind
mouth of the other picture. On the paper was written, in a strong,
angular hand:

    "Dear heart, try to think of me and remember me to-day, even though
    I am so far away from home and you. I am sorry that I have no other
    valentine to send you, but there is more love in this scrap of
    paper than in all the valentines in creation. I am thinking just
    now how, a year ago, you and I were sitting in the dear old home
    parlor, making valentines for the neighbors' children, and when I
    think of the difference between then and now, I feel as sad and
    depressed as the wailing pines around me. I have had such strange
    premonitions to-day, too; I seem to see such a long vista of years
    before me and you do not seem to have a share in any of them. Dear
    heart, I want you to promise me that you will never forget me, no
    matter where I may be, whether I am living or dead. If I know this
    it will take away, in part at least, my loneliness and my feeling
    of desertion on this desolate ranch. Good-bye, dear, and God bless
    you.
                                                             Your Dan."

The paper dropped from Miss Hicks' nerveless fingers as she remembered
that first long year of separation--a lonely year, even though it was
she herself who had urged Dan to be independent of his rich, crotchety
old uncle and to seek his own fortune away somewhere, so that he might
be the man she wanted him to be. She remembered achingly how long
she had waited for another letter, at first with eager anticipation,
later with dread; how slowly time had passed after that tender little
valentine note, and how one day some of her own letters came back to
her, marked unclaimed. And then she thought of the time, several years
later, when her mother had died and when she felt for the first time
the old grief of utter loneliness and misery, and the desolation of
those months came over her again, in one great sickening wave that made
her shake from head to foot; she recalled the days that followed, full
of visits from kind and condoling neighbors, who gradually let her
alone when they saw how much she desired it; the nights, full of grief
and unsatisfied longing, when she gave way unrestrainedly to the sorrow
which was pent up during the day.

But--and Miss Hicks straightened up with a proud little smile, though
her lips still trembled--at all events she had remained faithful to
her promise; though doubts had often assailed her, she had kept the
tryst bravely, and she comforted herself often by thinking, when she
felt especially tired and alone, that if Dan were living, he would
surely find his way back to her some day, and if he were dead she had
a childish little feeling of relief that he was watching over her and
protecting her all the time.

The clock struck eleven slow, even strokes, and Miss Hicks, in
amazement at the lateness of the hour, hastily put the valentines in
the box, and with one last look, set it back on the shelf, and went to
bed. She tossed restlessly for a long time, for her thoughts and the
recollections they had awakened were sadder than usual. But still she
felt glad that at last she had had the courage to call back openly the
memories that she had striven to put aside for so long. And when she
did finally fall asleep, her dreams made her thin lips part in happy
curves, and caused her to utter now and then deep, unconscious sighs of
content.

The next morning was sunshiny, with no trace of yesterday's gloom, and
the little street seemed to have become dry as if by magic, and to have
lost for the time being its dinginess in the sunshine poured out on it
so liberally. Miss Hicks sat at her window, busied with re-trimming an
old bonnet; but there was no reflection of sunshine in her face. The
reaction due to what she had done last night had come over her, and the
memories which had seemed sweet then were unpleasant and bitter this
morning. All her life, she thought sadly, was made up of unrealised
hopes and ungranted desires; whatever had been dear to her had been
taken away when she most needed it; every disaster and trouble had come
upon her when she was least ready to meet it. And now she thought with
a sigh, she had become too old to ever have it different; it seemed to
her that never had her eyes been so lifeless, her mouth so lined and
careworn, her hair so thin and grey as they had appeared this morning
in her little mirror. What an unfair thing the world was anyway,
she thought, as she bit off her thread reflectively and watched the
mail-carrier coming briskly across the street. What a lot of mail those
people next door did get! Even that was not divided fairly.

But--and she stared in astonishment--the mail-carrier was actually
coming to her house; at this very minute he was climbing her rickety
little steps and knocking at her battered little door. She hastily
dropped her work and hurried to open the latch.

"It must be the wrong place," she began deprecatingly, but he shoved a
bulky envelope through the crack in the door and with a pleasant "Guess
it's yours, all right; good morning," was off again before she could
demonstrate further. It certainly must be hers, for it said, "Miss Mary
Ellen Hicks, Lombard Street, Midville," in big, bold characters on the
envelope; it was an embossed one, too, with gay cupids and garlands of
roses on the border. Miss Hicks looked at it wonderingly at first; then
she smiled with the pleased anticipation of a child, and she prepared
to cut the envelope carefully, carefully. She looked at the post-mark,
but it was too blurred to be plainly seen--and just then a thought came
to her that made her grow suddenly white and tremble. No, no, it was
impossible; but what if--? Such things had happened, many and many a
time, and just because such things never had happened to her was no
reason that they might not occur now. She was almost afraid to see what
the envelope held, and she turned it over hesitatingly in her hand; but
finally with shaking fingers she cut the paper, blew it open, and drew
out the folded paper inside. Expectantly she unfolded it, her heart
beating high, her lips parted in anticipation. Then suddenly daylight
seemed to leave her, and when the mistiness had cleared away, she found
herself staring at a hideous cartoon in flaring red and green, of an
old maid with cork-screw curls, a thin, angular figure, and a long
hooked nose, while underneath was boldly printed:

    "You're the meanest old maid in the city--
      With that we'll all surely agree;
    We know you once thought you were pretty,
      But no trace of it now can we see.
    And, say, have you e'er learned the meaning
      Of sweetheart, or lover, or beau?
    One look at your face, and we needn't
      Take the trouble to hear you say 'no'."

The cutting doggerel seemed imprinted in letters of fire on Miss
Hicks's brain; it burned through her and made her heart beat nearly to
suffocation. But the two small boys who were waiting at the corner,
were grievously disappointed; they expected at least to see her come
out off her house in wrath, and demand justice somewhere, as several
others of their victims had done. They waited for nearly an hour; then,
when a mate called them across the street, they ran off with him,
forgetting their disappointment altogether after a few moments of play.

But the numb little figure in the milliner's shop had not forgotten; at
noon she was still sitting limply in her chair, gazing out at nothing
with burning, brilliant eyes, that now had knowledge in their depths
where before there had been only wonder. Her mouth quivered pitifully,
though she tried bravely to make it firm and resolute. She had had a
glimpse into the Present, harsh and unsympathetic, and she shrank back
again into the Past, where she had been much more happy and contented.
The To-days were not for her; from henceforth, she knew, all her solace
and companionship, all her brief happiness and pleasures, all her
longings and desires--the rest of her life, in short--must be lived in
the quiet, peace-bringing Yesterdays.

                                                      --Katherine Kurz.


=A Christmas Legend=

There was great commotion in the forest, for the south wind, heavy
with cloying fragrance of the jasmine, had been the bearer of wondrous
tidings. The forest sang with joy, for, after these many years, it was
to have a share in the great festival of the Master's birthday. This,
was the news that the south wind had brought, and he had told, too, how
an angel would come to choose the tree whom the Master had most loved.

"It is I whom the Master loves," spoke the oak, rearing his great head
in the still air. "I heard the angels sing at his birth; and often has
he rested in the shade at my feet. It is fitting that I be chosen."

"Nay, old oak," cried the palm, shaking her plumes in eager denial.
"Whose branches did the multitude wave at the Master's entry into
Jerusalem? I have been already chosen!" There were many in the forest
who nodded their approval to this speech of the palm's, but the olive
sighed, and whispered:

"I have watched with him in Gethsemane, and he has wet my feet with his
tears."

"But I," cried the cedar, stretching his tense arms to the listening
stars, "I heard his dying groans, and my heart is stained with his
blood; it was upon me that his body was nailed--me, who watched over
his boyhood on the plains of Nazareth!" The forest was very still as
the cedar finished, and only the chestnut ventured to speak--shaking
out her broad leaves, and distilling everywhere the heavy fragrance of
her blossoms.

"I am ready for the feast," she said complacently. "Last night, while
all of you were sleeping, an angel came, and lit these candles of mine."

Thus spoke among themselves the rulers of the forest, while the south
wind played among their branches; nor did they notice the tiny tree
that listened at their feet, and crooned lullabies to the drowsy birds.

The winged months flew by. In the forest, the days passed as before;
and, after the south wind had sung its farewell to the tree-tops, the
forest forgot the tidings which the breeze had brought. Only one tree
remembered; the lullaby which it sang to the birds nestled in its arms
was of the wonderful birthday festival of the Master.

Finally came the North Wind, calling to the forest to prepare for
its long sleep. The trees, one by one, cast off their brilliant
raiment--the cedar, last of all--and stood gaunt and naked under the
dark sky. Only the tiny tree in the shadow of the oak did not heed,
and bravely defied the fierce jestings of the North Wind. "Oho' little
tree," he roared, whirling the snowflakes through its tiny boughs,
"doff your green garment and go to sleep! Or, perhaps, you are waiting
for the angel?" Then the forest laughed long and loud. "Little tree,"
it jeered, "cling to the oak; the angel will step upon you!"

But even as it jeered, a great light broke through the forest; the
trees were afraid and bowed themselves as before a storm. And when they
lifted up their heads, behold! the little tree stood straight and tall
in its robes of green, and in its topmost branch there gleamed a star.

                                                        --Ida F. Treat.




CHAPTER V

THE INSTRUCTIVE GROUP


The Instructive Group is composed of those narratives whose chief
purpose is to inform the reader of certain conditions and problems of
which he ought to take intelligent account. The writer may offer a
solution, as in the moral story; or a theory, as in the pedagogical
narrative; or he may simply present the picture, as in a realistic
sketch, and leave knowledge to bring reform by the sheer natural law by
which daylight scatters the evils of darkness.


I. The Moral Story

[Distinguished from symbolic-didactic group]

The moral story must not be confused with the fable, parable, or
allegory. It is like them in that its chief purpose is to teach, but
it differs from them in not being figurative or symbolic. It is always
particular and professedly literal. Its boast is that it sticks close
to facts--the facts of "life," people's needs, if not their history. In
other words, though fictitious, it pretends to be entirely worth while
because of the concrete lesson it teaches. It sets out to show you the
evil consequences of some vice or folly or the good result of a pious
act.

The critics have never had a very cordial word for this type of
narrative: the usual smugness of it is offensive. Many old legends are
moral tales. The "Gesta Romanorum" was largely meant to instruct in
pious ways. Boccaccio, even, cares for ethical effect, when he writes
such stories as "Griselda." A modern reader is entirely out of patience
with the complacent self-righteousness of Gualtieri. Chaucer's easy
and captivating style and his true pathos and appreciation of dramatic
moments can not altogether keep down our irritation at an egregious
monster parading under the guise of a beneficent lord and a loving
husband. Our irritation, of course, is really directed not toward
Chaucer or Boccaccio, but toward the Middle Ages, that could take such
a character as this and feel no umbrage--no shadowing of the brute over
man.

[Hawthorne]

There have been a number of examples of moral tales in modern
literature. Hawthorne's "Ambitious Guest" is one. "Lady Eleanor's
Mantle" is another, though it is also a legend; for a moral narrative,
just as an occasional narrative, may be of any type the author chooses.
"Murad the Unlucky" by Maria Edgeworth is the Oriental wonder tale
turned didactic. What makes this or that a story with a moral is
the author's obvious concern about the lesson he means to teach.
His narrative is nothing in itself: it is what it is because of the
author's purpose. [Stowe] Doubtless the most widely influential moral
story ever written is "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is a striking example of
how much more powerful is concrete narrative than abstract argument.
The Americans were ready for the sermon, but they never would have
listened to it from the pages of a controversial tract. A story,
they took to their heads and their hearts. It is the fate of moral
narratives of this sort, however, to be for the time only; and seldom
do any rise to the plane of real literature. "Rasselas" has endured
partly because of the fame of its great author, and partly because of
its high and true pessimism. Readers naturally like pessimism, and
when it is of this good, philosophic sort, they feel justified in
their taste. [Johnson and Voltaire] The theme is Johnson's favorite
topic--the vanity of human wishes, the futility of the quest for
happiness. Voltaire's "Candide," which came out in France two weeks
before "Rasselas," is on the same topic with practically the same
moral. But Voltaire was an agnostic and a cynic, while Johnson was
a most conventional pietist. Addison and Steele as well as Johnson
included didactic stories in their periodicals. [Tolstoy, Cervantes]
Count Tolstoy, in his desire to help his countrymen, has written many
parables, allegories, and moral tales. They are read by foreigners
because of the pictures of Russian life. So are Cervantes's "Novelas
Ejemplares" read for their fresh and spritely character-pictures of
Andalusia. They are instructive moral tales, as their name indicates
and as their author very definitely asserted. So idiomatic, spirited,
and graceful are they that, though the oldest stories of their class in
Spanish literature, they are without successful rivals.

An exercise in this kind of narrative surely will not hurt you, and you
may get some benefit from it, even if the chance reader should not like
your preaching. Try, however, to make the story interesting in itself
and to have the moral seem to grow naturally out of the action, rather
than the action out of the moral. Avoid platitudes, and reveal the
customs and manners of your people so faithfully that the student of
social science might use your narrative for data.


=Jeannot and Colin=

Many trustworthy persons can vouch for having seen Jeannot and Colin
when they went to school at Issoire in Auvergne, a town famous all
over the world for its college and its kettles. Jeannot was the son
of a dealer in mules, a man of considerable reputation; Colin owed
his existence to a worthy husbandman who dwelt on the outskirts of
the town, and cultivated his farm with the help of four mules, and
who, after paying tolls and tallage, scutage and salt duty, poundage,
poll-tax, and tithes, did not find himself particularly well off at the
end of the year.

Jeannot and Colin were very handsome lads for natives of Auvergne;
they were much attached to each other, and had little secrets together
and private understandings, such as old comrades always recall with
pleasure when they afterward meet in a wider world.

Their school days were drawing near their end, when a tailor one
day brought Jeannot a velvet coat of three colors, with a waistcoat
of Lyons silk in excellent taste to match. This suit of clothes was
accompanied by a letter addressed to Monsieur de La Jeannotiere. Colin
admired the coat, and was not at all jealous; but Jeannot assumed an
air of superiority which distressed Colin. From that moment Jeannot
paid no more heed to his lessons, but was always looking at his
reflection in the glass, and despised everybody but himself. Some time
afterward a footman arrived post-haste bringing a second letter,
addressed this time to His Lordship the Marquis de La Jeannotiere; it
contained an order from his father for the young nobleman, his son,
to be sent to Paris. As Jeannot mounted the chaise to drive off, he
stretched out his hand to Colin with a patronizing smile befitting his
rank. Colin felt his own insignificance, and wept. So Jeannot departed
in all his glory.

Readers who like to know all about things may be informed that Monsieur
Jeannot, the father, had rapidly gained immense wealth in business.
You ask how those great fortunes are made? It all depends upon luck.
Monsieur Jeannot had a comely person, and so had his wife; moreover,
her complexion was fresh and blooming. They had gone to Paris to
prosecute a lawsuit which was ruining them, when Fortune, who lifts up
and casts down human beings at her pleasure, presented them with an
introduction to the wife of an army hospital contractor, a man of great
talent, who could boast of having killed more soldiers in one year
than the cannon had destroyed in ten. Jeannot took the lady's fancy,
and Jeannot's wife captivated the gentleman. Jeannot soon became a
partner in business, and entered into other speculations. When one is
in the current of the stream, one need only let one's self drift, and
thus an immense fortune may sometimes be made without any trouble. The
beggars watch you from the bank, as you glide along in full sail, open
their eyes in astonishment; they wonder how you have managed to get on;
they envy you, at all events, and write pamphlets against you which
you never read. That was what happened to Jeannot senior, who was soon
styled Monsieur de La Jeannotiere, and, after buying a marquisate, at
the end of six months he took the young nobleman, his son, away from
school, to launch him into the fashionable world of Paris.

Colin, always affectionately disposed, wrote a kind letter to his old
schoolfellow, offering his congratulations. The little marquis sent him
no answer, which grieved Colin sorely.

The first thing that his father and mother did for the young gentleman
was to get him a tutor. This tutor, who was a man of distinguished
manners and profound ignorance, could teach his pupil nothing. The
marquis wished his son to learn Latin, but the marchioness would not
hear of it. They consulted the opinion of a certain author who had
obtained considerable celebrity at that time from some popular works
which he had written. He was invited to dinner, and the master of the
house began by saying:

"Sir, as you know Latin, and are conversant with the manners of the
court--"

"I, sir! Latin! I don't know a word of it," answered the man of
learning; "and it is just as well for me that I don't, for one can
speak one's own language better when the attention is not divided
between it and foreign tongues. Look at all our ladies; they are far
more charming in conversation than men; their letters are written with
a hundred times more grace of expression. They owe that superiority
over us to nothing else but their ignorance of Latin."

"There, now! Was I not right?" said the lady. "I want my son to be a
man of wit, and to make his way in the world. You see that if he were
to learn Latin it would be his ruin. Tell me, if you please, are plays
and operas performed in Latin? Are the proceedings in court conducted
in Latin, when one has a lawsuit on hand? Do people make love in Latin?"

The marquis, confounded by these arguments, passed sentence, and it was
decided that the young nobleman should not waste his time in studying
Cicero, Horace, and Virgil.

"But what is he to learn, then? For, I suppose, he will have to know
something. Might he not be taught a little geography?"

"What good will that do him?" answered the tutor. "When my lord marquis
goes to visit his country-seat, will not his postillions know the
roads? There will be no fear of their going astray. One does not want a
sextant in order to travel, and it is quite possible to make a journey
between Paris and Auvergne without knowing anything about the latitude
and longitude of either."

"Very true," replied the father; "but I have heard people speak of a
noble science, which is, I think, called _astronomy_."

"Bless my soul!" rejoined the tutor. "Do we regulate our behavior in
this world by the stars? Why should my lord Marquis wear himself out
in calculating an eclipse, when he will find it predicted correctly
to a second in the almanac, which will moreover inform him of all the
movable feasts, the age of the moon, and that of all the princesses in
Europe?"

The marchioness was quite of the tutor's opinion, the little marquis
was in a state of highest delight, and his father was very undecided.

"What is my son to be taught, then?" said he.

"To make himself agreeable," answered the friend whom they had
consulted; "for, if he knows the way to please, he will know everything
worth knowing. It is an art which he will learn from her Ladyship, his
mother, without the least trouble to either of them."

The marchioness, at these words, smiled graciously upon the courtly
ignoramus, and said:

"It is easy to see, sir, that you are a most accomplished gentleman; my
son will owe all his education to you. I imagine, however, that it will
not be a bad thing for him to know a little history."

"Nay, madam, what good would that do him?" he answered. "Assuredly,
the only entertaining and useful history is that of the passing hour.
All ancient history, as one of our clever writers has observed, is
admitted to consist of nothing but fables, and for us moderns it is an
inextricable chaos. What does it matter to the young gentleman, your
son, if Charlemagne instituted the twelve Paladins of France, or if his
successor had an impediment in his speech?"

"Nothing was ever more wisely said!" exclaimed the tutor. "The minds
of children are smothered under a mass of useless knowledge, but of
all sciences, that which seems to me the most absurd, and the one
best adapted to extinguish every spark of genius, is geometry. That
ridiculous science concerns itself with surfaces, lines, and points
which have no existence in nature. In imagination a hundred thousand
curved lines may be made to pass between a circle and a straight line
which touches it, although in reality you could not insert as much as a
straw. Geometry, indeed, is nothing more than a bad joke."

The marquis and his lady did not understand much of the meaning of
what the tutor was saying, but they quite agreed with him. "A nobleman
like his Lordship," he continued, "should not dry up his brain with
such unprofitable studies. If, some day, he should want one of those
sublime geometricians to draw a plan of his estates, he can have them
measured for money. If he should wish to trace out the antiquity of his
lineage, which goes back to the most remote ages, all he will have to
do will be to send for some learned Benedictine. It is the same with
all the other arts. A young lord born under a lucky star is neither a
painter, nor a musician, nor an architect, nor a sculptor, but he may
make all these arts flourish by encouraging them with his generous
approval. Doubtless it is much better to patronize than to practice
them. It will be quite enough if my lord the young Marquis has taste;
it is the part of artists to work for him, and thus there is a great
deal of truth in the remark that people of quality (that is, if they
are very rich), know everything without learning anything, because,
in point of fact and in the long run, they are masters of all the
knowledge they can order and pay for."

The agreeable ignoramus then resumed his part in the conversation, and
said:

"You have well remarked, madam, that the great end of man's existence
is to succeed in society. Is it, forsooth, any aid to the attainment of
this success to have devoted one's self to the sciences? Does any one
ever think in select company of talking about geometry? Is a gentleman
ever asked what star rises to-day with the sun? Does any one at the
supper-table ever want to know if Clodion, the Long-Haired, crossed the
Rhîne?"

"No, indeed!" exclaimed the marchioness de la Jeannotiere, whose
charms had been her passport into the world of fashion, "and my son
must not stifle his genius by studying all that trash. But, after all,
what is he to be taught? For it is a good thing that a young lord
should be able to shine when occasion offers, as my noble husband has
said. I remember once hearing an abbé remark that the most entertaining
science was something the name of which I have forgotten--it begins
with a B."

"With a B, madam? It was not botany, was it?"

"No, it certainly was not botany that he mentioned; it began, as I tell
you, with a B, and ended in onry."

"Ah, madam, I understand! It was blazonry, or heraldry. That is
indeed a most profound science. But it has ceased to be fashionable
since the custom has died out of having one's coat of arms painted
on one's carriage doors; it was the most useful thing imaginable in
a well-ordered state. Besides, that line of study would be endless,
for at the present day there is not a barber who is without his
armorial bearings, and you know that whatever becomes common loses its
attraction."

Finally, after all the pros and cons of the different sciences had been
examined and discussed, it was decided that the young marquis should
learn dancing.

Dame Nature, who arranges everything according to her own will and
pleasure, had given him a talent which soon developed, securing him
prodigious success; it was that of singing street ballads in a charming
style. His youthful grace accompanying this superlative gift caused him
to be regarded as a young man of the highest promise. He was a favorite
with the ladies, and, having his head crammed with songs, he had no
lack of mistresses to whom to address his verses. He stole the line
"Bacchus with the Loves at play" from one ballad, and made it rhyme
with "night and day" taken from another, while a third furnished him
with "charms" and "alarms." But inasmuch as there were always a few
feet more or less than were wanted in his verses, he had them corrected
at the rate of twenty sovereigns a song. And "The Literary Year"
placed him in the same rank with such sonneteers as La Fare, Chaulieu,
Hamilton, Sarrasin, and Voiture.

Her ladyship the marchioness then believed that she was indeed the
mother of a genius, and gave a supper to all the wits of Paris. The
young man's head was soon turned; he acquired the art of talking
without knowing the meaning of what he said, and perfected himself in
the attainment of being fit for nothing. When his father saw him so
eloquent, he keenly regretted that he had not had him taught Latin,
or he would have purchased some high legal appointment for him. His
mother, who was of more heroic sentiments took upon herself to solicit
a regiment for her son; in the meantime he made love--and love is
sometimes more expensive than a regiment. He squandered his money
freely, while his parents drained their purses and credit to a lower
and lower ebb by living in the grandest style.

A young widow of good position in their neighborhood, who had only a
moderate income, was kind enough to make some effort to prevent the
great wealth of the Marquis and Marchioness de La Jeannotiere from
going altogether, by consenting to marry the young marquis with a
view to appropriating what remained. She enticed him to her house,
let him make love to her, allowed him to see that she was not quite
indifferent to him, and made him her devoted slave without the least
difficulty. At one time she would give him commendation, and at another
time counsel; she became his father's and mother's best friend. An old
neighbor suggested marriage. The parents, dazzled with the splendor
of the alliance, joyfully fell in with the scheme, and promised their
only son to their most intimate lady friend. The young marquis was thus
about to wed the woman he adored, and by whom he was loved in return.
The friends of the family congratulated him; the marriage settlement
was ready to be signed; the bridal dress and the nuptial hymn were both
well under way.

One morning our young gentleman was on his knees before the charmer
whom fond affection and esteem were so soon to make his own. They were
tasting in animated and tender converse the first fruits of future
happiness, settling how they should lead a life of perfect bliss, when
one of his mother's footmen presented himself, scared out of his wits.

"Here's fine news which may surprise you!" said he; "the bailiffs are
in the house of my lord and lady, removing the furniture. Everything
has been seized by the creditors. There is talk of arresting people,
and I am going to do what I can to get my wages paid."

"Let us see what has happened," said the marquis, "and discover the
meaning of all this."

"Yes," said the widow, "go and punish those rascals--go, at once!"

He hurried homeward. When he arrived at the house his father was
already in prison, and all the servants had fled, each in a different
direction, carrying off whatever they had been able to lay their hands
on. His mother was alone, helpless, forlorn, and bathed in tears; she
had nothing left her but the remembrance of her former prosperity, her
beauty, her faults, and her foolish extravagance.

After the son had condoled with his mother for a long time, he said at
last:

"Let us not despair. This young widow loves me to distraction; she is
even more generous than she is wealthy, I can assure you. I will fly to
her for help, and bring her to you."

So he returned to his mistress, and found her engaged in private
conversation with a fascinating young officer.

"What! Is that you, my Lord de La Jeannotiere? What business have you
with me? How can you leave your mother by herself in this way? Go, and
stay with the poor woman, and tell her that she shall always have my
good wishes. I am in want of a waiting woman now, and will gladly give
her the preference."

"My lad," said the officer, "you seem pretty tall and straight; if you
would like to enter my company, I will make it worth your while to
enlist."

The marquis, utterly astounded and inwardly furious, went off in search
of his former tutor, confided all his troubles to him, and asked his
advice. He proposed that he should become like himself, a tutor of the
young.

"Alas! I know nothing; you have taught me nothing whatever, and you are
the primary cause of all my unhappiness!" And as he spoke he began to
sob.

"Write novels," said a wit who was present; "it is an excellent
resource to fall back upon in Paris."

The young man, in more desperate straits than ever, hastened to the
house of his mother's father-confessor. He was a Theatine monk of the
very highest reputation, who had charge of the souls of none but ladies
of the first rank in society. As soon as he saw him, the reverend
gentleman rushed to meet him.

"Good gracious! My lord Marquis, where is your carriage? How is your
honored mother, the Marchioness?"

The unfortunate young fellow related the disaster that had befallen
his family. As he explained the matter further the Theatine assumed a
graver air, one of less concern and more self-importance.

"My son, herein you may see the hand of Providence; riches serve only
to corrupt the heart. The Almighty has shown special favor to your
mother in reducing her to beggary. Yes, sir, so much the better! She is
now sure of her salvation."

"But, father, in the meantime are there no means of finding some help
in this world?"

"Farewell, my son! A lady of the court is waiting for me."

The marquis almost fainted. He was treated after much the same manner
by all his friends, and learned to know the world better in half a day
than he had in all the rest of his life.

While thus plunged in overwhelming despair, he saw an old-fashioned
traveling chaise, more like a covered tumbril than anything else, and
furnished with leather curtains, followed by four enormous wagons, all
heavily laden. In the chaise was a young man in rustic attire; his
round and rubicund face had an air of kindness and good temper. His
little wife, whose sunburnt countenance had a pleasing if not refined
expression, was jolted about as she sat beside him; and since the
vehicle did not go quite so fast as a dandy's chariot, the traveler had
plenty of time to look at the marquis as he stood motionless, absorbed
in his grief.

"Oh, good heavens!" he exclaimed, "I believe that is Jeannot there!"

Hearing that name, the marquis raised his eyes, and the chaise stopped.

"'Tis Jeannot himself! Yes, it is Jeannot!"

The fat little man sprang to the ground with a single leap, and ran to
embrace his companion. Jeannot recognized Colin, shame showing in his
face.

"You have forsaken your old friend," said Colin, "but be you as grand a
lord as you like, I shall never cease to love you."

Jeannot, confounded and cut to the heart, amid sobs, told him something
of his history.

"Come into the inn where I am lodging, and tell me the rest," said
Colin; "kiss my little wife, and let us go and dine together."

They went, all three of them, on foot, and the baggage followed.

"What in the world is all this paraphernalia? Does it belong to you!"
inquired Jeannot.

"Yes, it is all mine and my wife's; we are just come from the country.
I am at the head of a large tin, iron, and copper factory, and have
married the daughter of a rich tradesman and general provider of all
useful commodities for great folks and small. We work hard, and God
gives us His blessing. We are satisfied with our condition in life,
and are quite happy. We will help our friend Jeannot. Give up being a
marquis; all the splendor in the world is not worth a good friend.
Return with me into the country. I will teach you my trade, which is
not a difficult one to learn; I will give you a share in the business,
and we will live together with light hearts in the little place where
we were born."

Jeannot, overcome by this kindness, struggled between sorrow and joy,
tenderness and shame. He said to himself:

"All my fashionable friends have proved false to me, and Colin, whom I
despised, is the only one who comes to my rescue. What a lesson!"

Colin's example in generosity revived in Jeannot's heart the germ of
goodness that the world had never quite choked. He felt that he could
not desert his father and mother.

"We will take care of your mother," said Colin, "and as for your good
father, who is in prison--I know something of business matters--his
creditors, when they see that he has nothing more, will agree to an
easy settlement. I will see to all that myself."

Colin was as good as his word, and succeeded in effecting the father's
release from prison. Jeannot returned to his old home with his parents,
who resumed their former occupation. He married Colin's sister, who,
being like her brother in disposition, rendered her husband very happy.
And so Jeannot the father, and Jeannotte the mother, and Jeannot the
son, came to see that vanity is no true source of happiness.

                                   --Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire.

    From "Little Masterpieces of Fiction," Vol. VII (Doubleday, Page &
    Co).


II. The Pedagogical Narrative

[Some famous pedagogical books]

The pedagogical narrative can hardly be called "story," not only
because of the intent of the writer to instruct, but also because of
the specialness of the subject-matter itself. "Leonard and Gertrude,"
however, has continued to be read as story in an interpreted form for
many years. "Interpreted" connotes what the modern versions of "Leonard
and Gertrude" really are, redactions. When the cumbersome and somewhat
eccentric sentences of the original were made over, the plot was found
to be of a good deal of interest, the character-sketching peculiarly
fine, and the lessons taught high and noble and practical as well.
Pestalozzi himself had gradually learned how to teach children, and
he not only told, but showed others. For that is what a pedagogical
story is--a working theory of instruction set up in scenes and actions:
it is exposition made narrative. Do you want to know how to teach
Jimmy and Margaret? This good old Swiss pedagogue will show you how
Gertrude taught her children, mother and school mistress, priest and
village reformer as she was. If you had lived in Queen Elizabeth's day
and wanted to know how and what to teach your boy or girl, you could
have asked the gentle Roger, the queen's own schoolmaster. You can
ask him now how he taught; for he put his thoughts down in a volume
which bears the name of his professional office--quaintly spelled
"Scholemaster"--and shows you his methods of work in forming the mind
of the perfect gentleman. This sober pedagogical treatise, which is
not narrative, not story, was published only after Ascham's death;
but many years before, when he was a very young man and much gayer but
hardly less wise, he set forth in "Toxophilus," the archer, a picture
of how amusement and learning can be combined. The exposition proceeds
in the form of a dialogue (the old fashioned literary type called
_débat_) between a lover of books and a lover of exercise. "Toxophilus"
is not exactly story either, but it approaches story, and is important
to our type because of the intense and far-reaching influence it has
had on modern pedagogy in inspiring a looking-out for the development
of the body as well as the mind, and in emphasizing the giving of
instruction in an interesting form.

From Ascham's "Schoolmaster" John Lyly got the suggestion for his
two famous romances of Euphues, the "well-formed" one. A young man
should be euphues in all things, said Ascham, and Lyly undertook to
show a Briton thus as he moved about in society, at home, abroad, in
friendship and love. So popular did Euphues become that all the ladies
and gentlemen of Elizabeth's court modelled their speech on his.

Charming old Sir Isaac Walton joined the pedagogues and gave us a
set of delightful walks and talks on angling. He teaches one to be a
"complete" angler--an artist at his pastime.

A sort of hand-book of etiquette for the golden youths of the
Renaissance was Castiglione's "Courtier," "a sketch of a cultivated
nobleman in those most cultivated days." The author shows by what
precepts and practice a fine gentleman is made. So well did he write
that his own name ever since has been a synonym for nobility and
manliness. He gives us a picture of the purest and most elevated
court in Italy, that of Guidobaldo da Montefeltra, duke of Urbino.
A discussion is held in the duchess's drawing-room to settle the
question, what constitutes a perfect courtier. The type selected
differs in no material way from the ideal gentleman of the present day.

All of these books are the work of persons who set out seriously to
teach--except perhaps the gentle Isaac, who probably wrote what he
wrote for sheer pleasure and taught by the way. And they all include
what the modern pedagogical narrative includes--disguised exposition.
For the most part the modern species is short. A publisher now-a-days,
I suppose, could hardly be induced to present an educational system
thinly disguised in a long romance. Consequently most of such stories
come out in our educational periodicals as better or poorer literature,
better or poorer teaching.

Rousseau's "The New Héloise" and "Emile" might be mentioned here were
they not more nearly harangues than stories. Their effect in renovating
France domestically, though, will forever connect them with the word
pedagogy. They are surely a pedagogue's "fiction," since their author
took no care of his real children.

These treatises were almost immediately influential in England, but
now the theories began to be set forth in more truly narrative form.
In "The Fool of Quality" (by Henry Brooke), the hero goes about
spreading benevolence and cash and displaying his physical strength
and an educational theory as well, as to how an English Christian
young gentleman should be brought up. The later development of such
teaching was naturally books addressed directly to children. Thomas
Day's "Sandford and Merton" had in it stories and dialogues for young
people to read for themselves, in which they were taught the value of
the sciences and the virtues. Maria Edgeworth's "Frank" and "Rosamond"
and Jacob Abbott's "Rollo Books" are for still more juvenile audiences,
and in Froebel's "Mother Plays" the baby, even, comes into its own.

[Froebel]

This work necessarily, however, was addressed to the parent. A tiny
cyclopedia of story, song, game, and theory, it is great pedagogy,
and in the original, at least, acceptable literature. The object of
all teaching-narratives should be that which Froebel expresses in his
comment on one of his own little games taught in a dialogue between a
mother and her son. You recall that his double purpose is to teach the
mother what and how to teach the child. He says, "The deep import of
The Light-Bird is hinted in the song and motto. Beware, however, of the
only one contained in the play. Not only The Light-Bird but all the
plays which precede and follow it have many meanings. Neither must it
be supposed that the meaning suggested by me is, if not the sole, at
least the highest one. My songs, mottoes, and commentaries are offered
simply with the hope that they may aid you to recognize and hold fast
some part of what you yourself feel while playing these games and to
suggest to you how you may awaken corresponding feelings in your child."

If you want to write a pedagogical narrative that will startle the
world, adopt the motto of Froebel, the charm of Ascham and Walton, the
graciousness of Castiglione, and the hard common sense of Pestalozzi,
and then proceed. But hold! You will need to have something to teach.
Perhaps you would better not try romance as a vehicle, but would better
stick to our briefer types. Suppose you put into narrative form, as
others have done since the days of the great kindergartner, a simple
game for children, or your favorite and most helpful method of study.


=Gertrude's Method of Instruction=

It was quite early in the morning when Arner (the people's father),
Glulhi (his lieutenant), and the pastor went to the mason's cottage.
The room was not in order when they entered, for the family had just
finished breakfast, and the dirty plates and spoons still lay upon
the table. Gertrude was at first somewhat disconcerted, but the
visitors reassured her, saying kindly: "This is as it should be; it is
impossible to clear the table before breakfast is eaten!"

The children all helped wash the dishes, and then seated themselves in
their customary places before their work. The gentlemen begged Gertrude
to let everything go on as usual, and after the first half hour, during
which she was a little embarrassed, all proceeded as if no stranger
were present. First the children sang their morning hymns, and then
Gertrude read a chapter of the Bible aloud, which they repeated after
her while they were spinning, rehearsing the most instructive passages
until they knew them by heart. In the mean time, the oldest girl had
been making the children's beds in the adjoining room, and the visitors
noticed through the open door that she silently repeated what the
others were reciting. When this task was completed, she went into the
garden and returned with vegetables for dinner, which she cleaned while
repeating Bible-verses with the rest.

It was something new for the children to see three gentlemen in the
room, and they often looked up from their spinning toward the corner
where the strangers sat. Gertrude noticed this, and said to them:
"Seems to me you look more at these gentlemen than at your yarn." But
Harry answered: "No, indeed! We are working hard, and you'll have finer
yarn to-day than usual."

Whenever Gertrude saw that anything was amiss with the wheels or
cotton, she rose from her work, and put it in order. The smallest
children, who were not old enough to spin, picked over the cotton for
carding, with a skill which excited the admiration of the visitors.

Although Gertrude thus exerted herself to develop very early the
manual dexterity of her children, she was in no haste for them to
learn to read and write. But she took pains to teach them early how to
speak; for, as she said, "of what use is it for a person to be able
to read and write, if he cannot speak?--since reading and writing are
only an artificial sort of speech." To this end she used to make the
children pronounce syllables after her in regular succession, taking
them from an old A-B-C book she had. This exercise in correct and
distinct articulation was, however, only a subordinate object in her
whole scheme of education, which embraced a true comprehension of
life itself. Yet she never adopted the tone of instructor toward her
children; she did not say to them: "Child, this is your head, your
nose, your hand, your finger;" or: "Where is your eye, your ear?"--but
instead, she would say: "Come here, child, I will wash your little
hands," "I will comb your hair," or: "I will cut your finger-nails."
Her verbal instruction seemed to vanish in the spirit of her real
activity, in which it always had its source. The result of her system
was that each child was skillful, intelligent and active to the full
extent that its age and development allowed.

The instruction she gave them in the rudiments of arithmetic was
intimately connected with the realities of life. She taught them to
count the number of steps from one end of the room to the other; and
two of the rows of five panes each, in one of the windows, gave her
an opportunity to unfold the decimal relations of numbers. She also
made them count their threads while spinning, and the number of turns
on the reel, when they wound the yarn into skeins. Above all, in
every occupation of life she taught them an accurate and intelligent
observation of common objects and the forces of nature.

All that Gertrude's children knew, they knew so thoroughly that they
were able to teach it to the younger ones; and this they often begged
permission to do. On this day, while the visitors were present, Jones
sat with each arm around the neck of a smaller child, and made the
little ones pronounce the syllables of the A-B-C book after him; while
Lizzie placed herself with her wheel between two of the others, and
while all three spun, taught them the words of a hymn with the utmost
patience.

When the guests took their departure, they told Gertrude they would
come again on the morrow. "Why?" she returned. "You will only see the
same thing over again." But Glulphi said: "That is the best praise you
could possibly give yourself." Gertrude blushed at this compliment, and
stood confused when the gentlemen kindly pressed her hand in taking
leave.

The three could not sufficiently admire what they had seen at the
mason's house, and Glulphi was so overcome by the powerful impression
made upon him, that he longed to be alone and seek counsel of his own
thoughts. He hastened to his room, and as he crossed the threshold,
the words broke from his lips: "I must be schoolmaster in Bonnal!" All
night visions of Gertrude's schoolroom floated through his mind, and he
only fell asleep toward morning. Before his eyes were fairly open, he
murmured: "I will be schoolmaster!"--and hastened to Arner to acquaint
him with his resolution.

                                          --Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.

    "Leonard and Gertrude" (D. C. Heath & Co.).


=Lawin-Lawinan=

In the beautiful town of Santa Maria, children were very fond of
playing many curious games. Not a single day or moonlight evening could
pass without one's seeing some children playing along the wide streets.

One bright evening in the month of July, after the angelus bell rang,
Mapacla, in company with some playmates, went to Zandoval Street, where
many children were romping. When they reached the place, they agreed
to play _Lawin-lawinan_. Mapacla was chosen by all to be the _sisiw_
(chicken), and a playmate, Malacas by name, to be the _lawin_ (hawk).
The chicken and the hawk were the principal characters of the game. The
rest of the children formed a circle: each one with outstretched arms
held the hand of the one next him till the circle was formed. The space
between each two children was called the door, the owners of which
were the children by whom it was formed. The chicken stood inside the
circle, and the hawk stood outside.

The game was then begun. The hawk went to the first door, asking, "What
door is this?"

"To your honorable stomach," answered the owner of the door.

"And this?" asked the hawk, after approaching another door.

"To your long throat," answered the owner.

The hawk repeated the same question, as he went around from door to
door, till he reached the last one.

"Have you anything to sell me?" asked the hawk of the door owner.

"A good fat red chicken!" answered the owner.

"Let me see its scales," remarked the hawk, as he grasped the feet of
the chicken. "This is a fine quality of wild bird," he added; "will you
have him crow?"

"Crow!" said the owner to the chicken.

"Tic--to--la--la--oe," cried the chicken.

"Fine!" said the hawk. "How much will you sell him for?"

"For one peso," answered the owner.

After the bargain had been made and the hawk was about to catch the
chicken, the circle began to whirl around, allowing no space for the
hawk to enter. By chance, however, the hawk, thrusting himself through
a space, reached the interior of the circle. Every owner was then
afraid that the chicken might be caught by the hawk. The whirling of
the circle was immediately stopped, and every door was left wide open.
The chicken with all his might ran swiftly out of the circle. The
hawk was so slow in following that he was captured inside. The circle
began to whirl again, till, accidentally, the hawk, struggling for his
escape, made his way out. Sometimes the chicken, pursued by the hawk,
entered the circle, but immediately ran out whenever there was danger
of being caught. At last when the chicken became tired, the hawk caught
him.

The punishment was then inflicted. The hawk ordered himself to be
carried on the shoulders of the chicken. The order was obeyed without
delay. After the chicken had walked a few paces with the heavy load on
him, he stopped and started another game, choosing another chicken to
be chased by the hawk.

                                                   --Leopoldo Uichanco.


III. The Story of Present Day Realism

[Realism]

"Realism," says Mr. Howells, "is nothing more and nothing less than
the truthful treatment of material." The business of the narrator is
to observe and record, he says; all that enters into fiction should
be simple, natural and honest. The material must be plain, average,
everyday humanity. There is no need of a hero or heroine. There is no
need of a plot. The love of the passionate and heroic is a crude and
unwholesome thing.

Following these tenets there has grown up a school of writers who
undertake to present the world just as it is with no heightening and
no lowering of color. They select bits of life and reproduce them
exactly. The process is "not so much photographic as microscopic."
Nothing is too inane or commonplace. All that a workman needs is a
seeing eye, honesty, and a vocabulary, say they. Many of the sketches,
of course, seem extremely flat, and the reader involuntarily asks,
Why and wherefore? The answer is laconic--life: these are the actual
problems of humanity rather than abstract moral truths or highflown
idealism; the Scab and Trusty No. 49 are with us in the street; these
are the Children of the Public, the Children of the Ghetto; this is the
modern Jungle; these are Vignettes of Manhattan; these are the feelings
of a maiden lady in a Massachusetts village; these are the happenings
of a real Wedding Journey; thus the new-rich build houses in the Back
Bay district and attempt to get into society; this is a Modern Instance.

For source of realistic method we shall need to notice again the
audacious intimacy of the picaresque romance and the extraordinary
minuteness of detail that marked the illustrations and pretended
anecdotes of the controversial pamphleteers of the early eighteenth
century. Take for illustration the verisimilitude of the repetitions
and digressions in the "True Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal,"
by which Defoe hoodwinked the public--so completely, in fact, that
critics are even now divided on the question as to whether he was or
was not reporting a real interview. Most of his contemporaries took the
matter as _bona fide_ news; their successors took it as invention; and
now Mr. George Aitken comes forward with proof of its occurrence; that
is, he maintains that Defoe got--in just the way he says he got it--the
written report of the actual interview with the person who saw the
ghost. The contention only goes to demonstrate that Defoe was a great
captain of the pen who could sail extremely close to life. That he
could make romance truer than fact we well know.

Added to the patient minuteness of the controversialists and the
boldness of the rogue narrators who dared to take us to the back-doors
and bed-rooms of the nobility and to the haunts of criminals, came
later as an element of realistic method, Jane Austen's home subjects,
non-partizanship, and gentle raillery.

[Some realistic writers]

When "Daisy Miller" was written a few decades ago, the Americans
were incensed. Henry James did not care, however. Just so we appear
abroad, he said, among the more restrained and more cultivated peoples.
Howells's "Lady of the Aroostook" seemed a kinder if similar and no
less true picture. These brief narratives are hardly novels; and though
they are more than tales, they yet are not what we technically call the
artistic short-story; they are surely, however, studies in realism.

It is upon this distinction,--namely, that absolute realism would
naturally preclude even the slight artificiality that there must be
about the truly technical short-story--that we make two divisions in
our study of such work as that of Howells, James, and Mary E. Wilkins
Freeman. The point is, realism may be as long-drawn out or as brief as
life. The technical short-story, however, has a limit on both sides.
So has the novel. Each of our great realists has attempted novels; all
have written exquisite short stories.

[Suggestions on characters to treat]

To write a present-day realistic sketch you will not need to look
far for a subject. Just divest yourself of preconceived ideas of the
romantic in fiction, and begin anywhere. Everything is of interest to
the realist. A butcher's boy; an octogenarian millionaire; a petty
thief; a plodding, respectable, humdrum government clerk; an ordinary
mother with her ordinary baby on an ordinary day; a flighty society
belle, and a society belle who is not flighty; a sensible matron; an
idiot child,--all are his. The interest of your sketch will be in
the particularity and niceness of details. You will need to be more
truthful than a camera, which always makes people and surroundings
look either better or worse than they are. Color and sound and smell
and atmosphere and temperature, and temperament, gesture and thought,
passing impression and settled purpose, you can record. If any of
your characters succeeds, it must be as in life--with half defeat;
if any one is defeated, it must be as in life--with half success and
a conflicting sense of shame and of relief. You must have something
happening, however slight, and thus avoid a mere enumeration of
characteristics. You are to show us the person in action. A mere
analysis of his vices and virtues, his general mental attitude, would
be pure exposition, when you want narrative.

Your diction should be as good as you can make it by care and revision.
Howells and James are both stylists of the most polished kind; though
Tolstoy, whom Howells recognizes as master, thirty years ago left off
any concern for sentence effect. He repeats or reiterates at will. You,
however, cannot afford to disregard the rules of the rhetoricians--not
until you have become as famous as the Russian count or have a message
as distinct as his.

Remember, then, that a good realistic sketch demands on your part an
honest, and truthful purpose, a mind freed from the glamor of romance
or climax, a sure eye, and exquisite workmanship, in the relation of an
ordinary, every-day event.


=The Piece of String=

On all the roads leading to Goderville the peasants and their wives
were coming to town for market day. The men shambled along at an
easy-going gait, with bodies bent forward. Their long legs were
deformed and twisted through hard work--from the weight of the plough,
which at the same time throws the left shoulder too high and ruins
the figure; from mowing the grain, which effort causes the knees to
spread too far apart; and from all the other slow and painful labours
of country life. Their blue blouses, starched to a sheenlike varnish
and finished at collar and waistbands with little designs in white
stitching, stood from their bony bodies like balloons ready for flight,
with a head, two arms and two feet protruding.

Some of the men had a cow or calf in tow at the end of a rope, while
their wives followed close behind the animal, switching it over the
haunches with a leafy branch to hasten its pace.

The women carried large baskets, out of which stuck the heads of
chickens and ducks. They took much shorter and quicker steps than the
man. Their lanky, spare figures were decorated with mean little shawls
pinned across their flat breasts. Each head bore a white linen cover,
bound close to the hair and surmounted by a cap.

Now and then there went by a waggonette drawn by a pony on a jerky
trot, which jostled the two men on the seat in a ludicrous manner and
made the woman at the end of the cart hold the sides firmly for ease
from the rough jolting.

In the Goderville market-place was a great crowd of men and animals.
The horns of the cattle, the high, long-napped hats of the well-to-do
peasants, and the head-dresses of women bobbed above the level of that
crowd. Noisy voices, sharp and shrill, kept up a wild and ceaseless
clamour, only outdone now and then by a great guffaw of laughter from
the strong lungs of a jolly bumpkin, or a prolonged moo from a cow tied
to the wall of some house.

Everywhere it smelled of stables, of milk and manure, of hay and sweat.
The air was redolent with that sourish, disagreeable odour savouring of
man and beast which is peculiar to the labourers of the fields.

Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville and
was directing his steps to the square when he observed on the ground
a little bit of string. Economical like all true Normans, Master
Hauchecorne considered that anything useful was worth picking up, and
he bent down painfully, for he suffered from rheumatism. He picked up
the scrap of twine from the ground, and was preparing to wind it up
carefully when he noticed Master Malandain, the harness-maker, looking
at him from his doorway. Once they had a quarrel over a halter and had
kept angry ever since, both of them holding spite. Master Hauchecorne
was smitten with a certain sense of shame at being seen thus by his
enemy searching in the dirt for a mere bit of string. He hastily hid
his find under his blouse, then in the pocket of his breeches--after
which he pretended to be still looking at his feet for something which
he had not yet found. At length, he started toward the market-place,
his body almost bent double by his chronic pains.

He lost himself at once in the slow, clamorous throng, which was
agitated by perpetual bickerings. The prospective buyers, after looking
the cows over, would go away only to return perplexed; always fearing
to be taken in; never reaching a decision, but narrowly watching the
seller's eyes, seeking in the end to detect the deceit of the man and
the defect in his animal.

The women, having put their big baskets at their feet, had pulled out
the poultry, which lay upon the ground with legs tied, with frightened
eyes and scarlet combs.

They listened to offers, maintaining their prices with a sharp air and
impressive face, or else at a sweep accepting a reduced price, crying
after the customer who left reluctantly, "It's settled, Anthime; I'll
let you have them!"

Then, by degrees, the square emptied, and, as the Angelus struck noon,
those living at a distance flocked to the inns.

At Jourdain's, the dining-room was filled with guests, as full as the
great courtyard was with vehicles of every description--carts, gigs,
waggonettes, tilburies, nondescript jaunting cars, yellow with mud,
misshapen, patched up, lifting their shafts to heaven like two arms,
or else in a sorry plight with nose in the mud and back in the air.

Right opposite to where the diners were at table, the immense
fireplace, all brightly aflame, imparted a genial warmth to the backs
of the people ranged on the right. Three spits were turning, loaded
with chickens, with pigeons, and with legs of mutton; and a delicious
odour of roast meat and of gravy gushing over roast brown skin took
wing from the hearth, kindled good humour, and made mouths water.

All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Jourdain's, the
innkeeper who dealt in horses--a shrewd fellow, who had a goodish penny
put by.

The dishes were passed and emptied, as were likewise huge jugs of
yellow cider. Every one recounted his dealings--his buying and selling.
They gave news of the crops. The weather was good for greens, but
somewhat wet for wheat.

All at once a drum rolled in the court before the house. Almost
everybody save the too indifferent, immediately sprang to their feet
and ran to the door, or to the windows, with mouth still full and
napkin in hand.

After the public crier had stopped his racket, he launched forth in a
jerky voice, making his pauses at the wrong time:

"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general to all
persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning on
the Beauzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather
pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are
requested to return it to the mayor's office at once, or to Master
Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."

Then the man went away. They heard once more from afar the dull
drum-beats and the fading voice of the crier.

After that, they began to discuss this event, counting the chances
Master Houlbreque yet had of recovering or not recovering his
pocketbook.

And the meal went on.

They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of police appeared
on the threshold.

He asked:

"Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté--is he here?"

Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:

"Here I am."

And the corporal resumed:

"Master Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to come with me to the
mayor's office? The mayor would like to speak to you."

The peasant, surprised and disturbed, tossed off his drink and arose,
worse bent than in the morning; because the first steps after a rest
were always especially difficult. He started off, repeating:

"Here I am; here I am."

And he followed the corporal.

The mayor was awaiting him, seated in his official chair. He was the
notary of the place, a large, grave man of pompous speech.

"Master Hauchecorne," he said, "you were seen this morning, on the
Beauzeville road, to pick up the pocket-book lost by Master Houlbreque,
of Manneville."

The countryman, confused, stared at the mayor, already frightened by
this suspicion attaching to him--why he could not understand.

"I--I--I picked up that pocket-book?"

"Yes, you."

"On my word of honour, I didn't even know nothing about it."

"You were seen."

"They saw me--me? Who's they what saw me?" said Master Hauchecorne.

"Master Malandain, the harness-maker."

Then the old man remembered, understood, and reddened with anger.

"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me pick up this here string.
Look, your worship."

And, rummaging at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out the little
piece of string.

But the incredulous mayor shook his head.

"You will not make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Master
Malandain, who is a man worthy of all respect, has taken this bit of
cord for a pocket-book."

The peasant, furious, raised his hand, and spit at his side to bear
witness to his honour, repeating:

"F'r all that, it's God's truth, holy truth, your worship. There! My
soul and my salvation knows it's true!"

The mayor resumed:

"After having picked the article up, you even searched also a long
while in the mud to make sure if money had fallen out of it."

The good man choked with rage and terror.

"If them can say--if them can say--such lies as that to take away an
honest man's name! If them can say--"

However he might protest, he was not believed.

He was confronted by Master Malandain, who repeated and supported his
statement. They railed at each other for an hour. Master Hauchecorne
demanded that they search his pockets. Nothing was found upon him.

Finally, the mayor, very much perplexed, let him go with the warning
that he would inform the public prosecutor, and ask for orders.

The news had spread abroad. When he came out of the mayor's office, the
old man was the centre of curiosity and questioning, both serious and
jeering, but into which not the least resentment entered. And he began
recounting the long rigmarole of the string. They did not believe him.
They grinned.

He went along, stopped by every one, or accosting his acquaintances,
going over and over his story and his protestations, pointing to his
pockets turned inside out to prove he had nothing.

They said to him:

"Come now, you old rascal!"

And he became angry, exasperated, feverish, disconsolate at being
doubted, and forever telling his story.

Night fell. It became time to go home. He started out with three of his
neighbours, to whom he pointed out the spot where he had picked up the
bit of string; and, all along the road, he recited his adventure.

That evening he made a round of the village of Bréauté so as to tell
everyone. He found only unbelievers.

He was ill of it all through the night.

The next day about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm helper
of Master Breton, the market-gardener at Ymauville, returned the
pocket-book and its contents to Master Houlbreque of Manneville.

This man maintained he had found it on the road, but, not knowing how
to read, had carried it home and turned it over to his master.

The news spread to the suburbs. Master Hauchecorne was informed.
Immediately he set himself the task of going about relating his story,
capping it with this climax. He was triumphant.

"What hurt me the mostest," he said, "was not the thing itself, don't
you see, but the lies. Nothing hurts so as when lies 's told about you."

All day long he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the
people passing, at the tavern to people who were drinking, and then
to the people coming out of church the next Sunday. He even stopped
strangers to tell them the tale. He felt relieved by this time, yet
something troubled him without his knowing just what it was. People had
a mocking manner as they listened.

They did not appear convinced. He almost felt their tattle behind his
back.

Tuesday of the next week, he went to the Goderville market, solely
impelled by the need of recounting his affair.

Malandain, standing in his doorway, began to laugh as he saw him pass.
For what?

He accosted a farmer of Criquetot who did not permit him to finish,
but, landing him a thump in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face,
"Get out, you great rogue!" Then he turned on his heel.

Master Hauchecorne, altogether abashed, grew more and more disturbed.
Why had he been dubbed "a great rogue?"

When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern, he again began to explain
the particulars.

A Montvilliers horse-dealer yelled at him:

"Don't tell me, you old fox! I know your piece of string yarn!"

Hauchecorne stammered, "B--b--but it's found, the pocket-book!"

To which the other retorted:

"That'll do, daddy! There's one who finds, and another who gives up.
Neither is no one the wiser."

The peasant was choked off. At last he understood. They accused him of
having had the pocket-book returned by a crony--by an accomplice.

He tried to protest. The whole table started to laugh.

He could not finish his meal, and took his leave amidst their mocking
and derision.

He returned to his home, ashamed and indignant, stifled with rage, with
confusion; all the more dejected because, with his Norman cunning,
he was capable of having done what they accused him of, and even of
bragging of it as a good trick. His innocence vaguely appeared to him
as impossible to prove; his roguery was too well known. And he felt
struck to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.

Again he commenced to tell of his adventure; every day its recital
lengthened, each time containing new proofs, more energetic
protestations, and more solemn oaths which he prepared in his solitary
hours. His mind was altogether occupied by the story of the piece
of string. He was believed all the less as his defense grew more
complicated and his arguments more artful.

"Now, those are the proofs of a liar," they said behind his back.

He felt this. It consumed his strength. He exhausted himself in useless
efforts.

He went into a visible decline.

The jokers now made him detail the story of "The Piece of String" to
amuse them, just as you persuade a soldier who has come through a
campaign to tell his version of a battle. At last his mind began to
give way.

Near the end of December he took to his bed.

He died the first week in January, and, in the delirium of the throes
of death he protested his innocence, repeating, "A little piece of
string--little piece of string--see, here it is, your worship."

                                 --Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant.

    "Little Masterpieces of Fiction," Vol. VI (Doubleday, Page & Co.).


=A Social Error=

The little kindergarten teacher turned hastily from the office window.

"Miss Adams," she said abruptly, "I'm worried."

The "Lady Head" looked up from her ledger.

"Worried," she repeated, with an odd little smile, "are you ever
anything so plebeian?"

The other woman tossed her chin impatiently.

"Really, Miss Adams," she said stiffly, "I wish you had given that
class of Italians to--well, anyone but Caroline."

The lady at the desk stiffened perceptibly.

"And why not?" she inquired tersely. "You certainly must be aware that
the reason I chose Caroline to fill the vacancy was because I thought
her fitted--particularly fitted," she added, with deliberate emphasis.

The little woman looked down at her excited chief with a quietly
speculative smile.

"Do you think," she said slowly, "that Caroline has the real social
instinct?"

The Lady Head was becoming annoyed.

"One might think," she snapped, "that the training Caroline has
received in her own home would amply fit her to meet--"

"Any of the men of her own set," interrupted the other woman. "But as
for managing a club of hot-headed Italians--"

"Well, doesn't she manage them?" reiterated the woman at the desk, half
rising from her low chair. "I should like to have you name a club that
is more orderly--more--"

"Indeed, it is orderly enough," admitted the little kindergartner.

"There!" sniffed the Lady Head triumphantly, then with a sudden change
of tone, "I really do not understand your objection. As for the
boys--they adore her!"

"That is where the trouble lies." The little kindergartner leaned
forward over the desk and her voice was very serious. "Miss Adams," she
began slowly, "you have been here five weeks--I have worked in this
district for fifteen years. I know every boy and girl, every man and
woman, who comes to this house. And I also know"--the speaker paused
impressively--"that when a girl who is as young and as good-looking as
Caroline treats the young men of her club with the same informality
that she would show to the callers in her father's home--believe me,
there will be disastrous consequences."

"Do you mean--Do you dare--" the Lady Head's lifted eyebrows completed
her question.

This little kindergartner stood firm. "I think Caroline should
be warned," she insisted quietly. "Her Italians are so young--so
hot-blooded, and I'm afraid she has been encouraging them a little,
too--"

"Nonsense!" the other woman sprang quickly to her feet. "I have never
heard anything so ridiculous--so utterly preposterous! Do my years of
experience count for nothing in comparison with yours? Am I entirely
lacking in good judgment--in common sense? My dear woman, I have always
made friends of my club boys, invited them to my home--even young
anarchists! Falling in love with her! Preposterous!" She paused for a
moment breathless, and then began a fresh onslaught.

"If Caroline has not sufficient tact--"

A girl's blonde head appeared in the office doorway.

"Did you call met?" she lisped sweetly. "I was passing through the hall
and I thought I heard my name spoken." She paused, with a questioning
glance at the two women.

The Lady Head was the first to recover her composure, and she rustled
across the room with outstretched hands. "My dear Caroline," she said.
"We were just speaking of you--and your charming little club," she
added, with a side glance at her assistant.

The girl threw back her dark furs with a smile. "How good of you," she
said gratefully. "I'm frightfully late to-day, but to-night is our
party, and I stopped down town for the boys."

The Lady Head patted the girl's plump fingers. "Are you going to dance,
too?" she inquired.

The girl laughed. "Indeed I am. But I really don't know how I'm going
to manage it. The boys are all so jealous, and Tony--oh, Tony is the
grandest dancer!"

She flitted out of the tiny office, and the two women watched her
as she climbed the broad stairs followed closely by her chattering,
gesticulating pupils.

As the last peal of laughter floated down over the balusters the little
kindergartner turned to the Lady Head.

"You see?" she said simply.

The Lady Head turned upon her a sweet, uncomprehending smile. "I think
it is lovely!" she breathed.

The night lamp burned steadily in the office of the settlement. The
wind howled through the deserted street, flinging the rain in noisy
gusts against the window panes and shrieking dismally down the empty
corridors. From somewhere on the floor above came the rhythmic banging
of a piano and the shuffle and stamp of dancing feet.

The Lady Head closed her book with a yawn.

"What a stupid evening," she sighed. The kindergarten teacher laid down
her sewing and walked slowly to the window.

"The elements are attempting to enliven things," she remarked dryly as
she lifted the heavy curtains. Even as she spoke there was a blinding
flash, a click and the house was dark.

Up stairs the music ceased, there was a confused murmur of voices--a
shout--a crash--and a woman's scream. The lights come on again--the two
women turned, their faces ashen, and hastened up the long stairs.

A pale-faced girl was crouched against the farther wall of the big
gymnasium. At her feet sprawled the limp body of a man, and behind her
a swarthy black-browed girl was struggling in the grasp of two stalwart
Italians who were trying to wrest something from her frantic fingers.
Her hands relaxed as the two women appeared in the door, and a shining
bit of steel flew across the room and tinkled on the floor at the feet
of the Lady Head. She picked it up grimly and pushed her way to the
center of the crowd. The girl by the wall sprang to her feet with a
wild shriek, but the woman turned on her savagely.

"Hush!" she hissed, "you little fool!" Then to the crowd, "What does
this mean?" she demanded sternly. "What does this mean?"

A young Italian, who stood at one side nursing his slashed knuckles,
was the spokesman.

"Him--" with a wave towards the man on the floor--"he's Tony De Sil',
and her"--the gesture included the hysterical girl--"She dance with
Ton' all-a-time."

"And she?" The Lady Head looked toward the Italian girl whose stiletto
she was holding gingerly between her fingers.

"Her?"--the narrator pointed a laconic forefinger. "She's Tony's girl."

When the weeping Caroline had been sent home in her father's carriage,
and when the ambulance had creaked out through the gateway, the Lady
Head turned to her little assistant.

"If there are any fatal results from this--this criminal bit of
negligence," she stated coldly, "I shall hold you personally
responsible. You should have informed me of this long ago. Remember,
you have been here fifteen years!"

                                                        --Ida F. Treat.


=The Lot of the Poor=

Two women were walking with rapid but tired steps down one of the most
disreputable streets in the city.

"My," said the tallest one, turning up the collar of her threadbare
coat, "don't this wind make you feel like you was dressed in your
bones?"

The other woman, who was, if possible, more shabby-looking, pushed her
red gloveless hands deeper into her pockets.

"Yes, and I forgot to wear my sables to-day, ain't it too bad?" she
returned in a dreary tone, whose irony was somewhat modified by the
chattering of her teeth.

"Mary Jane, you just quit talkin' like that," burst out the other,
evidently the older of the two. "You didn't never use to be that way
before you commenc't workin' out by the day. Why you was the jolliest
girl in the factory and allays made the best of everything; but now
nothin' is ever good enough for you. Of course none of us would
mind having things a little better, but as far as I can see, things
have allays been this way with us and allays will be, wishin' or no
wishin'."

"I ain't sayin' they won't," Mary Jane said shortly.

"Well, I know it, you ain't sayin' nothin'; that's just the trouble.
I wish you'd tell me what's the matter with you, Mary Jane, 'Tain't
natural for a girl like you to be so dull and sulky."

"'Tain't natural, did you say?" flared up the other. "'Tain't natural
to wonder why the lady you work for wears silks and satins, while your
own clothes are almost too ragged to cover you? Ain't it natural," she
asked with blazing eyes, "to want to tear a few silks off of her back
to cover your own? You ain't never seen nice things near you, Ann.
You've allays worked in the factory; so what do you know about such
things? I tell you, if you worked in one of those palaces on Fifth
Avenue all day and then come back to this at night, you'd see the
difference."

"Don't you s'pose I've seen swell things and people?" remonstrated the
older woman. "I ain't no fool; but I've reasoned out that there's a few
people meant to be rich, and the rest of us ain't, that's all!"

"But it ain't a few people, Ann. It seems like most everybody had
plenty to eat and wear but us. Why ain't we in it, too? Why don't I
live in that fine house where I work instead down in this hole? It
seems like we'd been cheated somewhere; but I s'pose there ain't no use
talkin' about it. Good-night."

Ann watched the girl as she climbed the rickety steps of the "palace"
which fate had assigned to her.

"They're all that way sometimes. I remember--well, she'll get used to
it like all the rest of us."

                                                        --Agnes Palmer.


=Filipino Fear.=

One cloudy afternoon when a heavy rain seemed swaying back and forth in
a thick mist which was then lowering, and long red streaks of lightning
followed by loud rolling thunder seemed trying to break the mist to
let the rain fall, there were in a little nipa house in the country
below, among aged cocoanut palms, two lonely persons suffering from
superstition and fear of the extraordinary phenomena that surrounded
them.

The house was just big enough for the two. Its roof, windows and sides
were made of _cogon_. The floor and door were made of narrow bamboo
strips nailed side by side. In one corner of the room on a bed, made
also of bamboo, sat a boy of eight. There was in the expression and
look of the boy a feeling of unknown fear mingled with surprise,
because his father, a lusty old superstitious man, who was then holding
a blunt stick, had driven their domestic creatures from the house
to the open field where there was no means of securing shelter from
the heavy rain, whose first large drops were now clattering on the
leaves. The boy had a kind disposition, especially toward his pets--a
sense that he had inherited from his father. This was the first time
that he had seen his father act thus unkindly toward their animals.
His surprise was much increased when he saw his father dash at the
windows and doors and fling everyone of them open, then retreat to
the middle and look sideways. He saw him draw a long agitated breath.
Then, seeming to have recovered his wits, he hastened toward one of the
windows and took from the outside a portion of a dried cocoanut leaf.
He cut two long narrow strips from it and made them into loops. After
placing one around his neck, he uttered a short prayer. He then handed
the other loop to his still amazed child and said, "Wear this, dear
child, around thy neck."

"Why, father?" inquired the innocent boy, "can this protect me?"

"Yes, child, prayer and that alone can save us."

"What has this in it, father? It seems to me to be nothing but a piece
of cocoanut leaf. Isn't it?" said the boy.

"It is a strip from a cocoanut leaf, but--it has--"

"If so, then," interrupted the acute boy, "why can't these palms around
us that bear these leaves protect themselves against the elements. I
have often seen, father, palms burned to their very stalks, which older
people told me had been struck by lightning. Where did you get this
strip, father?"

"Well, I got this from a bunch of leaves which is tied just below our
front window," pointing to the place, "together with some live leaves.
That bunch you yourself carried to the church two years ago when your
mother was yet living. You have never peeped into church since then.
But once a year in town the mass of the Sunday immediately before Fast
Friday is dedicated to palm and olive leaves. Hundreds of children like
you crowd the church on that day carrying with them their bunch of
leaves, and while the service is being celebrated they will joyfully
shake them. After holy water has been sprinkled on the leaves, then
they are holy, and it is not pious to play with them. After the mass
the bunch of leaves is to be tied to the door or to the window of the
house as a protection from thunder and lightning. On days of this kind
every one wears a strip of these leaves around his neck. When you go
out again, you may look at the windows of the houses to see if what I
say is true."

Indeed; those bunches of palms and olive leaves are marked
characteristics of typical Filipino houses. The leaves are usually tied
or wound in artistic ways, with beautiful hangings on them. All the
decorations, however, are composed of the same kind of leaves.

The boy was quite satisfied at his father's story. After a little
reflection he remembered that he had truly carried such leaves to
church. The rain was then falling fast, and the lightning and thunder
still followed one another in rapid succession. The cold winds from
outside and the fearful sight of the brilliant flashes made the boy
shrink.

"I am cold, father, and I fear those long and fiery zigzag paths which
the whip of the driver of that rolling thunder is making in heaven. I
wonder why you don't shut those windows," said the boy.

"Never, my son, for there is danger in shutting them. Remember that
the thunder will pass thru anything and burn that which dares obstruct
its way. Besides, my grandfather told me that days of this kind are
rare, for they are days for scourging foul things on earth. If we shut
ourselves up here, Bathala, the ruler of the earth, who watches and
sees all things done, may suspect that we are hiding something foul and
so send his scourger here to punish us."

The young listener who was attentive to the story of his father started
up at a sudden and astounding crash of thunder. He curled himself up in
the lap of his father, folded his arms around his father's neck, and
shut his eyes. After a while he continued, "And, therefore, every foul
deed on earth will be punished?"

"Yes, everything foul; so runs our proverb: 'Debt must be paid.' If you
commit a sin you must be punished according to the nature of your sin."

The fearful peal of thunder that had so frightened the boy was the
last. It silenced the fury of the weather. The rain was falling lightly
now and sheets of fire were distinguished only from afar, but no more
thunder sounded. The boy was dropping off into a light slumber when
he heard his kitty mew. He opened his eyes and saw his pet very wet
and cold. He pitied the little creature, so he said almost with tears,
"I wish, father, you had not been so unkind to our animals, our sole
friends in this solitary place. See what you have done. You have driven
them out in the rain where they could get no shelter; and now every one
of them is wet and shivering."

"Now, don't worry about them, my boy," said his father rather moved by
his filial appeal, "they are not hurt at all. I drove them away, not
because I was cross or unkind, but because it is not safe to keep them
inside on such a stormy day as this. For thunder is likely to strike
them. Boys of your age are likely to be harmed by such animals. For to
some of them thunder imparts its explosive power. And sometimes thunder
takes the form of animals. Here is a story that has been told to me by
many and which they believe true.

"'Once there was a boy riding on a carabao on a stormy day. He was
hurrying home lest the rain should catch him, but when he was near home
he caught sight of a small pig wandering aimlessly down the road. It
was very fat and very tame. The boy dismounted from the carabao and
tried to catch the pig, but when he was yet quite a long way off from
it the animal ran against a tree and there was a loud sound of thunder.
The tree ignited. The boy fell down unconscious and was slightly hurt.
He recovered only at home. His story has been told and retold ever
since. It was said that if that boy had caught the animal and it had
received a jar while in the boy's arms it would have burst like thunder
and so burned the boy. But if the boy had safely carried it home and
treated it with a vinegar bath the explosive power would have been gone
and the animal would have been the best kind of food on earth.' Old men
say that such animals are fruits of thunder."

"Oh, then, it would not be so bad after all, father. I might try to
catch one some time," said the boy.

"That you must not," said the father sternly.

"But is that true, father, that the fungi which we find abounding
in bamboo groves are the flowers caused by thunder?" said the boy
inquisitively.

"Yes, my son, truly, and that's why they are very delicious. You can't
find them growing except after stormy days and after thunder and
lightning. After days of lightning and thunder like the present, groups
of women and boys may be seen roaming about the country in search of
these delicious flowers for their food."

By this time the storm was over. The two prepared their supper, since
it was already evening. After eating they went to bed feeling secure in
the efficacy of the palm leaves hung in the door.

                                                    --Walfrido de Leon.




CHAPTER VI

THE ARTISTIC GROUP: THE REAL SHORT-STORY


The short-story as a production of an artist conscious of rules and
striving for definite effects within limitations is a thing of the
nineteenth century. Only gradually have writers come to the feeling
for singleness and unity. It would appear that before the days of Poe
and Maupassant brief narratives were brief because of their source or
their type, or because the author did not happen to have a rich vein
of digression and incident. They were then rather what we think of as
tales than what we have come to regard as the real short-story.

We have hitherto in our study been making little or no distinction in
our use of the terms narrative, story, and tale, nor have we understood
the adjective short with any but its usual significance. We shall
from now on, however, understand the term short-story technically,
and employ the hyphen, as Matthews has employed it, to suggest the
significance.

A short-story is very perceptibly shorter than a romance or a novel.
It is indeed about like a chapter of one of these. In no case must the
reading require more than one sitting, says Poe. On the other hand,
it may not be so short as an ordinary incident or anecdote, but far
longer. It is more complex, more dignified, and has distinguishing
essential elements.

It is not possible, of course, to make a hard and fast definition,
but there are certain qualities we pretty generally expect to find. A
short-story may be of any type from a myth to a realistic sketch; it
may emphasize environment, plot, or character; but it must have unity,
it must have directness, it must have climax, however slight. The
effect should be single, not multiple. Hence anything like digression
or episode is entirely out of place. The end should not be delayed, nor
yet should it be precipitated. It should come just at the right time,
and be as proper as the catastrophe of a tragedy. It should be but the
beginning made special and concrete, the middle continued in harmony,
the conclusion come upon both inevitably. "Make another end to it?"
says Stevenson[7] in answering an objection to one of his stories. "Ah,
yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I never
use an effect when I can help it unless it prepares the effects that
are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another end;
that is to make the beginning all wrong. The _dénouement_ of a long
story is nothing, it is just 'a full close,' which you may approach and
accompany as you please--it is a coda, not an essential number in the
rhythm; but the body and end of a short-story is bone-of-the-bone and
blood-of-the-blood of the beginning."

Students of this type of narrative find Poe the first man to reveal a
consciousness of any strictly limiting tenets. Poe worked to definite
rules which he himself made. He saw intrinsic reasons why a short-story
should be short. His predecessors, Irving and others, had not seen
them. Even Hawthorne, who fulfilled them many times, said nothing about
them. But Poe both formulated and preached them. He exemplified them,
too, and other men followed.

The list of good short-story writers is so great that particular
mention of any seems invidious. Some of our less known men have done
as good work as our best. For names by countries, you may notice the
bibliography at the end of this book. Kipling's stories for a large
part emphasize place; Poe's, very often plot; and Hawthorne's and
Stevenson's, mostly psychological phenomena--character and whimsical
expressions of it; Miss Wilkins's altogether reveal temperament and
characteristics; while Maupassant's generally record events which
include a stab of fate.

On the basis of artistic purpose, the short-story divides itself into
three types: the weird tale, stories that emphasize environment and
typical personality, stories that emphasize events and character.

Every narrator whenever he sets his pen to paper must deal with place,
plot, and people; but the artistic short-story writer, because of the
limitation of his form, is forced to a selection of emphasis. He can
not at will, as the biographer can, dilate upon the ancestry of his
hero if he means to present the personage in action; if he wants to
indulge in an environment analysis, the short-story writer has not
time to wind up and unwind a mystery; if he has decided to give us the
crisis event of a character, he must perforce touch but lightly on
place. We shall find, then, that while each good short-story has the
three elements present and skilfully managed, it has also one or the
other more strongly emphasized--or at most two, in practical neglect of
the third.


I. The Psychological Weird Tale

[Origin]

Our idea of the required form of the weird tale has come to be that of
the modern artistic short-story; but all the elements of the type save
form were present in England in the middle of the eighteenth century in
the terror school started by Walpole's "Castle of Otranto." The author
declared his work to be an attempt to blend the ancient romance and
the modern novel. By modern novel he meant the stories of Richardson,
Fielding, Smollet, and their less worthy contemporaries; by ancient
romance he must have meant the Oriental wonder tale; for he has sliding
panels, trap doors, subterranean passages, and a general extravagance
in an attempt at magnificence. Indeed, in regard to the multiplicity of
detail, this school is often called the Gothic. The difference between
the narratives of the school of terror and the Oriental wonder tale is
the difference of atmosphere. While the ancient tale is mysterious,
it is seldom if ever morbid. Especially is the cheerfulness true of
the stories of mediæval chivalry that later embodied the wonder tale.
Enchantment there is, but it is airy; if there be any vaults, they
are not damp. [The school of terror] But the "Castle of Otranto" by
Walpole, the "Old English Baron" by Clara Reeve, the "Romance of
the Forest," the "Mysteries of Udolpho," and the "Italian" by Mrs.
Radcliffe, and "The Monk" by Matthew Lewis,--the six chief romances of
the school of terror,--are all damp, dark, ghostly, and morbid. Mrs.
Radcliffe, however, added an element of eighteenth-century rationalism
in her attempt at explanation; inasmuch as she always refers her
constant suggestions of the supernatural to ordinary causes. Moreover,
she interspersed her work with excellent landscape description in
harmony or contrast with her theme. The contributions, then, of the
romances of the school of terror are (1) frightful mechanism, (2) a
general tone of Gothic fantasticalness, (3) weird place-impressions
that can be explained by natural causes, and (4) terror of physical or
supernatural punishment and death.

[Edgar Allen Poe]

To point out how much Edgar Allan Poe on the mere material side is
indebted to this set of writers, possibly through Charles Brockden
Brown and the American school of terror, we need only to name over to
ourselves two of his famous weird tales together with their grosser
elements. "The Fall of the House of Usher" has general arabesqueness
plus hollow groans, echoing footsteps, high pointed windows excluding
light, a person imprisoned in a metal vault (the hero in the "Castle of
Otranto" is imprisoned in a gigantic metal helmet), terror of death,
consonant landscape description, natural causes for weird sounds. The
"Pit and the Pendulum" has a dungeon of the Inquisition, horrible
instrument of torture, brink over which to fall, bodily and mental fear
of death (Lewis's monk is snatched by demons from the Inquisition and
carried to a cliff of the Sierra Morena off which he is commanded to
fling himself).

But Poe is as far away from the crude and bungling methods of the
earlier writers as he is near their materials. How cracking doors
and opening vaults, quaking houses, and walking dead, outer terrific
elements and inner terrific sensation and morbid imaginative perception
reaching madness, can be fused into one harmonized, unified, piercing,
intense prose poem he has shown us in this same "Fall of the House of
Usher." Nothing of the kind could be better. His own cruder attempt is
set forth in the fore-study, "Berenice," which might be considered good
if the other story were not immeasurably better. A side sketch of quite
a different tone, yet almost as weird, is his beautiful color symphony
of the "Masque of the Red Death." All are exquisite artistic creations.

[Stevenson]

Poe's "William Wilson," an imaginative psychological horror study
of conscience, has been paralleled if not surpassed by Stevenson's
"Markheim." "Markheim" is more concrete, especially at the beginning;
there is more of story and less of symbolism about it; but the climax
is the same, or rather the reverse; for in Poe's story William Wilson's
worse self murders his better, while in Stevenson's story Markheim's
better self, the murderer, who really hates his deed, triumphs over his
worse self, the coward and liar.

In Poe's story the weirdness results from the fact that Wilson's
conscience, which he kills, is a concrete double with the same name and
appearance. Stevenson has united this device of a double with weird
place-description and weird deed-narrative. He has kept the thing
more psychological and less symbolic by making the second presence
explainable as an hallucination, more shadowy than Poe's.

[Maupassant and others]

"What is It? a Mystery" by Fitz James O'Brien shows how very, very
material the horror story may be; and yet O'Brien's is not an
uninteresting narrative; for it is full of vigor and truth-likeness in
the beginning; the end only is bad art; where the frightened people
take a plaster cast of the mysterious being they have captured and can
not see. "The Hand" by Maupassant is another such touch horror tale,
but of course better told. His "Apparition" is almost pure narrative
and builds to a fine realistic climax, despite the ghostliness of
the visitant. Matthew's "Venetian Glass" is also weird plot rather
than weird place, while "The Wind in the Rose Bush" is emphatically
character study, and the "Phantom Rickshaw" is a good old-fashioned, if
Oriental, ghost story.

[Suggestions on writing a weird tale]

For your first attempt at this type of narrative, you might try the
modern ghost story, and later, when more practised, the delicate
psychological analysis of states of conscience. The modern ghost
stories differ from folk-tales concerning weird beings in this respect
particularly: the modern ghost is usually explainable, a fact you would
expect because of our inheritance from the terror school. He is a
logical ghost--a creature of one's own making, an hallucination at best
or a white cow at worst. The author sets out to depict not so much the
ghost, as the ghost's effect upon the hero. In a number of instances
the modern narrative of this kind rises to the plane of the true
short-story, complying with all the canons of art. Read for example
one of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's six "Stories of the Supernatural," of
which the "Wind in the Rose Bush" is one.

[Material and method]

The material is comparatively simple. Get eerie circumstances, a
credulous or boastfully incredulous mind, a probable incident, an
explainable apparition, and any modern setting that will hold the
course of events together. See to it that the construction is unified
and coherent. Build to a climax, and stop quickly afterwards. Make
the apparition a logical outgrowth of the environment and the state
of mind of the victim. The ghost of the folk-tale usually appears to
the half-witted, the foolish, the credulous; but the ghost of the
modern story, to prove his existence, perhaps, is far bolder; he speaks
out to the skeptic, the person who calls a shadow a shadow. That the
unearthly spirit must catch the strong man at his weak moment is
obvious--otherwise there would be no story. But when the events are
given, stop. Do not explain too much.

[Form]

It is well to notice the different methods of getting the facts before
the reader. Sometimes everything is set forth by the author, and the
characters speak but little or not at all. Sometimes one character
speaks in a continued monologue. Sometimes the events come out in
conversation or dialogue, the dramatic method, and the author appears
but little. When he appears not at all we have true drama instead of
narrative. The larger number of stories, doubtless, are a mixture of
author and character talk.


=The Signal-Man=

"Halloa! Below there!"

When he heard a voice thus calling to him he was standing at the door
of his box with a flag in his hand, furled around its short pole. One
would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could
not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but, instead of
looking up to where I stood oh the top of the steep cutting nearly over
his head, he turned himself about and looked down the line. There was
something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have
said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract
my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed down
in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow
of an angry sunset that I had shadowed my eyes with my hand before I
saw him at all.

"Halloa! Below!"

From looking down the line he turned himself about again and, raising
his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?"

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without
pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then
there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing
into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start
back as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapor as rose
to my height from this rapid train had passed me and was skimming away
over the landscape, I looked down again and saw him refurling the flag
he had shown while the train went by.

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard
me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a
point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called
down to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint
of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path
notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep and unusually precipitate. It was made
through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I went down.
For these reasons I found the way long enough to recall a singular air
of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again,
I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the
train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to
appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on
his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such
expectant watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way and, stepping out upon the level of the
railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow
man with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in
as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side a
dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of
sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great
dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating
in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel,
in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing and
forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot that
it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it
that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.

Before he stirred I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not
even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step and
lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my
attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity,
I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped! In me he merely
saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and
who, being at last set free, had a newly awakened interest in these
great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure
of the terms I used, for besides that I am not happy in opening any
conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's
mouth and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it,
and then looked at me.

That light was part of his charge--was it not?

He answered in a low voice, "Don't you know it is?"

The monstrous thought came into my mind as I perused the fixed eyes and
the saturnine face that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated
since whether there may have been infection in his mind.

In my turn I stepped back. But in making the action I detected in his
eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight.

"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread of
me."

"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before."

"Where?"

He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

"There?" I said.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes."

"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I
never was there, you may swear."

"I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes. I am sure I may."

His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with
readiness and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes, that
was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and
watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work--manual
labor--he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those
lights and to turn this iron handle now and then was all he had to do
under that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which
I seemed to make so much he could only say that the routine of his
life had shaped itself into that form and he had grown used to it. He
had taught himself a language down here--if only to know it by sight
and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation could be
called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and
tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand
at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty always to remain in
that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine
from between those high stone walls? Why, depended upon times and
circumstances. Under some conditions there would be less upon the line
than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the
day and night. In bright weather he did choose occasions for getting
a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to
be called by his electric bell and at such times listening for it with
redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official
book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument
with its dial, face and needle, and the little bell of which he had
spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had
been well educated and (I hoped I might say without offence) perhaps
educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight
incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting among large
bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in work-houses, in the
police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and
that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff. He
had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut--he
scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had attended
lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down,
and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had
made his bed and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make another.

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his
grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the
word "Sir" from time to time, and especially when he referred, to his
youth--as though to request me to understand that he claimed to be
nothing but what I found him. He was several times interrupted by the
little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he
had to stand without the door and display a flag as a train passed and
make some verbal communication to the driver. In the discharge of his
duties I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off
his discourse at a syllable and remaining silent until what he had to
do was done.

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men
to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he
was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen color, turned his
face towards the little bell when it did not ring, opened the door of
the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked
out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of
those occasions he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon
him which I had remarked, without being able to define when we were so
far asunder.

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I have
met with a contented man."

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined in the low voice in which he
had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."

He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them,
however, and I took them up quickly.

"With what? What is your trouble?"

"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to
speak of. If ever you make me another visit I will try to tell you."

"But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall it
be?"

"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten
to-morrow night, sir."

"I will come at eleven."

He thanked me and went to the door with me. "I'll show my white light,
sir," he said in his peculiar low voice, "till you have found the way
up. When you have found it, don't call out! And when you are at the
top, don't call out!"

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no
more than "Very well."

"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! Let me ask you
a parting question. What made you cry 'Halloa! Below there!' to-night?"

"Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect--"

"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them well."

"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt because I saw
you below."

"For no other reason?"

"What other reason could I possibly have?"

"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural
way?"

"No."

He wished me good-night and held up his light. I walked by the side of
the down line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train
coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than
to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure.

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of
the zigzag next night as the distant clocks were striking eleven. He
was waiting for me at the bottom with his white light on. "I have not
called out," I said when we came close together; "may I speak now?" "By
all means, sir." "Good-night, then, and here's my hand." "Good-night,
sir, and here's mine." With that we walked side by side to his box,
entered it, closed the door and sat down by the fire.

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as we
were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, "that
you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for
some one else yesterday evening. That troubles me."

"That mistake?"

"No. That some one else."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Like me?"

"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face
and the right arm is waved--violently waved. This way."

I followed his action with my eyes and it was the action of an arm
gesticulating with the utmost passion and vehemence, "For God's sake
clear the way!"

"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here when I heard
a voice cry 'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked from that
door, and saw this some one else standing by the red light near the
tunnel waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with
shouting and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And then again, 'Halloa!
Below there! Look out!' I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran
towards the figure, calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?'
It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close
upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I
ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve
away, when it was gone."

"Into the tunnel," said I.

"No. I ran on into the tunnel five hundred yards. I stopped and held
up my lamp above my head and saw the figures of the measured distance
and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through
the arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal
abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light,
with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery
atop of it, and I came down again and ran back here. I telegraphed both
ways, 'An alarm has been given. Is anything wrong?' The answer came
back, both ways, 'All well.'"

Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I
showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of
sight, and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate
nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have
often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the
nature of their affliction and had even proved it by experiments upon
themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen for a
moment to the wind in this unnatural valley, while we speak so slow
and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires!"

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a
while, and he ought to know something of the wind and wires--he who so
often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he would
beg to remark that he had not finished.

I asked his pardon and he slowly added these words, touching my arm:

"Within six hours after the appearance the memorable accident on this
line happened, and within ten hours the dead and the wounded were
brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had
stood."

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it.
It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable
coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was
unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur and
they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. Though
to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going
to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common sense did not
allow much for coincidence making the ordinary calculations of life.

He again begged to remark that he had not finished.

I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm and glancing over
his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. Six or seven
months passed and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when
one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked
towards the red light and saw the spectre again." He stopped with a
fixed look at me.

"Did it cry out?"

"No. It was silent."

"Did it wave its arm?"

"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light with both hands before
the face. Like this."

Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of
mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.

"Did you go up to it?"

"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because
it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was
above me and the ghost was gone."

"But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?"

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, giving a
ghastly nod each time.

"That very day, as the train came out of the tunnel, I noticed at a
carriage window on my side what looked like a confusion of hands and
heads and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver,
stop! He shut off and put his brake on, but the train drifted past
here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it and as I went
along heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died
instantaneously in one of the compartments and was brought in here and
laid down on this floor between us."

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back suddenly, as I looked from the
boards, at which he pointed, to himself.

"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you."

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very
dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting
wail.

He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this and judge how my mind is troubled. The
spectre came back a week ago. Ever since it has been there, now and
again, by fits and starts."

"At the light?"

"At the danger-light."

"What does it seem to do?"

He repeated, if possible, with increased passion and vehemence, that
former gesticulation of, "For God's sake, clear the way!"

Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for
many minutes together, in an agonized manner, 'Below there! Look out!
Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell--"

I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was
here and you went to the door?"

"Twice."

"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on
the bell and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man
it did not ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except when
it was rung in the natural course of physical things by the station
communication with you."

He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. I
have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's. The ghost's ring
is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else,
and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder
that you failed to hear it. But I heard it."

"And did the spectre seem to be there when you looked out?"

"It was there."

"Both times?"

He repeated firmly: "Both times."

"Will you come to the door with me and look for it now?"

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose.
I opened the door and stood on the step while he stood in the doorway.
There was the danger-light. There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel.
There were the high, wet stone wells of the cutting. There were the
stars above them.

"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His
eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, perhaps,
than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the
same spot.

"No," he answered. "It is not there."

"Agreed," said I.

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking
how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called one, when he
took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course way, so assuming
that there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt
myself placed in the weakest of positions.

"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what
troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre mean?"

I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.

"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on
the fire and only by times turning them on me. "What is the danger?
Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere on the line.
Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third
time after what has gone before. But surely this is a cruel haunting of
me. What can I do?"

He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the drops from his heated
forehead.

"If I telegraph danger on either side of me, or on both, I can give no
reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. "I should
get into trouble and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is
the way it would work--Message: 'Danger! Take care!' Answered: 'What
danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know. But for God's sake, take care!'
They would discharge me. What else could they do?"

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture
of a conscientious man oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible
responsibility involving life.

"When it first stood under the danger-light," he went on, putting his
dark hair back from his head and drawing his hands outward across and
across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, "why not
tell me where that accident was to happen, if it must happen? Why not
tell me how it could be averted, if it could have been averted? When
on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, 'She
is going to die. Let them keep her at home?' If it came, on those
two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were true and so to
prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now? And I, Lord help
me! A mere poor signal man in this solitary station! Why not go to
somebody with credit to be believed and power to act?"

When I saw him in this state I saw that for the poor man's sake, as
well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to
compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or
unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly
discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his comfort
that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these
confounding appearances. In this effort I succeeded far better than in
the attempt to reason him out of his conviction. He became calm; the
occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make
larger demands on his attention; and I left him at two in the morning.
I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the
pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have
slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to
conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the dead
girl. I see no reason to conceal that, either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration, how ought I
to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had proved
the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking and exact; but how
long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate
position, still he held a most important trust, and would I (for
instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to
execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous
in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors in the
company, without first being plain with himself and proposing a
middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him
(otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest medical
practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his opinion.
A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had
apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on
again soon after sunset. I had appointed to return accordingly.

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it.
The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path near the
top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to
myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be
time to go to my signal-man's box.

Before pursuing my stroll I stepped to the brink and mechanically
looked down from the point from which I had first seen him. I cannot
describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of
the tunnel I saw the appearance of a man with his left sleeve across
his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a
moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and that
there was a little group of other men standing at a short distance to
whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The danger-light
was not yet lighted. Against its shaft a little low hut, entirely new
to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked
no bigger than a bed.

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong--with a flashing
self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my leaving the
man here and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he
did--I descended the notched path with all the speed I could make.

"What is the matter?" I asked the men.

"Signal-man killed this morning, sir."

"Not the man belonging to that box?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not the man I know?"

"You will recognize him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who spoke
for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head and raising an end of
the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."

"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning from
one to another as the hut closed in again.

"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work
better, but somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. It was just at
broad day. He had struck the light and had the lamp in his hand. As
the engine came out of the tunnel his back was towards her and she cut
him down. That man drove her and was showing how it happened. Show the
gentleman, Tom."

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former place
at the mouth of the tunnel:

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him at
the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective glass. There was no
time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn't
seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running
down upon him and called to him as loud as I could call."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Below there! Look out! Look out! For God's sake, clear the
way!"

I started.

"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. I
put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to the
last; but it was no use."

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious
circumstances more than any other, I may, in closing it, point out the
coincidence that the warning of the engine driver included not only the
words which the unfortunate signal-man had repeated to me as haunting
him, but also the words which I myself--not he--had attached, and that
only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had imitated.

                                                     --Charles Dickens.


="Like a Thief in the Night"=

"How many more days of this miserable tramping have we before us,
Ivan?" It was a rough voice that spoke--a voice hardened with
bitterness and hatred.

"But four days more, Peter, and then the railroad. There lies Mansk
below us, and it is not far from Mansk to Vilna, not even by such a
detour as we must make."

Peter paused again in his eating and looking out from their woodland
hiding-place toward the scraggly village, asked doubtingly, "You are
sure they will not fail us? For I swear, Ivan, I'll walk no further
than Vilna."

Ivan twisted his scarred lips into a semblance of a smile. "The
brotherhood never fail," he said. "And now that we have finished our
supper, we may rest for the night, eh, Lev?" The speaker, who showed
evidences of association with the upper classes, turned to the young
Jewish lad sprawled beside him on the mouldy ground. The boy was
laboriously spelling out words in a greasy, dog-eared tract which he
tried to conceal when he saw Ivan's eyes upon him.

"Hello," exclaimed the nihilist fanatic, "what have we here?" He
took the grimy pamphlet from the likewise grimy hands of the youth.
"Ho-ho," he laughed boisterously, for once forgetting that sometimes
even trees have ears. "Ho-ho! a merry jest, indeed! Lev reading up on
transmigration! Did you think to become learned, you pitiable young
dog? Have you not had meted out to you the full amount of education
allowed you miserable Jews? What can you understand of such things as
these? Ho-ho! yes, a joke indeed!"

The boy gulped. His narrow nostrils widened, and the corners of his
sensitive mouth twitched. "I know I don't know much, Ivan. I found it
on the way and kept it, for it helps sometimes, wh-when I wish I hadn't
come."

"Ho-ho," laughed Ivan again. "When he wishes he hadn't come! As if
he could have helped coming! Where, indeed, could the brotherhood
have found a more innocent-looking hiding-place for their papers?
But there, Lev, you shall have your thesis, since you feel the need
of amusement, you precious infant. And, Peter, perhaps you will rest
more peacefully when I tell you that Loris Pleschivna, that government
spy-cat--" here Ivan paused to observe the interest which he knew that
this name would create, while Lev, frightened, glanced backward--"was
shot two weeks ago," finished the narrator, impressively.

Peter's yellow face showed great relief, but the boy whitened. "Well,
Lev, are you not glad! Or perhaps, mighty philosopher, you think that
his soul will come and steal the papers while you keep watch to-night,
eh?" And Ivan grinned--a hideous, tooth-displaying grin. But Lev only
shivered and looked around at the darkness.

The night, one of those dear nights whose very paleness intensifies the
shadows and pictures the ghosts of the past to the guilty mind, had
fallen. The two older men rolled themselves in blankets and went to
sleep without delay.

The young Jew sat alone, waiting for morning. For hours he remained
in the same position, his hands over his eyes that he might not see;
but his ears were alert to the slightest suggestion of sound. In
those weary minutes he lived over the scanty pleasures and the great
tribulations of his life, the joyless life of the persecuted Polish
Jew. The crackling of a dry leaf nearby aroused him. He looked up
quickly, apprehensively. A long wailing howl came from somewhere in
the darkness. Lev stiffened, staring into the shadows before him. From
a clump of bushes directly opposite peered two weird green eyes. The
lad's lower lip sagged loosely. As the strange eyes approached he
unconsciously moaned. Ivan and Peter stirred. Suddenly Ivan jumped up.
"Lev, Lev, what is it?" But the boy sat rigid. Ivan also looked at
the green eyes in the underbrush. Then he laughed, laughed long and
heartily. "Did you think it was a soul, Lev? A dog, and you afraid!
Perhaps it is a soulful dog." Ivan had sufficient culture not to laugh
at his own joke, but he waited for Peter's appreciation and Peter gave
it. Lev's only reply was to draw his hand across his brow. The palm
came down damp and clammy. "But it is just as well," went on Ivan,
"that we are awake, for it will soon be daylight, and we had best be
moving."

In five minutes the trio were on their watchful way to skirt the little
village of Mansk. The trio, did I say? No, the quartet, I meant,
for two men, one with misshapen lips, the other with decided Jewish
features, went ahead; and close behind them walked a leathery visaged
man, who had for a companion a scraggly half-starved cur, with ghastly
green eyes. Occasionally the Jew turned, and, looking into those
green eyes, shivered. "Well," said Ivan, "perhaps it is the soul of
Pleschivna, eh?" In answer the dog whimpered. "It may be," said the
Jew, stupidly, "it may be," and he shivered again.

The cold was of the damp clinging sort, against which no amount of
clothing can protect one. The three men on the tree-covered hill
overlooking the thatched brown cottages of Mansk, drew up their coat
collars and shivered. They had turned back and were seeking for
something. The scrawny green-eyed dog with them whined a low whine like
a human moan.

"Curse the dog!" exclaimed one vagabond in a rasping voice. "I'll have
him following us no longer with his ghostly howls. And I tell you,
Ivan, it is useless to go back further, for Lev had the papers when we
were here before."

"Yes, curse the dog," returned the man with the ever-grinning mouth.
"Curse him, of course; and since you feel such deep affection for him,
why not present him with one of those tablets meant for Pleschivna's
palate? Perhaps they would even so fulfill their intended purpose. What
say you, Lev?"

The dull-eyed Jewish lad stared at the dog as if fascinated. "It may
be," he said and shivered again. It was, indeed, a very cold night.

"Well, and the papers?" Peter impatiently queried.

"I say, then, it is useless to go forward to Vilna without them. We
must search about here. Perhaps Lev has an opinion." But Lev was
thinking only of a much-thumbed philosophical tract in his pocket. "Or,
perhaps, learned theosophist, you believe that the dog has taken them.
You could not tell us somewhat of them yourself, could you, Lev?"

"Lev! Why, he's afraid of his own shadow! He would not dare to tell a
lie, not even to himself," Peter scoffed.

Again the dog whimpered. He went up to Lev and licked the boy's hand.
Ivan watched the performance interestedly. "None the less," he said,
"the dog shall have his dose; and that right now. He follows us about
like an evil spirit." The men disposed themselves as on the evening
before.

How Lev had prayed for the night! And now that his prayer was answered,
how he stared into the thick, solid blackness and longed for the grey
light of morning! With straining ears he listened to the midnight
stillness. He had not even thought of sleep. If only he could rid
himself of that dullness or could concentrate his thoughts!

A figure broke through the bushes. "Ivan, Ivan!" came Peter's voice.
"Ivan, wake up!" Ivan roused himself. "Well, Peter, why do you create
such a disturbance?" Ivan's speech was pettish, though still husky
from interrupted sleep. "Ivan, I got up and gave the dog the dose, as
you said. He slunk off into the woods. I followed. I don't know why.
It was almost midnight when he gave a sharp cry and dropped. I swear I
had never lost sight of him for an instant. I went up to look. He was
dead. And, Ivan, from his very mouth I took--the papers!" Peter waxed
triumphantly dramatic, his every low-spoken word sounding in Lev's ears
with the loudness of a tribal war-whoop. After much fumbling in the
darkness he placed in Ivan's hands a slightly torn packet.

"A light!" Ivan spoke tersely.

Peter struck a light. Trembling, Ivan spread out the documents. A
gruesome, unearthly howl, like the triumphant screech of a resentful
soul came to them through the blackness. With an awful oath Ivan turned
to Peter. "The signatures, you ignoramus, you imbecile!" he cried,
pointing to the ragged holes in the papers. "They are gone!"

And Lev shivered, for the night was very cold.

                                                   --Dorothea Knobloch.


II. The Story That Emphasizes Character and Environment.

[Rudyard Kipling]

The large number of Kipling's stories could not have been written
outside India, or at least the Orient. They are of the East eastern.
"Without Benefit of Clergy," "Muhammad Din," "The Gate of the Hundred
Sorrows," "The Man Who Would Be King"--the very names conjure up the
environment. They do more than that; they almost tell the story.
Before he began to write, Kipling knew thoroughly his adopted literary
land; in the same way all successful writers must know theirs if
they mean to reveal the influence of surroundings on character, if
they mean to give, as many writers do, a miniature of the locality
in each sketch. To read one of Mary E. Wilkins's stories is to catch
the flavor of all New England. Her nun is indeed a New England
nun. Nowhere else do people keep house quite so; but in scores of
Massachusetts and Connecticut homes the women, married and single,
are 'that partic'lar'--or nearly as particular as Louisa Ellis. But
wait a minute! [Mary E. Wilkins Freeman] If there are tens of women
like Louisa Ellis, wherein comes the story? Why, do you not see?--just
in the plus, the superfluity of New Englandishness that there is in
Louisa. It is the breadth of that more-so that gave Miss Wilkins her
twenty-four stories in the same book, and others outside it. And here
is the point: in this kind of story, your writer must know his locality
so well that the sameness of the people has a difference in each family
and in each member of that family. In other words, his characters must
be persons, not figureheads; they may be types, it is true, but they
must have the soul of individuality breathed into them. For instance,
in this one collection of stories Miss Wilkins has two Louisas, and
they both are typically of New England, they both have suitors, and
they both are averse to marriage; moreover, each slight course of
events is built on the impulse of the woman to avoid matrimony. But
here the likeness ends; for the women are individuals, and the lovers
are different from each other. The character-drawing of these two
stories is a daring attempt on the part of the author, but it is a
remarkably successful one.

[Hamlin Garland]

Hamlin Garland has been almost as successful with his middle Northwest
as Miss Wilkins has with her New England. His stories can not be called
quaint, as hers can, nor sweet exactly; but they can be said to be as
graphic, faithful, straightforward, homely, and to have been compiled
with as patient and sympathetic an observation--not so minute, but as
unerring. They are freer, bolder, more like the country he portrays.
With Mr. Garland perhaps we have more of the out-of-doors, literal
country, the black soil into which the people's lives are ploughed
and from which they come out again sometimes at the top of the corn
tassel. With Miss Wilkins the country is more that country not built
with hands, eternal in characteristics. Of both writers the work is
great work, and you can not go astray in taking either for your model.
"Up the Coolly" is a remarkable tragedy--for tragedy it is. "The Return
of the Private" is all too pathetically true. "Among the Corn Rows" is
startlingly realistic, and "A Branch Road"--well, doubtless people
have varying opinions about the usefulness of such pictures, but nobody
can gainsay the excellence of the craftsmanship.

[Bret Harte]

In a somewhat different way, with just as much realism maybe, but
surely with a large dash of romance, Bret Harte pre-empted California
as a literary land two decades before these younger writers staked
out their claims. "Tennessee's Partner" and "The Outcasts of Poker
Flat" are perfect in their way, and their way is this way: the
place-character narrative.

[Suggestions and precautions]

To write such a narrative, you must have vividly and accurately in mind
your selected environment. It is to form the color of your picture.
If you do not think you know thus intimately any locality, open your
eyes. The beautiful fact about living is, that we all always live
somewhere, and that same somewhere is full of a number of things, and
of nothing more surely than of local color. It is your business as a
writer to add this color constantly to your stories; but the best way
to proceed is not to attempt to spread it on from the outside, but to
let it shine through from within. To be sure, it must be on the valleys
and hills, the streets and the houses and the window curtains; but it
must also be in the speech of your peoples, in their notions, their
attitude toward each other and toward the great and little questions
of human relationship. Besides knowing the environment, you must
know indisputably some individuals of the place. You can not draw a
life-like sketch from an abstraction. The canvas painters have taught
us that truth, and so have the sculptors. For every figure they have
a living model. They must know where the bones and sinews are, even if
they mean to etherealize. So must you, and you have a harder problem;
your figure must speak. One false tone, and you mar the impression.
Mary E. Wilkins, excellent artist that she is, has impaired one of her
strongest stories, "The Revolt of Mother," by a lapse of art in respect
to two of her characters. The girl and boy are not old enough for the
age the author intimates; or what she says that they are is too old for
what they prove that they are when they speak and when they keep silent
even,--especially the girl. Moreover, we feel that the mother is ten or
fifteen years younger, than the age given her. These are minor points,
one admits, and, as we say, the story is excellent; but in so far as
it fails in little ways it is not superfine, though one of the most
lovable and dramatic, of Miss Wilkins's productions. In art you must
not make this mistake; it is no answer to assert that in life the woman
was sixty and the boy and girl fourteen and twenty. On the basis of the
character-drawing the woman is forty-five or fifty and the children
are twins, less than sixteen years old. In other words, a realist
that is an artist as well selects not only what is true but also what
will immediately without argument seem true. Miss Wilkins usually is
convincing.

In addition to an unmistakably clear knowledge of place and
personality, you must know both local dialect and family vernacular.
The various individuals of your sketch, if they happen to belong to the
same household, must speak as if they so belonged. In actual life when
you converse with a company of persons, you can pick out two members
of the same family as readily as you can pick out two members of the
same community. Your character-narrative must reveal this likeness, not
by declaration especially, but by a subtle unity of vocabulary that
does not at the same time preclude individuality.

[The character Overbury and Hall]

The writers of this kind of short-story owe much to the past. We are
inclined to think of quiet and truthful character sketchers, who
reveal an appreciative knowledge of the influence of environment, as
distinctly a late nineteenth century brotherhood; but the fact is
that while moderate realism is undoubtedly the last artistic word on
the subject of effective character-revelation, it is also the first.
The modern novel of manners (and the artistic short-story of the same
class as an offshoot of it) drew from a full stream of realism. As far
back as the age of Overbury and Bishop Hall the public was interested
in prose character-sketches. The fact that essays could have such
names as "The Tinker" and "The Milkmaid" was a promise of the light
of common day. Then the gentle de Coverley papers came on with their
slight narrative and continued portrait, their delightful skits on
class environment and tradition; [The novel of manners] then, Tristram
Shandy's frank shamelessness about familiar things; then the Vicar of
Wakefield's struggling poverty; and finally the women entered--Evelina,
Belinda, Emma, Mary Barton, and the gentle ladies of Cranford, bringing
with them the tea-table and the trials of the parlor and of factory
life. The only thing that was needed to make the archetype complete
by the middle of the nineteenth century was for some one to take
persistently the same large yet specific environment. [Trollope's
Cathedral Town Studies] Anthony Trollope did so in his Cathedral Town
Studies. What ran parallel for a time with the novel of manners, but
had a later and fuller development, is the psychological problem novel,
begun by Richardson and Fielding and handed over to the late nineteenth
century writers by Charlotte Brontë. This psychological problem novel
bears the same relation to the novel of manners as the character-events
short-story bears to the character-environment one.

You doubtless realize, as every one realizes, that a good short-story
is hard to write, but in the hardness comes the inspiration. If you
succeed, you have scored a triumph. But for your comfort, be assured
that the possibility is not beyond even a high-school student. The
attempt in very instructive at least.

Remember that you are not writing a biography, but a place-character
narrative in the short-story form. You are not called on to record
every incident in the life of your subject or even every important
incident. The happenings may all be minor, in fact. The only essential
thing is that you reveal the indissoluble connection between
environment and characteristics. The person is what he is because he
has lived at that place with those habitual surroundings.

There is this precaution, however, that you must take; you must not
let your narrative degenerate into a mere analysis and enumeration of
qualities. You are to write a story. And to write a story you must
have a happening or a series of happenings, however mild. Usually one
of these should be of more importance than the others, and the others
should be related to it as subordinates, in order that the effect may
be single. Any part of the life of your people that lies behind the day
of your revelation, if mentioned at all, should be told in retrospect;
whatever lies ahead, if mentioned at all, can be only prophecy. And,
finally, here is a little secret, an open one among artists, but one
shut away from the herd of common scribblers; what you do not tell but
only skilfully suggest is what makes for excellence and immortality.


=The Story of Muhammad Din=

    "Who is the happy man? He that sees in his own house at home,
    little children crowned with dust, leaping and falling and
    crying."--_Munichandra_, translated by Professor Peterson.

The polo ball was an old one, scarred, chipped and dinted. It stood on
the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Iman Din, _khitmatgar_, was
cleaning for me.

"Does the heaven-born want this ball?" said Imam Din, deferentially.

The heaven-born set no particular store by it; but of what use was a
polo ball to a _khitmatgar_?

"By your honour's favour, I have a little son. He has seen this ball
and desires it to play with. I do not want it for myself."

No one would for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting
to play with polo balls. He carried out the battered thing into the
veranda, and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter
of small feet, and the _thud-thud-thud_ of the ball rolling along the
ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door to
secure his treasure. But how had he managed to see that polo ball?

Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual, I
was aware of a small figure in the dining-room--a tiny, plump figure
in a ridiculously inadequate shirt, which came, perhaps, half way down
the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, crooning
to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was the
"little son."

He had-no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed in
his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I stepped into
the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat down on the ground
with a gasp. His eyes opened and his mouth followed suit. I knew what
was coming and fled, followed by a long, dry howl which reached the
servants' quarters far more quickly than any command of mine had ever
done. In ten seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. Then despairing
sobs arose, and I returned to find Imam Din admonishing the small
sinner, who was using most of his shirt as a handkerchief.

"This boy," said Imam Din, judiciously, "is a _budmash_--a big
_budmash_. He will, without doubt, go to the _jail-khana_ for his
behaviour." Renewed yells from the penitent, and an elaborate apology
to myself from Imam Din.

"Tell the baby," I said, "that the _Sahib_ is not angry and take him
away." Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who had
now gathered all his shirt round his neck, stringwise, and the yell
subsided into a sob. The two set off for the door. "His name," said
Imam Din, as though the name were part of the crime, "is Muhammad Din,
and he is a _budmash_." Freed from present danger, Muhammad Din turned
round in his father's arms and said gravely, "It is true that my name
is Muhammad Din, _Tahib_, but I am not a _budmash_. I am a man!"

From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again did
he come into my dining-room; but on the neutral ground of the garden
we greeted each other with much state, though our conversation was
confined to "_Talaam, Tahib_" from his side, and "_Salaam, Muhammad
Din_" from mine. Daily on my return from office the little white
shirt and the fat little body used to rise, from the shade of the
creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid, and daily I checked
my horse there that my salutation might not be slurred over or given
unseemly.

Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the
compound, in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands
of his own. One day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down
the grounds. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six
shriveled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. Outside that
circle again was a rude square, traced out in its bits of red brick
alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a
little bank of dust. The water-man from the well-curb put in a plea for
the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did
not much disfigure my garden.

Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child's work
then or later; but that evening a stroll through the garden brought
me unawares full on it, so that I trampled, before I knew, marigold
heads, dust bank and fragments of broken soap-dish into confusion past
all hope of mending. Next morning I came upon Muhammad Din crying
softly to himself over the ruin I had wrought. Some one had cruelly
told him that the _Sahib_ was very angry with him for spoiling the
garden, and he had scattered his rubbish, using bad language the
while. Muhammad Din laboured for an hour at effacing every trace of
the dust-bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful and
apologetic fact that he said, "_Talaam, Tahib_," when I came home
from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad
Din that, by my singular favour, he was permitted to disport himself
as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the
ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse the marigold-polo-ball
creation.

For some months the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his humble
orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fashioning
magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the bearer,
smooth water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers pulled, I
fancy, from my fowls--always alone, and always crooning to himself

A gaily spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close to the last of
his little buildings, and I looked that Muhammad Din should build
something more than ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor was
I disappointed. He meditated for the better part of an hour, and his
crooning rose to a jubilant song. Then he began tracing in the dust.
It would certainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was two
yards long and a yard broad in ground-plan. But the palace was never
completed.

Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of the carriage-drive,
and no "_Talaam, Tahib_" to welcome my return. I had grown accustomed
to the greeting, and its omission troubled me. Next day Imam Din told
me that the child was suffering slightly from fever and needed quinine.
He got the medicine, and an English doctor.

"They have no stamina, these brats," said the doctor, as he left Imam
Din's quarters.

A week later, though I would have given much to have avoided it, I met
on the road to the Mussulman burying-ground Imam Din, accompanied by
one other friend, carrying in his arms, wrapped in a white cloth, all
that was left of little Muhammad Din.

                                                     --Rudyard Kipling.

    "Plain Tales from the Hills." (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907.)


=The Fetters=

The cool maples rustled temptingly before the open kitchen window, and
seemed to mock the busy worker within. Flies buzzed at the screen,
door, and at intervals found entrance through sundry gaps in the
rusty screening. Inside there was the endless clatter of dishes, the
hissing sound of frying meat, and occasionally a sharp exclamation in a
nervous, high-pitched voice. The owner of the voice, a woman of about
thirty-five, was walking busily around the kitchen. A soiled gingham
apron nearly covered a worn gray skirt, and several large safety-pins
held her waist together over her flat chest. Premature wrinkles
hardened her eyes and mouth. Her hair drawn back over a high, bony
forehead, was twisted into an untidy little knot at the back of her
head. On each of her cheeks, just below the bone, came and went bright
spots of color--the only color about her, for her hair had no glints of
light and her apathetic blue eyes seemed absolutely devoid of luster.

As she hastened back and forth, opening the oven door, setting the
table, inspecting the contents of various kettles steaming on the big
stove, she still found time to throw a glance, now and then, out to
the rickety porch, where a pale-faced little girl sat in an old red
porch-chair. The child's big eyes, startlingly prominent in her wan
face, followed the woman, and, when the latter looked at her, a sudden
smile would curve the straight little lips. But at times she would look
away from the kitchen out beyond to the wheat-fields, gleaming yellow
in the August sun--and still farther to the cool green woods, with the
hard blue sky above them. Then the child would sigh, and her face would
grow wondering and anxious, as she turned back again and smiled at the
woman in the kitchen--a curious, wistful, unchildlike smile. On the
step beside her lay a worn little home-made crutch.

"Here come the men-folks, mother," the child exclaimed suddenly. Her
mother came to the door, and shading her eyes with her apron, peered up
the dusty lane. Then she went back to the house and hurriedly finished
setting the table. The heavy plates and cups were hardly in place on
the red-checked cloth before the men came clattering up the walk and up
the porch. Most of them had a smile for the pale little girl in the
chair, and one had brought her a bunch of red field-poppies, already
half withered, in his big hand. The child took them eagerly, laying
their vivid petals lovingly against her pale cheek. The rest of the men
filed past with a grin or a roughly tender, word--all but the last. He
came up the steps, his forehead wrinkled in a scowl evidently habitual,
his mouth hard, his eyes deep-set and forbidding. He did not even
notice the child, and she shrank back in her chair, her lip trembling,
her eyes wide with fear.

"Dinner near ready, Jane?" he demanded in a gruff tone. Jane gave a
brief little nod and hurried on with the rest of the preparations.
Rough laughter, scraping of boots, loud clattering of knives on plates,
and a continual demand for replenishment, followed the course of the
dinner. Jane sat wearily, but her plateful of cabbage and pork lay
untasted before her. Out on the porch the little girl sipped a glass of
milk and watched the cool dimness of the distant woods.

The men pushed back their chairs, wiped their mouths with the backs
of their brown hands, and hurried away to the fields. Jane's husband
stopped for a moment to mend a rip in his boot. It was a difficult rip
to mend and his temper was soon exhausted.

"Why don't ye learn that white-faced brat out there to work!" he
stormed, "us short o' hands an' her less good than none at all--an'
a nuisance to boot." Jane suddenly turned and let a saucer fall. Her
lips were compressed for a moment, then she went down on one knee and
carefully picked up the fragments of china.

"What a snap ye've got, next to what brother Dan's wife had," Jim went
surlily on. "Dan made her go out an' tend his grapes, while all ye've
got to do is cook a little and wash up--an' ye act as if ye was worked
hard. Dan's wife never kicked--she'd be'n sorry if she had," and he
gave a hard dry laugh in appreciation of his own humor.

But Jane did not hear this last remark; she was thinking of her
brother-in-law's wife, a frail little woman whose life had been made up
of pruning grapevines or cutting grapes, working side by side with the
Italian women whom her husband hired, working harder than any of them
did, too, and for far less recompense. She remembered how angry Dan
had been because his wife had appeared one afternoon in a shirt-waist,
instead of the usual wrapper. It was a clumsy, cheap, ill-made thing,
but Margaret's eyes had danced when Jane came to see her that day.
And she remembered how Dan had come in and declared he wanted no
high-falutin' things around his house; that he had married to get some
one to work for him, not for a parlor ornament. Poor little Margaret!
How her thin cheeks had flushed and her timid eyes filled with tears!
But she died not long after--Jane gave a half-envious sigh.

"Goin' to stand there all day lookin' at nothin'?" a gruff voice
asked suddenly, and she started. The knife with which she had been
peeling potatoes to fry for supper, slipped and cut her finger. She
went over to the sink and wiped away the red streak, while her husband
shufflingly made his exit, grumbling to himself over the foolishness of
ever bothering with such a useless baggage as a woman. On the porch he
stumbled over the little crutch and kicked it aside with an oath.

The afternoon wore away slowly. Little Meg slept on her cot upstairs,
her cheeks hot and damp, her arms flung wide in the weariness of
childhood. Jane sewed steadily at a heap of burlap grain bags,
until the sun went down in a riot of yellow and crimson behind the
trees. Jane put away her sewing, gently woke Meg, and prepared to go
downstairs to get supper ready. She stopped to look at the sunset
before she went down. Along the road beyond came the rattle of wheels;
a buggy passed in which sat a woman in solitary state. A striped silk
dress enveloped her ample person, a hat with nodding red roses and a
broad white brim shaded a pair of stupid, comfortable eyes, and cast
its shadow over a mouth that fairly sagged with good humor and good
living. Her fat hands, lying idly in her lap and holding the reins
loosely, were pulled back and forth by the jogging brown horse. Jane
recognized in the woman Mrs. Petersen, her nearest neighbor, and
half hungrily surmised that she was returning home from a meeting of
the "Tuesday Social Club." The buggy leisurely passed the house and
disappeared along the dusty lane.

Suddenly, in one rush of emotion, the whole barrenness of Jane's lot
came over her. She thought of the long days filled with unceasing
labor--the dull, gray days that stretched endlessly behind her and
yet more endlessly before her. Her life seemed one wearying round of
dish-washing and cooking, of going to bed utterly worn out and of
rising next morning just as tired as she had been the night before. She
felt a terrible grudge rise in her against her husband--and she allowed
this grudge now to fill her soul completely, instead of crushing out
such feelings as she had hitherto done. Why had he never helped her
to have a good time as other women had? Why had he forgotten that she
was a woman and fond of dainty things? She thought of the stern young
fellow who had courted her when she was a girl--so very long ago that
was. And how she had married him, and how proud she had been of him,
and how she had boasted of his thrift to all her neighbors. And then
she remembered how sternness which she admired in the youth had changed
into surliness in the man; how gradually--little by little--she had
lost hope--she who had hoped for so much and had had to little given
her. On her, and on her alone, the brunt of all his displeasure and of
all his wrath had fallen.

Then suddenly her face cleared; as she heard a sleepy yawn from the
bed; little Meg lay watching her, her sleep-filled eyes smiling their
same brave smile. At least, Jane thought, she had Meg--and Dan's wife
had not even had a Meg. Dan's wife had never known the sweetness of
clinging hands and the comfort of damp baby kisses. So even for her,
life still held compensation. She looked out at the west where the
riotous reds had now faded to soft rose and gray. The outlines of the
woods were softened and the nodding tree-tops seemed beckoning her to
come away with them. Almost involuntarily the woman stretched out her
hands towards the trees, and her hungry eyes filled with tears. Perhaps
some day, when little Meg became stronger--perhaps some day they
two--just they--might go away somewhere, together--somewhere where the
world was all soft rose and gray, where there were no endless days of
toil, no angry voice, nothing but peace. Then perhaps Meg would--

"Jane," a rough voice broke in on her musings, "fer God's sake, woman,
what ails ye? Seven o'clock an' no bite to eat ready!"

Jane hurriedly rose from the window. For the first time in her life she
had let her day-dreams really make her forget her dull, common-place
world. She stopped to smooth Meg's moist curls, and ran downstairs.
There at the foot stood her husband, a whole day's displeasure frowning
forth in his face, an angry light in his eyes.

"I know it's late, Jim--it's too bad," Jane faltered, "but you never
had to wait before. I was busy--I was thinking--I--"

"Busy!" he sneered. "Busy! Settin' down doin' nothin' but hushin' that
blamed brat. Let her alone. She ain't only a nuisance anyhow--spend yer
time on something worth while."

Half unconsciously Jane looked at her hands; the forefinger of the
right was rough and needle-pricked, and her hands were red and raw
from much dish-washing and cleaning. She thought to herself how often
she longed to caress little Meg, to hug her and rock her for a whole
afternoon, to love, love, love her to her heart's content--but she had
never found time. Then her husband's last cutting words came back to
her. She took a step forward, the suffering of years in her face. The
red spots on her cheeks were very red now. "Can I help it," she gasped,
"that my baby is a puny little thing? Is it my fault? What care has she
ever had, excepting what I have been able to steal for her? If you were
a man like other men--not a brute--then perhaps you would understand!"
She clinched her hand and looked defiantly up into his face.

Jim stood still for a moment, astonished at the outburst from his meek
wife. Then his quick anger blazed up, and, lifting his big hand, he
struck Jane full in the face. She fell back against the stairway, her
face white, save for the red spots which were livid now. Her eyes, were
full of tears from the force of the blow. She heard Jim's voice from a
distance.

"No use waitin' here forever," he grumbled. "I'll go to Reynold's an'
get a bite; his wife'll probably have it waitin'." And she saw him turn
to the door along which Meg just came tapping. The child hurried to get
out of his way. Jim slouched heavily through the room, and out of the
house, his big boots creaking as he went.

Jane sat down on the step. Her head ached from the force of the blow.
She felt dazed with the suddenness of everything. Little Meg came and
sat down beside her, patting Jane's rough hand with her soft palm to
attract her attention; then she settled down quietly beside her, her
bright head leaning on her mother's apron. Darkness came, but Jane did
not stir. Meg had gone to sleep.

Suddenly the crutch beside them slipped and rattled against the wall.
Meg woke and cried out with fright. Jane absently took the child in her
arms and tried to soothe her, but Meg was thoroughly frightened and
refused to be comforted. At length she was quiet and Jane carried her
to bed. In a few moments, her baby-fear forgotten, she was again fast
asleep. Jane went over to the window and crouched there, bitterness
in her heart. Over in the west the shadowy outlines of the trees
looked mysterious, aloof, unsympathetic; so did the cold white stars
over them. Sympathy seemed to have gone out of everything in the whole
world. And Jane leaned heavily on the sill and thought.

For a long time she sat there, until she heard Meg stir restlessly on
the bed. Then she rose and looked mechanically towards the Reynolds
house. A bright light burned in a lower room, so she knew that her
husband was still there, talking over the day's affairs with Farmer
Reynolds. Her husband! She felt a sudden shrinking at the mere word.
She decided that she hated him, she knew that she hated him, with
the pent-up hatred of years. And she shuddered when she thought of
to-morrow and the next to-morrow, and all the dull to-morrows that
would have to come--and he must be in them all; that was the thought
which made her sick and faint. She lay down on the bed beside Meg,
merely loosening her waist and uncoiling her hair. Physical weariness
brought a dreamless sleep. She woke with a start, after a sleep
that seemed to have lasted for centuries. There was strange noises
downstairs--gruff, muffled voices, queer shuffling as of heavy boots,
and then a sudden scraping against the outer door. With a quick
unreasoning fear at her heart, Jane flew down the stairs and out into
the kitchen. Some one had lighted the oil lamp there. Her eyes saw at
first only a blurred group before her. Her vision cleared gradually,
until the blur resolved itself into four men, with alarmed, puzzled
faces, who were carrying several boards on which lay something covered
with a big coat. Jane held her breath, while the men looked sheepishly
at one another. Then she ran to the heap, lifted the coat, and looked
down at her husband. His face was hard and set, the jaw projecting; but
the usual sneer was gone from his mouth, and his closed eyes gave him
an expression of peace. Jane dropped the coat as if dazed and turned
helplessly to the men. They, equally helpless, nudged Farmer Reynolds
forward to act as spokesman. His big, kindly face was abashed and
solemn, his fingers nervously twirled his rough cap.

"It was a stroke, mum," he managed to jerk out at last, "some kind of
a fit, Doc says. It carried him right, off, too, quicker'n a wink,
an' not a mite o' pain. There he was a-sittin' an' scrappin' like
a good feller one minute--an' then his face kind o' went pale, an'
over he keeled. First we knew it was him on the floor, clean knocked
out." Reynolds was becoming garrulous in his efforts to relieve the
embarrassment of the situation, but Jane had already forgotten him.
They had laid Jim on the floor and Jane sat down beside him, carefully
adjusting his tumbled coat and smoothing the rough hair off his low
forehead. She did it all in a calm and matter-of-fact way. The men
looked helplessly at one another, while Jane, utterly unconscious of
them, continued her ministrations to the dead. Was it a few hours ago
or was it many years ago that she had vowed never to call him husband
again? She had forgotten--after all, it didn't matter. Nothing really
mattered now.

Suddenly there came a tapping down the steps. The stair door was pushed
open, and a towsled, barefooted, night-gowned little figure appeared on
the threshold. "Mother," Meg quivered, "where are you?" When she saw
her mother, she made straight for her, almost tumbling over the crutch
in her haste. She threw her arms, lovingly around her mother's neck.
Jane started--the queer, dazed look left her eyes, though her cheeks
were still pale, save for one long red mark. With a little sob she
turned, crushed the child to her, and began to cry.

"Oh, but we did love him, Meg, didn't we?" she sobbed. "And he was good
to us, just as good as he knew how to be. Oh, Meg, Meg, if I had only
been a better wife to him!"

                                                      --Katherine Kurz.


=When Terry "Quit"=

"Gad! and to think, Jim, that I ever lived on Front street!" The
frock-coated, silk-hatted stage manager removed the big black cigar
from his mouth, and with a pudgy little finger, on which sparkled
a blue diamond of unusual size, he flicked away the ashes. "Though
it really was a rather decent sort of a place then, you know." He
addressed his companion, a press-agent, first, however, carefully
readjusting the cigar so that it should be at such an angle to his lips
as to suggest sportiness.

Now, the south side of the thoroughfare just mentioned consists chiefly
of warehouses and saloons, the north side chiefly of saloons and
pawnshops. On summer days the street squirms with chickens, bulldogs
and babies; but on the warm evenings, when the pawnshops and the
warehouses are closed, when the saloons are doing a lucrative business,
then the chickens roost on the back fences, the bulldogs doze lazily
on the stone flaggings, and in the stuffy little sleeping apartments
above the saloons the children of the saloon-keepers dream of the envy
which, by means of delicious chili-sauce sandwiches, they will create
the next day among the children of the pawnbrokers.

The two men were now approaching the most prosperous saloon in the
street. Streams of light, coming from both above and below the
little green baize door, shone on a swinging signboard. "Tim Dugan's
Café," the gilt letters informed any who were unacquainted with the
neighborhood. Boorish men could be heard calling jocularly for more
beer, and the constant slamming of the cash drawer mingled with the
clinking of heavy glasses.

"A song! It's time fer a chune!" called a raucous voice.

"Aha, yer right there, it's Terry fer us," acquiesced one of the crowd.

"Terry! Terry! it's oop on the table fer ye, Terry." The cry was
accompanied by much loud laughter and the shuffling of heavy boots.
Labor-hardened hands clapped approval, and then for a moment there was
silence.

"'A sailor's wife a sailor's star shall be.'"

The sweet, though untrained tenor voice, rang high and clear.

"'Yo-ho-oh, boyoys, ho--'"

The two fashionably dressed men stopped in front of the short door.

"Jove! what a voice!" the manager breathed.

"'A long, long life to my sweet wife!'"

No sound interrupted the ringing sailor ballad.

"Let's go in and have a drink," suggested the press-agent, when the
song was finished.

As unobtrusively as possible the two men entered.

"More! more!" the appreciative, if unschooled, audience was demanding,
and in the clatter of applause the strangers were unnoticed.

"'I have come to say good-bye, Dolly Grey.'"

The then new popular song thrilled the listeners with its martial
rhythm, as the plaintive cadences of the beautiful voice rang in their
ears.

"'Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you.'"

The singer's glance fell on the new listeners. His merry eyes wavered
and his face flushed until it became as red as his curly hair. He
stopped short in the chorus.

"I guess it's me that's been yowling anough fer tunight, byes," he
mumbled, as he climbed down from the table and, sliding behind the
counter, donned the white apron which proclaimed him a bartender.

"Wy, Terry, wat's the matter wit ye? We got a have one more afore ye
quit."

But Terry shook his head vigorously in an emphatic "no," as he rapidly
cleaned the thick glasses.

The two men from the world of dazzling footlights ordered drinks, paid
doubly for them, made a bluff at enjoying the poor liquor, and then
quietly left the _café_, and continued their walk past the warehouses,
pawnshops and saloons of Front street.

The next morning, when the heavy wagons were rattling over the
cobble-stones of the narrow, dirty thoroughfare, and the children of
the pawnbrokers were engaged in throwing "spit-balls" at the children
of the saloon-keepers, "Tim Dugan's Café" was for the second time
honored with the entrance of the stage-manager of the minstrel show
which was to be in town the next week. This potentate had come on ahead
of his company to adjust some little difficulty with the play-house
owners, and now that that business had been settled, another matter of
importance presented itself: the tenor soloist, no longer in his prime,
had left.

The manager sauntered up to the bar, rested his right elbow on the
marble slab, settled his "silk" hat more comfortably on his head,
shoved his left hand deep into his trousers' pocket--whereupon an
attractive chinking sound could be heard--and crossed his gaitered feet.

"One," he announced, and the ruddy-haired Irish lad, who had been busy
washing glasses, quickly, deftly, filled a mug with frothy beer.

"Ahem!" The manager puffed up his heavy chest and leaned both elbows on
the bar.

Then, ensued a whispered dialogue, during which Terry Flynn's laughing
eyes alternately grew round with wonder and twinkled with pleasure.

"Sorry!" gasped the bartender at last, "not a bit of it. Ye cin bet yer
shiny, boots, an' it's me as 'll do it!"

The manager, smiling with the satisfaction of having clinched an
excellent bargain, made his way among the chickens, bulldogs and babies
of Front street and soon left the beery atmosphere far behind him.

Terry, however, kept his own council. Not until the following Monday
did he give any information concerning the identity of the "swell gent"
who had so strangely visited him.

Then how the inhabitants of Front street rejoiced! Terry Flynn--often
called "Irish" for short--redheaded Terry Flynn, who had many a time
caused a quarrel to be forgotten by breaking into a song as he rattled
the mugs on the bar--Terry--their Terry--was going on the stage! He
would own a silk tile, and wear diamond studs--but he would sing no
more for Front street.

How the bony-fisted, generous men, in spite of their keen regret at
losing him, rejoiced in Terry's good fortune!

"Ha'n't I said, ag'in an' ag'in, as Terry could sing twicet as fine as
the feller 'at sang 'atween the acks o' 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' one time
w'en I went an' seen it? Ha'n't I now?" queried a delighted teamster.

"Aye, that ye 'ave, Jawn, that ye 'ave," replied a pensioned sailor,
also jubilant over the fame in store for Terry.

As for Terry himself, he had not yet recovered from his surprise, and
so had little room for other emotions. He was too ignorant, too fresh
from his peat-carrying labors in the shamrock country, to have any fear
of stage fright. Indeed, that word was not in his stunted vocabulary.

He went that afternoon to rehearse "Nancy Lee," with the rest of the
company, newly arrived, who were to join him in the "yo-ho's." How
well the song sounded when supplemented by such a chorus! Terry's
blood quickened! He did not observe the coldness of the other singers
towards him. He would have cared little if he had felt the lack of
friendliness, for so sunny was his Irish temperament, so strong his
Irish independence and congeniality, that he would not easily have
lost hope of winning the good will of his associates. Moreover Terry
was so humble that he would rather have expected them to stand a little
aloof at first; but when, black-faced and white-gloved, he stood upon
the great stage of the Opera House, and filled the domed auditorium
with his strong, beautiful tenor notes, he knew nothing save that
he was one of "them actor fellows" now; that the men and women from
the world of wealth were listening to him. His eyes sparkled with
excitement.

"A long, long life to my sweet wife," he sang.

In the silence of the people Terry instinctively recognized their
appreciation.

"Nancy Lee--"

The vaulted ceiling sent the round, high notes back to the eager ears
of the audience.

"Yo-ho-boyoys, ho--"

The "yo-ho" didn't sound with the proper vigor. It was flat. A frown
appeared between Terry's arched eyebrows. He was singing his "Yo-ho's"
alone! Slowly he turned, still singing, to face the other minstrels.
Some one snickered, "Do you see us singing with a bar-tender?"

"Nance--"

Terry stopped. A calloused fist, with strong muscle and Irish temper to
speed it, shot out.

"Curtain!" called the manager, wildly. The audience, though somewhat
surprised, accepted this performance as a ridiculous climatic ending
to one of the "stunts," and gave a vigorous applause. But Terry heeded
neither applause nor curtain. He was demonstrating to these unmannerly
show men, that though they might refuse to sing with a bar-tender,
they could not refuse to accept from one a lesson in pugilism.

Terry paused to take a long breath. He glared at the men, one of whom
was holding a handkerchief to a rapidly swelling eye, another of whom
was hugging an aching side. Terry had done his work quickly. The
manager hastened up to interfere.

"They might a' told me so afore. It isn't me as they need be makin'
a fool of. I'm made as good as them, even if it do be a truth that I
sell the beer they drink," Terry said, dazed. He picked up the battered
opera hat which had been part of his costume and started towards the
door.

"My dear Mr. Flynn, I will adjust this little misunderstanding. I
assure you, it shall not occur again."

Terry turned. "Why," he laughed strangely, as he picked a bit of lint
from his sleeve. "Aren't ye knowin'? I'd be ashamed t' sing, with
such dum poor excuses fer men," he replied, and made his way down
the rickety stairway, to the street, not stopping even to remove the
grease-paint.

"It's them as might a been men, and told me," he sobbed as he walked
slowly back again to dirty, ill-lighted Front street, to don again his
white apron; to pass the amber-colored foamy liquid over the bar; to
sing "Nancy Lee" in Tim Dugan's Café; to sing for the rough men who
would deem it a sacrilege to lift their harsh voices with Terry's sweet
plaintive tones.

                                                --Dorothea G. Knoblock.


=Nora Titay and Chiquito=

Nora Titay, a widow of fifty, came home from the gambling house one
afternoon in bad humor. Her hair hung carelessly over her wrinkled
face, which always looked as if it had been dipped in a barrel of
flour. As she walked along the street, she spat and muttered, with her
mouth full of _buyo_, "Pshe, this cursed _panguingue_ will ruin me. I
had bad luck this week. Yesterday I lost ten pesos, and now twelve. I
haven't a single penny left. I wonder where Rosa and I will get the
money to buy our food. I have sold her ring to pay my debts. To-morrow,
there will be another game. I shall play again to see if I can recover
what I have lost. But where shall I get money? Oh, I see! Chiquito is
coming to-night to court Rosa. He is very rich, and is willing to give
anything he has if he can only win my daughter's love. But foolish
girl! She does not like him, because he is a Chinaman. She prefers
to love that poor, simple student, Pedro. I will force her to marry
Chiquito; then I can play panguingue at any time. I shall soon be rich."

"Rosa," said Titay as soon as she arrived at the house, "you must look
well to-night, for Chiquito is coming. You must not show any sour face
to him. I want you to marry him whether you like to or no. Do you
understand me? Now, don't say anything or I will whip you," said Titay,
seriously. "Why don't you marry him yourself, mamma? You will be a
good partner for him since you love him better than I do," said Rosa
laughing. "What, you foolish girl! Do you mean to joke me, your mother?
I am looking out for your good," said Titay angrily, then slapped and
pinched her daughter. They were still quarreling when Chiquito came.

"Buena noche, Nola Tetay y Senolita Losa," said Chiquito in his poor
Spanish, when he came.

"Buenas noches, Chiquito," replied Titay with a smile. "Here is
a basket of oranges and _tikoy_ for you and Senolita Losa," said
Chiquito, while he was uncovering the basket. "What a very good
son-in-law, I have!" murmured Titay. "Chiquito, to-morrow afternoon
you must come here ready to marry Rosa. Bring a priest with you, and
get a wedding dress for her. But, by the way, lend me a sum of money,
for I must buy something." Chiquito was so glad that he immediately
handed to her his purse. "What kind of dress shall I bring, mother?"
asked Chiquito eagerly. "You must ask Rosa about that," murmured Titay.
Chiquito went to Rosa, who was looking out of the window, absorbed in
thought. "Senolita Losa, what kind of dress should you like for our
wedding?" asked Chiquito politely. "_Baboy!_ (swine) what wedding do
you mean? Do you think I would marry you, _baboy_?" said Rosa, angrily.
"Your mother told me that I must come here to-morrow afternoon, and
you and I should be married," said Chiquito. "You had better marry
mother. She is more fit for you. Now, go away." Nora Titay was so
busily counting her money and thinking how many times she could play
panguingue with it that she did not hear the quarrel. "Nola Tetay, Losa
is angry with me. She does not want to marry me," said Chiquito.

"Never mind, you can go home now, Chiquito, and be ready for to-morrow.
I will see that she accepts the proposal," said Titay. Chiquito went
home gladly, and Titay got busy compelling Rosa to marry Chiquito,
till the daughter was forced to make a promise.

The next day, at the appointed hour, Chiquito came with a priest. But
Rosa could not be found in the house. A letter was found instead saying
that Rosa had eloped with Pedro. Chiquito, disliking to lose his money,
asked for Titay's hand. They were married that very day.

                                                  --Joaquina E. Tirona.


III. The Story That Emphasizes Character and Events

[Difference between character-place story and character-events story]

Obviously the character-events story is different from the
character-place story just in the emphasis and because of it. The
personality of the chief actor of a story of events, does not
necessarily spring from the scene of action. In fact, the personality
very often is in strong contrast with the place. A soldier for instance
by some chance may be left stranded on an oasis in the desert; the
purpose of the writer in having him there may be to set forth a number
of strange occurrences that bring out his character, or the author may
wish to demonstrate some truth about wild animals. A woman may be on
a Pullman car bringing her dying husband home with her from Denver to
New York. The author will then be concerned with an analysis of the
woman's mind as events come to her. A person may be standing at the
prisoner's dock and may tell his life. Place will concern the author a
great deal in a certain sense, but it will be not the character-making
place, but the event-making place,--the battle-ground, the cricket
field. If a different character met the same events in the same place,
he might act otherwise. It is the conjunction of character and events
that the author is revealing and the reader watching. Let us name over
a few of the great stories and collections of this kind to see if the
titles suggest anything: "The Necklace" by Maupassant; "The Father" by
Björnson; "The Siege of Berlin" by Daudet; "The Substitute" by Coppée;
"The Insurgent" by Halévy; "Mateo Falcone" by Mérimeé; "The Shot" by
Pushkin; "The Greater Inclination," "Crucial Instances," "The Descent
of Man, and Other Stories," by Mrs. Wharton.

[Component elements of this type]

We might say that the representative short-story of this type is
a combination of romanticism, realism, metaphysics, and modern
journalism. A concentrated extract of the work of Scott, Jane Austen,
Thackeray, George Eliot and Reade. The list suggests the history
of the novel since Fielding's day and the elements it acquired and
transmitted to the short-story. You have probably studied how Scott,
when Lord Byron out-ran him, turned from metrical to prose romance;
how Scott created with the "Waverley Novels" (which of course are
not novels in the usual sense) a new romance, the historical, which
immediately took its place as a permanent type of literature. On the
side of stirring events our present short-story often epitomises Scott.
He said himself he wrote for soldiers, sailors, and young people of
bold and daring dispositions. There is no limit, therefore, in choice
of events. The record may be the most startling. It usually, however,
is not extravagant beyond what a healthy and cheerful imagination can
enjoy. Our temperance is due no doubt to the restraining influence of
Jane Austen and her late followers in realism. She tried to teach her
own age to laugh at itself good-naturedly and to bridle romance with
common sense. "Northanger Abbey," written in 1798, was a direct satire
of the terror school, which was popular before her day and Scott's.
Moderns have enthroned Jane Austen as a perfect artist, and all good
fiction writers have learned the lesson she taught. In general, her
work belongs with the story that emphasizes manners and environment;
but her most popular novel, "Pride and Prejudice," has in addition to
the reflection of environment a sequence of interesting events and a
spiritedness that together make it an extended prototype of the story
that emphasizes both character and happenings. To Scott's boldness and
Jane Austen's satiric restraint, time added George Eliot's metaphysical
curiosity. Since her day we are all interested in duty, destiny,
freedom of will, mind-habit. She showed us how a neighborly man becomes
a miser, how a miser becomes once more a neighborly man; how a lovable
but morally and physically timid man becomes a scoundrel. Most of
our short stories now-a-days display an element of such analysis;
many of them are wholly constituted upon an inquiry; some, beginning
just in front of the crisis, give us a feeling of past complicating
events, and with one flash show us the present tangle; others with
a swift relentlessness pile happening upon happening until, panting
for breath, we stumble upon the momentous climax. Very often, too, at
the end, we are left in an atmosphere of pessimism--sometimes it is
only a companionable little chill like that Thackeray used to give us,
wherein, laughing and chattering, we shake hands with our brothers to
keep warm; sometimes, it is like Maupassant's, a hard, dull bitterness
of cold--

    "A chill no coat however stout,
    Of homespun stuff can quite shut out."

Wherever the pessimism comes from, almost invariably a little bit of it
joins swiftness, realism, metaphysical curiosity, and one other element
probably inherited from the novel; namely, a striking semblance of
actuality. No matter how thrilling the events may be, they are usually
convincing. Charles Reade had the trick of taking his facts from
newspaper reports. Many of our present-day writers keep a scrap-book,
and they very often build their most successful stories on actual
events, making up the participants from what they imagine they must
have been.

The characters, then, in this kind of narrative are often more or
less fictitious, being a combination of traits well-known to the
author--traits of different individuals of the type displayed; while
in the other kind of artistic short-story, it is the slight course of
events that is made up, to fit the actual character and the actual
place.

[A scrap-book suggestion]

Whatever else you do as a writer--even as an amateur one in school--it
will surely repay you to keep a scrap-book. The very old adage that
facts are stranger than fiction is indisputably true. When in your
newspaper reading you run across a fine course of events that is
character-revealing, or ought to be, just cut out the report and paste
it in your book. Think upon the case leisurely and let the personages
develop; then write up the events as simply and swiftly as you can
consistent with the effect you mean to produce. Hawthorne's "Ambitious
Guest" originated thus.

[Other suggestions]

If at present you have in mind no series of happenings, suppose you
ask some acquaintance what is the strangest course of actual events
he ever personally knew about. When he answers you, then question him
on the actors concerned, remembering that this time you are going to
write not a pure plot story but one that will express the conjunction
of character and events. Keep in mind also your present limitations.
You do not need to tell everything that might be told about your
protagonists; you do not have to follow them from the baptismal font
to the marriage altar and from the marriage altar to the grave. You
may not know the facts about them connected therewith; you may know
only a small portion of their lives; but ten to one you will know more
incidents than it is necessary to mention. What you do tell, however,
must be absolutely clear. The actual events may have been but a string
of episodes in real life, but when you relate them they must appear
like a full, round period. Look carefully after your connectives; on
them hangs largely the success of your story. It goes without saying
that you must have a climax, or highest point. Every sentence that you
write before it, even the first, must lead toward it; every sentence
that you write after it, even the last, must lead from it. You must
ruthlessly suppress any phrase that does not add strength to your
chosen scene. Be sure your story has totality.


=The Necklace=

She was one of those pretty, charming girls who are sometimes, as
if through the irony of fate, born into a family of clerks. She was
without dowry or expectations, and had no means of becoming known,
appreciated, loved, wedded, by any rich or influential man; so she
allowed herself to be married to a small clerk belonging to the
Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly because she
could not afford to dress well, and was unhappy because she felt she
had dropped from her proper station, which for women is a matter of
attractiveness, beauty, and grace, rather than of family descent. Good
manners, an intuitive knowledge of what is elegant, nimbleness of wit,
are the only requirements necessary to place a woman of the people on
an equality with one of the aristocracy.

She fretted constantly, feeling all things delicate and luxurious to
be her birthright. She suffered on account of the meagreness of her
surroundings, the bareness of the walls, the tarnished furniture, the
ugly curtains; deficiencies which would have left any other woman of
her class untouched, irritated and tormented her. The sight of the
little Breton peasant who did her humble housework engendered hopeless
regrets followed by fantastic dreams. She thought of a noiseless,
hallowed anteroom, with Oriental carpets, lighted with tall branching
candlesticks of bronze and of two big, knee-breeched footmen, drowsy
from the stove-heated air, dozing in great armchairs. She thought of
a long drawing-room hung with ancient brocade, of a beautiful cabinet
holding priceless curios, of an alluring, scented boudoir intended for
five o'clock chats with intimates, with men famous and courted, and
whose acquaintance is longed for by all women.

When she sat down to dinner, at the round table spread with a cloth
three days old, opposite her husband, who uncovered the tureen, and
exclaimed with ecstasy, "Ah, I like a good stew! I know nothing to beat
this!" she thought of dainty dinners, of shining plate, of tapestry
which peopled the walls with human shapes, and with strange birds
flying among fairy trees. And then she thought of delicious viands
served in costly dishes, and of murmured gallantries which you listen
to with a comfortable smile while you are eating the rose-tinted flesh
of a trout or the wing of a quail.

She had no handsome gowns, no jewels--nothing, though these were her
whole life; it was these that meant existence to her. She would so have
liked to please, to be thought fascinating, to be envied, to be sought
out. She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was very
rich, but whom she did not like to go to see any more because she would
come home jealous, covetous.

But one evening her husband returned home jubilant, holding a large
envelope in his hand.

"Here is something for you," he said.

She tore open the cover sharply, and drew out a printed card bearing
these words: "The Minister of Public Instruction and Mme. Georges
Ramponneau request the honor of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at the
palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th."

Instead of being delighted as her husband expected, she threw the
invitation on the table with disgust, muttering, "What do you think I
can do with that?"

"But, my dear, I thought you would be pleased. You never go anywhere,
and this is such a rare opportunity. I had hard work to get it. Every
one is wild to go; it is very select, and invitations to clerks are
scarce. The whole official world will be there."

She looked at him with a scornful eye, as she said petulantly, "And
what have I to put on my back?" He had not thought of that. He
stammered, "Why, the dress you wear to the theatre; it certainly looks
all right to me."

He stopped in despair, seeing his wife was crying. Two big tears rolled
down from the corners of her eyes to the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he faltered.

With great effort she controlled herself, and replied coldly, while she
dried her wet cheeks:

"Nothing, except that I have no dress, and for that reason, cannot go
to the ball. Give your invitation to some fellow-clerk whose wife is
better provided than I am."

He was dumfounded, but replied:

"Come, Mathilde, let us see now--how much would a suitable dress cost;
one you could wear at other times--something quite simple?"

She pondered several moments, calculating, and guessing too, how much
she could safely ask for without an instant refusal or bringing down
upon her head a volley of objections from her frugal husband.

At length she said hesitatingly, "I can't say exactly, but I think I
could do with four hundred francs."

He changed color because he was laying aside just that sum to buy a
gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of
Nanterre, with several friends, who went down there on Sundays to shoot
larks. Nevertheless, he said: "Very well, I will give you four hundred
francs. Get a pretty dress."

The day of the ball drew nearer, and Mme. Loisel seemed despondent,
nervous, upset, though her dress was all ready. One evening her husband
observed: "I say, what is the matter, Mathilde? You have been very
queer lately." And she replied, "It exasperates me not to have a single
ornament of any kind to put on. I shall look like a fright--I would
almost rather stay at home." He answered: "Why not wear flowers? They
are very fashionable at this time of the year. You can get a handful of
fine roses for ten francs."

But she was not to be persuaded. "No, it's so mortifying to look
poverty-stricken among women who are rich."

Then her husband exclaimed: "How slow you are! Go and see your friend,
Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her well
enough to do that."

She gave an exclamation of delight: "True! I never thought of that!"

Next day she went to her friend and poured out her woes. Mme. Forestier
went to a closet with a glass door, took out a large jewel box, brought
it back, opened it, and said to Mme. Loisel, "Here, take your choice,
my dear."

She looked at some bracelets, then at a pearl necklace, and then at a
Venetian cross curiously wrought of gold and precious stones. She tried
on the ornaments before the mirror, hesitated, was loath to take them
off and return them. She kept inquiring, "Have you any more?"

"Certainly, look for yourself. I don't know what you want."

Suddenly Mathilde discovered, in a black satin box, a magnificent
necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with excitement. With
trembling hands she took the necklace and fastened it round her neck
outside her dress, becoming lost in admiration of herself as she looked
in the glass. Tremulous with fear lest she be refused, she asked, "Will
you lend me this--only this?"

"Yes, of course I will."

Mathilde fell upon her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, and
rushed off with her treasure.

The day of the ball arrived.

Mme. Loisel was a great success. She was prettier than them all,
lovely, gracious, smiling, and wild with delight. All the men looked
at her, inquired her name, tried to be introduced; all the officials
of the Ministry wanted a waltz--even the minister himself noticed her.
She danced with abandon, with ecstacy, intoxicated with joy, forgetting
everything in the triumph of her beauty, in the radiance of her
success, in a kind of mirage of bliss made up of all this worship, this
adulation, of all these stirring impulses, and of that realization of
perfect surrender, so sweet to the soul of woman.

She left about four in the morning.

Since midnight her husband had been sleeping in a little deserted
anteroom with three other men whose wives were enjoying themselves. He
threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, ordinary, everyday
garments, contrasting sorrily with her elegant ball dress. She felt
this, and wanted to get away so as not to be seen by the other women,
who were putting on costly furs.

Loisel detained her: "Wait a little; you will catch cold outside; I
will go and call a cab."

But she would not listen to him, and hurried downstairs. When they
reached the street they could not find a carriage, and they began to
look for one, shouting to the cabmen who were passing by. They went
down toward the river in desperation, shivering with cold. At last
they found on the quays one of those antiquated, all-night broughams,
which, in Paris, wait till after dark before venturing to display their
dilapidation. It took them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and
once more, wearily, they climbed the stairs.

Now all was over for her; as for him, he remembered that he must be at
the office at ten o'clock. She threw off her cloak before the glass,
that she might behold herself once more in all her magnificence.
Suddenly she uttered a cry of dismay--the necklace was gone!

Her husband, already half-undressed, called out, "Anything wrong?"

She turned wildly toward him: "I have--I have--I've lost Mme.
Forestier's necklace!"

He stood aghast: "Where? When? You haven't!"

They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in
her pocket, everywhere. They could not find it.

"Are you sure," he said, "that you had it on when you left the ball?"

"Yes; I felt it in the corridor of the palace."

"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall. It
must be in the cab."

"No doubt. Did you take his number?"

"No. And didn't you notice it either?"

"No."

They looked at each other, terror-stricken. At last Loisel put on his
clothes.

"I shall go back on foot," he said, "over the whole route we came by,
to see if I can't find it."

He went out, and she sat waiting in her ball dress, too dazed to go to
bed, cold, crushed, lifeless, unable to think.

Her husband came back at seven o'clock. He had found nothing. He went
to Police Headquarters, to the newspaper office--where he advertised
a reward. He went to the cab companies--to every place, in fact, that
seemed at all hopeful.

She waited all day in the same awful state of mind at this terrible
misfortune.

Loisel returned at night with a wan, white face. He had found nothing.

"Write immediately to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the
clasp of her necklace, and that you have taken it to be mended. That
will give us time to turn about."

She wrote as he told her.

By the end of the week they had given up all hope. Loisel, who looked
five years older, said, "We must plan how we can replace the necklace."

The next day they took the black satin box to the jeweler whose name
was found inside. He referred to his books.

"You did not buy that necklace of me, Madame. I can only have supplied
the case."

They went from jeweler to jeweler, hunting for a necklace like the
lost one, trying to remember its appearance, heartsick with shame and
misery. Finally, in a shop at the Palais Royal, they found a string
of diamonds which looked to them just like the other. The price was
forty thousand francs, but they could have it for thirty-six thousand.
They begged the jeweler to keep it three days for them, and made an
agreement with him that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand,
francs if they found the lost necklace before the last of February.

Loisel had inherited eighteen thousand francs from his father. He
could borrow the remainder. And he did borrow right and left, asking
a thousand francs from one, five hundred of another, five louis here,
three louis there. He gave notes, assumed heavy obligations, trafficked
with money-lenders at usurious rates, and, putting the rest of his
life in pawn, pledged his signature over and over again. Not knowing
how he was to make it all good, and terrified by the penalty yet to
come, by the dark destruction which hung over him, by the certainty of
incalculable deprivations of body and tortures of soul, he went to get
the new bauble, throwing down upon the jeweler's counter the thirty-six
thousand francs.

When Mme. Loisel returned the necklace, Mme. Forestier said to her
coldly: "Why did you not bring it back sooner? I might have wanted it."

She did not open the case--to the great relief of her friend.

Supposing she had! Would she have discovered the substitution, and what
would she have said? Would she not have accused Mme. Loisel of theft?

Mme. Loisel now knew what it was to be in want, but she showed sudden
and remarkable courage. That awful debt must be paid, and she would pay
it.

They sent away their servant, and moved up into a garret under the
roof. She began to find out what heavy housework and the fatiguing
drudgery of the kitchen meant. She washed the dishes, scraping the
greasy pots and pans with her rosy nails. She washed the dirty linen,
the shirts and dish-towels, which dried upon the line. She lugged
slops and refuse down to the street every morning, bringing back fresh
water, stopping on every landing, panting for breath. With her basket
on her arm, and dressed like a woman of the people, she haggled with
the fruiterer, the grocer, and the butcher, often insulted, but getting
every sou's worth that belonged to her. Each month notes had to be met,
others renewed, extensions of time procured. Her husband worked in the
evenings, straightening out tradesmen's accounts; he sat up late at
night, copying manuscripts at five sous a page.

And this they did for ten years.

At the end of that time they had paid up everything, everything--with
all the principal and the accumulated compound interest.

Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become a domestic drudge, sinewy,
rough-skinned, coarse. With towsled hair, tucked-up skirts, and red
hands, she would talk loudly while mopping the floor with great
splashes of water. But sometimes, when alone, she sat near the window,
and she thought of that gay evening long ago, of the ball where she
had been so beautiful, so much admired. Supposing she had not lost
the necklace--what then? Who knows? Who knows? Life is so strange and
shifting. How exceedingly easy it is to be ruined or saved!

But one Sunday, going for a walk in the Champs Élysées to refresh
herself after her hard week's work, she accidentally came upon a
familiar-looking woman with a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still
young, still lovely, still charming.

Mme. Loisel became agitated. Should she speak to her? Of course. Now
that she had paid, she would tell her all about it. Why not? She went
up to her.

"How do you do, Jeanne?"

The other, astonished at the easy manner toward her assumed by a plain
housewife whom she did not recognize, said:

"But, Madame, you have made a mistake; I do not know you.

"Why, I am Mathilde Loisel!"

Her friend gave a start.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde," she cried, "how you have changed!"

"Yes; I have seen hard days since last I saw you; hard enough--and all
because of you."

"Of me? And why?"

"You remember the diamond necklace you loaned me to wear at the
Ministry ball?"

"Yes, I do. What of it?"

"Well, I lost it!"

"But you brought it back--explain yourself."

"I bought one just like it, and it took us ten years to pay for it. It
was not easy for us who had nothing, but it is all over now, and I am
glad."

Mme. Forestier stared.

"And you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"

"Yes; and you never knew the difference, they were so alike." And she
smiled with joyful pride at the success of it all.

Mme. Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! My necklace was paste. It was worth only about
five hundred francs!"

                                 --Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant.

    "Little Masterpieces of Fiction." Volume V. (Doubleday, Page & Co.)


=Andong=

Andong was the only son of Isio, an _ex-gobernadorcillo_ (president)
of Tuao, Cagayan. At an early age Andong went to Manila to study;
but, unfortunately, his father died and the boy could not finish his
career, but returned to his native town to take care of his helpless
mother. Shortly after his arrival at Tuao, his mother died, and Andong
became a poor orphan. During his orphanage he lived miserably, but
worked hard in order to release himself from poverty. He cultivated,
year after year, his small piece of land, which he inherited from his
father. After ten years he had earned a considerable sum, and bought
twenty-five carabaos and one hundred hectares of land. He made a trip
to Ilocos Norte, and succeeded in getting several Ilocano families to
live and to work on his plantation.

One day, while he was working in his field, he received a message from
the gobernadorcillo, notifying him of his nomination as a _cabeza de
barangay_ (councilor), and Andong, instead of insulting the police,
as many had done, said, "Well, leave with me the letter, and I will
call on the gobernadorcillo this afternoon." When Andong had finished
his work in the field, he called at the gobernadorcillo's house, and
talked with him about his unexpected nomination. Andong said, "I have
no objection to serving my municipality, for it is the duty of every
citizen to serve his town government the best he can, and I am thankful
to the government for having nominated me as one of the _principales_;
but before I accept the office, I wish to see the tax list of my
district to know whether any of the people are in arrears, for I do not
want to lose my property, which I have earned by hard labor, to answer
for the debts of the people of my district, nor can I go to look for
them in other provinces, nor--"

"Whether you are willing, or not, you are forced to accept your
nomination," interrupted the gobernadorcillo, "and to-day your property
is hypothecated to pay the debts of your people to the government."

"But, sir, who has hypothecated my property? Is it possible that
anybody has the right to confiscate my property?"

"Surely," said the gobernadorcillo. "Some of the principales and I
have been informed that you own many hectares of land, and that you
are immensely rich, so the governor of our province has confirmed your
nomination as cabeza de barangay."

"I accept my nomination, but I do not want to answer for the debt of
the people under my command," said Andong.

"Whether you like it or not, you will be cabeza de barangay, and
be compelled to pay all the debts of your people," answered the
gobernadorcillo.

"Well, I will think about the matter first," replied Andong, and he
went to the house of Aning, an old ex-gobernadorcillo, to consult him.

The gobernadorcillo was not surprised at Andong's nomination, for he
was one of those principales who had recommended Andong to the council.
Aning advised Andong to accept the office. "A cabeza de barangay is
always respected and honored by the people," said the gobernadorcillo.
"He receives no salary, to be sure, but he gets gifts of eggs,
chickens, pigs, fruits, which when sold bring much money. Besides, when
he wants to build a house for himself, some of his people bring him
lumber, rattan, cogon, and other materials, while the others erect the
house without any pay." "But I do not like to molest my people, and
I hate to see them serve me as a master, for they are my brothers,"
answered Andong.

"Do you prefer then to die from hunger rather than to cheat your people
as your predecessors did?" asked Aning. "Yes, I prefer death, to
seeing my people oppressed," replied Andong. Disgusted at the servile
conversation of the ex-gobernadorcillo, Andong left him in vegetating
complacency, sitting on a bamboo chair with a fan in his hand.

Unwillingly Andong became a cabeza de barangay. During the first year
of his office he gave eighty pesos to the government to pay the debts
of his runaway people.

Now his wealth was decreasing, for his duties made him neglect his work
in the field. The fact that he was becoming poorer each day, led him
into despair. He remembered the advice of Aning; but he had no courage
to abuse his poor people. He could not deceive them, for to deceive
such people would be the same as stealing. But who would pay back the
money lost? This was the question which worried him many times.

To forget his painful situation he took to drinking _basi_ (Ilocano
wine which is extracted from the sugar cane), and became a drunkard.
He forgot entirely his old business, and in his intoxicated moments he
often exclaimed: "While I live, let me enjoy the fruit of my own toil
instead of paying it all over to the government."

On account of his drunkenness, he neglected to collect the taxes from
his people, and the deficit doubled the following year. At first nobody
wanted to lend him money to pay his debt to the government; for his
property was already hypothecated; but, at last a kind and rich officer
lent him the money he needed, at twenty per cent interest, and with
the condition that if he could not pay his debt within the period of
two-years, his property would be pledged for the second time in favor
of the creditor. Andong fell into a long meditation. He remembered once
more the advice of Aning, and he was revolving in his mind plans which
might release him from bankruptcy. Meanwhile, he decided to go to
Ittong, an ex-cabeza de barangay, to ask for advice.

Andong asked Ittong to work for his election to the office of
gobernadorcillo, in order that he might be saved from his critical
situation. But wise Ittong advised him not to seek such an office; for
it was worse than a cabeza de barangay: "The best thing for you to do
is to let the government confiscate your property, go to prison, and
then when you are released from jail, you can earn again your lost
property," he said.

"Your advice seems excellent to me," answered Andong, "but can't
they nominate me again as cabeza de barangay when I accumulate more
property?"

"Since you have not held the office during a period of ten years, they
can oblige you to accept the office again," said Ittong.

Andong, after a long pause, said to Ittong: "I want to be elected
gobernadorcillo so that I can save my property instead of going to
jail."

"If you desire it, I can recommend you to my friends Islao, Ansong,
Momong, Ipi, and Cadio, who will nominate you as the candidate of our
party for the coming election," said Ittong. "I thank you for your
kindness," said Andong, and bade good-bye to his future advocate,
Ittong.

Andong was nominated as the candidate of Ittong's party for
gobernadorcillo. Ambeng, the candidate of the opposing party, was more
popular than Ittong, consequently he was more sure to succeed in the
coming election. The critical day was approaching. Many of the cabezas
de barangay went to pay their contributions to the municipal treasurer,
in order to be allowed to vote. On the eve of the election the drum
of the tribunal never stopped beating and the voters of the town kept
flocking to the polling-place. On the morning of the election, all
the principales in their holiday dresses awaited the governor at the
tribunal. When the governor came, they took off their hats and followed
him. They entered the tribunal, and sat around a long table, presided
over by the governor. Before beginning the election, the governor
delivered a short speech of welcome and he emphasized that they
must elect that man who was rich, honest, and capable. After a long
discussion, Ambeng was elected by a big majority.

Andong was disappointed and disgusted over his defeat. But while
Ambeng's party was still celebrating their triumph the governor of the
province received a telegram from the central government, announcing
Andong's nomination as gobernadorcillo of Tuao. Ambeng was elected by
the people, but Andong had been recommended to the governor-general by
the curate of the town, the governor of the province, and the chief of
the _guardia civil_; so Andong was appointed to the office he sought.

On the day of Andong's possession, the people of Tuao held a holiday in
his honor. There was a land parade in which all the princapales of the
town took part. After the parade, Andong went to the tribunal to take
his oath before the justice of the peace. After this ceremony the chief
of police read his administrative program, in which he obliged every
one of his people to go to mass on Sundays and holidays, and prohibited
gambling, drunkenness, and stealing.

Time flew. After three months' administration, Andong became worried
over his business; for he was compelled to visit every day his
superiors, and to go to mass on Sundays and holidays. However, he was
a zealous ruler. He organized a militia. He succeeded in pacifying the
Igorrotes, who were fighting one another, and he caught many of the
bandits, who were ravaging the neighboring towns.

Everything was going all right, when, unexpectedly, Andong received an
order from the court of justice to appear before the judge to answer
all the complaints of the people about his abuses in the government.
Andong, before going to court went to see Ittong, his old advocate.
Ittong advised him not to be afraid. "Call officially your witnesses,"
he said, "and tell them that you will put them into prison if they
declare against you." The wind was strong against Andong. Nobody
could save him from his trouble. The prison was awaiting him. Andong
was perplexed; he did not know what to do. While he was looking at
the neighboring mountains, a wise thought came to his mind. "I will
go and live in those woods with the Igorrotes, rather than to suffer
the oppression of my superiors and the hatred of my own people!" he
exclaimed. Meanwhile, he received an urgent despatch from a friend,
announcing that the government had discharged him from his office, and
had sentenced him to be put into prison. Immediately, Andong and one
of his servants fled from Tuao and sought refuge in the neighboring
forests, there to live like wild men, with no ambition above that of
the brute, caring only for their next meal, but harboring in their
hearts a deadly hatred of Spanish rule.

                                                      --Justo E. Avila.




PART II

NARRATIVES OF ACTUAL EVENTS




CHAPTER VII

PARTICULAR ACCOUNTS


The second large division heading explains itself. In an atmosphere
of facts all the true narrative types stand. Whether these types are
used as retainers of truth only is another question. Manifestly they
are not. Manifestly there is much fiction that succeeds merely because
it is cast in the true story mold. But the concern of the writer who
chooses any one of these forms is to pour truth into it, whether the
truth be historical actualities or only artistic probabilities.

It is more helpful to consider the types on their simplest basis;
hence in a study like this, one would assume for content always
real happenings. The necessity that the story go unquestioned does
not, however, excuse the recorder of actual events from using his
imagination. Indeed, only by using it can he come to write true history
or true biography. Without "the inward eye" one cannot see the past.
Without sympathy--which is another word for imagination--one cannot
know his fellowman. A biographer, an historian, above all else should
be able to see the unseen, not the unseen of the unreal, but the unseen
of the real, a vastly different thing! The two are exact opposites,
the what-is and the what-was set over against the what-was-not and the
what-could-not-be.

In this chapter five types of narratives of actual events are grouped
as particular accounts, or adventitious history, in contrast with
continuous personal history, and continuous impersonal, or community
history.

Particular accounts have to do with those small happenings that seem
to come by chance, those events that form, as it were, complete and
detachable bits of life. That is to say, each relation is of something
that has taken place or been witnessed in a comparatively short
time--an incident of a trip downtown, a characteristic action of a
great man, an important political event, an adventure, a brief series
of pleasures.


I. The Incident

[Definition]

The word "incident" comes from the Latin and means "falling upon or
into something, impinging from without;" hence something depending upon
or contained in another thing, as its principal. In narrative, then, it
is the record of a subordinate act or of an event happening at the same
time as some other event and of less importance. Any little occurrence
may be considered an incident. The report of it generally has excuse
for being in the fact that knowledge of it throws light on the main
event or intensifies interest therein. Accordingly every good narrative
of this type possesses a horizon larger than itself. Somewhere within
the story there is a clause connecting the event with other occurrences
or with the prime occurrence.

[How to tell an incident]

An incident may or may not be an eye-witness account. Indeed, an
incident may be told by a person removed the third, the hundredth
degree from the happening. The essential thing is the evidence of
reality. Of course there are fictitious incidents--like those in
"Robinson Crusoe"--but the whole care of the writer in such cases is to
simulate truth. Very often a work of fiction is but a skillful piecing
together of actual small happenings. An incident is valued in itself
for one of two reasons--either for the fact which it records or for the
author's humanity revealed in the narration. Though slight, an incident
should be well told. It need not be pointed, but it should proceed in
an orderly and interesting fashion. The diction should be natural. As
hinted before, an incident should have a setting. The reader ought to
be able to feel something of where the characters have come from and
whither they are going. The more nicely such a coherence is suggested,
the more pleasing the little story will be.

One thinks of the quiet delightfulness of Wordsworth's Incidents which
he calls "Poems on the Naming of Places." They are small stories out of
his life and the lives of his friends--natural records out of natural
living, but as charming and interesting as any tale of

                  "Naiad by the side
    Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere,
    Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance."

Robert Browning's "Incident of the French Camp" is an example of the
more stirring small happening. Books of travel are largely series
of incidents, but because of the continued presence of the same
personality fall into a class distinct from this. Good letter-writers
are usually fascinating relators of incidents. Cowper, Jane Welsh
Carlyle, Dorothy Osborne, Gray, Lowell, Edward Fitzgerald, charmed
not only their correspondents but all their later readers. The earlier
accounts of his life away from home that "R. L. S." sent back to his
mother contain exquisite small bits of narration.


=A Near Tragedy=

A most tragical incident fell out this day at sea. While the ship was
under sail, but making, as will appear, no great way, a kitten, one of
four of the feline inhabitants of the cabin, fell from the window into
the water: an alarm was immediately given to the captain, who was then
upon deck, and received it with the utmost concern. He immediately gave
orders to the steersman in favor of the poor thing, as he called it;
the sails were instantly slackened, and all hands, as the phrase is,
employed to recover the poor animal. I was, I own, extremely surprised
at all this; less, indeed, at the captain's extreme tenderness, than at
his conceiving any possibility of success; for, if puss had had nine
thousand instead of nine lives, I concluded they had been all lost. The
boatswain, however, had more sanguine hopes; for, having stript himself
of his jacket, breeches, and shirt, he leapt boldly into the water,
and, to my great astonishment, in a few minutes, returned to the ship,
bearing the motionless animal in his mouth. Nor was this, I observed,
a matter of such great difficulty as it appeared to my ignorance, and
possibly may seem to that of my fresh-water readers: the kitten was
now exposed to air and sun on the deck, where its life, of which it
retained no symptoms, was despaired of by all.

The captain's humanity, if I may so call it, did not so totally
destroy his philosophy as to make him yield himself up to affliction on
this melancholy occasion. Having felt his loss like a man, he resolved
to show he could bear it like one; and, having declared he had rather
have lost a cask of rum or brandy, betook himself to thrashing at
backgammon with the Portuguese friar, in which innocent amusement they
passed nearly all their leisure hours.

But as I have, perhaps, a little too wantonly endeavored to raise the
tender passions of my readers in this narrative, I should think myself
unpardonable if I concluded it without giving them the satisfaction of
hearing that the kitten at last recovered, to the great joy of the good
captain; but to the great disappointment of some of the sailors, who
asserted that the drowning a cat was the very surest way of raising a
favorable wind: a supposition of which, though we have heard several
plausible accounts, we will not presume to assign the true original
reason.

                                                      --Henry Fielding.

    "Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon."


=Birds Divulge Army Secrets=

During the night, before the battle of Sadowa, an Austrian division
commanded by the archduke, retreating before the Prussian army, had
bivouacked near a town in Bohemia, facing north, says Sir Evelyn Wood,
in the _London Gazette_.

At midnight the archduke, when resting in a peasant's cottage, was
awakened by the arrival of a gypsy, having come to report the advance
of the enemy.

The archduke, who spoke Romany fluently, asked: "How do you know? Our
outposts have not reported any movement."

"That, your highness, is because the enemy is some way off."

"Then how do you know?"

The gypsy, pointing to the dark sky, lighted by the moon, observed:
"You see those birds flying over the woods from north to south?"

"Yes; what of them?"

"Those birds do not fly by night unless disturbed, and the direction of
their flight indicates that the enemy is coming this way."

The archduke put his division under arms and reinforced the outposts,
which in two hours' time were heavily attacked.


=An Incident Related In a Letter=

7:20 P. M.--I must tell you a thing I saw to-day. I was going down to
Portobello in the train, when there came into the next compartment
(third-class) an artisan, strongly marked with smallpox, and with
sunken, heavy eyes--a face hard and unkind, and without anything
lovely. There was a woman on the platform seeing him off. At first
sight, with her one eye blind and the whole cast of her features
strongly plebeian, and even vicious, she seemed as unpleasant as the
man; but there was something beautifully soft, a sort of light of
tenderness, as on some Dutch Madonna, that came over her face when she
looked at the man. They talked for a while together through the window;
the man seemed to have been asking for money. "Ye ken the last time,"
she said, "I gave ye two shillings for your lodgin', and ye said--"it
died off in a whisper. Plainly Falstaff and Dame Quickly over again.
The man laughed unpleasantly, even cruelly, and said something; and the
woman turned her back on the carriage and stood a long while so, and,
do what I might, I could catch no glimpse of her expression, although I
thought I saw the heave of a sob in her shoulders. At last, after the
train was already in motion, she turned and put two shillings into his
hand. I saw her stand and look after us with a perfect heaven of love
on her face--this poor one-eyed Madonna--until the train was out of
sight; but the man, sordidly happy with his gains, did not put himself
to the inconvenience of one glance to thank her for her ill-deserved
kindness.

                                              --Robert Louis Stevenson.

    In letter to Mrs. Stillwell, Sept. 16, 1873.


=A Hero Dead=

It was very dark in the east corridor of the Armory, and, save for the
quiet footfall of the ever-watchful orderly, there was no sound in
the silent room where the nation's dead lay wrapped in the great silk
flag. In the shadow of the stairway, a group of secret-service men
were nervously whispering among themselves, with occasional glances
that strove to penetrate the black void that lay beyond the crape-hung
doorway.

Their sergeant stood a little apart from the others, an alert figure,
with a hand that lingered suggestively about his hip-pocket. For three
days he had kept unwearied watch while thousands had paid their last
homage to the dead servant of the people, and the strain was telling
upon him. The nation had lost a hero, but John MacDonald had lost his
idol--and his best friend. Through his mind was sweeping a strong
revulsion at conditions which could have fostered so wanton a murder;
and a sudden and passionate hatred of the dark race to whose salvation
this man had been a martyr threatened almost to unman this stern son of
the service. That very day he had sent away with a curse a paralytic
old negro who had brought his handful of field-lilies to the bier of
the savior of his race. MacDonald had felt no qualm at his action,
and when, later, he had found the poor flowers lying withered outside
the closed door, he kicked them aside with an oath. In a measure, the
stern old Scotchman had not been responsible for his actions at that
time, for it was just then that he had heard the dread rumor which was
spreading its dark wake through the crapehung corridors. That very
night while the whole nation was yet bowed in its sorrow, an attempt
was to be made to steal the body of the dead hero. The crime seemed
scarcely to be believed, but the men of the secret-service, scattered
throughout the dark corridor, were awake and ready.

John MacDonald, striving vainly in his grief-saddened heart to frame
a reason for it all, wondered how he had been able to resist the old
negro with his tear-wet face and pleading voice. That black creature
was a man like himself, and he, also, had loved the great man who was
lying so quietly in the folds of his country's flag. "O Lincoln," he
spoke, raising a clenched hand toward the black doorway, "they have
murdered you, they have taken you from us, but still--" Suddenly his
muscles stiffened, and something very akin to a chill crept about the
roots of his hair. There had come the quiet but unmistakable sound of a
footfall from the room where the dead lay. The Scotchman stood a man
of stone, and while his very hair stiffened with horror, a mighty wrath
swept over his whole being. They were at it, then, those fiends who
dared to desecrate the body of his lord with their filthy touch. With a
movement like a cat, MacDonald drew his ready weapon, and, with a call
to his startled subordinates, stepped boldly over the threshold.

In a moment, the room was filled with the glare of torches, and the
secret-service men, crowding in the doorway, saw the leveled weapon of
their chief sink inertly to his side.

On the black catafalque the hero lay, beneath the outstretched wings
of the eagle of the republic, and at his feet, sobbing out his
grief-stricken heart, knelt an old negro.

                                                           --Ida Treat.


=My First Day at School=

The room was not large enough for a schoolroom. The floor, the wall,
and the roof were all made of bamboo. In the center of the room was
a long, narrow, roughly-made table, at which sat closely twenty or
thirty pupils. There were also two or three benches here and there, on
which sat new boys and girls. At the end of the long table sat a rather
old but fierce-looking man, the schoolmaster. In his left hand he
held a book, and in his right, a whip; for at that time the principle
governing schools was that knowledge could not be gained without severe
bodily punishment.

When I entered the schoolroom, my "cartilla" in hand, this was the
first scene that met my eyes. It happened that Titay, a cousin of
mine, had been sent to school on that day also; so we had the same
lesson. In harsh tones the teacher ordered us to study the vowels of
the Spanish alphabet. And with a loud voice we repeated again and
again, _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_, until we knew them--at least we thought
so--by heart.

At last our turn came; and we were called to go to our teacher. My
cousin (a girl) was at his left side, while I was at his right.

"What is this?" the teacher asked my cousin.

"A," she answered, correctly.

However, at his second, third, and fourth questions, she was confused
and could not answer. But I really knew "_a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_," by
heart, for my kind mother had taught them to me; so I proudly corrected
every mistake she had made. After every correction, the teacher would
say to me, "Tira la oreja" (meaning, "Pull her ears"). And with what
boyish pleasure did I pull her ears! She cried and resolved never to go
to school again.

When I returned home, I was very boastful, and told everybody in the
household of my triumph. Thus I received encouragement in my first
school day, and after that I continued to study with interest till I
myself received some bodily punishment.

                                                     --Máximo M. Kalaw.


=The Guinatan Prize=

One day I came to the schoolhouse tardy. When I entered the door, I saw
the pupils standing side by side in a row and facing the teacher. There
was one column of numbers on the blackboard, near which the teacher
stood with a long wooden pointer in his hand. As soon as I saw the
numbers on the board, I knew at once that there would be a contest. So
I laid down my books on the floor, took off my hat, and stood next to
the last boy.

"Teacher, Leopoldo does not belong here. He is the captain-general.
Therefore, he should stand next to Federico," said the last boy as soon
as he saw me.

"No," said the teacher, "he came in tardy. Boys, you must learn to come
to school on time," he continued.

The teacher then gave us names: he named the first boy general, the
second major-general, the third captain-general, and so on. I, being
the last boy, was named ranchero, or the cook of the army.

"He who is the general at the end of the contest will be given a cup of
_guinatan_ as a prize," said the teacher.

"Now begin, Martin," he continued. Martin began to add the numbers
on the board with accuracy, and finished within forty seconds. The
major-general did the same, but he finished within forty-five seconds.
The captain-general added the numbers within forty-two seconds. So he
pulled the ear of the major-general, and they exchanged places. Before,
my turn came, there had been many changes already, a soldier had beaten
a colonel, a sergeant had passed a lieutenant.

"All right, Leopoldo," said the teacher.

"One--six--fourteen--twenty-two--thirty--thirty-six--forty-five. Carry
four. Eight--ten--fifteen--twenty-one--twenty-nine--thirty-five--forty!"
I said without stopping to take a breath.

"Forty seconds!" announced the teacher.

The teacher wanted to try me again, but the boys said they should like
to hear the general first.

"All right. Go on, Martin," said the teacher.

This time Martin failed. He finished within thirty-seven seconds, but
he made a mistake. The boys shouted.

Fortunately, the time was up. So I was pronounced the victor. The
teacher bought a cup of _guinatan_, the sweet fruit mixture that
Filipino children so much love, and gave it to me. I was very proud
then. When I reached home, I told my mother all that had happened. She
was very happy.

                                                   --Leopoldo Faustino.


II. The Anecdote

[Meaning of the term]

In the sense in which a proverb is a condensed parable, an anecdote is
a condensed character-sketch or biography. Like many of our other terms
the word "anecdote" itself reveals to an extent its present meaning.
It is derived from the Greek and signifies "something not published."
This is the sense in which Cicero uses it when he speaks of a book of
anecdotes on which he was engaged, but which he talks of confiding to a
single friend only, as if it were not intended ever to be published. In
literature the word has been used to denote either secret histories or
portions of ancient writers which have remained long in manuscript and
are edited for the first time. The anecdotes of Procopius, which were
published in London in 1674 under the title "The Secret History of the
Court of Justinian," are evidence of the first significance; and Dr.
Johnson's reference to the English-French fashion of using the word for
a "biographical minute passage of private life" establishes the second
meaning.

In our day, collections of anecdotes--criticisms and observations,
smart sayings and ludicrous tales, delivered by eminent men in
conversation and recorded by their friends or discovered among their
papers after their death, and put together with historical incidents
concerning them--are published under the term _ana_.

[Ana]

The ancients were in the habit of indulging in this species of
literature. From earliest periods Oriental nations have preserved the
intimate talk of their wise men. From them the Greeks and Romans took
up the practice. Plato and Xenophon recorded the colloquially expressed
ideas of their master Socrates. It appears that Julius Cæsar compiled a
book of apophthegms in which he related the _bon mots_ of Cicero; and
a freedman of that orator, taken with his master's liveliness and wit,
composed three books of a work entitled "De Jocis Ciceronis."

[Eighteenth century collections]

But the term ana seems to have been applied to such collections only
so far back as the fifteenth century. The information and anecdotes
picked up by Poggio and his friend Barthelemi Montepolitiano during a
literary trip in Germany "are to be called," says another friend in a
letter, "Poggiana and Montepolitiana." Perhaps the most typical, and
surely a very famous and interesting, production of this species of
narrative in English is the "Walpoliana," a transcript of the literary
conversation of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford. Selden's "Table Talk"
was considered by Dr. Johnson good ana, better than the French. But
incomparably superior to all, a collection the most remarkable in
the English language-and indeed, in any language (as a writer in the
"Britannica" asserts)--is James Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson."
Though not conforming to the type of collection either in name or
in form of presentation, this, according to Carlyle, "the greatest
production of the eighteenth century," depends for its value mainly
upon its ana. "Its interest," the same writer goes on to say, "arises,
not from the details it furnishes of the events of Dr Johnson's career,
still less from any attempt at a discriminating estimate of his work
and character, but the graphic representation it gives of his habitual
manner of life and speech. The animate greatness of Johnson appears,
more than in all his writings, in his portrait delineated with the
exactness of sharply-defined photograph, as he appeared, to the eyes of
his admiring biographer, in his daily deshabille."

That is the secret of anecdote--it must get at the real man in however
small a part.

While a book of ana is a collection of short, pointed, true colloquial
relations of more or less detached interesting particulars concerning
a person of consequence, a single anecdote is one of those interesting
particulars entirely detached, short, pointed, true, and colloquial.
A book of anecdotes is a group of stories, miscellaneous so far as
subject matter is concerned. Spence's "Anecdotes" is a very famous
eighteenth century literary set; and Percy's is an early nineteenth,
with the stories selected--as the preface ostensibly gives notice--for
their moral effect, and arranged according to the virtue illustrated
or the subject treated--humanity, generosity, kindness; science, art,
and so on.

[How to write an anecdote]

As we have seen, to be most interesting an anecdote must be singularly
expressive of the peculiarities of the person represented; or if the
event recorded is not in the form of a character episode, but rather
in the form of an unusual happening, it must be consonant with the
accepted popular notion of the man's personality. To write an original
anecdote you will need to pick out of your past experience or the
experience of some one of your acquaintances a story of a more or less
important personage in your neighborhood, a happening that has never
hitherto been written down. If the person concerned is not very well
known or if the trait of character revealed would not be immediately
recognized by his friends, you might prefix a slight statement that
will help point your narrative. Remember, however, that an anecdote
must be very brief; also that it must have a single and complete
climax; and that you must under no circumstance be induced to add
another word after the climax is reached.


=Coleridge's Retort=

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was so bad a horseman that when he mounted he
generally attracted unfavorable notice. On a certain occasion he was
riding along a turnpike road in the country of Durham, when he was met
by a wag, who, mistaking his man, thought the rider a good subject for
sport. "I say, young man," cried the rustic, "did you see a _tailor_
on the road?" "Yes, I did; and he told me that if I went a little
farther, I should meet a _goose_."


=An Inevitable Misfortune=

When Boswell was first introduced to Dr. Johnson, he apologized to him
for being a Scotchman. "I find," said he, "that I am come to London at
a bad time when great popular prejudice has gone forth against us North
Britons; but when I am talking to you, I am talking to a large and
liberal mind, and you know that I cannot help coming from Scotland."
"Sir, replied the doctor, archly, "no more can the rest of your
countrymen."


=A Point Needing to Be Settled=

A Scottish clergyman, being one day engaged in visiting some member
of his flock, came to the door of a house where his gentle tapping
could not be heard for the noise of contention inside. After waiting a
little, he opened the door and walked in, saying with an authoritative
voice, "I should like to know who is the head of this house?"

"Weel, sir," said the husband and father, "if ye sit doon a wee, we'll
may be able to tell ye, for we're just trying to settle that point."


=Patience=

When Lord Chesterfield was one day at Newcastle House, the Duke
happened to be particularly busy, so the Earl was requested to sit
down in an anteroom. "Garnet upon Job," a book dedicated to the Duke,
happened to lie in the window; and his Grace, upon entering found
the Earl so busily engaged in reading, that he asked how he liked the
commentary. "In any other place," replied Chesterfield, "I should not
think much of it; but there is such great propriety in putting a volume
upon patience in the room where every visitor has to wait for your
Grace, that here it must be considered as one of the best books in the
world."


=Preaching and Practice=

Dr. Channing had a brother, a physician, and at one time they both
lived in Boston. One day, a countryman in search of a _divine_, knocked
at the _doctor's_ door, when the following dialogue ensued:

"Does Mr. Channing live here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can I see him?"

"I am he."

"Who--you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You must have altered considerably since I heard you preach!"

"Oh, I see your mistake now. It's my brother who _preaches_. I
_practice_."


=Johnson's Dictionary=

When Dr. Johnson had completed his dictionary, which had quite
exhausted the patience of Mr. Andrew Millar, his bookseller, the latter
acknowledged the receipt of the last sheet, in the following note:

"Andrew Millar sends his compliments to Mr. Samuel Johnson with the
money for the last sheet of the copy of the dictionary, and thanks God
he has done with him."

To this rude note the doctor returned the following smart answer:

"Samuel Johnson returns his compliments to Mr. Andrew Millar, and is
very glad to find (as he does by his note), that Andrew Millar has the
grace to thank God for anything."

                                                 --Percy's "Anecdotes."


=The Boy Kipling=

Rudyard Kipling's keen and sympathetic understanding of all the
diversified and picturesque varieties of human nature found in British
India, is too well recognized as part of his power to need assertion;
but a little anecdote which his mother remembers of his boyhood is
not without a pretty allegorical significance. It was at Nasik,
on the Dekhan plain, not far from Bombay, when the little fellow,
trudging over the ploughed field, with his hand in that of the native
husbandman, called back to her in the Hindustani, which was as familiar
to him as English, "Good-by, this is my brother!"

                          --Professor Norton, in a biographical sketch.


=Sir Godfrey Kneller=

Pope tells the following story about the great portrait painter:

"As I was sitting by Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, whilst he was drawing
a picture, he stopped and said: 'I can't do so well as I should do,
unless you flatter me a little; pray flatter me, Mr. Pope! you know I
love to be flattered.' I was at once willing to try how far his vanity
would carry him, and, after considering a picture, which he had just
finished, for a good while very attentively, I said to him in French
(for he had been talking for some time before in that language): "On
lit dans les Écritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisoit l'homme aprés
son image: mais, je crois, que s'il voudroit faire un autre a présent,
qu'il le feroit apres l'image que voilá.' Sir Godfrey turned round and
said very gravely, 'Vous avez raison, Mons Pope; par Dieu, je le crois
aussi.'"

                                                                --Pope.


Here is another: Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when
his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. "Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, "you
have the honor of seeing the two greatest men in the world." "I don't
know how great you may be," said the Guinea man, "but I don't like your
looks; I have often bought a man much better than both of you together,
all muscles and bones, for ten guineas."

                                                       --Dr. Warburton.


=The Capitan Municipal and the Jokers=

Once there lived in the town of Balanga an old Capitan Municipal who
was nicknamed carabao; for he was a very big man and also a very great
eater.

One day as a land parade was going on in honor of Dr. Rizal, three
well-known jokers of the town were following the procession, when they
suddenly came to a small pond in the street. And one of them said,
"What a nice time our public carabao had taking his mid-day bath in
here." "Oh! yes, he must have had a very good time indeed," replied
the two. But unexpectedly the Capitan was at their back, hearing all
they said about him.

Therefore as soon as the procession was over, they were arrested in the
Municipal building. And on the next day they were tried and sentenced
by the Capitan to fill in all the ponds of the streets around the town,
and also to drain them properly.

                                                      --José Feliciano.


=An Instance of Bamboo Spanish=

In the Ateneo de Manila all the pupils are forbidden to speak any
language except Spanish.

One day the pupils of the college went out to the yard to play
baseball. It happened that one of the boys who was watching the game
was hurt at the kneejoint, and fell down on the ground. The boy
cried so loud that the rector at once went hurriedly to see what was
happening in the yard. He saw the boy sitting on the ground with one
of his legs bent. He approached him, and said, "What has happened to
you, my boy?" And the boy feeling yet the pain that the ball had caused
him, answered, "Father, while I was watching my companions who were
playing baseball my--, my--," "What?" said the rector, impatiently.
"Father, my--, my--," answered the boy, showing his kneejoint as
he was pronouncing the word "my." "Do you mean your leg?" said the
rector. "No, father I mean my--," replied the boy. "But your what"
cried the rector, "say what you mean to say." The boy, who was trying
hard to find the word in Spanish for kneejoint, answered at last, "my
_vino-vinohan_, father, was hurt." The rector, though very angry at
the boy's dullness, laughed heartily at his dictionary-making powers.

NOTE--The word in Tagalog for knee-joint is "alak-alakan," which
is similar to the Tagalog word "alak," meaning wine in English and
_vino_ in Spanish. The boy, not knowing the proper word in Spanish
for knee-joint, derived the word "vino-vinohan" from the Spanish word
_vino_, which means _alak_ (wine) in Tagalog.


=Mr. Taft's Mistake=

It was a bright day when a crowd of people stood before a platform
decorated with palm leaves and roofed with a banner of stars and
stripes. The eyes of the spectators, who were all eager to hear the
speech of the well-known eloquent orator and skillful politician, Mr.
William H. Taft, were fixed on the personages on the platform.

At last, after an ovation by the multitude, Mr. Taft rose up and
addressed the audience thus: "_Señoras y caballos_."[8]

                                                     --Amando Clemente.


III. The Eye-Witness Account

Eye-witness account is to true story what realism is to fiction.
Exactness is the aim of the narrator. He endeavors to tell precisely
what he saw and heard. A great deal of our newspaper "copy" is supposed
to be of this type, and likewise much court testimony. The attorneys
try to separate distinctly fact from fancy. What a man really must have
seen and what he thought he saw are often very different. It appears
at first that an unembellished account would be the easiest thing in
the world to give, but it takes only a little observation to convince
one that few persons can tell what they see or hear; few indeed know
what they see or hear. With the bare actuality, they are constantly
confounding what they thought or inferred. As a rule, only the man
educated to the work can report truthfully.

A unique and curious ancient document of this type is found in a
little book that was published by the Spanish Academy of History
in 1783, called "El Passo Honroso" or the Passage of Honor. It is
a formal eyewitness account prepared on the spot by Delena, one of
the authorized scribes of John II, and gives minutely the events of
a passage of arms held against all comers in 1434 at the bridge of
Orbigo, near the city of Leon, during thirty days, at a moment when the
road was thronged with knights going over for a solemn festival to the
neighboring shrine of Santiago.[9] Suero de Quiñones, the challenger,
was a true gentleman of chivalry, it seems, and had been wearing in
sentimental bondage to a noble lady a chain of iron around his neck one
day in each week. From his bondage he could be freed only by bringing
to her as ransom a minimum number of real spears broken by him and his
friends in fair fight. So they stood--ten of them--for thirty days
challenging all comers. Delena records sixty-eight opponents; six
hundred and twenty-seven encounters; sixty-six broken lances; one dead
knight; and many wounded, among whom were Quiñones himself and eight
of his fellow-champions. Along with the general narrative is a full
account of the religious and chivalric ceremonies as they were actually
indulged in from day to day. Such a minute and elaborate and fully
authenticated eye-witness record of not fictitious but real "knightly
guists and fierce encounters" is manifestly invaluable to a student of
chivalry.

It is interesting to think of this dapper young scribe sitting on the
side-lines watching the combatants and taking down his notes as the
telling rushes were made by either party; and then sending his copy hot
from the pen to his royal reader. I suppose we might well call Señor
Delena the historical prototype of our modern athletics reporter.

Many of our best literary men have had longer or shorter
apprenticeships at getting "copy." Dickens served for a number of
years. Facts for a reporter do not come at call; he can not turn
them on, so to speak, nor is he permitted to make them up. He must
find them. Consequently to be successful he needs to have an ear for
news, and an eye for the graphic, a simple but full vocabulary, and a
pen made supple by much practice. He must seem to be at home in any
department of human action. All his words must carry with them a large
tone of veracity. He can hardly afford to make slips even on his minor
details, since his brother reporters visit the same scene at the same
time.

Literary eye-witness account, however, need not be devoid of all
expression of personal feeling. It is only necessary that the writer
make clear to his reader which are thoughts and feelings and which
are facts. Indeed, the best effect of such a narration will often
come from the contrast. The artist lets us into his own state of mind,
describes perhaps more or less minutely the stage-setting of his
little occurrence--especially if any part is necessary to complete
understanding later--portrays in general the types of people who were
or might have been concerned, and then drops from his pen one by one
the facts cold, clear-cut, unembellished, orderly in sequence, with
their participants graphically and cleanly outlined, and thus gains his
effect. He is as precise as a lawyer, but he has been also as crafty,
in the good sense of the word. He has prepared us to appreciate his
facts. If he interprets to us afterwards, he does so in a reflective
and an apparently hesitating way that seems to leave us in full
possession of our own opinions, which will prove to be in reality only
corroborative of his.

It will be good practice for you to attempt to give an eye-witness
account of some occurrence. If two or three of your friends were
present at the same happening, you may enjoy comparing reports. There
will probably be more than one incident to relate; if there is, you
must be careful to have sequence and coherence in all that you say.
You should anticipate and answer any questions one would naturally
ask of an oral reporter. Stop when you have finished. Doubtless you
have noticed the unpleasant habit many narrators have of starting over
again and repeating all or part of the tale. The temptation does not so
readily come to a writer, of course, as to a speaker--unless the writer
is paid by the word.

Your readers will not resent interpretation even if it be
philosophical, if it be not mixed with the narration and be only
honest and of the pragmatic school--interrogative and not dogmatic.
Indeed, mankind likes philosophy when it seems to come as an inevitable
though tentative summing-up of our almost bewilderingly multiple
phenomena.


=Story of the Revolution in the Portuguese Capital=

Cherbourg, October 8.--On board the Royal Mail Steam Packet liner
_Asturias_, which arrived from Lisbon this morning, were a number of
passengers who witnessed the fighting in the Portuguese capital on
Wednesday, among them M. Octave Castaigne, a lawyer, of Tournai, who
was among the passengers by the _Asturias_ who ventured to land at
Lisbon on Wednesday.

"On Tuesday evening," said M. Castaigne, "we were informed by a
wireless message that the revolution had broken out in Portugal. From
far out at sea was heard the thunder of the cannon and as we entered
the Tagus the crackle of rifle fire. On our arrival before Lisbon we
noticed that the cruisers _Sao Rafael_ and _Adamastor_, which were
flying the Republican flag, were still firing on the town.

"About ten o'clock the fusillade ceased and a party of five passengers,
including two Americans and myself, went ashore. The lower part of the
town had the appearance of a city of the dead. The houses were shut and
marks of rifle-shots and shells were to be seen everywhere. The centre
of the city, on the contrary, was alive with people. The crowd was
vociferously acclaiming the Republican flag, which was flying, not only
from the public buildings, but from nearly every house. It struck me
very clearly that anyone who had had the courage to shout "Long live
the King!" would have been shot dead on the spot. The crowd was largely
composed of soldiers and sailors under arms, and patrols were also
moving about in automobiles to any part of the town that appeared to be
greatly menaced by the Royalist troops.

"We reached the City Hall, which was surrounded by a huge crowd, just
at the moment when the Republic was being proclaimed. The Republican
leaders from the balcony of the building were haranguing the people,
whose enthusiasm was indescribable. From time to time the cheers of the
crowd were broken by rifle volleys and the reports of cannon.

"When the official ceremony was ended, we succeeded in entering
the City Hall. The new Ministers were receiving visitors and were
conversing with anyone who presented himself. One of the passengers
by the _Asturias_ approached President Braga, and in a short speech
congratulated him on the proclamation of the Republic. Dr. Braga
replied that he was happy to receive our visit, and added that the
Portuguese Republic was definitely established.

"After leaving the City Hall, we proceeded to the most dangerous part
of the city, that is to say, the Avenida do Liberdade and the Dom Pedro
square. The houses showed signs off cannon shots and the roofs of the
majority of them had collapsed. The Avenida do Liberdade was still
occupied by the opposing forces. The Republican troops occupied one
end of the street, while the Royalists were in possession of the other
extremity, being separated by a distance of about five hundred yards.
The battle was still in progress. I admit that I was somewhat afraid,
and as the shots whistled by I hid myself behind the shelter of a house.

"At the risk of being killed any minute our party succeeded in reaching
the Avenida restaurant. That part of the restaurant facing the
Avenida do Liberdade was in ruins, and the walls were full of bullet
holes. (M. Castaigne has saved some of the bullets as souvenirs.) The
Recio railway station had been destroyed by artillery fire and the
railway lines had been torn up. The Necessidades Palace shows traces
of numerous shells, but it is stated that the interior of the royal
residence has suffered even more, shells having simply rained on the
roof.

"The Red Cross Society showed admirable devotion during the fighting. I
saw its members go into the thick of the fight to pick up the wounded,
who on Wednesday were estimated to number over a thousand. The number
of killed is considerable, but at the time it was impossible to obtain
correct figures."

London, October 9.--The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's steamer
_Asturias_, which left Lisbon on Thursday, arrived at Southampton
yesterday morning, having among her passengers several Englishmen and
South Americans who witnessed many of the episodes of the revolution.
Among these was General Garcia, who has had experience enough of
revolution in South America.

The general told an "Evening News" correspondent that he and six others
went into Lisbon on Wednesday. "We found the streets littered with
wounded," he said. "A body of troops was being moved from one side of
the city to the other, and in the districts through which they passed
people were flying panic-stricken, but otherwise everybody was orderly
and the city was quiet.

"The Republican flags were on the buildings and all trace of resistance
was over. Soldiers were going into shops and houses pulling down
pictures of the king, tearing them up and trampling them underfoot. As
we passed along, a picture of the King came flying out of a doorway
and dropped at our feet. My secretary picked it up. He was immediately
surrounded by soldiers, who ordered him to destroy it at once.

"I went to the municipal buildings and there saw members of the
provisional government, who allowed me to cable to my own government
in Cuba. I should say the estimate of fifty killed and three hundred
wounded is not high enough, but the list is remarkably small, all
considered. I have seen many revolutions, but none so beautifully
carried out as this."

Paris, October 9.--"The abounding joying joy of the people--tempered
by admirable self-control--and repeated evidences of careful
organization--these were the things which impressed me most."

In these words Mr. Charles H. Sherrill, American Minister to Argentina,
told a _Herald_ correspondent at the Hotel Majestic last night, of a
visit he paid to Lisbon on Wednesday, a few hours after the overthrow
of the Portuguese monarchy. With Mrs. Sherrill and their young son he
was a passenger on the _Asturia_, which touched at Lisbon.

"The shooting began about two o'clock on Tuesday morning," he
continued. "It was at six o'clock on Wednesday morning that we came
into the harbor. The bombardment of the palace had ceased, but with our
glasses we could see the dents which the shells had made in the walls.

"I disembarked at about one o'clock in the afternoon and went to the
American Legation to see if it had suffered damage. I found the streets
swarming with inhabitants, who were singing and shouting in their joy.
Save for this celebration there were few evidences of the conflict in
the lower part of the town.

"But it was different in the Avenida, the broad thoroughfare leading
to the elevation back of the city. The insurgents had permitted the
Royalists to form in Rocio square, in the down town district. The
insurgents then took their position on the hills above, holding the
Royalists in a trap, hedged in on the other side by the attacking ships
in the bay.

"From the elevation at the upper end of the field, guns had been aimed
down the Avenida. The avenue had been stripped of trees, windows had
been shattered and the fronts of buildings which projected farther than
others had been partly demolished. The American Legation escaped even
the slightest damage.

"Occasionally I encountered a wall which bore striking evidence of
the battle. Blood was matted upon it and blood had coagulated in the
gutters, indicating only too plainly that several lives had been lost
there. Whole groups in the sidewalk had been mowed down by shell from
the field-guns.

"Nearly every man I saw and many boys carried guns. They were not
rifles of the 'homespun' variety--these arms--but Mausers and equally
effective weapons. These were evidences of preparation. Fully a
thousand people were waving flags--the red and green flag of the new
Republic--a further proof that the revolution had not come just when it
did by accident.

"For the new Portuguese flag is a rather complicated affair. Across
a blue circle in the centre is a curved line in white bearing the
inscription, 'Patria e Liberdade.' Half the space of the background is
red--revolution--and green, symbolizing hope.

"I followed a crowd and a band into the City Hall. There in a large
room I saw the President and his cabinet in session, probably drawing
up one of the new government's addresses to the people. It was plain to
me that these were not men who had been 'pitchforked' into office over
night. Their appearance was that of sober, responsible officials. I was
simply a curiosity-seeker, of course, and kept my identity concealed.

"As I walked along I heard two shots fired in a side street. A moment
later a cart drove by in which lay two bodies. A crowd formed at the
scene of the shooting, but there was no suspicion of a riot. Among
the thousands of people I saw that day there was not a single person
who appeared to be under the influence of liquor. There seemed to
be no looting; no outrages were committed. It was a most impressive
object-lesson of the self-control which a Latin people is able to
maintain when it is imbued with a serious purpose.

"Country folk were pouring into town by the thousands, and these
reflected the joy and satisfaction felt by the residents of the city.
They afforded a rebuke to the suspicion that the revolutionary feeling
was confined to Lisbon itself. The spirit of the people was best
expressed by two words, composing a headline which stretched across the
front page of an afternoon newspaper. Translated, it read simply: 'At
Last!'

"And it was apparent also that the revolution was accomplished with
as little bloodshed as possible. The insurgents were merciful--if that
term is permissible in this connection. Shells fired from the ships in
the bay were directed in such a way that they should explode over the
town, carrying the desired warning, but causing the minimum amount of
damage.

"I was told that the dead and wounded numbered three thousand. I am
certain this was a great exaggeration. My estimate is about 600 or 700,
basing these figures on information obtained at the headquarters of the
Red Cross Society.

"Most of the residents of Lisbon give the greatest share of credit for
the result to the seamen. A hero was made of every sailor who appeared
in the streets. The crowds cheered him heartily, but the army officers
aroused much less enthusiasm.

"Save for these evidences of jubilation Lisbon was quiet and
orderly--think of it, only a few hours after such an uprising as this!
The bodies of the dead had been removed, the wounded were being nursed
and business was proceeding almost normally. In front of every bank was
a guard of sailors to protect the financial interests of the people. It
seems strange that I, who have lived in South America two years, was
forced to come to Europe in order to see a revolution."


=A Contrast=

On the night of February 4, 1910, the eve of the carnival, I went to
take a walk in the Luneta. Already from the distance I could see the
hippodrome in the carnival grounds well illuminated. "What is going
on in there?" I asked myself, and not being able to explain the
matter, and urged by my curiosity to know everything, I walked in that
direction.

Many people, foreigners as well as natives, were crowding up and down
the sidewalk near the fence enclosing the carnival grounds. There were
also constabulary guards at almost every thirty spaces to prevent the
people from peeping through the fence. But in spite of the presence
of these guards some people, nevertheless, seized the opportunity
that offered now and then while the guard was not looking, and peeped
through the fence.

I then saw that I was not the only one who was anxious to know what
was going on in the hippodrome, and, what is more, my anxiety grew
stronger. Then a moment came when I lost a little self-control, and
I, too, shared some of those opportunities that offered. But suddenly
there came the guard who warned us to stop the business. At that very
moment, an American came along and he, too, could not help wanting to
see what was going on inside. But the guard went to him at once and
said: "No se permite eso, si tu quieres ver lo que hay adentro, puede
Vd. pasar por la puerta central." "Vd. sabi muy bein que eso no verdad,
sabi," replied the American angrily. Then the guard told him that he
had received orders to see that people did not peep through the fence.
"To h---- with your orders!" said the American. "Well, este habla el
commanding officer," replied the guard. "Oh, nom porta!" At this moment
an American policeman came along and asked the American what was the
matter. "This fellow wants to prevent me from peeping through this
fence when I am on neutral ground," "Well, that is just what I am going
to do," replied the policeman, and he again explained him the order.
"I don't care for that order!" "Well, if you don't shut up, I shall
take you to the police station!" "You may!" Then the policeman told him
to walk on; for he did not know what he was talking about. "All right,"
said the gentleman, and he walked away; but he came back and asked the
policeman what his number was. "It makes no difference what my number
is," said the officer of the law. "Well, I want to know it." "My number
is----, and my name is----; and what's your name?" "My name is----,
and I am the _secretary in the public_----"(!). "All right," said the
policeman, and both men took opposite directions.

Two bystanders who witnessed this incident began to argue as to what
would have happened had the American gentleman been a Filipino. One
of them said that if the man were a Filipino and had argued with the
officer of the law in that way, he would have received a good knock
on his head. The other said that he was satisfied with the way the
American policeman behaved himself.

I then returned and walked toward the central gate of the carnival
grounds, and there, to my surprise, I saw the very same American
gentleman come and walk straight inside without saying a word to the
guard. Then a Filipino came along and asked the guard to be allowed
to go in, but, unfortunately, according to the guard, only the
stockholders were allowed to enter.

Was the American gentleman a stockholder? He alone knows.

                                                     --Adolfo Scheerer.


IV. The Tale of Actual Adventure

Tales of actual adventure differ from the other true narratives in
the fact of the necessary presence of an exciting occurrence. Danger
at hand and overcome is the keynote of the action. The happening may
be slight or tremendous, or serious or humorous; but in every case it
acquires a certain amount of dignity from the possible disaster.

The narration is usually in the first person, though not necessarily.
In the "Library of Universal Adventure," compiled by William Dean
Howells and Thomas Sergeant Perry eighteen years ago, the larger
number of the stories are autobiographic in form. This book is a
quaint comment on Howells's non-sensationalistic attitude of today.
Though purporting to be true, these stories are almost lurid in their
romanticism. They present man in the familiar struggle with untimely
death, led thither by various motives and accidents. We see Pliny the
Elder with insatiable curiosity sailing calmly toward the destructive
volcano; we see the lonely scientist Audubon on his Western trip in
early America weighing his chance of life against his watch, that is
coveted by a murderous hag and her two drunken sons; we see the runaway
slave Frederick Douglass, attempting to slip along the very precarious
underground railroad to safety; of course, there is mutiny at sea, and
shipwreck on unknown shores. Indeed, here we find all the despised
paraphernalia of blood-curdling romance, true, with Mr. Howells's name
signed on the package.[10]

Obviously such stories are written to climaxes, though any manifest
straining for emphasis in a true narrative is resented by the reader.
All the skill you have got from your former attempts to write
realistically ought to help you here. You should put in enough minutiæ
to convince, but omit enough to be interesting. The general effect of
your style should be that of directness and swiftness. Whatever power
of psychological analysis you have, should come to your aid, but it
should appear only in keen and brief flashes as you hurry along with
the events. Descriptive touches of objective nature may be used for
emphasis in harmony or contrast, especially at the end or the beginning
of the adventure, though these are a somewhat trite device. Whatever
else you do, try to write simply and naturally. Do not exaggerate. You
will be judged chiefly on your tone of veracity.

There is a large and interesting field here for the amateur writer.
This type of story allies itself with the probable adventure, and in
fact is generally lost therein. The successful authors of boys' books
for the most part make use of the coalescence. Boys at a certain age
are extremely exacting, and when their entertainers have to relate
their stories orally as well as pen them, they are often as solicitous
to find authority for their fictions as were Macpherson and Chatterton.


=The Bear-Hunt=

    (The adventure here narrated is one that happened to Tolstoy
    himself in 1858. More than twenty years later he gave up hunting on
    humanitarian grounds.)

We were out on a bear-hunting expedition. My comrade had shot at a
bear, but only gave him a flesh wound. There were traces of blood on
the snow, but the bear had got away.

We all collected in a group in the forest to decide whether we ought
to go after the bear at once or wait two or three days till he should
settle down again. We asked the peasant bear-drivers whether it would
be possible to get round the bear that day.

"No. It's impossible," said an old bear-driver. "You must let the bear
quiet down. In five days' time it will be possible to surround him; but
if you followed him now, you would only frighten him away and he would
not settle down."

But a young bear-driver began disputing with the old man, saying that
it was quite possible to get round the bear now.

"On such snow as this," said he, "he won't go far, for he is a fat
bear. He will settle down before evening; or, if not, I can overtake
him on snow-shoes."

The comrade I was with was against following up the bear, and advised
waiting. But I said:

"We need not argue. You do as you like, but I will follow up the track
with Damian. If we get round the bear, all right. If not, we lose
nothing. It is still early, and there is nothing else for us to do
to-day."

The others went back to the sledges and returned to the village.
Damian and I took some bread and remained behind in the forest.

When they had all left us, Damian and I examined our guns, and after
tucking the skirts of our warm coats into our belts, we started off,
following the bear's tracks.

The weather was fine, frosty and calm; but it was hard work
snow-shoeing. The snow was deep and soft; it had not caked together at
all in the forest, and fresh snow had fallen the day before, so that
our snow-shoes sank six inches deep in the snow, and sometimes more.

The bear's tracks were visible from a distance, and we could see how
he had been going; sometimes sinking in up to his belly and ploughing
up the snow as he went. At first, while under large trees, we kept in
sight of his track; but when it turned into a thicket of small firs,
Damian stopped.

"We must leave the trail now," said he. "He has probably settled
somewhere here. You can see by the snow that he has been squatting
down. Let us leave the track and go round; but we must go quietly.
Don't shout or cough, or we shall frighten him away."

Leaving the track, therefore, we turned off to the left. But when he
had gone about five hundred yards, there were the bear's traces again
right before us. We followed them and they brought us out onto the
road. There we stopped, examining the road to see which way the bear
had gone. Here and there in the snow were prints of the bear's paw,
claws and all, and here and there the marks of a peasant's bark shoes.
The bear had evidently gone towards the village.

As we followed the road, Damian said:

"It's no use watching the road now. We shall see where he has turned
off, to right or left, by the marks in the soft snow at the side.
He must have turned off somewhere, for he won't have gone on to the
village."

We went along the road for nearly a mile, and then saw, ahead of us,
the bear's track turning off the road. We examined it. How strange!
It was a bear's track right enough, only not going from the road into
the forest, but from the forest onto the road! The toes were pointing
towards the road.

"This must be another bear," I said.

Damian looked at it and considered a while.

"No," said he. "It's the same one. He's been playing tricks, and walked
backwards when he left the road."

We followed the track and found it really was so! The bear had gone
some ten steps backwards, and then, behind a fir tree, had turned round
and gone straight ahead. Damian stopped and said:

"Now, we are sure to get round him. There is a marsh ahead of us and he
must have settled down there. Let us go round it."

We began to make our way round through a fir thicket. I was tired out
by this time, and it had become still more difficult to get along. Now
I glided onto juniper bushes and caught my snow-shoes in them, now a
tiny fir tree appeared between my feet, or, from want of practice, my
snow-shoes slipped off; and now I came upon a stump or a log hidden by
the snow. I was getting very tired, and was drenched with perspiration,
and I took off my fur cloak. And there was Damian all the time, gliding
along as if in a boat, his snow-shoes moving as if of their own accord,
never catching against anything, nor slipping off. He even took my fur
and slung it over his shoulders, and still kept urging me on.

We went on for two more miles, and came out on the other side of the
marsh. I was lagging behind. My snow-shoes kept slipping off, and my
feet stumbled. Suddenly Damian, who was ahead of me, stopped and waved
his arm. When I came up to him, he bent down, pointing with his hand
and whispered:

"Do you see the magpie chattering above that undergrowth? It scents the
bear from afar. That is where he must be."

We turned off and went on for more than another half-mile, and
presently we came onto the old track again. We had, therefore, been
right round the bear, who was now within the track we had left. We
stopped, and I took off my cap and loosened all my clothes. I was as
hot as in a steam bath, and as wet as a drowned rat. Damian, too, was
flushed, and wiped his face with his sleeve.

"Well, sir", he said, "we have done our job, and now we must have a
rest."

The evening glow already showed red through the forest. We took off our
snow-shoes and sat down on them, and get some bread and salt out of our
bags. First I ate some snow, and then some bread; and the bread tasted
so good that I thought I had never in my life had any like it before.
We sat there resting until it began to grow dusk, and then I asked
Damian if it was far to the village.

"Yes," he said, "it must be above eight miles. We will go on there
tonight, but now we must rest. Put on your fur coat, sir, or you'll be
catching cold."

Damian flattened down the snow, and breaking off some fir branches made
a bed of them. We lay down side by side, resting our heads on our arms.
I do not remember how I fell asleep. Two hours later I woke up, hearing
something crack.

I had slept so soundly that I did not know where I was. I looked
around me. How wonderful! I was in some sort of a hall, all glittering
and white with gleaming pillars, and when I looked up I saw, through
delicate white tracery, a vault, raven black and studded with coloured
lights. After a good look I remembered that we were in the forest and
that what I took for a hall and pillars were trees covered with snow
and hoar-frost, and the coloured lights were stars twinkling between
the branches.

Hoar-frost had settled in the night; all the twigs were thick with
it, Damian was covered with it, it was on my fur coat, and it dropped
down from the trees. I woke Damian, and we put on our snow-shoes and
started. It was very quiet in the forest. No sound was heard but that
of our snow-shoes pushing through the soft snow, except when now and
then a tree, cracked by the frost, made the forest resound. Only once
we heard the sound of a living creature. Something rustled close to us
and then rushed away. I felt sure it was the bear, but when we went to
the spot whence the sound had come we found the footmarks of hares, and
saw several young aspen trees with their bark gnawed. We had startled
some hares while they were feeding.

We came out on the road and followed it, dragging our snow-shoes behind
us. It was easy walking now. Our snow-shoes clattered as they slid
behind us from side to side of the hard-trodden road: The snow creaked
under our boots, and the cold hoar-frost settled on our faces like
down. Seen through the branches, the stars seemed to be running to meet
us, now twinkling, now vanishing, as if the whole sky were on the move.

I found my comrade sleeping, but woke him up and related how we had got
round the bear. After telling our peasant host to collect beaters for
the morning, we had supper and lay down to sleep.

I was so tired that I could have slept on till midday if my comrade had
not roused me. I jumped up and saw that he was already dressed and busy
doing something to his gun.

"Where is Damian?" said I.

"In the forest long ago. He has already been over the tracks you made,
and been back here, and now he has gone to look after the beaters."

I washed and dressed and loaded my guns, and then we got into a sledge
and started.

The sharp frost still continued. It was quiet and the sun could not
be seen. There was a thick mist above us and hoar-frost still covered
everything.

After driving about two miles along the road, as we came near the
forest, we saw a cloud of smoke raising from a hollow, and presently
reached a group of peasants, both men and women, armed with cudgels.

We got out and went up to them. The men sat roasting potatoes and
laughing and talking with the women.

Damian was there, too, and when we arrived the people got up and Damian
led them to place them in the circle we had made the day before. They
went along in single file, men and women, thirty in all. The snow was
so deep that we could only see them from their waists upwards. They
turned into the forest and my friend and I followed in their track.

Though they had trodden a path, walking was difficult; but, on the
other hand, it was impossible to fall; it was like walking between two
walls of snow.

We went on in this way for nearly half a mile, when all at once we
saw Damian coming from another direction--running towards us on his
snow-shoes and beckoning us to join him. We went towards him and he
showed us where to stand. I took my place and looked round me.

To my left were tall fir trees, between the trunks of which I could see
a good way, and, like a black patch just visible behind the trees, I
could see a beater. In front of me was a thicket of young firs about
as high as a man, their branches weighed down and stuck together with
snow. Through this copse ran a path thickly covered with snow, and
leading straight up to where I stood. The thicket stretched away to the
right of me and ended in a small glade where I could see Damian placing
my comrade.

I examined both my guns and considered where I had better stand. Three
steps behind me was a tall fir.

"That's where I'll stand," thought I, "and then I can lean my second
gun against the tree;" and I moved towards the tree, sinking up to
my knees in the snow at each step. I trod the snow down, and made a
clearance about a yard square to stand on. One gun I kept in my hand;
the other, ready cocked, I placed leaning up against the tree. Then I
unsheathed and replaced my dagger, to make sure that I could draw it
easily in case of need.

Just as I had finished these preparations, I heard Damian shouting in
the forest:

"He's up! He's up!"

And as soon as Damian shouted, the peasants round the circle all
replied in their different voices.

"Up, up, up! Ou! Ou! Ou!" shouted the men.

"Ay! Ay! Ay!" screamed the women in high pitched tones.

The bear was inside the circle, and as Damian drove him on, the
people all round kept shouting. Only my friend and I stood silent and
motionless, waiting for the bear to come towards us. As I stood gazing
and listening, my heart beat violently. I trembled, holding my gun fast.

"Now, now," I thought. "He will come suddenly. I shall aim, fire, and
he will drop--"

Suddenly, to my left, but at a distance, I heard something falling on
the snow. I looked between the tall fir trees, and, some fifty paces
off, behind the trunks, saw something big and black. I took aim and
waited, thinking:

"Won't he come any nearer?"

As I waited I saw him move his ears, turn and go back, and then I
caught a glimpse of the whole of him in profile. He was an immense
brute. In my excitement I fired and heard my bullet go "flop" against a
tree. Peering through the smoke I saw my bear scampering back into the
circle and disappearing among the trees.

"Well," thought I, "My chance is lost. He won't come back to me.
Either my comrade will shoot him or he will escape through the line of
beaters. In any case he won't give me another chance."

I reloaded my gun, however, and again stood listening. The peasants
were shouting all round, but to the right, not far from where my
comrade stood, I heard a woman screaming in a frenzied voice:

"Here he is! Here he is! Come here, come here! Oh! Oh! Ay! Ay!"

Evidently she could see the bear. I had given up expecting him and was
looking to the right at my comrade. All at once I saw Damian with a
stick in his hand, and without his snow-shoes, running along a footpath
towards my friend. He crouched down beside him, pointing his stick as
if aiming at something, and then I saw my friend raise his gun and aim
in the same direction. Crack! He fired.

"There," thought I, "he has killed him."

But I saw that my comrade did not run towards the bear. Evidently he
had missed him, or the shot had not taken full effect.

"The bear will get away," I thought. "He will go back, but he won't
come a second time towards me. But what is that?"

Something was coming towards me like a whirlwind, snorting as it came,
and I saw the snow flying up quite near me. I glanced straight before
me, and there was the bear, rushing along the path through the thicket
right at me, evidently beside himself with fear. He was hardly half a
dozen paces off; and I could see the whole of him--his black chest and
enormous head with a reddish patch. There he was, blundering straight
at me and scattering the snow about as he came. I could see by his
eyes that he did not see me, but, mad with fear, was rushing blindly
along, and his path led him straight at the tree under which I was
standing. I raised my gun and fired. He was almost upon me now, and I
saw that I had missed. My bullet had gone past him, and he did not even
hear me fire, but still came headlong towards me. I lowered my gun and
fired again, almost touching his head. Crack! I had hit but not killed
him.

He raised his head and, laying his ears back, came at me, showing his
teeth.

I snatched at my other gun, but almost before I had touched it he had
flown at me and, knocking me over into the snow, had passed right over
me.

"Thank goodness, he has left me," thought I.

I tried to rise, but something pressed me down and prevented my getting
up. The bear's rush had carried him past me, but he had turned back and
had fallen on me with the whole weight of his body. I felt something
heavy weighing me down and something warm above my face, and I realized
that he was drawing my whole face into his mouth. My nose was already
in it, and I felt the heat of it and smelt his blood. He was pressing
my shoulders down with his paws so that I could not move; all I could
do was to draw my head down towards my chest, away from his mouth,
trying to free my nose and eyes, while he tried to get his teeth into
them. Then I felt that he had seized my forehead just under the hair
with the teeth of his lower jaw and the flesh below my eyes with his
upper jaw, and was closing his teeth. It was as if my face were being
cut with knives. I struggled to get away, while he made haste to close
his jaws, like a dog gnawing. I managed to twist my face away, but he
began drawing it again into his mouth.

"Now," thought I, "my end has come!"

Then I felt the weight lifted and, looking up, I saw that he was no
longer there. He had jumped off me and run away.

When my comrade and Damian had seen the bear knock me down and begin
worrying me, they rushed to the rescue. My comrade, in his haste,
blundered and, instead of following the trodden path, ran into the deep
snow and fell down. While he was struggling out of the snow the bear
was gnawing at me. But Damian, just as he was, without a gun and with
only a stick in his hand, rushed along the path shouting:

"He's eating the master! He's eating the master!"

And, as he ran, he called to the bear:

"Oh, you idiot! What are you doing? Leave off! Leave off!"

The bear obeyed him and, leaving me, ran away. When I rose there was
as much blood on the snow as if a sheep had been killed, and the flesh
hung in rags above my eyes, though in my excitement I felt no pain.

My comrade had come up by this time, and the other people collected
round; they looked at my wound and put snow on it. But I, forgetting
about my wounds, only asked:

"Where's the bear? Which way has he gone?"

Suddenly I heard:

"Here he is! Here he is!"

And we saw the bear again running at us. We seized our guns, but before
any one had time to fire he had run past He had grown ferocious and
wanted to gnaw me again, but, seeing so many people, he took fright.
We saw by his track that his head was bleeding, and we wanted to follow
him up, but, as my wounds had become very painful, we went, instead, to
the town to find a doctor.

The doctor stitched up my wounds with silk and they soon began to heal.

A month later we went to hunt that bear again, but I did not get a
chance of finishing him. He would not come out of the circle, but went
round and round, growling in a terrible voice.

Damian killed him. The bear's lower jaw had been broken and one of his
teeth knocked out by my bullet. He was a huge creature and had splendid
black fur.

I had him stuffed and he now lies in my room. The wounds on my forehead
healed up so that the scars can scarcely be seen.

                                                      --Leo M. Tolstoy.

    "Twenty-three Tales from Tolstoy." (Oxford.) Written about 1872.


=Saladin and I Fight an Alupong=

As I remember, it was a windy afternoon in April, 1906, that I was
nearly bitten by an _alupong_, a very poisonous snake, when I was out
on our farm during harvest. The day was beginning to cool. The men and
women were busy cleaning the rice that had been threshed the night
before.

I went out with my dog, Saladin, to play with the other boy on the
farm. While we were running and jumping on the great, long pile of hay
I heard my dog barking. I quickly ran to see what was the matter.
Saladin was leaping and running as he barked. He was after a big snake,
which from time to time stopped and raised its crested head to bite.

I was very much excited. I shouted to encourage my dog. I took a
good-sized lump of dried earth and threw it with all my might at the
snake. Then I cried to the boys, "A snake, a snake! Come, here is a big
snake! Look!"

All the boys came, but when they reached the place the poisonous animal
was gone. Saladin was standing on his hind legs and was barking as he
scratched the side of an ant hill. I went near the dog. I saw what was
the matter. Then I turned to the boys and said, "It is gone into this
hole. Let us make it come out."

I pulled up one of the poles of the fence surrounding the place where
the rice was being cleaned, and with it I hastened back to the ant
hill. Then I pushed this pointed pole, about one and one-half inches in
diameter and four feet in length, into the hole. The other boys were
far from me, but my dog was alert near the place. I heard the snake
spit and hiss inside. Then I suddenly pulled away the pole. When I saw
the animal coming out quickly, I speedily turned to run, but I missed
my first step and fell to the ground.

You may fancy how greatly I was frightened. During that short, critical
moment I expected the deadly bite, but to my great relief I had time
to stand up without being bitten. I looked back and saw how my dog had
saved my life. He was fighting with the snake. In that very place the
two killed each other, after a short time.

                                                 --Cecilio R. Esquivel.


=I Get Two Beatings=

One afternoon my mother beat me for some cause which I have forgotten.
After I had wiped my tears I went into our orchard just across the
road. It was very nice to stay under the orange and cocoa trees because
of the sweet breeze which was coming from the river at the end of the
orchard.

As I was rambling about I came to the river bank, which is about thirty
feet high. When I looked down I saw two wild tomato plants full of red
fruit. "Ah!" I exclaimed, "what good tomato plants. I will take the
fruit home to appease mother's anger." Accordingly I began to look for
a path down to the water. The path which I found was very steep, and so
it was hard for me to go down. When I reached the edge of the water I
saw a man catching insects to use for bait.

"Where are you going, my lad?" he said.

"I am going to get the fruit of those two tomato plants. Can't you see
them?" I asked, pointing to the plants.

"I tried to get those this morning, but I could not."

"Anyhow, I will try," I continued.

So I began to climb the steep slope with both hands and feet. While I
was climbing the man said, "Look out. If you fall, you will surely roll
into the water." My desire to appease my mother's anger was so great
that I paid no heed to what he said. After struggling for a few minutes
I caught hold of a long root of the _madre cacao_ tree, which was
growing on the bank. With the help of this and several others I reached
the place where the tomatoes were. When I had filled one of my pockets
with the red fruits the root to which I was holding broke in two and
down I rolled, with my head foremost, into the water. I should have
drowned had not the man saved me. When I was carried on land I found
out that my back was badly hurt. I had received two wounds, one over
the left eyebrow and one in the forehead, from some thorns. The scars
can be seen to this day. When I went home my mother asked me why I had
my clothes wet. I told her the whole story, but when she saw my wounds
she became so angry that she beat me again.

                                                    --Facundo Esquivel.


=The Fall of Juan=

One day while Juan, Pedro and I were in the church tower looking at a
procession, we saw a nest hanging from the _cogon_ roof. For a while
no one of us seemed to want it, but soon Juan said, "That is mine."
Then Pedro approached him, saying, "I will have it," and he pushed Juan
away. As I was very much interested in the beautiful nest, I went near
them and said, "The first one that can get it shall have it." So I
jumped and grabbed it. Then Pedro said, "Let us divide the eggs so that
each of us will have a share."

"No, no," I cried, "I must have it all."

For a long time the quarrel grew worse and worse until it finally
became a fight. Then a sad thing occurred. Pedro rushed toward me and
snatched at the nest, but I pushed him away. Then Juan came with the
same intention. Seeing that I was in danger, I laid the nest on the
floor and grasped Juan by the neck. As he tried to throw me, I pushed
him out of the door. Down, down he went as fast as an arrow. Now all of
us thought that he would be dashed to pieces, but when, by scrambling
and sliding, we at last reached the bottom of the long, dark, winding
stairs, we found him swelling with pride and boasting of himself as a
brave boy.

                                                   --Gregorio Farrales.


=A Narrow Escape from a Wild Carabao=

In 1903 I narrowly escaped being killed by a wild carabao. There were
many of us pursuing this animal, but, after seeing that the buffalo was
very fierce, all of my companions got so afraid that they withdrew.
Since I had the best horse, I continued following the wild beast.
My ambition to distinguish myself both in horseback riding and in
catching wild cattle was great. So, at the time when we were pursuing
the animal, I had in mind that if I alone could succeed in catching
the wild carabao, it would surely be an honor to me. So I followed the
animal closely. When I was just a few feet behind it it suddenly turned
back and fell upon my pony. I also tried to turn back, but in vain; the
carabao overcame us. At this time I was entirely hopeless of my life.
The sharp horn of the cruel beast stuck deeply into the thighs of my
poor pony. I did not know what to do then, for the cruel beast would
surely pursue me if I should dismount. So I grasped my saddle with all
my might. But after a while my poor pet languished and fell. Then I
did my best to get away from danger. The carabao would have pursued
me at once, but its horns stuck tight into the muscles of my horse,
and consequently it was delayed a little. Meanwhile I got into a cell
of a big rock, and exactly at the very moment I squeezed in the mad
buffalo struck the opening with its horns. Fortunately, the aperture
was too small for the head of the animal to enter. But still the sharp
points of its horns could reach me and I received a wound at the back
of my neck. Luckily, I had a bolo with me, and reaching out bravely, I
stabbed the nose of the cruel beast. It surely received a severe wound.
But, instead of running away, the animal became angrier than before and
butted again and again at the opening. My eyes were nearly struck by
the sharp pointed horns. In order to save myself from further injury I
stabbed this time one of the glowing eyes of the buffalo. Blood gushed
out at me. When the wild beast felt the pains of the wounds it began to
move away with regret. After the carabao had gone I bemoaned the death
of my favorite pony. I decided to take revenge upon the beast. In order
to accomplish this I first went home. When I told my parents about
the accident they at once consented to my taking their gun. So the
next morning I set out with many companions. We easily found the same
wild carabao roaming in the broad forest. It was still very mad, for
it began to chase us immediately, coming swiftly towards us, looking
sidewise with its one eye. Without hesitation I let my bullet go and
the beast fell dead.

                                                      --José M. Cariño.


V. The Traveler's Sketch

A traveler's sketch is an orderly and extended account of the
incidents of a journey--the sights, sounds, experiences, impressions
and conclusions of the writer. Incidents and anecdotes may be given
by the narrator in the first or third person; but a traveler's sketch
is always first person. There may be the other forms included,
together with descriptions and historical references; but what makes
a traveler's sketch a traveler's sketch is the personal flavor. The
question the reader always asks is, not what kind of city is Lisbon,
but what impression did it make on Fielding.

[Great travel books]

There have been only a few great travel books written. Perhaps, because
the people that are worth while are not gadabouts; perhaps, because
only a few men are generous enough or idle enough to give themselves
over completely to impressions; surely, because not every one who
travels has the ability to see what ought to be seen or to express
himself entertainingly after he has seen it. The narrator needs an eye
made quiet, that looks into the heart of things. He needs also wit and
a wide humanity. If he stalks his way through a place as an Englishman
only, or if he buys it through lavishly as an American, he will have
nothing to tell that we care to listen to. The public is not won by a
string of foreign names merely. A little trip from New York to Boston
would furnish a Smollet or a Sterne with more observations than a
journey around the world would a dull-minded pedant. George Borrow
could tell of distributing Bibles in Spain, and yet give us one of
the best travel books in any language. Henry Fielding could be on his
death journey, as he was on his voyage to Lisbon, and well know it, as
he did, and yet he could write with such an 'indomitable gallantry of
spirit, such an irrepressible joy of life, such an insatiably curious
eye for humanity,' such a new relish for every fresh face, that the
reader could easily imagine that the laughing, genial, ironic, but
altogether compassionate and broad-minded, manly fellow had not a care
in the world.

The "Voyage and Travaille of Sir John Mandeville" is a book very
precious to the English language, if not to the history of facts. It
was intended as a road-book to the Holy Land, and was produced as
early as 1356. It is precious not only because of the marvelous tales
skillfully woven in as reports of the belief of various cities--stories
which have been inspirations to hundreds of romancers--but because of
the fact that it was, so far as we know, the first piece of English
prose of any considerable extent to depart from the beaten track of
medieval theology and philosophy, and the first piece of original prose
to reveal any personality, to have any style, any flavor of the author.
Altho because of its stooping to the delight that men of that day took
in marvels it places itself really in the class of imaginary voyages,
it yet belongs with good travel books in this one essential--vivacity
and personal charm.

Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, because of his irresponsibility in padding his account
with marvelous tales, placed himself with Mandeville and the wonder
books; but the result of his "Travels" was scientific in the effect his
evidence that he had really been to the far East had upon Columbus and
the earlier navigators.

An interesting bit of Anglo-Saxon actual travel account is the story of
Ohthere and Wulfstan inserted by King Alfred into his translation of
the "History of Orosius," and told as the king took it down from the
lips of these sea-rovers themselves sometime during the ninth century.

Sturdy old Sam Johnson by his "Journey to the Western Isles" added a
substantial volume to the very short eight-or-ten-inch shelf of great
travel book.

In many ways Bayard Taylor was the ideal traveler, putting himself
into sympathy with the people whom he went among, wearing their dress,
eating their food, speaking their language. But he failed to produce
great literature, for some reason or other--perhaps because he wrote
for the newspapers. His "Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and
Staff" and other "copy" of the sort are interesting reading, however.
Darwin's record of the Voyage of the Beagle is invaluable to science.

Richard Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" is an excellent boys'
book, and has a fine feeling of adventure about it. But we may not
mention the work of any more travel writers, Stevenson, James, Curtis,
Stanley, Roosevelt, or others in other languages.

[Fielding's gentle warning]

Many of our travel books were written as letters and journals; some,
as notes or strict diaries. You might put your sketch into the form of
a letter to a friend. The chief thing you need to remember in relating
any journey, however long or short, is Fielding's gentle warning to
know what to omit: "To make a traveler an agreeable companion to a man
of sense, it is necessary, not only that he should have seen much,
but that he should have overlooked much of what he hath seen.... [A
motto for the narrator] [Some voyage-writers] waste their time and
paper with recording things and facts of so common a kind that they
challenge no other right of being remembered than as they had the
honor of having happened to the author, to whom nothing seems trivial
that in any manner happens to himself. Of such consequence do his own
actions appear to one of his kind that he would probably think himself
guilty of infidelity should he omit the minutest thing in the detail of
his journal. That the fact is true, is sufficient to give it a place
there without any consideration whether it is capable of pleasing or
surprising, of diverting or informing the reader." By implication
Fielding gives the travel book its motto: to please and surprise,
divert and inform.


="On the Way to Talavera"=

The next day's journey brought me to a considerable town, the name
of which I have forgotten. It is the first in New Castile, in this
direction. I passed the night as usual in the manger of the stable,
close beside the Caballeria; for, as I traveled upon a donkey, I deemed
it incumbent upon me to be satisfied with a couch in keeping with my
manner of journeying, being averse, by any squeamish and over delicate
airs, to generate a suspicion amongst the people with whom I mingled
that I am aught higher than what my equipage and outward appearance
might lead them to believe. Rising before daylight, I again proceeded
on my way, hoping ere night to be able to reach Talavera, which I was
informed was ten leagues distant. The way lay entirely over an unbroken
level, for the most part covered with olive trees. On the left,
however, at the distance of a few leagues, rose the mighty mountains
which I have already mentioned. They run eastward in a seemingly
interminable range, parallel with the route which I was pursuing; their
tops and sides were covered with dazzling snow, and the blasts which
came sweeping from them across the wide and melancholy plains were of
bitter keenness.

"What mountains are those?" I inquired of a barber-surgeon, who,
mounted like myself on a grey burra, joined me about noon, and
proceeded in my company for several leagues. "They have many names,
Caballero," replied the barber; "according to the names of the
neighbouring places so they are called. Yon portion of them is styled
the Serriania of Plasencia; and opposite to Madrid they are termed the
Mountains of Guadarama, from a river of that name which descends from
them; they run a vast way, Caballero, and separate the two kingdoms,
for on the other side is Old Castile. They are mighty mountains, and
though they generate much cold, I take pleasure in looking at them,
which is not to be wondered at, seeing that I was born among them,
though at present, for my sins, I live in a village of the plain.
Caballero, there is not another such range in Spain; they have their
secrets, too--their mysteries--strange tales are told of those hills,
and of what they contain in their deep recesses, for they are a broad
chain, and you may wander days and days amongst them without coming
to any termino. Many have lost themselves on those hills, and have
never again been heard of. Strange things are told of them; it is
said that in a certain place there are deep pools and lakes in which
dwell monsters, huge serpents as long as a pine tree, and horses of
the flood, which sometimes come out and commit mighty damage. One
thing is certain, that yonder, far away to the west, in the heart
of those hills, there is a wonderful valley, so narrow that only at
midday is the face of the sun to be descried from it. That valley lay
undiscovered and unknown for thousands of years; no person dreamed of
its existence, but at last, a long time ago, certain hunters entered
it by chance, and then what do you think they found, Caballero? They
found a small nation or tribe of unknown people, speaking an unknown
language, who perhaps, had lived there since the creation of the
world, without intercourse with the rest of their fellow creatures,
and without knowing that other beings besides themselves existed!
Caballero, did you never hear of the valley of the Batuecas? Many books
have been written about that valley and those people, Caballero, I am
proud of yonder hills; and were I independent, and without wife or
children, I would purchase a burra like that of your own, which I see
is an excellent one, and far superior to mine, and travel amongst them
till I knew all their mysteries, and had seen all the wondrous things
they contain."

Throughout the day I pressed the burra forward, only stopping once in
order to feed the animal; but, notwithstanding that she played her
part very well, night came on, and I was still about two leagues from
Talavera. As the sun went down, the cold became intense; I drew the
old Gypsy cloak, which I still wore, closer around me, but I found it
quite inadequate to protect me from the inclemency of the atmosphere.
The road, which lay over a plain, was not very distinctly traced, and
became in the dusk rather difficult to find, more especially as cross
roads leading to different places were of frequent occurrence.

I however, proceeded in the best manner I could, and when I became
dubious as to the course which I should take, I invariably allowed the
animal on which I was mounted to decide. At length the moon shone out
faintly, when suddenly by its beams I beheld a figure moving before
me at a slight distance. I quickened the pace of the burra, and was
soon close at its side. It went on, neither altering its pace nor
looking round for a moment. It was the figure of a man, the tallest and
bulkiest that I had hitherto seen in Spain, dressed in a manner strange
and singular for the country. On his head was a hat with a low crown
and broad brim, very much resembling that of an English waggoner; about
his body was a long loose tunic or slop, seemingly of coarse ticken,
open in front, so as to allow the interior garments to be occasionally
seen; these appeared to consist of a jerkin and short velveteen
pantaloons. I have said that the brim of the hat was broad, but broad
as it was, it was insufficient to cover an immense bush of coal-black
hair, which, thick and curly, projected, on either side; over the left
shoulder was flung a kind of satchel, and in the right hand was held a
long staff or pole.

There was something peculiarly strange about the figure, but what
struck me the most was the tranquility with which it moved along,
taking no heed of me, though of course aware of my proximity, but
looking straight forward along the road, save when it occasionally
raised a huge face and large eyes toward the moon, which was now
shining forth in the eastern quarter.

"A cold night," said I at last. "Is this the way to Talavera?"

"It is the way to Talavera, and the night is cold."

"I am going to Talavera," said I, "as I suppose you are yourself."

"I am going thither, so are you, _Bueno_."

The tones of the voice which delivered these words were in their
way quite as strange and singular as the figure to which the voice
belonged; they were not exactly the tones of a Spanish voice, and
yet there was something in them that could hardly be foreign; the
pronunciation also was correct, and the language, though singular,
faultless. But I was most struck with the manner in which the last
word, _bueno_, was spoken. I had heard something like it before, but
where or when I could by no means remember. A pause now ensued; the
figure stalking on as before with the most perfect indifference, and
seemingly with no disposition either to seek or avoid conversation.

"Are you not afraid," said I at last, "to travel these roads in the
dark? It is said that there are robbers abroad."

"Are you not rather afraid," replied the figure, "to travel these roads
in the dark?--you who are ignorant of the country, who are a foreigner,
an Englishman?"

"How is it that you know me to be an Englishman?" demanded I, much
surprised.

"That is no difficult matter," replied the figure; "the sound of your
voice was enough to apprise me of that."

"You speak of voices," said I; "suppose the tone of your own voice were
to tell me who you are?"

"That it will not do," replied my companion; "you know nothing about
me--you can know nothing about me."

"Be not sure of that, my friend; I am acquainted with many things of
which you have little idea."

"For example," said the figure.

"For example," said I, "you speak two languages."

The figure moved on, seemed to consider a moment and then said slowly,
_bueno_.

"You have two names," I continued; "one for the house and the other for
the street; both are good, but the one by which you are called at home
is the one which you like best."

The man walked on about ten paces, in the same manner as he had
previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle
of the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view
of his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form
still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the
moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At last he
said:

"Are you then one of us?"

                                                       --George Borrow.

    "The Bible in Spain." The World's Classics (Oxford Press).


="Smyrna: First Glimpses of the East"=

"I am glad that the Turkish part of Athens was extinct, so that I
should not be baulked of the pleasure of entering an Eastern town by an
introduction to any garbled or incomplete specimen of one. Smyrna seems
to me the most Eastern of all have seen; as Calais will probably remain
to the Englishman, the most French town in the world. The jack-boots
of the postilions don't seem so huge elsewhere, or the tight stockings
of the maid-servants so Gallic. The churches and the ramparts and
the little soldiers on them, remain forever impressed upon your
memory; from which larger temples and buildings, and whole armies have
subsequently disappeared; and the first words of actual French heard
spoken, and the first dinner at 'Quillacq's' remain after twenty years
as clear as on the first day. Dear Jones, can't you remember the exact
smack of the white hermitage, and the toothless old fellow singing
'Largo al factotum?'"

The first day in the East is like that. After that there is nothing.
The wonder is gone, and the thrill of that delightful shock, which so
seldom touches the nerves of plain men of the world, though they seek
for it everywhere. One such looked out at Smyrna from our steamer and
yawned without the least excitement, and did not betray the slightest
emotion, as boats with real Turks on board came up to the ship. There
lay the town with minarets and cypresses, domes and castles; great guns
were firing off, and the blood-red flag of the Sultan flaring over
the gulf's edge, and as you looked at them with the telescope, there
peered out of the general mass a score of pleasant episodes of Eastern
life--there were cottages with quaint roofs; silent cool kioska, where
the chief of the eunuchs brings down the ladies of the harem. I saw
Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets; and Ali Baba going off with
his donkey to the great forest for wood. Smith looked at these wonders
quite unmoved; and I was surprised at his apathy; but he had been at
Smyrna before. A man only sees the miracle once: though you yearn after
it ever so, it won't come again. I saw nothing of Ali Baba and Hassan
the next time we came to Smyrna, and had some doubts (recollecting
the badness of the inn) about landing at all. A person who wishes to
understand France and the East should come in a yacht to Calais or
Smyrna, land for two hours, and never afterward go back again.

But those two hours are beyond measure delightful. Some of us were
querulous up to that time and doubted of the wisdom of making the
voyage. Lisbon, we owned, was a failure. Athens a dead failure;
Malta very well, but not worth the trouble and seasickness; in fact,
Baden-Baden or Devonshire would be a better move than this; when
Smyrna came and rebuked all mutinous Cockneys into silence. Some men
may read this who are in want of a sensation. If they love the odd
and picturesque, if they loved the "Arabian Nights" in their youth,
let them book themselves on board one of the Peninsular and Oriental
vessels and try one _dip_ into Constantinople or Smyrna. Walk into the
bazaar and the East is unveiled to you; how often and often have you
tried to fancy this, lying out on a summer holiday at school! It is
wonderful, too, how _like_ it is; you may imagine that you have been in
the place before, you seem to know it so well!

"The beauty of that poetry is, to me, that it was never too handsome;
there is no fatigue of sublimity about it. Schacabac and the little
Barber play as great a part in it as the heroes; there are no
uncomfortable sensations of terror; you may be familiar with the great
Afreet, who was going to execute the travelers for killing his son with
a date stone. Morgiana, when she kills the Forty Robbers with boiling
oil, does not seem to hurt them in the least; and though King Schahrier
makes a practice of cutting off his wives' heads, yet you fancy they
got them on again in some of the back rooms of the palace, where they
are dancing and playing on dulcimers. How fresh, easy, good-natured is
all this! How delightful is that notion of the pleasant Eastern people
about knowledge, where the height of science is made to consist in the
answering of riddles and all the mathematicians and magicians bring
their great beards to bear on a conundrum!

"When I got into the bazaar among this race, somehow I felt as if they
were all friends. There sat the merchants in their little shops, quiet
and solemn, but with friendly looks. There was no smoking, it was the
Ramazan; no eating--the fish and meats fizzing in the enormous pots
of the cook-shops are only for the Christians. The children abounded;
the law is not so stringent upon them, and many wandering merchants
were there selling figs (in the name of the Prophet, doubtless),
for their benefit, and elbowing onward with baskets of grapes and
cucumbers. Countrymen passed bristling over with arms, each with a
huge bellyful of pistols and daggers in his girdle; fierce, but not
the least dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, who had come in with the
caravans, walked solemnly about, very different in look and demeanor
from the sleek inhabitants of the town. Greeks and Jews squatted and
smoked, their shops tended by sallow-faced boys, with large eyes, who
smiled and welcomed you in; negroes bustled about in gaudy colors; and
women, with black nose-bags and shuffling yellow slippers chattered and
bargained at the doors of the little shops. There was the rope quarter
and the sweetmeat quarter, and the pipe bazaar and the arm bazaar, and
the little turned-up shoe quarter, and the shops where ready-made
jackets and pelisses were swinging, and the region where, under the
ragged awnings, regiments of tailors were at work. The sun peeps
through these awnings of mat or canvas, which are hung over the narrow
lanes of the bazaar and ornaments them with a thousand freaks of light
and shadow. Cogia Hassan Alhabbal's shop is in a blaze of light; while
his neighbor, the barber and coffee-house keeper, has his premises, his
low seats and narghilés, his queer pots and basins, in the shade. The
cobblers are always good-natured; there was one who, I am sure, has
been revealed to me in my dreams, in a dirty old green turban, with a
pleasant wrinkled face like an apple; twinkling his little gray eyes as
he held them up to the gossips, and smiling under a delightful old gray
beard, which did the heart good to see. You divine the conversation
between him and the cucumber man, as the Sultan used to understand the
language of birds. Are any of those cucumbers stuffed with pearls,
and is that Armenian with the black square turban Haroun Alraschid
in disguise, standing yonder by the fountain where the children are
drinking--the gleaming marble fountain, checked all over with light and
shadow, and engraved with delicate Arabesques and sentences from the
Koran?

"But the greatest sensation of all is when the camels come. Whole
strings of real camels, better even than in the procession of Blue
Beard, with soft rolling eyes and bended necks, swaying from one side
of the bazaar to the other to and fro, and treading gingerly with their
great feet. Oh, you fairy dreams of boyhood! Oh, you sweet meditations
of half-holidays, here you are realized for half an hour! The genius
which presides over youth led up to do a good action that day. There
was a man sitting in an open room ornamented with fine long-tailed
sentences of the Koran; some in red, some in blue; some written
diagonally over the paper; some so shaped as to represent ships,
dragons, or mysterious animals. The man squatted on a carpet in the
middle of this room, with folded arms, waggling his head to and fro,
swaying about, and singing through his nose choice phrases from the
sacred work. But from the room above came a clear voice of many little
shouting voices, much more musical than that of Naso in the matted
parlor, and the guide told us it was a school, so we went upstairs to
look.

"I declare, an my conscience, the master was in the act of bastinadoing
a little mulatto boy; his feet were in a bar, and the brute was laying
on with a cane; so we witnessed the howling of the poor boy, and the
confusion of the brute who was administering the correction. The other
children were made to shout, I believe, to drown the noise of their
little comrade's howling; but the punishment was instantly discontinued
as our hats came up over the stair-trap, and the boy cast loose, and
the bamboo huddled into a corner, and the schoolmaster stood before us
abashed. All the small scholars in red caps, and the little girls in
gaudy handkerchiefs turned their big wondering dark eyes toward us; and
the caning was over for _that_ time, let us trust. I don't envy some
schoolmasters in a future state. I pity that poor little blubbering
Mahometan; he will never be able to relish the 'Arabian Nights' in the
original as long as he lives.

"From this scene we rushed off somewhat discomposed to make a
breakfast off red mullets and grapes, melons, pomegranates, and Smyrna
wine, at a dirty little comfortable inn to which we were recommended;
and from the windows of which we had a fine, cheerful view of the gulf
and its busy craft, and the loungers and merchants along the shore.
There were camels unloading at one wharf, and piles of melons much
bigger than the Gibraltar cannon-balls at another. It was the fig
season, and we passed through several alleys encumbered with long rows
of fig-dressers, children and women for the most part, who were packing
the fruit diligently into drums, dipping them in salt water first, and
spreading them neatly over with leaves; while the figs and leaves are
drying, large white worms crawl out of them and swarm over the decks
of the ships which carry them to Europe and to England, where small
children eat them with pleasure--I mean the figs, not the worms--and
where they are still served at wine parties at the universities.
When fresh they are not better than elsewhere; but the melons are
of admirable flavor, and so large that Cinderella might almost be
accommodated with a coach made of a big one, without any very great
distention of its original proportions.

"Our guide, an accomplished swindler, demanded two dollars as the fee
for entering the mosque, which others of our party subsequently saw
for sixpence, so we did not care to examine that place of worship. But
there were other cheaper sights, which were to the full as picturesque,
for which there was no call to pay money, or indeed, for a day,
scarcely to move at all. I doubt whether a man who would smoke his pipe
on a bazaar counter all day, and let the city flow by him, would not
be almost as well employed as the most active curiosity hunter.

"To be sure he would not see the women. Those in the bazaar were
shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody would feel a
curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their figure than if they
had been stuffed in holsters; and even their feet were brought to a
general splay uniformity by the double yellow slippers which the wives
of true believers wear. But it is in the Greek and Armenian quarters,
and among those poor Christians who were pulling figs, that you see the
beauties; and a man of a generous disposition may lose his heart half
a dozen times a day in Smyrna. There was the pretty maid at work at
a tambour frame in an open porch, with an old duenna spinning by her
side, and a goat tied up to the railings of the little court garden;
there was the nymph who came down the stair with the pitcher on her
head, and gazed with great calm eyes, as large and stately as Juno's;
there was the gentle mother, bending over a queer cradle, in which lay
a small crying bundle of infancy. All these three charmers were seen in
a single street in the Armenian quarter, where the house doors are all
open, and the women of the families sit under the arches in the court.
There was the fig girl, beautiful beyond all others, with an immense
coil of deep black hair twisted round a head of which Raphael was
worthy to draw the outline, and Titian to paint the color. I wonder the
Sultan has not swept her off, or that the Persian merchants, who come
with silks and sweetmeats have not kidnapped her for the Shah of Tehean.

"We went to see the Persian merchants at their khan, and purchased
some silks there from a swarthy, black-bearded man with a conical cap
of lambswool. Is it not hard to think that silks bought of a man in
a lambswool cap, in a caravanseria, brought hither on the backs of
camels, should have been manufactured after all at Lyons? Others of our
party bought carpets, for which the town is famous; and there was one
absolutely laid in a stock of real Smyrna figs, and purchased three or
four real Smyrna sponges for his carriage; so strong was his passion
for the genuine article.

"I wonder that no painter has given us familiar views of the East; not
processions, grand sultans, or magnificent landscapes, but faithful
transcripts of everyday Oriental life, such as each street will supply
to him. The camels afford endless motives, couched in the market
places, lying by thousands in the camel square, snorting and bubbling
after their manner, the sun blazing down on their backs, their slaves
and keepers lying behind them in the shade; and the Caravan Bridge,
above all, would afford a painter subjects for a dozen of pictures.
Over this Roman arch, which crosses the Meles river, all the caravans
pass on their entrance to the town. On one side, as we sat and looked
at it, was a great row of plane trees; on the opposite bank a deep
wood of tall cypresses, in the midst of which rose up innumerable gray
tombs, surmounted with the turbans of the defunct believers. Beside
the stream the view was less gloomy. There was under the plane trees
a little coffee house, shaded by a trellis-work, covered over with a
vine and ornamented with many rows of shining pots and water-pipes, for
which there was no use at noonday now, in the time of Ramazan.

"Hard by the coffee house was a garden and a bubbling marble fountain,
and over the stream was a broken summerhouse, to which amateurs may
ascend for the purpose of examining the river, and all round the plane
trees plenty of stools for those who were inclined to sit and drink
sweet, thick coffee or cool lemonade made of fresh green citrons. The
master of the house, dressed in a white turban and light blue pelisse,
lolled under the coffee-house awning; the slave in white with a crimson
striped jacket, his face as black as ebony, brought up pipes and
lemonade again, and returned to his station at the coffee house, where
he curled his black legs together and began singing out of his flat
nose to the thrumming of a long guitar with wire string. The instrument
was not bigger than a soup ladle, with a long straight handle, but its
music pleased the performer, for his eyes rolled shining about, and his
head wagged, and he grinned with an innocent intensity of enjoyment
that did one good to look at. And there was a friend to share his
pleasure; a Turk dressed in scarlet and covered all over with dagger
and pistols, sat leaning forward on his little stool, rocking about and
grinning quite as eagerly as the black minstrels. As he sang and we
listened, figures of women bearing pitchers went passing over the Roman
bridge which we saw between the large trunks of the planes; or gray
forms of camels were seen stalking across it, the string preceded by
the little donkey, who is always here their long-eared conductor.

"These are very humble incidents of travel. Wherever the steamboat
touches the shore adventure retreats into the interior, and what is
called romance vanishes. It won't bear the vulgar gaze; or rather the
light of common day puts it out, and it is only in the dark that it
shines at all. There is no cursing and insulting of Giaours now. If a
cockney looks or behaves in a particularly ridiculous way, the little
Turks come out and laugh at him. A Londoner is no longer a spittoon for
true believers; and now that dark Hassan sits in his divan and drinks
champagne, and Selim has a French watch, and Zuleika perhaps takes
Morrison's pills, Byronism becomes absurd instead of sublime, and is
only a foolish expression of cockney wonder. They still occasionally
beat a man for going into a mosque, but this is almost the only sign
of ferocious vitality left in the Turk of the Mediterranean coast,
and strangers may enter scores of mosques without molestation. The
paddlewheel is the great conqueror. Wherever the captain cries 'Stop
her!' civilization stops, and lands in the ship's boat, and makes
a permanent acquaintance with the savages on shore. Whole hosts of
crusaders have passed and died and butchered here in vain. But to
manufacture European iron into pikes and helmets was a waste of metal;
in the shape of piston rods and furnace pokers it is irresistible; and
I think an allegory might be made showing how much stronger commerce is
than chivalry, and finishing with a grand image of Mahomet's crescent
being extinguished in Fulton's boiler.

"This I thought was the moral of the day's sights and adventures. We
pulled off the steamer in the afternoon--the Inbat blowing fresh and
setting all the craft in the gulf dancing over its blue waters. We
were presently under weigh again, the captain ordering his engines to
work only at half power, so that a French steamer which was quitting
Smyrna at the same time might come up with us and fancy she could beat
the irresistible _Tagus_. Vain hope! Just as the Frenchman neared us,
the _Tagus_ shot out like an arrow and the discomfited Frenchman went
behind. Though we all relished the joke exceedingly, there was a French
gentleman on board who did not seem to be by any means tickled with
it; but he had received papers at Smyrna containing news of Marshal
Bugeaud's victory at Isley and had this land victory to set against our
harmless little triumph at sea.

"That night we rounded the Island of Mitylene, and next day the coast
of Troy was in sight, and the tomb of Achilles--a dismal-looking
mound that rises on a low, dreary, barren shore--less lively and not
more picturesque than the Schelot or the mouth of the Thames. Then we
passed Tenedos and the forts and town at the mouth of the Dardanelles.
The weather was not too hot, the water as smooth as at Putney, and
everybody happy and excited at the thought of seeing Constantinople
tomorrow. We had music on board all the way from Smyrna. A German
_commis voyageur_, with a guitar, who had passed unnoticed until
that time, produced his instrument about midday and began to whistle
waltzes. He whistled so divinely that the ladies left their cabins and
men laid down their books. He whistled a polka so bewitchingly that
two young Oxford men began whirling round the deck and performed that
popular dance with much agility until they sank down tired. He still
continued an unabated whistling, and as nobody would dance, pulled
off his coat, produced a pair of castanets and whistling a mazurka,
performed it with tremendous agility. His whistling made everybody
gay and happy--made those acquainted who had not spoken before, and
inspired such a feeling of hilarity in the ship that that night, as
we floated over the Sea of Marmora, a general vote was expressed for
broiled bones and a regular supper party. Punch was brewed and speeches
were made, and, after a lapse of fifteen years, I heard the 'Old
English Gentleman' and 'Bright Chanticleer Proclaims the Morn,' sung in
such style that you would almost fancy the proctors must hear and send
us all home."

                                         --William Makepeace Thackeray.

    "A Journey from Cornhill to Cairo."


=A Trip from Currimao to Laoag=

Late in the afternoon of last April third, Mr. C. Guia and I left
Currimao for San Nicolas and Laoag, respectively. We traveled in a cart
drawn by a fat gray cow.

At first it was not altogether pleasant to go now up then down the
irregular road, and besides, the cart--a shoe-box-shaped sort of buggy
with bamboo sides and floor--was far from being comfortable. The
driver was a sturdy broad-shouldered country fellow, dressed in a red
home-spun shirt worn outside of his tight dark-green trousers, rolled
up above his knees. His big bolo, suspended from his tough belt that he
wore outside, was at his left; while his callugung--a saucer-shaped hat
made from a dried wild squash--was dangling at his right.

Since we left Currimao he had not addressed us a single word, but all
of a sudden when the cart stopped in front of a ragged cottage, he
cried out loud as if we were deaf, "Apu, arac quen maiz," which means,
"Sirs, wine and corn." Mr. Guia and I rose from our squatting posture
on the floor by the side of our steamer trunks and suit cases and got
down to buy for our driver the things that he needed.

When we entered, the inner appearance of the cottage in the dim light
of a small oil lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling aroused
somewhat my pity for the occupants. In one corner a rather old though
fat woman was cooking supper, while in another corner were fishing
nets, a new plow, a hunting spear and a callugung. In the corner near
the door were rough boxes on which were ragged mats and red pillows. In
the middle of the room was a basket of corn which an old, muscular man
was husking when we entered and which he left to attend to our needs.
We were invited to sit on a long bamboo bench which occupied one side
of the room and where we remained as mute as statues until our driver,
having filled his stomach with vino and having given his animal enough
corn, summoned us to continue our journey.

We went out, and as the moon was now shining brightly, we had a front
view of the cottage. The cogon roof, on which were perched some
chickens, was pyramid-like, and the walls, broken at places but patched
with rice-sacks through which the dim light of the lamp was visible,
were made of bamboo. The porch, at the middle of which was a wooden
staircase shaded by broad eaves, was piled full of corn.

After we paid the old man for what he supplied our now half-drunk
driver, we again assumed our uncomfortable position in the cart. The
road was now smooth and I was surprised to find ourselves suffering
still the disagreeable upward and downward movement of the cart. I
examined the two solid wooden wheels, and I found that they were not
round, but oval. But the beautiful panorama of the country soon made
me forget my discomfort in the cart. On our left and right were square
rice-fields--some yellow with ripe grain and others green with young
leaves--dotted here and there with hamlets or solitary trees so that
they resembled a checker-board.

All the while that I was admiring this view, Mr. Guia seemed to
be buried in deep thought. We were cabin-mates in the steamship
_Bustamante_ that brought us from Manila, and therefore I had known him
for but three days, during which he was always cheerful and gay. But
now what a sad and mournful countenance! His youthful and oval face,
hitherto jovial and beaming with health, was pale. I was very sorry to
see my companion thus afflicted with grief, and I said in a sympathetic
voice, "Mr. Guia, are you sick?" He answered, "No, I am not. But, my
friend, my mo-mo-mother died nine days ago, and that's why, as you
see, I am mourning." Indeed, he was mourning, for he wore a black cap,
suit, tie and shoes. I dared not continue our conversation along that
line, for I knew it would but grieve him the more. So I expressed my
condolence by silence. After a moment of quietude he told the driver
something in Ilocano which I did not understand.

Suddenly the driver began to sing with a tremulous voice a common
country ditty called "Dalla-dalluc." As it was getting late, I was soon
lulled into a sound sleep. I think I had slept for about two hours when
a loud barking of five dogs awoke me. When I looked around, I found
that we were in a town, for we were passing by a church whose stone
wall was black with moss and at whose rear a river was flowing. I asked
Mr. Guia in what town we were and he answered, "Why, we are in San
Nicolas now." I replied, "Then here we part." He exclaimed, "Oh, no!
You are very tired, and it would be better for you to spend the rest of
the night at my house. Besides you will not, I am sure, be able to wake
the _banquero_ (boatman), for it is now past midnight. To-night is also
the celebration of what we call _Umbras_ in honor of my dead mother,
and I should like you to be my special guest." I thanked him very much
for his kind invitation, and, of course, in the face of the obstacle he
foretold, I was glad enough to accept.

The cart turned a corner and stopped suddenly in front of a somewhat
large wooden corrugated iron roofed house--a typical town residence in
the Philippines. We got down immediately from the cart, and we were met
at the gate by a boy of about fifteen years of age. After Mr. Guia told
the boy to look to our baggage, he conducted me to the sala, where he
met his relatives.

While the affectionate greetings were going on between Mr. Guia and
his family, I had time to observe all that was in the room. In one
corner were young women and young men playing cards around a circular
marble table, while in another corner were old women, talking of the
high merits of the departed one. In the corner near the door where
I was standing, a crowd of old fellows were drinking _basi_--a wine
made from sugar cane--and I noticed our driver joining them. The walls
seemed to be very plain; indeed all the decorations were covered with
black cloth. In the center of the _sala_ was a large rectangular table
on which were different kinds of food ready to be eaten. The viands,
however, were cold, so I judged that the table must have been set early
in the evening.

As I was wondering why the table was placed there, Mr. Guia came and
took me into his room where my baggage was put. My thought was still
centered upon the table, and my curiosity led me to ask my friend
about it. Before he answered me, he smiled, and then said, "You must
know that it is the custom of the Ilocanos the ninth night after the
death of any grown-up person to celebrate a mourning festival called
_Umbars_. Each friend of the dead person brings during that day food
either cooked or uncooked. That on the table is the cooked food, which
is considered to be sacred and which, as you have just seen, is being
watched by the people in the room. Nobody is supposed to touch the food
before the prayer, which will begin at three o'clock. After the prayer
is over, which will last for about two hours, then all the guests will
eat the food, but at the head of the table a vacant seat is left for
the spirit of the dead to sit. After the feast the guests depart, and
the festival ends."

During the time that Mr. Guia was explaining to me the _Umbras_, I
was able to wash myself and to change my traveling suit. So after he
finished, he conducted me into the dining-room where we both ate a
hearty meal. Naturally, after we had finished eating, we joined the
company of young men and young women, to each of whom I was introduced
and with whom we played cards until the time for prayers. In the midst
of the prayer I asked the permission of Mr. Guia to go to his room to
pack up my things so that I should be able to leave after the prayer.

When all the guests had departed, I bade good-bye to my friend and his
sorrow-stricken relatives. Within fifteen minutes I reached Laoag,
and was once more safe in the hands of a brother with whom I spent a
pleasant three weeks' sojourn.

                                                 --Fernando M. Maramág.




CHAPTER VIII

PERSONAL ACCOUNTS


Within the group of personal accounts come the more-or-less extended
records of the sayings and doings of men and women in their most acute
individuality. It is intimate, detailed living that is expressed in
a diary, in memoirs, or a biography. These have a peculiar charm.
We expect endearing things in a diary, interesting ones in an
autobiography, and, if not surprisingly informing, then surely upright
and praiseworthy ones, often patriotic, in a biography.


I. Journal and Diary

[Definition]

As words, journal and diary mean the same thing. They both denote a
daily record. Journal comes immediately from the French _jour_ meaning
day, and remotely from the same Latin word from which we get diurnal.
Diary comes directly from the Latin _dies_. If there be any difference
in the use of the titles, it lies in the object the maker of the daily
record has in mind. A journal is written for a reader. A diary is kept
for the writer's own amusement or profit. Both mix little and great
affairs promiscuously.

[The range of journals]

A journal, of course, is likely to treat of a fewer number of trivial
things than is a diary, and oftener the less personal, though Swift's
wonderful "Journal to Stella," written in the little language and meant
for "no eye but hers and the faithful Dingley's" is as personal as
can be. James Madison's stately record of the American Constitutional
Convention stands at the antipodes, we might say; and Hesdin's
"Journal of a Spy in Paris during the Reign of Terror," far off to
the right perhaps; and the Swiss poet, Henri Fréderic Amiel's private
philosophical and moral reflections, his "Journal Intime," far to the
left. In the middle might come the travelers' journals--like Fielding's
"Voyage to Lisbon" and Montaigne's "Voyage in Italy," or even John C.
Fremont's soldier explorations--as typical of the daily record that is
personal, yet not intensely so, and is written to be read.

A quaint and at once extremely romantic travel-journal of this sort
is the _Vida del Gran Tamurlan_, perhaps the oldest piece of travel
writing in Spanish literature. It is the daily record of the voyages
and residences of the ambassadors of Henry the Third on a diplomatic
mission to Tamburlane the Great--that same old Tartar potentate and
conqueror whom Marlowe made immortal by putting into his mouth those
high-astounding terms and that flowing blank verse, which so exactly
suited his character as well as Marlowe's own. The adventures of this
embassy were minutely written down by Ruy Gonsalez de Clavijo from
May, 1403, when it started, to March, 1406, when it returned. In the
report he describes the city of Constantinople which the ambassadors
passed through when it was at the height of its tottering greatness.
An incident recorded is very quaint. These fifteenth century public
servants, extremely human and not at all unlike our modern ones,
were desirous when off on special business not only to serve their
government well but also to do as much sight-seeing on their own
account as possible. Hence they haunted the churches and other places
of relics. But one day they failed to see all they wished to in the
church of San Juan de la Piedra, and for the following reason, bless
you! "The Emperor went to hunt, and left the keys with the Empress his
wife, and when she gave them she forgot to give those where the said
relics were, etc., etc." Delicious episode! Exactly the essence of this
type of narrative. It makes one suspect that despite all the pompous
history that has been got together about them the kings and queens of
old were really human beings. But Clavijo was writing a journal as well
as a diary, for he tells us of bigger things. He and his two friends go
on to Samarcand and find the great Conqueror and experience his lavish
hospitality in a series of magnificent festivals, but, strange to say,
witness also his death; at least he dies when they are at his court,
and Clavijo tells of the troubles the embassy had therefore in getting
ready to return. Argote de Molina, in 1582, a hundred and seventy-six
years later, wrote a _discourso_ upon Clavijo and got out the first
public edition of this journal, which, for the sake of sales probably,
he called "The Life of the Great Tamerlane," a thing it was not, but
only partly. Marlowe wrote his "Tamburlane" in 1586 or 1587. He might
well have seen Clavijo's journal.

[Great diaries]

Diary is for the most part more intimate, more private than journal,
though a diary need not necessarily be private. In fact a writer of
such a record sometimes hands it about among his friends--that is, part
of it. Other parts he invariably keeps to himself, either never to be
read by another or to be read only after the writer has ceased to live
or has ceased to care about the effect of his words. The astoundingly
frank and intimate diary of the famous Samuel Pepys, kept up by him
through the first nine years of the Restoration, has only just now
reached its complete publication. Details at first suppressed for one
reason or another have, as they have been made public from time to
time, gradually changed the world's conception of the character of this
bustling servant of the crown. And not strange to say; for a diary of
all forms of writing is the most revealing. John Evelyn, the friend
and patron of Pepys, wrote himself down no less surely a non-genius
than Pepys wrote himself a genius. They both, however, give us, in
addition to a knowledge of their personal affairs, invaluable pictures
of the men and doings of their day. Fanny Burney's "Diary," egotistical
and minute, but one of the great books of literature, is a gallery of
portraits of the late eighteenth century celebrities--King George and
Queen Charlotte, Reynolds, Burke, Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, Garrick,
and many others--all her friends. Gideon Welles's "Diary," which
appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ during 1909-10, though, like that of
Pepys, an account of public matters, was, like that of Pepys, a private
account not meant to be seen at the time. All these records have
their value for late readers in their honesty and minuteness. It is on
such revelations that we depend for our correct conception of by-gone
affairs.

A diary or a journal, then, is first of all a narrative of real events.
Fiction in this form, like Defoe's "Journal of the Plague" or the diary
parts of Charles Reade's "Cloister and the Hearth," is so for the sake
of the verisimilitude.

[Writing the type]

If you wish to write a journal, you might imagine yourself sending it
across the ocean to some relative or acquaintance who cares to know
about the doings of you yourself, your family, your friends, your
community. You may reflect your own sentiments and those of others;
you may give anecdotes, eye-witness accounts, reports, hear-says,
incidents, opinions, explanations, and bare facts. You may touch upon
your pleasures, your joys, and even your troubles; but your vexations
and regrets you would surely reserve for your diary.

If you write a diary, you should be frank and absolutely natural. Any
playing to the gallery is a denial of the whole tone of diary. You may
be ever so selfish and egotistical, or ever so trivial and vain, if you
are only honest. If we feel that you are recording exactly what you
think, revealing exactly what is, we shall read you with delight, so
seldom does one man get at the real thought of another. You may even be
pious--a most severe trial on a reader's interest--and we will follow
you so long as you are sincere.


=Extracts from Diary of Samuel Pepys=

                                                        November, 1661.

3d. (Lord's day.) At night my wife and I had a good supper by ourselves
of a pullet hashed, which pleased me much to see my condition come to
allow ourselves a dish like that.

4th. With my wife to the opera, where we saw "The Bondman," which of
old we both did so doate on, and do still, though to both our thinking
not so well acted here, having too great expectations, as formerly at
Salisbury Court. But for Betterton, he is called by us both the best
actor in the world.

5th. To the Dolphin, where Armiger and I and Captaine Cocke sat late
and drank much, seeing the boys in the streets flying their crackers.
This day being kept all day very strictly in the city.

7th. I met with letters at home from my Lord at Lisbon, which speak of
his being well, and he tells me he had seen at the court there, the day
before he wrote this letter, the Juego de Toro (bullfight). Peg Kite
now hath declared she will have the beggarly rogue the weaver, and so
we are resolved neither to meddle nor make with her.

8th. This morning up early, and to my Lord Chancellor's, with a letter
to him from my Lord, and did speak with him, and he did ask me whether
I was son to Mr. Talbot Pepys or no (with whom he was once acquainted
in the Court of Requests), and spoke to me with great respect. To the
Sunne in New Fish Street, where Sir J. Minnes, Sir William Batten
and we all were to dine, and by discourse found Sir J. Minnes a fine
gentleman and a very good scholler.

9th. With my Lady all the afternoon. My Lady did mightily urge me to
lay out money upon my wife, which I perceived was a little more earnest
than ordinary, and so I seemed to be pleased with it, and do resolve to
bestow a lace on her.

10th. (Lord's day.) At St. Gregory's, where I heard our Queen Katherine
the first time by name publicly prayed for. And heard Dr. Buck upon
"Woe unto thee, Corazin," &c., where he started a difficulty, which
he left to another time to answer, about why God should give means of
grace to those people which he knew would not receive them, and deny to
others, which he himself confesses, if they had had them, would have
received them and they would have been effectual, too. I would I could
hear him explain this when he do come to it.

11th. Captain Ferrers carried me the first time that ever I saw any
gaming-house, to one, entering into Lincolne's Inn Fields, at the end
of Bell Yard, where strange the folly of men to lay and lose much
money, and very glad I was to see the manner of a gamester's life,
which I see is very miserable and poor and unmanly. And thence he took
me to a dancing school in Fleet Streete, where we saw a company of
pretty girls dance, but I do not in myself like to have young girls
exposed to so much vanity. So to the Wardrobe, where I found my Lady
had agreed upon a lace for my wife at £6, which I seemed much glad
of that it was no more, tho in my mind I think it too much, and I
pray God to keep me so to order myself and my wife's expenses that no
inconvenience in purse or honour follow my prodigality.

    "Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys," 4 volumes. (David
    McKay. 1889. Philadelphia.)


=A Diary of Four Days=

                                                      Feb. 5, Saturday.

I awoke at 6 o'clock. It has become my habit not to get up earlier than
half past 6 on vacation days. After breakfast I went to the physics
laboratory to make up my back work.

The first experiment that I tried to perform was about Atwood's
Machine. I was not half thru when the string broke. Not being able to
find another, I went to the office to see whether I had a letter or
not. I was very glad to receive one, for it was from home. I was very
much disappointed, however, to hear that my mother was sick. My father
asked me to go and see Dr. Bautista, so after dinner I went to Santa
Cruz. The office was closed when I reached it. At last the doctor came.
I had a long talk with him about the sickness of my mother. He gave me
the formula of the medicine which my mother should take and told me the
dose. After giving him five pesos I went away and bought the medicine.
I stayed in the Escolta till it was dark, looking for some one who was
going to our town. Not being able to find anybody, I have come back to
my boarding-house with the determination to go home myself and take
mother's medicine. I must study my lesson in physics, however, before I
go to bed.


                                                        Feb. 6, Sunday.

At about 6 o'clock this morning I was in the railroad station. At 6
sharp the train left for San Isidro. I was very lonely in the car, for
the passengers were few. There were six Chinamen and a few Filipinos.
While the train was going on I kept myself busy reading my textbook in
chemistry. I reached the station of San Isidro at 10 o'clock. It was
about 11 when I reached home. I was very glad to find my mother better
then.

I ate my dinner with all the members of our family. After staying at
home for about two hours I started for San Isidro with my brother. I
was delayed at the ferry, for a company of American soldiers was using
the _banca_. I reached the station at about 2 o'clock, and as the train
would not leave for an hour, I went to the cock-pit nearby. It so
happened that they were having a _surtada_. This is the first time I
have entered a cock-pit since 1904.

At 3 o'clock the train came. I reached Manila at 8 o'clock. It is now
9:30. I am going to bed earlier than usual, for I am very tired.


                                                        Feb. 7, Monday.

I went to school as usual this morning, though I did not recite my
lessons very well. This evening I attended the Harty Club. We were
few in number, so Father Finnegan, our director, took us with him to
the observatory. All of us had a chance to look at the moon. Thru the
telescope the moon looked like the yolk of an egg with black spots. The
astronomer said that the black spots are craters of volcanoes. The moon
when seen thru the telescope is not so beautiful as when you look at it
with the naked eye.

The astronomer, who was a Spanish priest, explained the way the moon
gets its light. He could speak English very well, but his pronunciation
was bad. He pronounced "sun," "soon," and "top," "tawp." There were
many other words which he did not pronounce very well, but he used
these two so often that they were impressed on my mind. Another word he
used very often was "extremities."

When you asked this fat man a question, he would laugh at you if what
you asked was not sensible. Lava asked him what planets are inhabited.
He laughed without ceasing for about two minutes, and then said, "Why,
my boy, none except ours. If any planet is inhabited, the people must
be very different from us."

It was 8 o'clock when we went home. Tomorrow is a laboratory day, so I
am going to bed, for I have no lesson to prepare except in English.


                                                       Feb. 8, Tuesday.

I was awakened from a sound sleep by a dreadful dream. When I opened
my eyes it was daylight. My dream was about Halley's comet. We talked
so much about this thing last night that it came into my dream. I
thought it was the 19th of May. My mother roused me, for they could
see something beautiful. When I looked out I saw that it was Halley's
comet. I tried to explain to them what it was, but I was interrupted
in my explanation because I perceived that the comet was coming nearer
to us. We were obliged to leave the house, for the comet was coming
directly toward us. When we were out of the house the comet struck
it. It was set on fire. We tried our best to quench the flames, but
in vain. While the house was burning I awoke. I was very glad that I
awoke, for my lesson in English was not yet prepared.

I recited my lessons as usual. This afternoon Mr. Bulatao and I visited
the observatory again. Our guide showed all the pieces of apparatus
to us. From the top of the building I had a very fine general view of
Manila. After our visit I came home, and now I am going to study my
lessons.

                                                    --Facundo Esquivel.


="Something Doing"=

                       _A JOURNAL: MOCK HEROIC_

Thursday, March 17, 1910.--My friend Protasio and I went to one of the
fairs in the Tondo church-yard to buy an _awit_ for the instructor
in English. On our way home we met a group of gentlemen, eight of
them, among whom I recognized one of my schoolmates, Pedro Pineda. My
companion looked Pedro squarely in the face, but this one came up to
us, with arms akimbo, and presently addressed my companion in this
manner: "What do you want? Why do you look at me?" "Is there any cause
for which you speak to me thus?" answered my companion. "Why? What do
you want? Let us have a boxing match!"

I did my best to make my acquaintances desist from their plan, but my
efforts were in vain. Protasio took off his diamond ring and handed it
to me. I put it on the upper part of my right thumb, suspecting nothing
from the companions of Pedro.

In the dark this unworthy fellow thrust his hands into his big pocket,
and by the dim light of the evening star I noticed him put on iron
knuckles. Mad with rage, I shouted, "Take off your--!" but hardly had I
begun when just above my left ear fell a terrible blow. I felt no pain,
but the stroke deafened me. Still I lost no time mustering my courage,
and no sooner had I summoned my latent forces than I stood with my back
against the church-yard fence. Confronted by four young men, one of
whom was the sturdy machinist who delivered me the first blow, I raised
my right arm to ward off another dreadful box in the face, when, to my
surprise, I heard the crash of an iron rod. The cane which I had with
me had done its duty; when I was about to receive a blow more serious
than the first, up rose my hand and with an impulse it hit hard the
right shoulder of my sturdy opponent. Overjoyed at this incident I
caused my bent cane to swing back and forth until my four opponents,
realizing that I had an iron cane, ran away as fast as their legs could
carry them.

Protasio received several wounds from the iron knuckles--one on the
right arm, two on the head and one just above the left ear. Breathless
and bloody, I heard him utter the cry, "What! Four people to one?" The
people at the fair overheard the tumult; they rushed to the scene and
saw us two, one bloody, the other holding a bent cane, safe and sound.
But our good opponents had run away, carrying with them my friend's new
_baliwag_ hat.

"Fie! Cowards!" roared my companion, as we turned around the narrow
street beside the church. "Why did those folks fight with us four to
one?"

"Well, although they have made a serious mistake, Tasio," I remarked,
"you cannot blame them; you will know the cause when you study the
psychology of a mob."

He found no word with which to answer me; his right arm he could hardly
raise, and the blood streamed in great quantities from the back of his
head. I conducted him to his house and told him not to go to school
for two days. For my part, I felt nothing particularly painful except
two things--a swelling on my forehead and the bruised place on my face
where I received that blow without notice.

Friday, March 18.--This morning I went to school, and, although
I was tired from last night's pugilistic contest, I worked at the
office of the English department. But in the midst of my meditations
on a perplexing mistake which a second-year student had made in his
short-story theme, upon my shoulders fell two hands. I looked up,
rather amazed at the sudden attack, but I saw Mr. Fansler's familiar
face. "Ready, Victor!" said he. "Ready for the banquet, do you mean?"
"No, to meet Mr. Beattie."

I remembered I had to go with several people on a launch to meet Mr.
Beattie, who had returned from a visit to the States. I put on my
_buntal_ hat, with a minute-man's start, and ran down the flight of
steps of the Normal School building.

Gathered around the portico were the superintendent of the Normal
School, the representatives of the faculty and the representatives
of the various classes. Mr. Fansler and I joined the cheerful group,
three-fifths of which consisted of blooming femininity. As we walked
along the acacia grove we felt no heat, but on the open road, where
fell the blistering sun's rays, the women lagged. "They feel the
heat, to be sure!" I said to myself. "These women at the Normal, I
suppose, are not used to heat. Tender and fresh, they have little or no
exercise."

But necessity was to compel them to run a short race that day. The buzz
of the street car wire along Calle Real made them walk faster, and
finally they really began to run; as lightly as doves, however. The car
took us down to Plaza de Magallanes, back of the Treasury building, but
we did not find our launch there.

As I walked along the edge of the Pasig River bank I noticed a small,
booth-like hut, in which I saw an old woman seated on a stool. She
held in her right hand a bunch of perforated banana leaves, with which
she drove away the flies that tried to alight on the rice and fried
fish. Presently a man came, ate his ten-centavo meal of rice and a half
fish, and departed after the manner of a Frenchman. But soon I saw my
companions going on board the launch and I followed them.

The boat was not very big; it had just enough room to accommodate the
young women and to allow the fellows to sit contiguously on the sides.
All at once the launch began sailing down the smooth river and within
ten minutes we had passed around Engineer Island.

Out in the bay the billows rose. The foam began to appear in greater
quantities as we sailed farther and farther into the sea. The boat
swung to and fro as she courtesied to the waves. But upon looking
round, I discovered that some of the young ladies were seasick. I was
trying to reason out the cause of this malady when all of a sudden a
spray of salt water threw itself directly at my face and my tongue felt
the liquid.

"What a nasty taste salt water has!" I exclaimed, as I tried to
suppress with an effort the sudden change in my stomach.

"How do you like it, Yamzon?" asked fat Memije, the spherical student
of the Academy. Without waiting for an answer, "That's good! The water
will make you fat. Should you like to know how I got fat?" continued
he, whom I always compare to a sponge because of his capacity for
imbibing water in great quantities. "Yes," I muttered, ungraciously.
"Well, I drink four glasses of water before meals and after meals."
"But not salt water," I rejoined. "No, no; fresh water is what you
need."

Just then we spied the _Tean_, which was bringing back Mr. Beattie.
As we approached we saw a man who was so much like him that the ample
instructor of the correspondence department exclaimed in her not too
melodious and high-pitched voice, "There's our dear old superintendent!"

"He's no longer _your_ dear old superintendent," thought I.

Fifteen minutes passed, and Mr. Beattie showed no signs of ever having
come back. But when the ship-master appeared on the upper deck he told
us Mr. Beattie would soon be ready to show his face to us. And he was.
We cheered him and hailed him; hats were taken off; handkerchiefs
waved in the air; and the former superintendent of the Normal School
responded to us, while a twelve-inch smile beamed on his countenance.

Saturday, March 19, 1910.--My short trip yesterday reminded me of our
voyage to Lucena last Thanksgiving. The first thing I did immediately
after breaking-my-fast was to go to my desk and take out from the
lowest case the account of this trip which I wrote while we were
sailing. I have read the thing through and I will gladly repeat it for
you. It begins thus:

"On Thanksgiving afternoon the Normal debating team, on board of the
steamer _Lal-Loc_, set out for Lucena."--There! I can't write it for
you now. My brother is calling me. But I'll just say we won the debate
and had a glorious time.

                                                   --Victoriano Yamzon.


II. Autobiography and Memoirs

[Distinction between autobiography and memoirs]

Although the words "autobiography" and "memoirs" are often used
interchangeably, the meanings differ somewhat as journal and diary;
that is, an autobiography is always written to be read by a public,
large or small; memoirs are sometimes secret, like those of Mirabeau
when on his mission to Prussia. The two forms are both, however,
personal accounts by the writer of his own doings and sayings as well
as of the doings and sayings of others connected with him in the same
events.

Gibbon has used the word memoirs as a title for what we generally call
his autobiography; but critics consider the term "memoirs" strictly as
signifying a record of events put down within a limited time in the
author's life--or a record of important events that he can "remember,"
selected out of a long life. Memoirs in the first sense are usually
written by persons of large affairs, like Prince von Metternich in the
French-Austrian crisis, or Mme. de Staël-Holstein during her ten years
of exile, or the Italian poet Silvio Pellico while serving his decade
of imprisonment for taking part in the Carbonari movements. Many of the
writers other than English seem to try to exclude the personal element
from memoirs; though Catherine II of Russia in her account of her life
as Grand Duchess is straightforward and intimate enough. Frederick the
Great, too, in his memoirs of his military and political campaigns has
succeeded in delineating quite exactly his own character as conceived
of by others; while Charles V in his "Autobiographical Leaves" (which
are memoirs) has revealed to the world an entirely new side of himself.

[Cellini, Franklin and others]

Autobiography is more extended than memoirs. This "self-life-writing"
runs from the birthday of the author to the time of the composition of
the narrative. Details are sometimes many, sometimes few, according
to the taste and leisure of the recorder, but the account is always
complete and unified. One of the greatest autobiographies written
is that of Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine artist of the sixteenth
century. Men lived intense and violent lives in those days, fervidly
devoted to ideals and grossly material at the same time. Cellini
epitomizes them all. His narrative is an Italian classic. A most
entertaining English autobiography is Colley Cibber's "Apology for My
Life." Actor and dramatist, he too had much to tell. But the American
philosopher and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, has carried off the prize
for widespread popularity and readableness. The story goes, whether
true or not, that his "Autobiography" has been translated into more
languages than any other book except the Bible. The narrative is full
of shrewd common-sense and practical example. Our fathers used to say
that no one is a true American who has not read it. What is of value to
us now in the consideration of it is its simplicity both in diction and
tone. Franklin was truly a very great man, and nowhere greater than in
his unpretentious honesty.

Like a diary, an autobiography should be most genuine and original in
content. Sometimes the impulse to record one's life goes even so far as
to take the form of confessions, like those of the great Latin father,
St. Augustine. Our own English ecclesiastic, Cardinal Newman, defended
himself and his faith in his "Apologia." But this that ought to be the
truest of the true forms very easily becomes forced and hectic, like
Rousseau's. Though a man must be honest, there is no need for him to
tell everyone of his inmost thoughts, or mention all his meannesses. De
Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" long ago justified
itself by its high tone, and by the fact that it became the basis of
his "Autobiography."

[Some points to be observed in writing]

It is easy to start an autobiography. Most writers begin with their
birth and parentage. To proceed after the first few pages is not so
easy perhaps, because of the possibilities. What to choose is the
question; for everybody has had more experiences than he could possibly
record. Apt selection is what makes a good life history--selection
under a governing sense of unity and progression. Moreover, a writer
of any chronical story should carefully arrange the transitions. Good
including phrases both backward and forward-looking should be used,
as well as precise small conjunctions. Such sets as Cellini has, "At
this moment the whole world was, etc.," "I am now making a great leap
forward when I tell," "Continuing as I did my artillery practice for
a whole month," "In the meantime I had," "I must not forget to give
some indication of how large the figure was, a thing which I can best
do by telling you a very laughable occurrence," "The more I longed
for rest the more did troubles spring up," "Before this I should
have told of my friendship with, etc." The diction of memoirs is
somewhat determined by circumstances and subject; but if you write an
autobiography, you should see to it that your words and constructions
are unmistakably simple. Be as modest as is consistent with your great
deeds, and as cheerful as the fates will allow. If you make yourself
out a good fellow, do so by the general impression of your narrative,
not by assertion. Set before the reader enough of your actions and he
will tabulate your character for you. Your business is to relate; his,
to judge. You may, however, disclose some of your motives. The only
difficulty here is, that people may not believe you, or you may not
have understood yourself at the time. Whatever else you do, be sure to
let us see a human being like ourselves, not some impossible creature
made out of paper and ink. If you care for an outline, it would not be
amiss to follow that prepared for biography.


=The Life of David Hume, Esq., Written by Himself=

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity;
therefore, I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity
that I pretend at all to write my life; but this narrative shall
contain little more than the history of my writings; as indeed almost
all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The
first success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of
vanity.

I was born the twenty-sixth of April, 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I
was of a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is
a branch of the Earl of Home's, or Hume's; and my ancestors had been
proprietors of the estate which my brother possesses, for several
generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, president of
the college of justice; the title of Lord Halkerton came by succession
to her brother.

My family, however, was not rich, and being myself a younger brother,
my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was, of course,
very slender. My father, who passed for a man of parts, died when I
was an infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister, under
the care of our mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young
and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating
of her children. I passed through the ordinary course of education
with success, and was seized very early with a passion for literature,
which has been the ruling passion of my life and the great source of
my enjoyments. My studious disposition, my sobriety and my industry
gave my family a notion that the law was the proper profession for me;
but I found an insurmountable aversion to everything but the pursuits
of philosophy and general learning, and while they fancied I was
poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors I was
secretly devouring.

My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of
life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I
was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering
into a more active scene of life. In 1734 I went to Bristol with some
recommendations to several eminent merchants, but in a few months found
that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France with a view
of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat, and I there laid that
plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved
to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to
maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as
contemptible except the improvement of my talents in literature.

During my retreat in France, first at Rheims, but chiefly at La
Fletche, in Anjou, I composed my Treatise of Human Nature. After
passing three years very agreeably in that country, I came over to
London in 1737. In the end of 1738 I published my treatise, and
immediately went down to my mother and my brother, who lived at
his country house and was employing himself very judiciously and
successfully in the improvement of his fortune.

Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human
Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such
distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being
naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered
the blow and prosecuted with great ardor my studies in the country.
In 1742 I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays. The work
was favorably received and soon made me entirely forget my former
disappointment. I continued with my mother and brother in the country,
and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I
had too much neglected in my early life.

In 1745 I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me
to come and live with him in England; I found also that the friends
and family of that young nobleman were desirous of putting him under
my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required
it. I lived with him a twelve-month. My appointments during that time
made a considerable accession to my small fortune. I then received
an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a secretary to
his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended
in an incursion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit, 1747, I
received an invitation from the general to attend him in the same
station in his military embassy to the courts of Vienna and Turin.
I then wore the uniform of an officer and was introduced at these
courts as aide-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry Erkine and
Captain Grant, now General Grant. These two years were almost the only
interruptions which my studies have received during the course of my
life: I passed them agreeably and in good company; and my appointments,
with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune which I called
independent, the most of my friends were inclined to smile when I said
so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds.

I had always entertained a notion that my want of success in publishing
the Treatise of Human Nature had proceeded more from the manner than
the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion
in going to the press too early. I, therefore, cast the first part
of the work anew in the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding while
I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little more successful
than the Treatise of Human Nature. On my return from Italy I had the
mortification to find all England in a ferment on account of Dr.
Middleton's Free Inquiry, while my performance was entirely overlooked
and neglected. A new edition, which had been published at London, of
my Essays, moral and political, met not with a much better reception.

Such is the force of natural temper that these disappointments made
little or no impression on me. I went down, in 1749, and lived two
years with my brother at his country house, for my mother was now dead.
I there composed the second part of my Essay, which I called Political
Discourses, and also my Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,
which is another part of my Treatise that I cast anew. Meanwhile my
bookseller, A. Millar, informed me that my former publications (all
but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be the subject of
conversation; that the sale of them was gradually increasing and that
new editions were demanded. Answers by reverends and right reverends
came out two or three in a year, and I found by Dr. Warburton's railing
that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company. However,
I had fixed a resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply
to anybody, and not being very irascible in my temper, I have easily
kept myself dear of all literary squabbles. These symptoms of a rising
reputation gave me encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see
the favorable than unfavorable side of things, a turn of mind which it
is more happy to possess than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a
year.

In 1751 I removed from the country to the town, the true scene for
a man of letters. In 1752 were published at Edinburgh, where I then
lived, my Political Discourses, the only work of mine that was
successful on its first publication. It was well received at home and
abroad. In the same year was published at London my Inquiry concerning
the Principles of Morals, which, in my own opinion (who ought not
to judge on that subject), is, of all my writings, historical,
philosophical or literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and
unobserved into the world.

In 1752 the Faculty of Advocates chose me their librarian, an office
from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the
command of a large library. I then formed the plan of writing the
History of England, but, being frightened with the notion of continuing
a narrative through a period of seventeen hundred years, I commenced
with the accession of the house of Stuart, an epoch when, I thought,
the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place. I was, I
own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought
that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present
power, interest and authority and the cry of popular prejudices, and
as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional
applauses. But miserable was my disappointment; I was asailed by one
cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch
and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, free thinker and
religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man
who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I and
the Earl of Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury
were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into
oblivion. Mr. Millar told me that in a twelve-month he had sold only
forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the
three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the
book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the
primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seemed two odd exceptions. These
dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.

I was, however, I confess, discouraged; and had not the war been at
that time breaking out between France and England, I had certainly
retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed
my name and never more have returned to my native country. But as
this scheme was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was
considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.

In this interval I published at London my Natural History, of
Religion, along with some other small pieces. Its public entry was
rather obscure, except only that Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against
it, with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance and scurrility which
distinguished the Warburtonian school; This pamphlet gave me some
consolation for the otherwise indifferent reception of my performance.

In 1756, two years after the fall of the first volume, was published
the second volume of my history, containing the period from the death
of Charles I till the revolution. This performance happened to give
less displeasure to the Whigs and was better received. It not only
rose, itself, but helped to buoy up its unfortunate brother.

But though I had been taught by experience that the Whig party were
in possession of bestowing all places, both in the state and in
literature, I was so little inclined to yield to their senseless clamor
that in above a hundred alterations, which study, reading or reflection
engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made
all of them invariably on the Tory side. It is ridiculous to consider
the English constitution before that period as a regular plan of
liberty.

In 1759, I published my history of the house of Tudor. The clamor
against this performance was almost equal to that against the history
of the two first Stuarts. The reign of Elizabeth was particularly
obnoxious. But I was now callous against the impressions of public
folly and continued very peaceably and contentedly, in my retreat at
Edinburgh, to finish in two volumes the more early part of the English
history, which I gave to the public in 1761 with tolerable, and but
tolerable, success.

But, notwithstanding this variety of winds and seasons, to which my
writings had been exposed, they had still been making such advances
that the copy money given me by the book-sellers much exceeded anything
formerly known in England; I was become not only independent but
opulent. I retired to my native country of Scotland, determined never
more to set my foot out of it; and retaining the satisfaction of never
having preferred a request to one great man or ever making advances
of friendship to any of them. As I was now turned of fifty, I thought
of passing all the rest of my life in this philosophical manner, when
I received, in 1763, an invitation' from the earl of Hertford, with
whom I was not in the least acquainted, to attend him on his embassy
to Paris, with a near prospect of being appointed secretary to the
embassy, and in the meanwhile of performing the functions of that
office. This offer, however inviting, I at first declined; both because
I was reluctant to begin connections with the great, and because I
was afraid that the civilities and gay company of Paris would prove
disagreeable to a person of my age and humor; but on his lordship's
repeating the invitation I accepted of it. I have every reason, both
of pleasure and interest, to think myself happy in my connections with
that nobleman, as well as afterwards with his brother, General Conway.

Those who have not seen the strange effects of modes will never imagine
the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women of all ranks and
stations. The more I recoiled from their excessive civilities, the
more I was loaded with them. There is, however, a real satisfaction in
living at Paris, from the great number of sensible, knowing and polite
company with which that city abounds above all places in the universe.
I thought once of settling there for life.

I was appointed secretary to the embassy; and in summer, 1765, Lord
Hertford left me, being appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. I was
_chargé d'affaires_ till the arrival of the Duke of Richmond, towards,
the end of the year. In the beginning of 1766 I left Paris, and next
summer went to Edinburgh, with the same view as formerly of burying
myself in a philosophical retreat. I returned to that place, not rich
but with much more money, and a much larger income by means of Lord
Hertford's friendship, than I left it; and I was desirous of trying
what superfluity could produce; as I had formerly made an experiment
of a competency. But in 1767 I received from Mr. Conway an invitation
to be an undersecretary, and this invitation both the character of
the person and my connections with Lord Hertford prevented me from
declining. I returned to Edinburgh in 1768, very opulent (for I
possessed a revenue of one thousand pounds a year), healthy and, though
somewhat stricken in years, with the prospect of enjoying long my ease
and of seeing the increase of my reputation.

In spring, 1775, I was struck with a disorder of the bowels, which at
first occasioned no alarm, but has since, as I apprehended it, become
mortal and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution. I have
suffered very little pain from my disorder, and, what is more strange,
have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a
moment's abatement of my spirits; insomuch that were I to name a period
of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be
tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same ardor as ever
in study and the same gayety in company. I consider, besides, that a
man of sixty-five, by dying cuts off only a few years of infirmities;
and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out
at last with additional luster, I know that I could have but few years
to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at
the present time.

To conclude historically with my own character: I am, or rather was
(for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which
emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments); I was, I say, a man of
mild disposition, of command of temper, of an open, social and cheerful
humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and
of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary
fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my
frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the
young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I
took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no
reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a
word, though most men anywise eminent have found reason to complain
of Calumny, I never was touched or even attacked by her baleful
tooth; and though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil
and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of
their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one
circumstance of my character and conduct; not but that the zealots,
we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any
story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they
thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say that there
is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it
is not a misplaced one, and this is a matter of fact which is easily
cleared and ascertained.

                                                        April 18, 1776.


=Autobiography=

I was born on the twentieth of December in the year 1887, in Gapan,
province of Nueva Ecija.

My mother, Manuela Tinio, died when I was but two years of age, and I
was left to the care of my beloved grandfather, Esteban Tinio, uncle
Quintin Tinio and my aunts Paula and Felipa Tinio. I had two brothers
and three sisters, but all of them died except one of my brothers,
Valentin, who is now attending the Philippine Medical School. My uncle
Valentin was one of the active leaders of the revolutionary movement
in Nueva Ecija. He bore a deadly hatred against the Spaniards. On
several occasions secret meetings were held in our house shortly before
the uprising of the people. When the revolution broke out unexpectedly
in 1896 he was forced to flee to the mountain, where he was captured
afterwards, and was finally shot. My grandfather died in 1903 in his
eighty-ninth year, and thus I was left to the care of my father,
Francisco Guanio, and my two aunts, Paula and Felipa, who are still
unmarried. Altho my aunts are over sixty years of age, yet they are
still strong, active and diligent women. They have never wasted their
time in idleness, and are always at work from morning till night. To
them who are more than mothers to me I owe my present education.

I was born in the most extraordinary period of Philippine history. I
lived to see the days when our fathers were struggling hard against
Spain. During my boyhood I saw men imprisoned, exiled and executed
for no offense whatever. I have heard the voice of the oppressed
people crying for justice. I have seen men, rich and poor, wise and
ignorant, fighting for the common cause of the Filipino people. I
witnessed one of the fierce attacks of our patriots upon the Spanish
regiment at Gapan. When I was twelve years old many towns were entirely
depopulated; churches, and schoolhouses converted into hospitals;
men and women impelled by fear to flee from their homes with their
children. I once enjoyed seeing the humiliating race-distinction
effaced. Early one morning I was awakened from my sleep by the loud
booming of cannon and by the shouting of the once happy and satisfied
people, inaugurating the short-lived Philippine republic. These past
events changed my gentle nature entirely. It has been my ambition ever
since to make the most of myself for my country's sake.

I attended the public school at Gapan in 1894. Here I learned the
alphabet and catechism. At that time Spanish was taught in nearly all
the schools of the Islands. The sudden outbreak of the revolution of
1896 brought about the closing of the schools for a short time. And
altho they were soon reopened, yet there was not the same enthusiasm
for learning among the great mass of students as had been previously
shown. They attended schools simply because they were compelled to do
so by the government (for education was compulsory under the Spanish
administration in these islands). In 1898 I attended school very
irregularly on account of the revolution. Then in the beginning of the
year 1899 schools were closed on account of the troubles which the
Filipinos had had with the Americans, and consequently I had to stay at
home for two years. In October, 1901, I entered the Gapan Intermediate
School, which was then under the supervision of an American teacher. On
January 1, 1904, I left the school of Gapan and attended the S. Isidro
High School. In June, 1905, I was transferred to the Philippine Normal
School, where I have stayed since then.

My uncle Quintin's plan was to make me a lawyer, but his unexpected
death prevented his desire. My father and my two aunts, Paula and
Felipa, allowed me to pursue any course I liked. It is their wish to
give me a good and thorough education.

My own plan is different from that of my uncle Quintin. I desire to
complete the high school course first, then the college course, and
finish with the engineering course.

                                                   --Domingo T. Guanio.


=What I Remember of the Coming of the Americans=

In the afternoon of November 15, 1900, while I was at a small private
school conducted by an educated woman, the wife of the colonel in
Ponciano's army, one of my classmates called my attention to the
running of men and women up and down the street.

"What is the matter? Why are those people running?" asked our teacher
of her husband, who was then entering the gate.

"They say there is a _casco_ of rice in Laguna de Bay. I do not know
what kind of casco it is; it has a flag. Send all the children home,"
said the colonel.

"The class is dismissed," said our teacher to us.

She had scarcely spoken these words when we jumped to our feet and ran
as fast as we could to our homes.

"Have you not seen your father? Where is he?" said my mother as soon as
she caught sight of me. I looked back and saw my father coming.

"Here he comes," I said to my mother.

"Prepare yourself, Leopoldo. We will go to the mountain," said my
mother.

"Why? There is a casco of rice coming," I answered.

"No, that is not a casco of rice. If that is a casco of rice, the
people on the beach wouldn't run away to the mountain. Get yourself
ready, quick," replied my mother.

It was a cloudy afternoon. The wind blew hard. Nothing could be heard
but the moaning of the wind on the trees and houses, the running of
men and women along the streets and the crying of babies. The streets
were full of people, all running in the same direction. Some carried
trunks on their heads, others had bundles of clothes on their backs.
Some carried infants in their arms, others had them on their hips. The
little boys and girls ran beside their parents. It was indeed a piteous
sight!

While my father and mother were busy putting our things in a _carreton_
I was going up and down the stairs every ten minutes. I did not know
what to do. When I was upstairs I wanted to go downstairs. When I
was downstairs I wanted to go up. I wished to carry with me my shoes
because I knew I needed them on the mountain. But I also wanted to
carry my black coat. At last I thought of the bread that my mother had
bought that morning. I took it all. Just then my father and mother
had put our trunks, in the carreton. We all got into the carreton--my
father, my mother, my little brother, my sister, and myself. My father
was the driver. We left our home, our minds full of the gloomiest
forebodings.

We had not gone very far from the town when we heard
per-r-rrok-rok-pook-pook-pook-pok--bung.

"Jesus, Maria, y Josep!" exclaimed my mother.

We all looked at each other speechless. At a distance we heard a cry,
"_Nacu! nanay co_."

"Perhaps a bullet struck that man," I said to myself.

In a few minutes we arrived at the Lecheria hill. It was already dark.
There was a moon, but it was hidden behind the clouds. At the bottom
of the hill was a large house made of nipa and bamboo. The house was
very dark. When we came to it a voice inside said, "Who is that?
Aniceto?"

"Yes," answered my father.

"Why are you late? Have you eaten your supper?" asked the voice.

"No, but we have to go now. The bullets will reach us here. We can eat
our supper in the carreton," replied my father.

All the people in the house silently went down to the ground. They got
into their carts and we began our journey. There were four vehicles
in all. One was loaded with rice. Uncle Paulino and his family were
in one. The other one was occupied by Grandmother Tereza and her four
sons. We traveled over low hills and valleys beneath the outspreading
branches of the wild trees and over thick _cogon_ grasses. The moon had
gained full brightness, but the night was cold. After I had eaten my
supper I fell asleep. My mother wrapped me in her blanket. When I awoke
I found that we were in Pasong Calabaw. It was four o'clock in the
morning. We had been traveling all night.

                                                   --Leopoldo Faustino.


III. Biography

[Beginning in England of literary biography]

With Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" biography in England took on a
literary quality. Before that time such work had been perfunctory and
had been done by hack writers; but with the appearance of the "Life
of Savage" (1744), says Macaulay, a new era began. "The little work
with all its faults was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary
biography existed in any language living or dead. The discerning
critic might confidently have predicted that the author was destined
to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence." And he was.
Thirty-three years later, after he had become famous, a company of
booksellers called on Dr. Johnson to add to the "Life of Savage" a
series of biographical prefaces for an edition of the poets from
Cowley downwards. Although intending at first to write only a few
short paragraphs, this great and good talker let himself run on until
he handed, over to the publishers ten volumes--somewhat short volumes
to be sure, but a fine piece of work, and most of it very precious.
From that time on, no biographer who expected to be read, dared
be uninteresting. Prejudiced in temperament he might be, mistaken
sometimes, but henceforth he must prove himself lively, vigorous,
faithful, penetrating, sagacious, warm yet discriminating in praise,
reasonable in censure, fearless in judgments, and fresh and exact in
expression. The model had been set. The thing had been done not for one
poet, but for many. Biography was now a literary type, to be written
with care by a qualified person. It is worthy of note that the original
type was short.

[Great biographies in English]

Since Johnson's day English literature has gained through biography
some of the best books in the world. Boswell's "Life of Johnson" and
Lockhart's "Life of Scott" are to be so ranked. Lockhart did also a
superfine example of the short form, a biographical sketch of Theodore
Hook, a very strange "bohemian." Lockhart's "Life of Napoleon" and
"Life of Burns" are also standard. Trevelyan's "Life of Macaulay,"
Forster's "Life of Goldsmith" and "Life of Dickens" rank here, as
possibly likewise Southey's "Life of Nelson," Mrs. Gaskell's "Life of
Charlotte Bronté," and Thomas Moore's brilliant "Life of Lord Byron."
Macaulay's own short "Life of Johnson," though displaying Macaulay's
faults of prejudice and exaggeration, is in itself a classic.

[Writer and subject]

Very naturally a biography is a double revelation--one of writer and
subject. What you choose to praise or blame, how you praise or blame,
what you notice, what you omit, how you emphasize, how you show your
erudition, where you give your sympathy, the largeness or smallness
of your view of life--all these and more are tale-tellers of your own
personality. A luminous illustration of this fact is Goldy's "Life of
Beau Nash." Oliver and the great beau had much in common, and when the
biographer is commenting on "the mixed silliness and shrewdness" of
his subject, "the taste and tawdriness, blossomed-colored coats and
gambling debts, vanity, carelessness, and good-heart," he is writing
a critique of his own life, past and to come. When he mentions Nash's
"ill-controlled sensibility which was so strong that, unable to witness
the misfortunes of the miserable, he was always borrowing money, to
relieve them," we see the unlucky and reckless poet himself.


[Beginning]

Since it is the uncertain quantity of your own personality that will
make your narrative dry or entertaining, we need hardly say more on
the tone side of the work, unless it be to caution you about your
diction, to have it simple and fresh. On the other hand, you might
profitably notice at the end of this division the outline of general
facts that the world expects in every biography. A certain number of
questions ought to be answered, not in any set order, not with any set
emphasis, but surely in sum finally. See if you can not be original in
your beginning and ending. The amount of space that you will devote
to one topic or the other will be determined by your purpose and your
audience. If you are writing for children, as Hawthorne was in his
"Biographical Sketches," you will emphasize those divisions of the
life that a child would most naturally be interested in, or would be
instructed by. [Emphasis] Be careful, however, not to make your poor
hero or heroine the opportunity for a sermon. Besides being not quite
fair, the device is trite and tiresome. Hawthorne we may forgive for
preaching when we remember the taste of his day and the nearness of
it to Puritanical ideals; but you live in an age that likes to take
its own lessons from unvarnished facts and from truths put forth
concretely, not deduced. Avoid fulsomeness and heroics. [Attitude]
Set yourself to the task of revealing the personality just as it was,
and it will teach its own lesson. Many people are more inspired by an
erring soul that yet achieved, than they are by an icy paragon who knew
no struggles. Be sure that in this history of another person you give
us a human fellow.

Now, do not fly to the encyclopedia and cull facts about Napoleon or
Cromwell. Take some one whom you know--a man or woman of attainment in
your own neighborhood. Do the character-sketching with care. Be crisp
and original in attack. The outline given below is a skeleton which you
must hide with a pleasing exterior. But do not forget to put the heart
and lungs in him. Exact and full information is the motor power of a
living biography.


=Outline for a Life=

  I. Birth: place and date--country, city, epoch.
      Nationality of parents and noteworthy facts connected with the
      family.

  II. Boyhood and early education:
    Disposition and temperament displayed by the youth.
    His chief interests; hobbies.
    Anecdotes about the boy: both true and only typical.
    Primary and secondary schooling: at private or public institutions.

  III. Later education and the choice of a career: College life.
    His family's plan for his profession or career.
    His own plan.
    Circumstances influencing the ultimate choice.
    Success resulting from the choice:
      Intellectual and personal.
      Financial and worldly.
    Final professional training.
    Travel.

  IV. Family and domestic life: marriage, children.
    Influence of wife and children on his success.
    Anecdotes and particular instances to illustrate personality and
    character.

  V. Friends and enemies: names, professions, and influence.

  VI. Accomplishment and title to fame:
    His rank in his own nation and the world.
    His especial characteristics as displayed in style and
    subject-matter.
    His masterpieces: something of their content.


=Queen Christina=

                        (Born 1626. Died 1689.)

In the royal palace at Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden, there was
born, in 1626, a little princess. The king, her father, gave her the
name of Christina, in memory of a Swedish girl with whom he had been in
love. His own name was Gustavus Adolphus, and he was also called the
Lion of the North, because he had gained greater fame in war than any
other prince or general then alive. With this valiant king for their
commander, the Swedes had made themselves terrible to the Emperor of
Germany and to the King of France, and were looked upon as the chief
defense of the Protestant religion.

The little Christina was by no means a beautiful child. To confess the
truth, she was remarkably plain. The queen, her mother, did not love
her so much as she ought; partly, perhaps, on account of Christina's
want of beauty, and also both the king and queen had wished for a son,
who might have gained as great renown in battle as his father had.

The king, however, soon became exceedingly fond of the infant princess.
When Christina was very young she was taken violently sick. Gustavus
Adolphus, who was several hundred miles from Stockholm, traveled night
and day and never rested until he held the poor child in his arms. On
her recovery he made a solemn festival in order to show his joy to
the people of Sweden and express his gratitude to Heaven. After this
event he took his daughter with him in all the journeys which he made
throughout his kingdom.

Christina soon proved herself a bold and sturdy little girl. When she
was two years old the king and herself, in the course of a journey,
came to the strong fortress of Colmar. On the battlements were soldiers
clad in steel armor, which glittered in the sunshine. There were
likewise great cannons, pointing their black mouths at Gustavus and
little Christina and ready to belch out their smoke and thunder; for,
whenever a king enters a fortress, it is customary to receive him with
a royal salute of artillery.

But the captain of the fortress met Gustavus and his little daughter as
they were about to enter the gateway.

"May it please your Majesty," said he, taking off his steel cap and
bowing profoundly, "I fear that, if we receive you with a salute of
cannon, the little princess will be frightened almost to death."

Gustavus looked earnestly at his daughter, and was indeed apprehensive
that the thunder of so many cannon might perhaps throw her into
convulsions. He had almost a mind to tell the captain to let them enter
the fortress quietly, as common people might have done, without all
this head-splitting racket. But, no; this would not do.

"Let them fire," said he, waving his hand. "Christina is a soldier's
daughter and must learn to bear the noise of cannon."

So the captain uttered the word of command and immediately there was a
terrible peal of thunder from the cannon and such a gush of smoke that
it enveloped the whole fortress in its volumes. But amid all the din
and confusion Christina was seen clapping her little hands and laughing
in an ecstasy of delight. Probably nothing ever pleased her father so
much as to see that his daughter promised to be fearless as himself.
He determined to educate her exactly as if she had been a boy and to
teach her all the knowledge needful to the ruler of a kingdom and the
commander of an army.

But Gustavus should have remembered that Providence had created her to
be a woman, and that it was not for him to make a man of her.

However, the king derived great happiness from his beloved Christina.
It must have been a pleasant sight to see the powerful monarch of
Sweden playing in some magnificent hall of the palace with his merry
little girl. Then he forgot that the weight of a kingdom rested upon
his shoulders. He forgot that the wise Chancellor Oxenstiern was
waiting to consult with him how to render Sweden the greatest nation of
Europe. He forgot that the Emperor of Germany and the King of France
were plotting together how they might pull him down from his throne.

Yes, Gustavus forgot all the perils and cares and pompous irksomeness
of a royal life, and was as happy while playing with his child as
the humblest peasant in the realm of Sweden. How gayly did they dance
along the marble floor of the palace, this valiant king, with his
upright, martial figure, his war-worn visage and commanding aspect,
and the small, round form of Christina, with her rosy face of childish
merriment! Her little fingers were clasped in her father's hand, which
had held the leading staff in many famous victories. His crown and
scepter were her playthings. She could disarm Gustavus of his sword,
which was so terrible to the princes of Europe.

But, alas! the king was not long permitted to enjoy Christina's
society. When she was four years old Gustavus was summoned to take
command of the allied armies of Germany, which were fighting against
the emperor. His greatest affliction was the necessity of parting with
his child; but people in such high stations have little opportunity for
domestic happiness. He called an assembly of the senators of Sweden and
confided Christina to their care, saying that each one of them must be
a father to her if he himself should fall in battle.

At the moment of his departure Christina ran towards him and began
to address him with a speech which somebody had taught her for the
occasion. Gustavus was busied with thoughts about the affairs of the
kingdom, so that he did not immediately attend to the childish voice
of his little girl. Christina, who did not love to be unnoticed,
immediately stopped short and pulled him by the coat.

"Father," said she, "why do not you listen to my speech?"

In a moment the king forgot everything except that he was parting
with what he loved best in all the world. He caught the child in his
arms, pressed her to his bosom and burst into tears. Yes; though he was
a brave man, and though he wore a steel corselet on his breast, and
though armies were waiting for him to lead them to battle, still his
heart melted within him and he wept. Christina, too, was so afflicted
that her attendants began to fear that she would actually die of grief.
But probably she was soon comforted, for children seldom remember their
parents quite so faithfully as their parents remember them.

For two years more Christina remained in the palace at Stockholm. The
queen, her mother, had accompanied Gustavus to the wars. The child,
therefore, was left to the guardianship of five of the wisest men in
the kingdom. But these wise men knew better how to manage the weighty
affairs of state than how to govern and educate a little girl so as to
render her a good and happy woman.

When two years had passed away tidings were brought to Stockholm which
filled everybody with triumph and sorrow at the same time. The Swedes
had won a glorious victory at Lutzen. But, alas! the warlike King of
Sweden, the Lion of the North, the father of our little Christina, had
been slain at the foot of a great stone, which still marks the spot of
that hero's death.

Soon after this sad event a general assembly of congress, consisting of
deputations from the nobles, the clergy, the burghers, and the peasants
of Sweden, was summoned to meet at Stockholm. It was for the purpose
of declaring little Christina to be Queen of Sweden and giving her the
crown and scepter of her deceased father. Silence being proclaimed,
the Chancellor Oxenstiern arose.

"We desire to know," said he, "whether the people of Sweden will take
the daughter of our dead King Gustavus Adolphus to be their queen."

When the chancellor had spoken an old man, with white hair and coarse
apparel, stood up in the midst of the assembly. He was a peasant, Lars
Larrson by name, and had spent most of his life in laboring on a farm.

"Who is this daughter of Gustavus?" asked the old man. "We do not know
her. Let her be shown to us."

Then Christina was brought into the hall and placed before the old
peasant. It was strange, no doubt, to see a child--a little girl of six
years old--offered to the Swedes as their ruler instead of the brave
king, her father, who had led them to victory so many times. Could her
baby fingers wield a sword in war? Could her childish mind govern the
nation wisely in peace?

But the Swedes do not appear to have asked themselves these questions.
Old Lars Larrson took Christina up in his arms and gazed earnestly
into her face. He had known the great Gustavus well, and his heart was
touched when he saw the likeness which the little girl bore to that
heroic monarch.

"Yes," cried he, with the tears gushing down his furrowed cheeks, "this
is truly the daughter of our Gustavus! Here is her father's brow!--here
is his piercing eye! She is his very picture! This child shall be our
queen!"

Then all the proud nobles of Sweden and the reverend clergy, and the
burghers, and the peasants knelt down at the child's feet and kissed
her hand.

"Long live Christina, Queen of Sweden!" shouted they.

Even after she was a woman grown, Christina remembered the pleasure
which she felt in seeing all these men at her feet and hearing them
acknowledge her as their supreme ruler. Poor child! she was yet to
learn that power does not insure happiness. As yet, however, she had
not any real power. All the public business, it is true, was transacted
in her name; but the kingdom was governed by a number of the most
experienced statesmen, who were called a regency.

But it was considered necessary that the little queen should be
present at the public ceremonies and should behave just as if she
were in reality the ruler of the nation. When she was seven years of
age, some ambassadors from the Czar of Muscovy came to the Swedish
court. They wore long beards and were clad in a strange fashion, with
furs and other outlandish ornaments; and as they were inhabitants of
a half-civilized country, they did not behave like other people. The
Chancellor Oxenstiern was afraid that the young queen would burst out
laughing at the first sight of these queer ambassadors, or else that
she would be frightened by their unusual aspect.

"Why should I be frightened?" said the little queen. "And do you
suppose that I have no better manners than to laugh? Only tell me how I
must behave and I will do it."

Accordingly, the Muscovite ambassadors were introduced, and Christina
received them and answered their speeches with as much dignity and
propriety as if she had been a grown woman.

All this time, though Christina was now a queen, you must not suppose
that she was left to act as she pleased. She had a preceptor, named
John Mathias, who was a very learned man and capable of instructing
her in all the branches of science. But there was nobody to teach her
the delicate graces and gentle virtues of a woman. She was surrounded
almost entirely by men, and had learned to despise the society of her
own sex. At the age of nine years she was separated from her mother,
whom the Swedes did not consider a proper person to be intrusted with
the charge of her. No little girl who sits by a New England fireside
has cause to envy Christina in the royal palace at Stockholm.

Yet she made great progress in her studies. She learned to read the
classical authors of Greece and Rome, and became a great admirer of the
heroes and poets of old times. Then as for active exercises, she could
ride on horseback as well as any man in her kingdom. She was fond of
hunting and could shoot at a mark with wonderful skill. But dancing was
the only feminine accomplishment with which she had any acquaintance.

She was so restless in her disposition that none of her attendants were
sure of a moment's quiet either day or night. She grew up, I am sorry
to say, a very unamiable person, ill-tempered, proud, stubborn, and, in
short, unfit to make those around her happy or to be happy herself. Let
every little girl who has been taught self-control and a due regard for
the rights of others thank Heaven that she has had better instruction
than this poor little Queen of Sweden.

At the age of eighteen Christina was declared free to govern the
kingdom by herself without the aid of a regency. At this period of
her life she was a young woman of striking aspect, a good figure and
intelligent face, but very strangely dressed. She wore a short habit
of gray cloth, with a man's vest over it; and a black scarf around her
neck; but no jewels nor ornaments of any kind.

Yet, though Christina was so negligent of her appearance, there was
something in her air and manner that proclaimed her as the ruler of a
kingdom. Her eyes, it is said, had a very fierce and haughty look. Old
General Wrangel, who had often caused the enemies of Sweden to tremble
in battle, actually trembled himself when he encountered the eyes of
the queen. But it would have been better for Christina if she could
have made people love her, by means of soft and gentle looks, instead
of affrighting them by such terrible glances.

And now I have told you almost all that is amusing or instructive in
the childhood of Christina. Only a few more words need be said about
her; for it is neither pleasant nor profitable to think of many things
that she did after she grew to be a woman.

When she had worn the crown a few years, she began to consider it
beneath her dignity to be called a queen, because the name implied
that she belonged to the weaker sex. She therefore caused herself to
be proclaimed King; thus declaring to the world that she despised
her own sex and was desirous of being ranked among men. But in the
twenty-eighth year of her age Christina grew tired of royalty and
resolved to be neither a king nor a queen any longer. She took the
crown from her head with her own hands and ceased to be the ruler of
Sweden. The people did not greatly regret her abdication, for she had
governed them ill, and had taken much of their property to supply her
extravagance.

Having thus given up her hereditary crown, Christina left Sweden and
traveled over many of the countries of Europe. Everywhere she was
received with great ceremony, because she was the daughter of the
renowned Gustavus, and had herself been a powerful queen. Perhaps you
would like to know something about her personal appearance in the
latter part of her life. She is described as wearing a man's vest, a
short gray petticoat, embroidered with gold and silver, and a black
wig, which was thrust awry upon her head. She wore no gloves, and so
seldom washed her hands that nobody could tell what had been their
original color. In this strange dress, and, I suppose, without washing
her hands or face, she visited the magnificent court of Louis XIV.

She died in 1689. None loved her while she lived, nor regretted her
death, nor planted a single flower upon her grave. Happy are the
little girls of America who are brought up quietly and tenderly at the
domestic hearth, and thus become gentle and delicate women! May none
of them ever lose the loveliness of their sex by receiving such an
education as that of Queen Christina.

                                                 --Nathaniel Hawthorne.

    Biographical Stories. (Houghton Mifflin Company.)


=Joan Luna's Life=

The parents of Juan Luna, the greatest and most eminent Filipino
painter, were Ilocanos and of humble birth. The young artist was born
in Ilocos Norte in the year 1857 and died in Hong Kong in 1899. From
childhood he was hot-tempered. His early education was at home. At the
age of twelve he was a good caricaturist. His father then sent him to
Manila to attend the "Ateneo Municipal." At the age of twenty-one he
was sent to Madrid, where he studied art under several famous Spanish
and Italian painters. He was given prizes at the expositions in Madrid
and Paris. In Spain he met Miss Paz Pardo de Tavera, whom he married
three years later. He became very popular. Some of his friends were Dr.
Jose Rizal, Dr. Roxas, the famous Italian tenor, Payarre, and many of
the French and Spanish nobility. He was especially loved by women, of
whose hearts and inclinations he showed a knowledge very intimate. Juan
Luna had an art which is seldom found in man, an instinct found only in
real genius, a power to portray and interpret life, tenderness and the
emotions of wrath and pity.

He was tall and well built, with a high forehead, a short flat nose
and large black impressive eyes. In about the year 1890, while he was
at Paris, a terrible thing occurred. His wife began to be untrue to
him. It is said that one day Paz asked Juan to let her go to a certain
shop to buy some thread. He allowed her to go, but soon followed her
because he suspected her. He saw that Paz did not go to a shop but to a
private house. He walked in and found his wife with another man. Then
the crisis began. Luna was blind with anger. He took Paz home and asked
her to explain to him her late behaviour. After many a tear, after
many excuses and explanations, after many promises to be good, Paz was
pardoned.

Two months later Luna asked his wife to go with him and their two
children to live in a village near by. Paz at first said she would not
go; but through the request of her mother and brothers, she assented to
Luna's plan. On the day of their departure, when the carriages which
were to take them to the neighboring village were in front of the door,
Paz went to the bath-room with her mother. Juan knocked at the door and
asked her to come down for it was getting late. Paz then shouted out
of the window, saying that her husband was killing her. All at once
Luna rushed to his room, took his pistol, opened the bath-room door
with a sudden push, and fired at every one who came in his way. His
mother-in-law, wife and elder son were killed, and his younger son was
wounded.

In this deed we see the real character of Luna. He was generous
and cold-blooded; but when his pride, name and honor were wounded,
his blood boiled in his head, he trembled, and saw nothing before
him--neither God nor man--but only the guilty.

The police then arrested him. He was tried the following day. The
newspapers spread this piece of news to the world under their title:
"_La Tragedia en Paris._" Fortunately he was acquitted. The judges
decided that man's honor is his life, and that when it is once
destroyed it can never be supplied.

Luna was the greatest artist and painter that the Philippines has ever
produced. He is great in his own country and ranks among the world's
good painters.

In 1899 he came back to the Philippines; but on his way home, while at
Hong Kong, he died of apoplexy and a broken heart. His son was brought
to Manila by a friend. Andres, his son, is now twenty years of age and
is also a good painter, but not like his father.

The Philippines produced one of the world painters, showing the fact
that a great worker and a great mind can not be hidden, even by tyranny
and oppression.

                                                    --Dolores Asuncion.


=Elizabeth Glade=

Elizabeth Glade was born in Baltimore, Maryland, about the year 1816.
Her mother was a poor widow, but gave her as much money as the family
purse could afford, for education in those days was very expensive.

Having finished with school, Elizabeth began to occupy herself in
making buttons and fringe, which at that time were made by hand. At
the age of twenty-three she married John Arnold, a carpenter. They
both moved to the city of Washington to live. In 1849, when gold was
discovered in California, Mr. Arnold caught the fever of the excitement
and joined the forty-niners. A few years afterwards his wife received
news of his death.

Elizabeth was left with only two hundred dollars, and with five
children who looked to her for food and care. So she began the trade
she had learned in her girlhood and struggled along in spite of hard
times. Her mother took care of the children while Elizabeth gave her
entire attention to her trade.

Gradually her work increased. She bought land in the business part of
Washington and started a store. Later she bought more property. As
Washington grew, land and houses became more valuable, and Elizabeth
became wealthy. She expended much money on her children's education.
One son she sent to Yale college and afterwards to Europe to continue
his studies. This son died before he had opportunity to make a name
for himself. Her other two sons also died young; but her two daughters
lived to survive her, and were a great comfort to her.

Elizabeth had a peculiar disposition; for, though she was exceedingly
charitable, in small things she sometimes showed indifference to other
people's feelings. In this petty selfishness, however, she was always
frank and never attempted to hide her actions.

When a young girl, before she married, Elizabeth once went to town to
buy two veils for herself and her sister. She had received from her
sister the money for her veil. Before Elizabeth bought the veils she
saw a poor woman, who asked her for money. Elizabeth opened her purse
and gave the women the money for her sister's veil. She then bought a
veil for herself and returned home. Her sister was surprised to see her
with only one veil and asked her where the other was. "I thought that
as you were younger you would not mind losing your veil, and that you
would like to give the money to the poor woman," Elizabeth replied in
her most innocent manner.

One time she had company to supper and, as was her custom, took all
the cream off the milk for her own coffee before passing the pitcher
to anyone else. The guest, when asked if she would have milk in her
coffee, said: "No, I do not care for milk in my coffee when the cream
has been taken off." Elizabeth burst out laughing and said, "Well,
Jane, I did not think anybody saw me do that."

Elizabeth supported two of her brothers and their families when they
became ill and poor.

                                                   --Nellie Barrington.


=Biography of a Traitor=

Vicente was born in Santa Cruz, Laguna, in the year 1868. His parents
were poor, so that he did not have a high education. Very little is
known about his childhood. He seemed to have attended the primary
school of the town, where he learned a little Spanish. He was not
properly brought up by his parents. He was allowed to indulge in bad
society. Being thus left alone, exposed to vice, he grew to be an
unscrupulous and unruly young man. He became an orphan at the age of
eighteen. To earn his living and to satisfy his craving for any easy,
idle and dependent life, he joined the _Guardia Civil_, a body of
soldiers employed by the Spaniards to maintain peace in the islands.
Unfortunately, instead of being the guardians of peace, these men
became the malefactors of the country. As I have said, Vicente joined
this most dreaded army of oppressors and in a few days he became one
of the most cruel and abusive men in the corps. He put many guiltless
persons in prison, just because of animosity or revenge. He sent many
innocent persons to the block simply because he wished to gain the
favor of the high officials. Such injustices were much admired and
were even encouraged by the Spaniards--for they also practised such
acts. Often such base conduct brought promotion to a soldier of that
behavior. So Vicente was appointed a sergeant. Being thus gratuitously
rewarded he grew more atrocious than before. He was, then, a terror,
an awful monster to humble citizens, a murderer and a robber in
every sense. His tyrannical and arbitrary character, however, often
succumbed to the tinkling of coins--a fact that was universally true
of government officials of that time, from the highest to the lowest.
Once or twice through perfidious ways, Vicente acquired a few large
tracts of land, but this unlawfully attained property was soon lost in
gambling.

Spanish rule was ended by the revolution of 1898. This body of _Guardia
Civiles_ was torn asunder. Many of them were killed in the fight, but
many were taken prisoners and some were pardoned. Vicente, evidently,
was to live longer to play another plot against his country.

At the beginning of the Filipino-American war, while all the people
left the town, with a heartless friend Vicente surrendered. They
allied themselves with the Americans to betray their countrymen in the
battlefield. During the year following 1898, these two men were the
sole guides of the Americans in their campaigns. They caused many to be
thrown in prison. They laid heavy taxes upon the goods of the tradesmen
for their own use.

Vicente's friend was elected president of the town the first time that
the civil government was established here. He was unfortunate, however,
in being stabbed to death soon afterwards. Vicente succeeded his friend
in 1900, and later married the wife of his predecessor. By this time
Vicente was very rich with the spoils of his own countrymen. In fact,
he was, then, living a glorious life at the expense of his suffering
country. He did not wield his power long. Naturally, the Americans had
no confidence in him. When the war was over, his office was taken from
him and was given to a good and honest citizen.

From that time Vicente lived a retired life with his family. Because
of cock-fighting, gambling and card playing, his seemingly abounding
wealth was soon exhausted. After all, he was a poor ordinary man,
devoid of influence, respect and rank in society. Even his house was
sold. He then rented his former house and set up as a notary public
in 1904; by which he could hardly support his family. His repressed
ambition for power was, however, kindled again and in January, 1909, he
proclaimed himself candidate for the presidency in the coming election.
But fortune, health and success deserted him. He grew consumptive and,
after a few weeks, he was confined to his bed.

One night in June, 1909, Vicente suddenly rose from his bed and before
his companions could ask him what he wished, he jumped out of the
window, shouting that he was chased by some devils who were compelling
him to go with them to hell. He did not live long after this event. He
died a few hours later. In the morning, the incident of his tragical
death reached the ears of almost everybody, and all these people said,
"He is just paying for some of his injustices. God is punishing him.
Who knows what punishment he will receive in the other world!"

                                                    --Walfrido de Leon.




CHAPTER IX

IMPERSONAL ACCOUNTS


In its general sense narrative history includes all true-story forms,
even incidents and eye-witness accounts. But annals and chronicles
may be grouped by themselves on the basis of the non-personal and
scientific attitude of the writer and the fact that the story is
usually of the doings of a set of people living as a unit. Of course
we find such type blendings as the "Annals" of Goethe, which are true
but autobiographical, and the "Annals of the Parish" by John Galt, and
the "Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family," which though collective
are fictitious; yet for the most part these forms are thought of as
embodying community and actual history, and we will take them up as
such, remembering that fiction has drawn on all true-narrative forms
for verisimilitude. History is often classified into narrative, scenic,
and philosophical. Only with the first kind have we anything to do.

There are a number of histories that have extraordinary literary value,
that are not mere recitals of past events with tame descriptions of
by-gone scenes and more-or-less acute analysis of epochs and causes,
but are intense human documents with the life-blood of nations
throbbing and beating in their pages. Green gave his health and the
best days of his living to write his "History of the English People,"
and we love it. It has something more than a scholar's accuracy in it.
It has a broad and deep inspiration that brings a catch in the throat
and a gleam of pride in the eye of any who are fortunate enough to
belong to the magnificent race whose deeds it records. Enthusiasts
fought for Macaulay's "History" at the door of the bindery, fulfilling
the author's hope that it might be considered more interesting than
a novel. Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic" is one of the most
creditable things in American letters. Prescott's "Ferdinand and
Isabella," "Conquest of Mexico" and of "Peru," and Parkman's "Montcalm
and Wolfe" are along side for literary qualities. Carlyle's "French
Revolution" is a unique and graphic set of pictures. Gibbon's "Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire" has long stood as a classic example of
literary high-seriousness in an allied department. Grote's "History
of Greece," Machiavel's "History of Florence," Sismondi's "Italian
Republics," Hallam's "Middle Ages," Symond's "Italian Renaissance" and
Schiller's "Thirty Years' War" are all worthy the name of literature
and have excellent narrative in them. We can study at present,
however, only those forms of history that are shorter and are merely
narrative--annals, chronicles, and true relations.


I. Annals

[What annals are]

Annals are a concise historical record in which events are arranged
chronologically, year by year. The accounts of necessity are brief,
since they are made and kept for reference. They contain any matter
the recorders deemed worthy of notice, especially, of course, whatever
affected the community as a whole. The report stands in relation to
the community much as a diary stands in relation to a person. Intimate
facts are to be expected. The ambitions, hopes, defeats, expenditures,
future plans, of the city or state, are mentioned perhaps, as are also,
maybe, its success and honor--in the carrying out of a town fiesta
or county fair, or in being host to some distinguished visitor or to
a session of some large political party. The essential element of
this kind of narrative history is the yearly periods, though the term
"annals" has been loosely used in modern literature to signify almost
any temporal order. Indeed, except in studies like this such titles are
never very strictly applied. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for instance,
is in large part annals. However, we have a few clear cases, especially
among the ancients.

[Famous old annals]

Tacitus wrote annals. Then later there are the _Annales Ecclesiastici_
of Baronius; the _Annales et Historia de Rebus Belgicis_ by Grotius,
published at Amsterdam in 1557; Hailes's "Annals of Scotland from the
Accession of Malcolm III to the Accession of the House of Stuart;"
Chamber's "Domestic Annals of Scotland," and others. John Stow bears
a very high reputation as "an accurate and impartial recorder of
public events." He travelled on foot through a considerable part of
England examining old manuscripts in cathedrals and other places of
preservation. He wrote down impartially what he judged to be the truth,
and, unswayed by "fear, favor, or malice," as he himself declared, he
established trustworthy history in his native land. His "Survey of
London" (1598) is the best known of his writings. A scholarly piece of
work, it has served us the foundation of all subsequent histories of
the metropolis.

American history, so badly treated in the past, is being written
accurately for the first time, think our present day historians.
They go about their work in the good old Stow fashion: they use
authenticated local records. The friendly fable is current that the
way a noted professor composes his many histories is this: he merely
reaches about from left to right and up and down of his mammoth desk
and pulls from the numerous cubby-holes bundles of closely written
pages, sorts them a little, ties a string around them, and says,
"Here's your book." But these closely written pages are carefully
prepared, minutely accurate material--monographs on the local annals
and traditions of various places, done by the professor's own students
under the scrutinizing eye of their master. Whether the fable is based
on truth or not, it is illustrative of the value of annals.

[Suggestions on material]

If you live in a small town, you can easily get at its records, and
with the permission of a person in authority copy a few items. If you
yourself very well know the events written of, you might edit the
report, adding details of your own by way of notes. You should not
change the statements, however, in the original; but, where there is
evidence of error or omissions, you could supply a corrective amendment
with the real facts in support. If you translate from one tongue into
another be careful to give the idiomatic equivalent. The annals of a
society or club might be easily enough compiled. All that you would
need to do would be to arrange the narrative by years, culling your
facts from the secretaries' reports.


=The State of England in Stephen's Reign=

1137. This year King Stephen went across the sea to Normandy. There
he was well received because the people thought that he must be the
same sort of man as his uncle; for he still had his treasure and he
distributed it and squandered it foolishly. In large quantities had
King Henry gathered gold and silver together. No good did any of it do
his soul, however.

When King Stephen came to England he made his parliament at Oxenford.
There he took Robert, bishop of Salisbury; Alix, bishop of Lincoln;
also Chancellor Robert, his nephew; he put them all in prison until
they gave up their castles. When the traitors understood that he was
a mild man, soft and good, and did no justice, they did every kind of
wrong. They had sworn homage to him, had made oaths, but they did not
keep faith. All were foresworn and their word of truth was gone. For
every rich man made him a castle, which they all held against the king.
They filled the land full of castles. They oppressed very much the
wretched men of the land with castle-building. When the castles were
finished, they filled them with evil and devilish men. They captured
and imprisoned there by night and by day all persons whom they thought
had any possessions, both men and women. They put them in prison for
the sake of gold and silver. They tortured them with indescribable
tortures; never were martyrs tormented as were these people. They
hanged up men by the feet and smoked them with foul smoke. Some were
hanged up by the thumbs, others by the head, and burning things were
hung on to their feet. They put knotted strings around men's heads and
writhed them until they went into the brain. They put men into prison
where adders and snakes and toads were crawling, and so they tormented
them. Some they put into a chest short and narrow and not deep, that
had sharp stones within, and forced men therein so that they broke all
their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called
_tachenteges_, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. It was
thus made: it was fastened to a beam and had a sharp iron to go around
a man's neck and throat, so that he might noways sit, or lie, or sleep,
but he bore all the iron. Many thousands they starved with hunger.

I cannot nor may I tell all the wickedness and all the torture which
they did the poor wretches of this land. This condition lasted nineteen
years while Stephen was king, and it grew ever worse and worse.
They laid tribute on the enclosures (_tunes_) always, and called it
_censerie_. When the miserable inhabitants had no more to give, then
they were plundered. The nobles burned all the enclosures. So that you
might easily go a whole day's journey and you would find no man sitting
in his enclosure. No land was tilled. Corn was dear; also flesh,
cheese, and butter, for there was none in the country. The wretched
peasants died of hunger. Some who were once rich men went a begging;
others fled the country.

Never was there before more destitution and suffering in the land;
never did heathen men act worse than they did. For everywhere
subsequently did they forbear neither church or churchyard; but they
took all the property that was in them. And sometimes they burned the
church and all together. Nor did they spare bishops' land, or abbots',
or priests'. They spoiled monks and clerks. And every man (plundered)
the other wherever he could. If two or three men came riding up to
an enclosure, all the people of the farmstead fled because of them;
for they thought that they were robbers. The bishops and the clergy
always cursed them, but that was nothing to them; for they were all
fore-cursed, fore-sworn, and lost.

Wheresoever the peasants cultivated, the earth produced no grain; for
the land was all destroyed with such deeds. And they said openly that
Christ and his saints slept. Such things and more than we can mention
we suffered nineteen years because of our sins.

During all this evil time Abbot Martin held his abbacy twenty years,
six months and eight days, with great toil. He provided his monks and
his guests all that they needed; he practiced much charity in his
house. Nevertheless he worked on the church, and appointed for its
lands and rents. He endowed it richly, he caused it to be roofed, he
brought them (the monks) into the new minister on St. Peter's day (June
29) with much honor. And he went to Rome; there he was well received
by Pope Eugenius. He obtained privileges; one, of all the lands of
the abbacy and another, of the lands which belong to the office of
sacrist. And, if he might live longer, he meant to do the same with
respect to the office of treasurer. And he gained property in lands
that powerful men held by force or violence; from William Maldint, who
held Rockingham, he obtained Cottingham and Easton, and from Hugo of
Walteville he secured Irlingborough and Stanwick, and forty sols from
Oldwinkle each year. And he created many monks and planted vineyards.
And he performed many works. And he changed the town to a better state
than it ever was before. He was a good monk and a good man; therefore
God and other men loved him.

Now we will say a little about what befell in King Stephen's time.
During his reign the Jew of Norwich bought a Christian boy before
Easter and tortured him with all the torture that our Lord suffered.
And on Good Friday they hanged him to a cross for the love of our Lord.
Then they buried him. They thought it would be concealed, but our
Lord showed that he was a holy martyr. The monks took him and buried
him splendidly in the minster. And he performed through our Lord many
wonderful miracles. They called him Saint William.

1138. This year King David of Scotland came to this land with an
immense army. He wanted to obtain possession of the country by
fighting. And there came against him William, Earl of Albermar, to
whom the king had entrusted York and to other faithful men with a few
followers, and fought with him. He put the king to flight at the battle
of the Standard, and slew very many of his army.

1140. This year King Stephen wanted to take Robert, Earl of Gloucester,
King Henry's son; but he could not, for he became aware of it.

Thereafter in the Lenten season the sun and the day grew dark, about
the ninth hour of the day, while people were eating; so that they
had to light candles to eat by. It was on the 20th of March that the
inhabitants were so greatly astonished.

Later William, archbishop of Canterbury, died. And the king made
Theobald archbishop, who was abbot in the abbey of Bec.

Then there waxed a very great war between the king and Randolf, earl
of Chester, not for the reason that he (the king) did not give him
(evidently the earl) all that he demanded of him, as he did to all the
others. But always the more he gave them, the worse they were to him.
The earl held Lincoln against the king and deprived him of all that
he ought to have. Thither went the king and besieged the earl and his
brother William of Romare in the castle. But the earl stole out and
went after Robert, earl of Gloucester, and brought him thither with a
large army. They fought hard on Candlemas day against their lord. They
captured him because his men betrayed him and fled. They led him to
Bristol and put him in prison. Then was all England stirred more than
it ever was before. And all kinds of evil were in the land.

Later came King Henry's daughter that had been empress of Germany. Now
she was the countess of Anjou. She came to London and the London folk
wanted to seize her. And she fled and lost there very much.

Then Henry, bishop of Winchester, brother of King Stephen, spoke
with Earl Robert and with the empress and swore them oaths that he
would never again hold with the king his brother, and he cursed all
those that were allied to him. And he told them that he would give
up to them Winchester, and he caused them to come thither. When they
were within the castle, the king's queen came with all her forces
and besieged them. And a great famine occurred in the castle. When
they could no longer endure it, they stole out and fled. But those
without were aware, and followed them. And they took Robert, earl of
Gloucester, and led him to the Rochester and put him in prison. The
empress escaped into a minster. Then went wise men between the king's
friends and the earl's friends. And they negotiated that the king
should be let out of prison in exchange for the earl, and so they
exchanged captives.

                                              --Peterborough Chronicle.


=Annals of the Town of Mangaldan, 1879-1882=

I. July 2, 1879. An army of locusts swept over the town. Crops were
destroyed; panic followed.

II. August 8, 1879. The _cura_ (priest) ordered the improvement of
streets.

III. August 21, 1879. A cardinal from Rome visited the town. The
priests waited on his table. Several persons arrested for violating a
certain ordinance were pardoned through the grace of the holy visitor.

IV. February 29, 1880. The gold rosary of the image of Virgin Mary was
stolen; consequently, the _cura_ forbade the procession on the evening
of that day.

V. July 17. A terrible earthquake shook the town, destroying some
houses.

VI. November 27. The Governor General visited Mangaldan. There was
great rejoicing; all the houses around the _plaza_ were hung with
damasks.

VII. December 1. A Moro was taken around the town. He carried a flag
with a pig painted on it.

                                     --Don Domingo Ydio,[11] 1879-1880.


I. January 1, 1881. Mariano Cendaña, after murdering all the members of
his family, went around the town, killing all whom he met. He was at
last captured.

II. October. A big comet appeared in the east. It was so low that the
people said it was only as high up as the tallest cocoanut. The rays,
spreading far and wide, struck superstitious persons with awe and
admiration.

III. November. General epidemic, caused by some disease scattered by
water (perhaps cholera), killed many people.

IV. June, 1882. Another murder, Adriano Torralba, killed three men in
the barrio of Maasin.

                               --Kept by Don Mariano Cortes, 1881-1882.

    (Obtained and translated by Bernabe B. Aquino.)


=Annals of Pagsanjan=

It has been said that about the middle of the seventeenth century
some Chinese traders arrived at the junction of the Bumbungan and the
Balanac rivers. They chose this place to establish a trading post, for
the boats and barges could anchor close to the land. At that time the
San Isidro Hill extended to the Balanac river, and there were rice
and corn fields on the site of the present town. As time went on, the
Chinese married Filipino women, and quite a settlement grew up. The
Chinese built houses and stores, and formed a small village with other
Filipino families. This village was under the control of Lumbang, its
neighboring town. The inhabitants, of the village went to hear mass at
Lumbang. The men, especially the Chinese and their sons, gradually grew
rich. One of these rich mestizos supported the priest of Lumbang, who,
accordingly, could not say the mass before they were all in the church.

One day, however, when the priest was hungry, he said the mass before
their arrival. Then, the man who supported him became angry. He
assembled all his fellowmen to talk concerning the separation of the
village from Lumbang. They all agreed to build a church of their own
and call a priest. They contributed money, and then asked some Chinese
carpenters to build a church for them. It was completed, in 1690. At
the completion of the church they agreed to build streets and enlarge
their village in order that it might accommodate the increasing
population. They dug up a part of the San Isidro Hill, and on that
cleared space laid out the streets which are now called Maura, Rizal,
and Moret. They also covered the fields with sand, and built other
streets. They kept enlarging the village till it became a town. The
people named this town Pinagsangajan, which means branching. They so
called it Pinagsangajan, for it was located at the junction of the
Balanac and the Bumbungan rivers. Now the people called it Pagsanjan,
contraction of Pinagsangajan.

In 1763 the church was burned. It was rebuilt in 1764. It was not
completed till 1882.

In 1880 a great earthquake occurred, and many buildings in Pagsanjan
were destroyed. These ruined buildings were not repaired for seven
years.

In 1890 a severe storm occurred, and the Balanac and the Bumbungan
rivers overflowed their banks. The water flowed all over the town. Many
buildings were carried away by the flood, and many people were drowned.

In 1893 a great fire happened, and more than one hundred and fifty
buildings were burned. Before the big fire there were some large
houses. Very few houses at that time were made of stone. So after the
fire the people used stone materials in rebuilding their ruined houses.

They made their new houses larger than the old ones. It took them many
years to finish beautifying the town.

On November 14, 1896, the _Katipunan_ arrived at Pagsanjan. The next
day they went to Santa Cruz to storm the town, but they could not
carry out their plan, for all the people who were faithful to their
country fought against them. Then they returned to Pagsanjan. They went
back again to Santa Cruz, but they accomplished nothing. On Tuesday
afternoon nearly all the inhabitants of Pagsanjan fled from the town,
because many soldiers were come to storm the place. But the shelling
did not happen; instead they pardoned those who did not run away when
they saw that the people in the town were few. The leader of these
soldiers was General Aguirre.

In 1901 the Americans came to Pagsanjan. When they came the church
plaza served as barracks for the soldiers. These soldiers erected
their tents and staked their horses there. This plaza has had a
checkered history. In 1892 when Don Pedro Paterno, a deputy of the
first district of the province of Laguna, was spending his vacation
in Pagsanjan, a meeting was held at his house, and he urged upon the
people the advantage of erecting a monument in the center of the
park, so as to commemorate the concession of municipal government
in the Philippines. The people all agreed with him, so immediately
they contributed money and within a week the proposed monument was
completed. In the dedication of this monument many people joined.
As the monument was erected to thank the government of Spain, the
inscription engraven on the tablets was about the Queen of Spain, Don
Angel Aviles, the director general of the civil administration, and
others. In 1898 just after the insurrection of the Filipinos against
the Spaniards, the four marble tablets with their inscriptions were
taken from the faces of the monument and reversed; then on the blank
surface were painted inscriptions of the revolutionary government in
honor of Emilio Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini. In 1902 after the
Philippines became subject to the American government, the councillors
agreed to remove the inscriptions, replacing them with others--William
McKinley, José Rizal, W. H. Taft and the honorable Civil Commission of
the United States in the Philippines. But the people were not contented
with the inscriptions, so after a short time an agreement was made
that the tablets were to be turned as they were originally mounted,
presenting the old inscriptions, so that the founders and the names of
those in whose honor the monument was first erected and who granted the
early liberties should not be forgotten.

                                                       --Dolores Zafra.


II. Chronicles

[Definition. Froissart]

When the order of time is most conspicuous, history is called
chronicle. The work is usually divided into sections, each section
covering a separate period. The periods may be long or short. The
account of occurrences may be somewhat elaborate, but it is most often
bare and simple. Froissart's chronicles (1326-1400), however, are a
rich pageantry of feudal times. "The din of arms, the shouting of
knights, and marshalling of troops are there. Visions Of fair women
rise before us. Gorgeous feasts and spectacles in which this knight
of France and England so much delighted are set forth in copious
details, and though he is no philosopher, his shrewd observations, and
richly minute descriptions have helped others to philosophize."[12]
Froissart's Chronicles first appeared at Paris about the end of
the fifteenth century under the title of _Chroniques de France,
d'Angleterre, d'Escosse, d'Espagne, de Bretagne, de Gascogne, de
Flanders et lieux d'aleutour_. In English there are two versions: one
executed in 1523-25 by Lord Berners (reprinted in 1812); and the other
1803-5 by Thomas Johnes. The later is more correct. In the 13th and
14th centuries chroniclers sprung up all over Europe, and created the
non-church history of the highways.

[Ayala]

Contemporaneous with Froissart was Ayala, who is first of the Spanish
chroniclers to be entirely safe as an historical source. Ayala wrote
calm, business-like prose, and was bent upon recording facts whether
glorious or inglorious. In contrast with Froissart's simple-hearted
enthusiasm Ayala's attitude is one of cool sagacity and experience. He
looks quite through the deeds of men. He as dispassionately records
the crimes of the lords of the earth as he does their pretentions
to greatness. He lived in "four wild reigns"--those of Peter the
Cruel, Henry the Second, John the First, and Henry the Third--and,
as a minister of state in each, had every opportunity to become
disillusioned, about chivalry. An event that both Ayala and Froissart
record is the murder of Blanche of Bourbon by her husband the king, Don
Pedro the Cruel.

The circumstantial minuteness of an account by a chronicler, who was
an eight-years' eye-witness of the king's inhumanity to his young and
beautiful queen, and who recorded step by step the series of murders
by which the king came up to the final crime, seems more moving to
a modern reader than would seem the wildest and most impassioned
ballad on the subject. Indeed, Ayala's account has settled the
character of Don Pedro forever, despite the occasional attempts by
some personally interested countryman to defend him, and despite the
sentimental-tragedy of the theater, and such metrical outbursts as that
of Chaucer's in the "Monk's Tale." But Chaucer, as Ayala himself would
have told us, was an "interested party," since he was attached to the
Duke of Lancaster who was attached to Don Pedro.

[General chronicle of Spain]

Seventy-five or eighty years before Ayala, Alfonso the Wise had
begun the general chronicle of Spain by collecting old ballads and
redoing them into prose, and by adding thereto the history of his own
day. Sixty years after him, Alfonso the Eleventh appointed a court
chronicler; and so the habit in Spain of recording the chief events of
the kingdom was kept up from 1320 with more or less regularity down to
the establishment of the Academy of History in the eighteenth century.
It is interesting to note that this chronicle, that first preserved the
popular metrical tales by putting them into prose, in turn gave rise to
popular metrical tales that have kept the traditions--such as those of
the Cid and Bernardo del Carpio.

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Like this earlier part of the Spanish Chronicle, the still older
legendary chronicles of the North promoted literature. That of
the Britons by Geoffrey of Monmouth and that of the Danes by Saxo
Grammaticus have served, perhaps, a better purpose than true accounts;
for they have quickened the imagination of subsequent times and given
us themes for many ballads and for some of the marvelous productions of
Shakespeare.

[Holinshed]

Because of the industry of Shakespeare's commentators in assigning so
much of the great dramatist's subject-matter to Holinshed, the Tudor
chronicler will always live. Regardless of whatever he may be worth
personally, the whole world owes him a debt for doing the hack work and
thus leaving a great genius free to construct.

A chronicle is not hard to write. The only requirements are that you
shall select a definite period of time, and, proceeding in order, draw
in it simple and graphic pictures of the life lived and the deeds
wrought. You might put together the events of your own neighborhood for
the last three years.

[True relation]

Or you might write up some important happening as it reaches back
into the past and culminates in the present. You would then be
writing a true relation. A true relation does not differ much from
a chronicle except in the fact that the author as one person takes
full responsibility for all the statements. He must record nothing,
therefore, that he does not himself actually know; of every thing, else
he must give warning as hearsay or as oral or written tradition or as
records of someone else. A true relation may even be a travel sketch
or a partial biography. It differs from journal and diary in being a
narrative of the doings of units of mankind or of events that are of
scientific or general importance and that are not necessarily recorded
daily and have no essentially personal bearing upon the author beyond,
the relationship of vouched and voucher.

In 1589 Richard Hakluyt published a folio of various relations which
he called "The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries Made
by the English Nation." The events recorded, however, are not always
authentic. Modern historians are impatient with Hakluyt, because he
did not select more carefully and sacrifice bulk to trustworthiness.
Well-known Spanish relations found in Blair and Robertson's "Philippine
Islands" are those of Loarca, Chirino, Morga, Plascencia. They are
considered reliable.


_CHRONICLE_

                      =Rivalry Between Two Towns=

During the time that the Earl of Flanders was in his greatest
prosperity there was a citizen of Ghent, by name John Lyon, subtle and
enterprising, and very much in favor of the earl. This man having been
banished from Ghent on account of some murder in which he had been
concerned, retired to Donay, where the earl, who is said to have been
the promotion of the murder, supported him in the greatest affluence,
after a while recovered for him his freedom, and made him deacon of the
pilots, which office might be worth about 1,000 francs a year. At the
same time there was a family in Ghent called the Matthews, consisting
of seven brothers, who were the most considerable of all the pilots.
One of these, by name Gilbert Matthew, from jealousy and other causes,
bore in secret great hatred toward this John Lyon, and determined,
without striking a blow, to do him the greatest injury in his power.
With this view he got acquainted with one of the earl's chamberlains,
and in the course of conversation with him took an opportunity of
saying that if the Earl of Flanders pleased he might gain every year
a handsome revenue from the pilots; that it might be collected on the
foreign trade, provided John Lyon, the deacon, would acquit himself
honestly. The hint was conveyed by the chamberlain to the earl, who
(like other great lords, naturally eager of gain) ordered Gilbert
Matthew to be sent for. Gilbert was introduced accordingly and made his
scheme appear so reasonable that the earl agreed to adopt it. John Lyon
was forthwith sent for, and in Gilbert's presence the earl proposed the
scheme to him. Now John saw at once that this was not a reasonable
demand, and consequently said, "What you require, as it seems at
Gilbert's proposing, I cannot execute alone; it will be too heavy upon
the mariners." However, the earl persisted, and John Lyon replied that
he would do the best in his power.

When this conference was over, Gilbert Matthew, whose only object was
to ruin John Lyon, went to his six brothers and said to them, "You must
now give me every possible assistance, and we shall effect our purpose.
A meeting is to be held about this tax; now, notwithstanding all I may
say at the meeting, you must refuse to comply. I will dissemble and
argue that if John Lyon did his duty, this ordinance would be obeyed.
I know the earl well, and sooner than lose his point, John Lyon will
be displaced; from his office, which will be given to me, and then, of
course, you can comply. With regard to the other mariners, we are too
powerful for them to oppose us."

The six brothers agreed to do exactly as Gilbert had directed them,
and at the meeting everything turned out as he wished; for John was
deposed and the office was given to Gilbert. Not contented with having
effected the ruin of their unhappy victim, one of the brothers wanted
to contrive to have him put to death, but to this the others would not
agree, saying that he had done them no wrong and that no man ought to
lose his life but by sentence of a judge. Things went quietly for some
time, until the people of Bruges began to make a canal from the River
Lys. The canal had often before been attempted; but as the inhabitants
of Ghent considered it to be injurious to the interests of their town,
it was always opposed by them. On the present occasion the Earl of
Flanders had sanctioned the plan, and even sent pioneers with a body
of men-at-arms to annoy them in the execution of their work.

As chance would have it, one day a woman on her return from a
pilgrimage to Our Lady of Boulogne, being weary, sat down in the
market-place of Ghent; when many people collected around her, asking
whence she came. "From Boulogne," said the woman, "and I have seen on
my road the greatest curse that ever befell the town of Ghent; for
there are upward of five hundred men laboring night and day to open a
canal for the Lys, and if they be not immediately prevented, the course
of the river will soon be turned." This speech of the woman was echoed
far and wide, and served to inflame men's minds in all directions. Many
said that if John Lyon had been deacon no such attempt would ever have
been made; and to him they resorted for advice. John thought this a
favorable opportunity to redress the injury he had received; however,
he did not wish to seem to thrust himself forward; but when prevailed
upon to speak, after much entreaty said: "Gentlemen, if you wish to
put an end to this business, you must renew an ancient custom which
formerly existed in this town of Ghent. I mean you must first put on
white hoods and choose a leader."

"We will have it so! We will have it so!" was heard on all sides. "We
will put on white hoods."

White hoods were accordingly provided and given out to those who
preferred war to peace; and John Lyon was elected chief. Most willingly
did he accept the office, for he rejoiced at the opportunity of
embroiling the towns of Ghent and Bruges with each other and with the
earl, their lord. Gilbert Matthew, on the other hand, was by no means
well pleased when he saw in what numbers the white hoods had collected.
News was soon carried to the pioneers that a large force from Ghent
was coming against them, upon which they immediately left their work
and returned to Bruges, so that John Lyon and his party returned to
the town without any encounter. During the same week in which these
white hoods had placed themselves under the command of John Lyon,
another cause of distrust originated at Ghent by some persons who were
alarmed for its franchises; which circumstances also favored greatly
John's desire of embroiling the town. The hope of success made him
more active than ever. He spread secret rumors in different parts and
took every opportunity of suggesting "That never could the privileges
of any town be properly maintained when offices were put to sale,"
intending this in allusion to the manner in which Gilbert Matthew had
become possessed of the deaconship. Moreover, he frequently harangued
his people in public; on which occasions he spoke so well and with so
much art that he always left them highly impressed in his favor. At
length the men of Ghent determined to send to the Earl of Flanders
requesting a redress of their grievances, and especially that he would
put a stop to the canal. The earl, thinking to abolish the white hoods,
immediately granted the request, but John Lyon, who was present when
the earl's answer was received, thus addressed the meeting: "My good
people, you see clearly at present the value of these white hoods. Do
they not guard your privileges better than those of the red and black,
or hoods of any other color? Be assured, then, by me, that as soon as
they shall be laid aside I will not give three farthings for all your
privileges."

This speech had the desired effect upon the people, and they determined
to do as John Lyon had advised them. But Gilbert Matthew, who was very
ill at ease, concerted a plan with the earl to arrest John and some
of the principals of the white hoods, hoping thereby to disperse the
rest. With this view the bailiff of Ghent came to the town with about
200 horsemen; galloped up the streets with the earl's banner in his
hand, and posted himself in the market-place, where he was joined by
Gilbert and several others. John Lyon, suspecting what was intended,
immediately got together a large body of his men, for they were
instructed to be always ready, and ordered them to advance. The moment
Gilbert Matthew and his party saw the white hoods advancing they left
the bailiff and ran off as fast as they could. John Lyon on entering
the market-place, without saying a word, seized the bailiff and slew
him. He then ordered the earl's banner to be dragged through the dirt
and torn to pieces; and, upon seeing this, the men at arms took to
flight and left the town, which the victorious party pillaged as they
pleased.

After this event, several of the wisest and richest of the citizens in
Ghent, tired of these constant contentions, called an assembly in which
it was debated how they could best make up matters with the earl and
promote the advantage of the town. John Lyon and other leaders of the
white hoods were invited to attend; indeed, without them they would
not have dared to assemble. Many proposals were made, and long debates
ensued; at last, however, it was determined to elect twelve of the
most respectable inhabitants, who should entreat the earl's pardon for
the murder of the bailiff, and endeavor by this means to obtain peace;
but in this peace every person was to be included, and nothing moved in
the business hereafter.

The resolution was acted upon, and on an appointed day twelve citizens
waited upon the earl, who pleaded their cause so well, and appeared so
contrite that the earl was on the point of pardoning all the outrages
that had been committed, when he received information that the castle
of Andreghien had been burned to the ground. "Burned!" replied the earl
to the messenger who brought the intelligence. "And by what means?"

"By an accidental fire, as they say," was the reply.

"Ah! ah!" answered the earl. "Now it is all over; there can never be
peace in Flanders while John Lyon lives."

Then sending for the deputies from Ghent, he said to them, "Wretches,
you supplicate my pardon with sword in hand. I had acceded to your
wishes and your people have been base enough to burn down my favorite
castle. Was it not sufficient to have murdered my bailiff and trampled
on my banner? Quit my presence directly; and tell the men of Ghent
they shall never have peace until they shall have given up to me to be
beheaded those whom I shall point out."

The earl was right in his conjecture. It was, indeed, John Lyon and a
refractory band of white hoods under him who, discontented with the
proposal of the assembly, had actually destroyed the beautiful castle
of Andreghien while the deputies were at Male in conference with
the earl. Of course the poor deputies knew nothing of John Lyon's
intention; and, like people perfectly innocent, endeavored to excuse
themselves, but in vain. The earl was now so much enraged that he
would not listen to them, and as soon as they had left he summoned
all the knights of Flanders, and every gentleman dependent on him, to
be advised by them how he could best revenge himself on the people of
Ghent.

This was the very thing that John Lyon wanted; for the people of Ghent
would now be obliged to make war, whether they liked it or not. He
therefore seized the opportunity, and, having collected the white
hoods, publicly harangued the people, and advised them without delay
to get together all the support from neighboring towns they could, and
make an attack upon Bruges. Such even now was his influence that in a
short time he mustered a very large army, and placing himself at their
head advanced to Bruges, which town was so taken by surprise that after
a short parley at the wicket, the burgomaster and magistrates opened
the gates and the men of Ghent entered. A formal alliance was then
drawn up, which the men of Ghent and Bruges mutually swore to keep, and
to remain forever as good friends and neighbors.

    "Froissart's Chronicles," in World's Great Classics Series.


=A Short History of Ilagan=

The town of Ilagan derived its name from the inverted form of the
Ibanag word _nagaly_, which means "transfer." Why the town was named
Ilagan was the fact that in early times it was moved to its present
location from a plain a few miles away, which is always overflowed by
the annual inundation of the Cagayan river.

The early inhabitants were well-trained warriors, for they had to
fight with the Igorrotes--a wild head-hunting tribe in the mountains.
Their religion was somewhat similar to Brahmanism, for they worshiped
the crocodile and practiced _anito_ widely. Even after the Spaniards
came to the town, the people were barbarous, and it was only after
the arrival of the Dominicans, about 1689, that civilization began to
spread itself among the people; for these benevolent friars established
schools, converted the pagan inhabitants into Christians, and taught
them better modes of living.

Although the people seemed to be contented, still it was not very long
until they began to feel the heavy grasp of the iron hand of Spanish
oppression. In 1776 a revolt occurred, and the people in their frenzy
burned the church and nearly all the Spanish residences. The causes of
the revolt were the high rates of taxation and the compulsory public
labor. But the uprising, which spread throughout central Luzon, was
soon quelled, and peace was restored.

Then followed a period of advancement and progress. The inhabitants
were for about one hundred and thirty years peaceful. During this
long period a new church was finished, in 1787; the town became
the capital of the province, and commerce progressed by leaps and
bounds. But in 1897 when the news of Rizal's execution, which
caused a tide of patriotism to sweep over the land, became known to
the people, they again revolted, but without accomplishing much.
In the Filipino-American war the inhabitants took no active part,
although, owing to the presence of a handful of Tagalog soldiers from
Palanan, then a barrio of Ilagan, where Aguinaldo was captured, some
skirmishing was done in the barrio of San Antonio.

Ilagan is situated on a three-cornered star-shaped plateau at the
junction of the Pinacanauan and Cagayan rivers, about ninety miles
from Aparri. It is divided into four districts: Bagumbayan, which
occupies the northern corner of the star; Baculod, the eastern corner;
St. Vicente, the southwestern comer, and Central, the center. The
residences of the rich, the municipal and provincial buildings, the
church and the principal European and Chinese business houses are in
the central district; while the farmers, artisans, shoemakers and other
classes of people inhabit the other districts. In the district of St.
Vicente are the ruins of the church burned in 1776. The lot where it
is situated is now overgrown with large trees, and the crumbling brick
wall which formed the background of the church, and is now covered with
moss and vines, remains as a memento of the uprising.

The inhabitants, being near the Ilocanos, are industrious, and being
far from the Tagalogs are peaceful. But what is to be admired more
than any of their other characteristics is their political belief.
The majority is--I hope it will be always--in favor of the indefinite
retention of the islands by America, the spread of democratic education
among the people, and the speedy development of agriculture. If the
people do not depart from their present policies, the future history of
the town will be one of happiness.


_A TRUE RELATION_

               =Some Incidents of the Rebellion of 1898=

The Filipino rebellion against Spanish rule really began in the
year 1896, in southern Luzon. The northwestern provinces rebelled
much later, owing perhaps to the lack of communication or to some
disagreement among the leaders of certain districts. I was about eight
years old at the time the war broke out in western Pangasinan and
northern Zambales, and I write from what I saw with my own eyes, and
what was afterwards told me by my parents and older friends.

About the beginning of the year 1898 the northwestern provinces of
Luzon became restless, seeing that their brothers in Cavite and other
southern provinces were already in the field. The Spaniards grew more
and more uneasy and so a detachment of from fifteen to twenty Spanish
soldiers was placed in each town, in addition to the _guardia civil_,
which was also stationed in the large towns. It must be borne in mind
that in that war no quarter could be expected from either side and all
the prisoners were invariably put to death. So that unusual cruelty
should not be imputed to the common Filipino fighter in the massacres
which he committed.

Just about the beginning of the year 1898, some time in the month of
January, the people of my town, as well as the neighboring towns,
agreed to massacre the detachment of soldiers in their respective
municipalities. The agreement was kept a great secret, and in my town
at least the Spanish soldiers had not the slightest idea of the fatal
compact. The day decided upon was a certain Monday in February, 1898,
the exact date of which I do not remember.

Outside the town, in the dead of night, you would find groups talking
in whispers as to the final arrangements, for the chief men would go
to the _barrios_ in the night and hold secret meetings in hidden and
solitary places. In the afternoons you would find men grinding their
long bolos or _talibongs_ in the solitude of their houses. At the same
time you would see the women making trousers and hat-bands of red cloth
for their husbands or brothers. In the meantime the Spaniards had a
vague idea of how things were going on, and becoming rather uneasy,
they ordered a barricade of bamboo to be built around their barracks.
The guardia civil did the same, except that instead of bamboo, they
used big logs, which they made each _principal_ (councilor) give.
But unfortunately the very workmen themselves were rebels, and were
the first ones to strike the blow. I also remember clearly how the
lieutenant and the town friar forbade people to talk in groups of three
or more. So men walked in the streets alone or with only one companion,
not even daring to engage in earnest conversation. Men visited their
friends, going to the back doors at night.

It must be stated here that in order to get all the able-bodied men to
join the rebellion a form of ceremony was gone through in the case of
every single convert. Certain men who were influential and eloquent
were appointed to do the hard work of conversion. A leader of this
kind had to coax and persuade men singly, at the same time taking care
that the Spanish forces did not hear of his proceedings. After a man
had expressed his willingness to join, he was made to take a solemn
oath, the non-fulfilment of which would bring upon him temporal and
spiritual condemnation. Besides, his arm was pricked with a sharp
knife, and with his own blood he wrote, or else caused to be written,
his name in a large book. This made the ceremony to the new recruit
exceedingly impressive.

One thing that made men so bold at that time was the belief in the
power of the _anting anting_ (talisman). There were two kinds of
anting anting that were bullet proof. They were made of flour like
sacred bread, except that they were as large in circumference only
as a _peseta_. Some Latin words were printed on them. One kind was
eaten, while the other was placed on the forehead. So after the
town was in the hands of the revolutionists, everybody seemed to be
having a headache, for they all had their foreheads bound around with
handkerchiefs, or more often with red bands of cloth. I must add that
the color of the revolution was red, the sign of blood. I remember that
when we left the town to hide in the country I left my expensive felt
hat, and used a cheap native sombrero with a red band around it. When
the town was again retaken by the Spaniards we tore off all these red
signs and buried them in the ground.

As I have said, the day agreed upon for the massacre was Monday.
My uncle told me the Spanish soldiers in town heard of the people
in the barrios assembling, but they entirely ignored the danger,
feeling sure that the rebels with bolos would not by any means dare
to cope with their powerful Mausers. My uncle further added that, had
the Spanish been discreet, considering that they were twenty-two in
number, including a lieutenant, besides the town friar, they would
have fortified the convent and would have been able to hold out till
reinforcements from eastern Pangasinan could come.

On the morning of that fatal day I was in the house of my grandmother,
which was near the plaza where the soldiers had their quarters. I could
not see the whole of the slaughter, for my grandmother when she saw us
looking at the fight, sent us to the cellar, and made us lie there flat
on our stomachs to protect us from spent bullets.

Early that morning about eight o'clock the guardia civil, hearing that
there was a great crowd of armed men near the town cemetery about a
mile away, went out there. The guardia civil soldiers, who were all
Filipinos, were in league with the movement, but their sergeant was a
Spaniard. When they saw the men near the cemetery and when the sergeant
ordered them to fire, they did not aim at the rebels. But the rebels
instead, thinking that the soldiers had changed their minds, fought in
earnest and killed the guardia civil to a man.

In the meantime the Spanish soldiers in the town were being massacred.
At the appointed time a workman who was working on the barricade, gave
the guard a blow with his axe, and the guard fell without a groan. Then
the rest of the workmen went up to the barracks with the pretense of
asking for their pay. When the big drum began to beat they seized the
guns and hacked and struck the unarmed soldiers.

The slaughter was indeed terrible to see. From all the streets of the
town leading to the public square issued hundreds of men all at the
same time. I think I still see those men with red-banded hats shouting
at the top of their lungs, holding and wielding aloft their long
sharp bolos, which as they caught the rays of the morning sun dazzled
our eyes. These men advanced toward the barracks and there finished
the massacre. Some of the Spaniards, deprived of their guns and hard
pressed by the workmen who had gone up to the barracks, jumped down
from the windows; but it was like jumping from the frying pan to the
fire, for they were met by bristling swords and lances.

Of the twenty-one soldiers, four chanced to be out, two being in the
market, and two being in my uncle's house. On hearing the tumult and
seeing men issue from all the streets and alleys, they ran like mad to
their quarters; but they were all killed before reaching the place.
One of the soldiers had a bayonet slung to his belt, and drawing it he
tried to ward off the blows rained upon him from all sides; but in a
moment a shower of clubs and stones laid him low. Some of the soldiers
fell on their knees and implored for mercy, but the blood of those men,
many of whom had already experienced cruelty and torture under the
Spanish servitude, was boiling with vengeance toward the Spaniards as a
whole people.

The lieutenant was just going from the convent, where he had his
quarters, to the barracks, and on seeing the hordes of men, he turned
back, ran up in the church steeple, and from there with his revolver
fired shot after shot at the multitude below. Strange to say he hit not
even a man, probably through excitement. The men, seeing him, climbed
up the tower. He surrendered, knelt down and threw away his revolver;
but no quarter was given. He was cut all through and his body was
thrown from the dizzy height of about a hundred and fifty feet to the
ground. His blood, which trickled from the tower down the church wall
may still be seen to this day.

In the afternoon two native carts full of corpses, their arms and
legs dangling in the air, were all that was left of those twenty-two
_cazadores_. I liked the Spanish soldiers, for they were such jolly,
good fellows, fond of dancing _fandango_ and singing airs of old
Spain. Many of them were mere boys seized and shipped over here from
their unwilling parents. To them the only civilized and good country
was Spain; and they often excited my boyish fancy with exaggerated
descriptions of the wonders of Spain and extravagant tales about its
people. So as the carts passed by our house and I saw the dead, I felt
quite sad, wondering within my childish heart what fault they had
committed to entitle them to such a sad end.

The town friar, the town tyrant and dictator, had now also come to the
end of his reign. Men who formerly used to kneel to him denounced him
and gave vent to all their accumulated hatred. The friar was sentenced
to death and a few days afterwards was executed outside the town. The
infuriated ignorant people sacked the convent, which at that time
was like a palace. They were so enraged that even the library of the
convent was burned and cut to pieces. A funny incident is connected
with the convent. It was circulated about that on the outbreak of the
disturbance the friar had dropped a large box of silver into one of the
convent wells, of which there were several. A few years after the war
some people began to inquire as to which of the wells the money had
been dropped into; for the American soldiers, on occupying the convent,
filled up some of the wells. Finally there was discovered on the trunk
of a santol tree growing near one of the wells a cross carved in the
wood. People said it was the sign made by the friar to mark the spot,
and henceforth began to dig up the well. They worked for days and days
expecting every moment to find the box, but in vain. As a result of
their over-credulity they expended a good deal of hard labor.

                                                --Marcelino Montemayor.




BIBLIOGRAPHY


=LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS=

A. B.--Ariel Booklets (G. P. Putnam's Sons).

Bohn.--Bohn's Libraries (Geo. Bell, London).

C. N. L.--Cassell's National Library (Cassell).

E. L.--Everyman's Library (Dent and Dutton).

N. U. L.--New Universal Library (E. P. Dutton).

P. W. C.--Putnam's World's Classics (G. P. Putnam's Sons).

T. C.--Temple Classics (J. M. Dent).

W. C.--World's Classics (Oxford University Press).

W. G. C.--World's Great Classics (Colonial Press).


=GENERAL REFERENCE WORKS ON THE HISTORY OF FICTION=

Dunlop, _History of Prose Fiction_, 2 vols. (Bohn, 1896).

Ticknor, _History of Spanish Fiction_, revised edition (Boston, 1866).

Raleigh, _The English Novel from its Origin to Sir Walter Scott_
(Scribner).

Cross, _The Development of the English Novel_ (Macmillan).

Simonds, _An Introduction to the Study of English Fiction_ (Heath).

Warren, _History of the Novel Previous to the Seventeenth Century_
(Holt).

Hamilton, Clayton, _The Materials and Methods of Fiction_, with introd.
by Brander Matthews (The Baker and Taylor Co.)

Jusserand, _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_ (Putnam).

Forsyth, _Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century_ (Appleton).

Matthews, _The Short-Story_ (American Book Co.)

Jessup and Canby, _The Book of the Short-Story_ (Appleton).

Canby, H. S., _The Short-Story in English_ (Holt).

Stoddard, _Evolution of the English Novel_ (Macmillan).

Tuckerman, _History of English Prose Fiction_ (Putnam).

In Lanier's _The English Novel_, Whitcomb's _The Study of a Novel_, and
Barrett's _Short-Story Writing_ the criticism is analytical rather than
historical.


=CHAPTER I. PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS GROUP=

=Myth=

CRITICAL BOOKS.

Andrew Lang, _Custom and Myth_ (Longmans). Max Müller, _Chips from
a German Workshop_, vol. II and IV. Max Müller, _Last Essays_, 2nd
series. W. G. Wood Martin, _Traces of the Elder Faiths in Ireland_, 2
vols. E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_. Laura E. Poor, _Sanscrit and
Its Kindred Literatures_. Jacob Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_.

DICTIONARIES

Fernando Blumentritt, _Dictionario Mitológico de las Filipinas_.
Isabelo de los Reyes, _La Religion Antigua de los Filipinos_. E. C.
Brewer, _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ (Altemus). A. S. Murray,
_Manual of Mythology_.

COLLECTIONS OF MYTHS

Hawthorne's _Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales_ (E. L.). The works of
Jeremiah Curtin: _Creation Myths of Primitive America_; _Myths and
Folk-lore of Ireland_; _Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western
Slavs, and Magyars_; _A Journey in Southern Siberia_ [the religion and
myths of the Mongols]. The works of C. M. Skinner: _American Myths
and Legends_, 2 vols; _Myths and Legends of Our New Possessions and
Protectorates_; _Myths and Legends of Our Own Land_, 2 vols.; _Myths
and Legends Beyond Our Borders_. Florence J. Stoddard's _As Old as
the Moon_ [Folk-lore of the Antillas] (Doubleday, Page); _Myths of
the Quichas_. Guerber's _Myths of Greece and Rome_; Bulfinch's _Age
of Fable_; Katherine B. Judson's _Myths and Legends of the Pacific
Northwest_ (McClurg); T. G. Thrum's _Stories of the Menehunes_ (1910).

=Legend and Saga=

_The Legends of St. Patrick_, by Aubrey de Vere (C. N. L.); H. A.
Guerber's _Legends of Switzerland_, and _Legends of the Rhine_; Sidney
Lanier's Boys' Library of Legend and Chivalry contains _The Boy's
King Arthur_, _The Boy's Percy_, and _The Knightly Legends of Wales_
(Scribners); Selma Lagerlöf's _Invisible Links_; Ruskin's _King of the
Golden River_ (A. B.); Canton's _W. V.'s Golden Legend_ (Dodd, Mead);
_Finnish Legends_, stories from the Kalevala, told by Eivind (T. Fisher
Unwin). S. Baring Gould's _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_ (Longmans)
are really legends. Hawthorne's _Twice Told Tales_ includes a number
of legends. _Mediaeval Tales_ in Morley's Universal Library contains
stories from the _Gesta Romanorum_ and the Faust legend. Nutt's
_Legends of the Holy Grail_. Dr. Whitley Stokes has translated many
of the early Irish sagas (_Revue Celtique_, 1869-1902, and in _Irische
Texte_, 1880-1902). Kipling's _Puck of Pooh's Hill_ [fairy tale and
legend] (Doubleday); Eleanor H. Broadus' _The Book of the Christ Child_
(Appleton); Van Dyke's _Other Wise Man_ (Harpers) is purely literary.
_The Story of Grettir the Strong_, translated from the Icelandic by
Magnusson and Morris (Longmans); _The Volsunga Saga_, translated by
Magnusson and Morris (Scott); _Beowulf_, translated into modern English
prose, by J. Clark Hall (Sonnenschein); J. Baldwin's _Story of Roland_
(Scribners); C. D. Wilson's _Story of the Cid for Young People_. _The
Nibelungenlied_ is well translated in the World's Great Classics Series
and contains a good introduction. _Orlando Furioso_, translated by W.
S. Rose (Bohn). _The Mabinogion_, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest
(Nutt); _The Stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata_, told by Oman
(Bohn). An English translation of the _Shah Nameh_ may be found in
Oriental Literature (W. G. C.).

=Fairy Tale and Nursery Saga=

Collectors have not distinguished carefully between fairy tales and
nursery sagas. Many of the collections cited as fairy tales contain
nursery sagas. A general term often used to include both is folk-tales;
Tolstoy has re-done several of the Russian folk stories, which may
be found in _Twenty-three Tales from Tolstoy_, translated by L. & F.
Maude (W. C.). T. G. Thrum's _Hawaiian Folk-Tales_; F. H. Cushing's
_Zuñi Folk-Tales_ (Putnam); Blue, Red, Green, Gray, Yellow, Pink,
Violet, Crimson, and Brown Fairy Books, edited by A. Lang (Longmans).
_The Fairy Library_ (Putnam), collected and edited by Joseph Jacobs,
contains English, Celtic, Indian, East Indian, Persian, Chinese, South
Sea Island, African, and Japanese fairy tales. W. R. S. Ralston's
_Russian Fairy and Folk Tales_ (Hurst); _English Fairy and Folk Tales_,
edited by E. S. Hartland (Scott); _Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales_,
edited by Sir Geo. Douglas (Scott); _Irish Fairy and Folk Tales_,
edited by W. B. Yeats (Scott); Grimm's _Household Tales_ in any of the
good editions (E. L., Lippincott, Bohn); Hans Christian Andersen's
_Fairy Tales_ (E. L.). Burt's Fairy Library includes among others
_Cossack Fairy Tales_, _Russian Fairy Tales_, _Turkish Fairy Tales_.
_Fairy Gold_, stories chosen by E. Rhys (E. L.). Thomas Keightley's
_Fairy Mythology_ (Bohn) is a standard reference work. Alfred Nutt's
_Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare_ (1900).


=CHAPTER II. SYMBOLIC-DIDACTIC GROUP=

=Fable=

Thomas Newbigging's _Fables and Fabulists_ (New York), critical and
historical discussion of writers of the type.

Fables in the Bible, Judges 9:8-15; II Kings 14:9. _Kalilah and
Dimnah_, or the _Fables of Bidpai_: an historical account with
a translation into English, by Keith Falconer (London, 1885);
_Hitopadesa_ (The Book of Good Counsels), translated by Sir Edwin
Arnold: Oriental Literature, vol. III (W. G. C.), also in N. U.
L.; Aesop's _Fables_ (Astor Library, Crowell; P. W. C.); _Fables_
of Phaedrus, translated into prose and verse (Bohn); La Fontaine's
_Fables_ (T. C., Bohn); Iriarte's _Literary Fables_ (first publ. 1782),
English version by Rockliffe, 3rd edition, 1866; Gay's _Fables_, in
Muses Library (Dutton); Richard Steele's _Mastiff and His Puppy_
(Tatler, No. 115); _Kriloff and His Fables_, translated by J. R. S.
Ralston (J. S. Ogilvie, N. Y.); _Turkish Fables_ [46 in number],
translated by Epiphanius Wilson: Turkish Literature (W. G. C.).

=Parable=

R. C. Trench, _Notes on the Parables of Our Lord_.

Parables of the Bible: II Samuel 12:1-4; 14:5-7; I Kings 20:39-40;
Isaiah 5:1-6; 28:23-28; Matthew 13:4-7, 24-33; 18:23-35; 20:1-16;
21:33-41; 22:1-14; 25:1-13; 26:14-30, 31-46.

For a summary of _Barlaam and Josaphat_, see Dunlop's History of
Fiction, vol. I, pp. 64-77.

Hamilton W. Mabie's _Parables of Life_. A number of the stories in
_Twenty-three Tales from Tolstoy_ (W. C.).

=Allegory=

James Baldwin's _The Famous Allegories_ (Silver, Burdett); Olive
Schreiner's _Dreams_; Oscar Wilde's _Poems in Prose_, (Fortnightly
Review, 1894), also in Ideal Series of Little Masterpieces; _Everyman,
and eight other Moralities_ (E. L.); Henry Van Dyke's _Blue Flower_
(Scribners); Hawthorne's _Twice Told Tales_ and _Mosses from an Old
Manse_ (Houghton). Alfred de Musset's _Story of a White Blackbird_
(Brentano) is a unique and daring autobiographical allegory.


=CHAPTER III. INGENIOUS-ASTONISHING GROUP=

=Tale of Mere Wonder=

Meredith's _Shaving of Shagpat_ (Bozhill edition); Stevenson's _New
Arabian Nights_, and _More New Arabian Nights_ (Scribners); H. W.
Weber's _Tales of the East_, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1812); Dandin's
_Hindoo Tales_ (London, 1873); S. Julien's _Nouvelles Chinoises_
(Paris, 1860). _History of the Forty Vezirs_, Turkish tales translated
by Epiphanius Wilson: Turkish Literature, pp. 361-460 (W. G. C.).
_Egyptian Tales_, translated by W. F. Petrie: Egyptian Literature,
pp. 135-177 (W. G. C.). _Moorish Tales_, translated by Rene Basset,
Chauncey Starkweather, and others: Moorish Literature (W. G. C.).
_Tales of the Genii_, translated from the Persian by Sir Charles
Morell (Bohn); _Arabian, Nights' Entertainments_, edited by Stanley
Lane-Pool, in 6 vols. (A. B.), or in 4 vols. (Bohn); _The Golden Ass_,
by Apuleius (Bohn).

=Imaginary Voyage With a Satiric or Instructive Purpose=

Lucian 's _Trips to the Moon_ (C. N. L. No. 71); More's _Utopia_ (T.
C.); Bacon's _New Atlantis_ (Bohn); Barclay's _Argenis_, English
translation by Sir R. Le Grys, 1629; Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_
(T. C.). For Swift's obligations to previous writers, see article
by Borkowsky in "Anglia," vol. 15. F. C. Sibbern (1785-1872), a
Scandinavian writer, wrote "Contents of a MS. of the year 2,135." _The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen_, by Rudolphe Eric Raspe (P. W. C.);
_Robinson Crusoe_, in Defoe's Works, vol. 7 (Bohn).

For summaries of the imaginary voyages of Lucian, Holberg, Cyrano de
Bergerac, Berkeley, and others, see Dunlop _History of Prose Fiction_,
vol. II, pp. 518-538, 588-591, 619-622 (Bohn, revised edition, 1896).

=Tale of Scientific Discovery and of Mechanical Invention=

H. G. Wells's stories and novels are good examples of the
pseudo-scientific tale. His imaginary voyages are not without gentle
satire on the learned theories of the day (Scribners, Harpers,
Century). "With the Night Mail; a Story of 2000 A. D.," by Rudyard
Kipling (Doubleday, 1909); _The Mystery_, by Stewart Edward White and
Samuel Hopkins Adams. Most of the short stories of this type mentioned
in the discussion can be found in the collections of short stories (see
below).

=The Detective Story and Other Tales of Mere Plot=

Among the earliest detective stories and stories of crime belong
Charles Brockden Brown's _Edgar Huntley_ and _Arthur Mervyn_ (Works,
Philadelphia, 1877); Edgar Allan Poe's famous detective stories have
been mentioned in the text. Emile Gaboriau (1835-1873) popularized the
story of crime in France. M. Lecoq is a direct forerunner of Sherlock
Holmes. His _Works_ are published (in English translation) in 6 vols.
A. Conan Doyle's _Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_, _Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes_, _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_, _The Sign of the Four_,
_A Study in Scarlet_, _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, etc., are
worth reading. Anna Katherine Green surely does not lack popularity
whatever else she may lack. Her earlier stories are better than her
later, with the exception of _The Filigree Ball_, which is perhaps her
best. Meredith Nicholson's _House of a Thousand Candles_ has a good
mysterious plot. The works of Rodriguez Ottolengui (Putnam). For other
stories of pure plot see writers mentioned in bibliography to Chapter
VI.


=CHAPTER IV. THE ENTERTAINING GROUP=

=Tale of Probable Adventure=

_Tales of Daring and Danger_, by G. A. Henty; F. H. Spearman's _Held
for Orders_; _Tales of Railroad Life_ (McClure), _Nerve of Foley and
other Railroad Stories_ (Harpers); Cy Warman's _The Last Spike and
Other Railroad Stories_ and _The Express Messenger_ (Scribners);
Stewart Edward White's _Blazed Trail Stories and Stories of the Wild
Life_ (Doubleday). Many of R. L. Stevenson's tales.

=The Society Story=

This is the type of the larger number of love tales in current
periodicals. When well done under certain restrictions of length and
development a narrative of this kind rises to the class of the artistic
short-story.

Pastoral Romance--_Aucassin and Nicolette_, translated by Andrew
Lang (Chiswick Series); _Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus, and
Achilles_ Tatius (Bohn); Cervantes' _Galatea_ is a typical example. It
is published in English translation in Bohn's Libraries. Montemayor's
_Diana_ is summarized rather fully in Dunlop II, pp. 365-376. For
Sidney's pastoral see E. A. Baker's edition of the _Countess of
Pembroke's Arcadia_. Lodge's _Rosalind_ (C. N. L.). For historical
criticism of the type, see E. K. Chambers' _English Pastorals_ (Warwick
Library), W. W. Greg's _Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama_, 1906, and
J. B. Fletcher's _The Pastoral_ (Types of English Literature, Houghton
Mifflin & Co.).

=The Humorous Story=

As in the case of the society story, the best collections of humorous
stories are the cheaper current magazines.

Fableaux--A. de Montaiglon et G. Raynaud, _Receuil général et complet
des fabliaux des XIIIe et XIVe siecles_, Paris, 1872-88, 6 vols. See
Dunlop, _History of Fiction_, vol. II, p. 23 et seqq.

Picaresque romances--_Romances of Roguery_, by F. W. Chandler, 2 vols.,
1899, is the standard book of criticism of the type. For the picaresque
romances themselves, see Petronius Arbiter's _Satyricon_, English
translation (Bohn); Apuleius' _Golden Ass_, English translation (Bohn).
English translations of _Lazarillo de Tormes_, by Roscoe, and _Guzman
d'Alfarache_, by Brandy, can be obtained from Lemcke and Buechner
(N. Y.). _Gil Blas_, 2 vols. (W. C.); Smollett's _Roderick Random_,
_Peregrine Pickle_, _Ferdinand_, _Count Fathom_, in works, edited by
Saintsbury (London, 1895); Fielding's _Jonathan Wild_, in works, edited
by Saintsbury (London, 1893); Thackeray's _Barry Lyndon_ (Macmillan);
E. W. Hornung's _Amateur Cracksman_ (Tauchnitz) and _Further Adventures
of the Amateur Cracksman_.

=The Occasional Story=

_Christmas Stories from the French and Spanish_, translated by
Antoinette Ogden (McClurg, 1892). E. E. Hale's _In His Name_, and
_Christmas Stories_ (Library edition); Stockton's _The Christmas
Wreck_ (Scribners); Dickens' _Christmas Books and Stories_, 2 vols.
(Houghton); Thackeray's _Christmas Books_ (Macmillan). The source of
the nineteenth century emphasis of Christmas festivities in English was
Irving's _Christmas Sketches_. _Unter dem Christbaum_ (Heath) contains
five Christmas stories by Helene Stökl.


=CHAPTER V. THE INSTRUCTIVE GROUP=

=The Moral Story=

Edgeworth's _Stories for Children_ (Bohn), _Moral Stories_ (Tauchnitz),
_Murad the Unlucky_ (C. N. L.); _Gesta Romanorum_ (P. W. C., Bohn);
_Forty Tales from the "Decameron"_ (Morley's Universal Library);
_Rasselas_, by Samuel Johnson (P. W. C., A. B., Burt); Voltaire's
_Tales_ (Bohn); Cervantes' _Novelas Ejemplares_, translated into
English by W. K. Kelly (Bohn); _Essays and Tales_, from Addison (C.
N. L.); _Essays and Tales_, from Steele (C. N. L.); _Twenty-three
Tales_, from Tolstoy (W. C.); Hawthorne's _Twice Told Tales_
(Houghton). Leopoldo Alas's _Cuentos Morales_ (in Spanish), and Emilia
Pardo-Bazán's _Novelas Ejemplares_ (also in Spanish).

=The Pedagogical Commentary and Story=

Pestalozzi's _Leonard and Gertrude_ (Heath); Ascham's _Scholemaster_
(Heath); Machiavelli's _Prince_ (Oxford, W. C.); Thomas Elyot's _The
Boke Named the Governour_, edited by Croft, 2 vols. (London, 1883);
Ascham's _Toxophilus_ (Arber's Reprints); Walton's _Compleat Angler_
(editions innumerable); Castiglione's _Courtier_; Froebel: _The Mottoes
and Commentaries of Froebel's Mother Play_ (Appleton).

=The Story of Present Day Realism=

Kipling's _Life's Handicap_ and _Plain Tales from the Hills_
(Doubleday); William Carleton's _Traits and Stories of the Irish
Peasantry_, edited by D. J. O'Donoghue, 4 vols. (London and New York,
1896); Edgeworth's _Castle Rackrent and Other Irish Tales_ (A. B.);
O. Henry's _Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories of the Four Million_; B.
Matthew's _Vignettes of Manhattan_ (Harper); W. D. Howells' _A Modern
Instance_ (Houghton), _The Lady of the Aroostook_, _The Rise of Silas
Lapham_, etc.; Israel Zangwill's _Children of the Ghetto_ (Macmillan);
Upton Sinclair's _The Jungle_ (1906); Jacob A. Riis's _Children of the
Tenements_; Henry James' _Daisy Miller_ (Harpers). Count Tolstoy's
method is always realistic, although his types are extremely varied;
see _A Russian Proprietor and Other Stories_ (Crowell). In method at
least, most of the stories of Bret Harte, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman,
and Hamlin Garland are of this type. In his _Kriegsnovellen_ (Berlin,
1899) Detlev von Liliencron gives vigorous and sincere pictures of the
Franco-German war, though he sees with the eye of the poet and selects
his material.


=CHAPTER VI. THE SHORT STORY=

=Collections of Short Stories=

Stories by American Authors, 10 vols. (Scribners).

Stories by English Authors, 9 vols. (Scribners).

Stories by Foreign Authors, containing works from the French, German,
Italian, Russian, Scandinavian, Spanish, Polish, Greek, Belgian,
Hungarian, 10 vols. (Scribners). _Tales from "Blackwood,"_ 2 vols.
(Tauchnitz). _Masterpieces of Fiction_, 8 vols. (Doubleday, Page).
_American Short Stories_, edited by Charles S. Baldwin (Wampum Library
of American Literature). A selection of the _World's Greatest Short
Stories_, edited by Sherwin Cody (World's Best Series). _The Short
Story_, by Brander Matthews (American Book Co.), contains twenty-three
short stories. _The Book of the Short Story_, by Jessup and Canby
(Appleton), contains eighteen representative examples. For bibliography
of other collections of the short stories of the world, see lists at
the ends of the chapters in Jessup and Canby.

=The Psychological Weird Tale=

E. A. Poe's _Prose Tales_, 3 vols. (Illustrated Sterling edition). The
Odd Number Series contains Maupassant's _Odd Number_. Mary E. Wilkins'
_The Wind in the Rose-Bush_, and other _Stories of the Supernatural_
(1903); Irving's _Tales of a Traveller_, 2 vols. (A. B.); _Modern
Ghosts_, edited by G. W. Curtis (Harpers, 1890).

GOTHIC ROMANCE AS SOURCE. Horace Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_ (C. N.
L. No. 10); Clara Reeve's _The Old English Baron_ (C. N. L., No. 127);
Mrs. Radcliffe's _Italian, Romance of the Forest_, and _Mysteries
of Udolpho_ (London, 1877); Lewis's _The Monk_ (Phila., 1884); Mrs.
Shelley's _Frankenstein_ (Routledge's Pocket Library). Peacock
satirized the school of terror and other forms of romance in _Nightmare
Abbey_ (E. L.), and _Crotchet Castle_ (C. N. L. No. 56).

=Miscellaneous Short-Story Writers of Europe and America=

SPAIN

  Pedro Antonio de Alarcon (1833-1891).
  Leopoldo Alas (1852-1901).
  Emilia Pardo-Bazán (b. 1851).
  Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870).
  Vicente Blasco Ibañez (b. 1867).
  Fernán Caballero (1796-1877).
  Benito Pérez Galdós (b. 1845).
  Antonio de Trueba (1819-1889).
  Juan Valera y Alcalá Galiano (b. 1824).
  Armand Palacio Valdes (b. 1853).
  Antonio Maré.

FRANCE

  Edmond About (1828-1885).
  Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850).
  Paul Bourget (b. 1852).
  François Coppee (b. 1842).
  Alphonse Daudet (b. 1840).
  Gustav Droz (b. 1832).
  Alexandre Dumas the Elder (1806-1870).
  Alexandre Dumas the Younger (1824-1895).
  Emile Erckmann (1822-1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826-1890).
  Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880).
  Theophile Gautier (1811-1872).
  Paul Margueritte (b. 1860).
  Ludovic Halévy (b. 1834).
  Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893).
  Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870).
  Alfred de Musset (1810-1851).
  Eugene Marcel Prévost (b. 1862).
  George Sand [pseud. of Mm. Dudevant] (1804-1876).
  Julien Viaud ("Pierre Loti") (b. 1850).
  Emile Zola (b. 1840).

GERMANY

  Berthold Auerbach (1810-1882).
  Rudolf Baumbach (b. 1840).
  Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1881).
  Gustav Freytag (1816-1895).
  Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827).
  Paul Heyse (b. 1830).
  Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822).
  Leopold Kompert [Austrian] (1822-1886).
  Detlev von Liliencron (b. 1844).
  Johann Karl August Musäus (1735-1787).
  Joseph Victor von Scheffel (1826-1886).
  Theodor Storm (1817-1888).
  Hermann Sudermann (b. 1857).
  J. Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853).
  Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke (1771-1848).

RUSSIA

  Alex. Bestiezheff (1797-1837).
  Nicolai V. Gogol (1809-1852).
  Alex. Poushkin (1802-1837).
  A. Pyeshkoff ["Gorky"] (b. 1868).
  A. P. Tchéhoff (1860-1904).
  Lyof N. Tolstoi (1828-1910).
  Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883).

SCANDINAVIA

  Björastjerne Björnson (b. 1832).
  Juhani Aho.
  Frederika Bremer (1801-1865).
  Meyer Aaron Goldschmidt [Danish] (1819-1887).
  Alex. Lange Kielland (b. 1849).
  Selma Lagerlöf (b. 1858).
  Hans Christian Andersen [Danish] (1805-1875).

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, IRELAND, UNITED STATES

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907).
  James Matthew Barrie (b. 1860).
  H. C. Bunner (1855-1896).
  George W. Cable (b. 1844).
  William Canton (b. 1845).
  William Carleton (1794-1869).
  Samuel L. Clemens [Mark Twain] (1835-1910).
  Wilkie Collins (1824-1889).
  Richard Harding Davis (b. 1864).
  Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
  A. Conan Doyle (b. 1859).
  Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849).
  Edward Eggleston (1837-1902).
  Mary Ann Evans [George Eliot] (1819-1880).
  Hamlin Garland (b. 1860).
  Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909).
  Joel Chandler Harris (b. 1848).
  Thomas Hardy (b. 1840).
  Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902).
  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).
  Anthony Hope Hawkins (b. 1863).
  William Dean Howells (b. 1837).
  Washington Irving (1783-1859).
  Henry James (b. 1843).
  Sarah Orne Jewett (b. 1849).
  Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865).
  Charles J. Lever (1806-1872).
  Jack London (b. 1876).
  Samuel Lover (1791-1868).
  James Brander Matthews (b. 1852).
  George Meredith (1828-1909).
  Mary N. Murfree [Charles Egbert Craddock] (b. 1850).
  Fitz-James O'Brien (1828-1862).
  Thomas Nelson Page (b. 1853).
  Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).
  Charles Reade (1814-1884).
  Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).
  F. Hopkinson Smith (b. 1838).
  Frank B. Stockton (1834-1902).
  Louise de la Ramée ["Ouida"] (d. 1909).
  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896).
  William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1862).
  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (b. 1844).
  John Watson [Ian Maclaren] (1850-1907).
  Edith Wharton (b. 1862).
  Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (b. 1862).


=CHAPTER VII=

=Incident=

Many well-told and interesting incidents are found in the
correspondence of the letter-writers whose works are indicated below.

_The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols. (Scribners); _The
Letters of Thomas Gray_, 2 vols. (Bohn); _Cowper's Letters_, edited
by E. V. Lucas (W. C.); _Lady Montagu's Letters_ (E. L.); _Letters
and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle_, by J. A. Froude, 2 vols.
(Scribners); _Letters of Charles Lamb_, 2 vols. (E. L.); _Letters of
Mme. de Sévigné_ (In French--Paris, 1844); _Life and Letters of George
Eliot_, by J. W. Cross, 2 vols. (Crowell); _Matthew Arnold's Letters_,
collected by George W. E. Russell (Macmillan); _Darwin's Life and
Letters_, 2 vols. (Appleton); _Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning_, with notes by R. Barrett Browning and F. G. Kenyon,
2 vols.

=Anecdote=

Spence's _Anecdotes_: a selection (Scott Library); _Johnsoniana_,
edited by J. Wilson Croker (Philadelphia, 1842); _The Percy Anecdotes_,
by Reuben and Sholte Percy (Warne: London); _The Jest Book_, by Mark
Lemon (Cambridge, 1865); _Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson_, by Hester Lynch
Poizzi (C. N. L. No. 106); _Familiar Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott_, by
James Hogg (Harpers, 1834).

=Eye-Witness Account=

Eye-witness accounts may be found in autobiographies, memoirs, letters,
travel sketches, diaries and journals, and some true relations. (See
bibliography of these types.)

=Tale of Actual Adventure=

J. Burroughs's _Camping and Tramping with President Roosevelt_
(Houghton); H. W. G. Hyrst's _Adventures in the Great Deserts_;
Hakluyt's _Voyagers' Tales_ (C. N. L., No. 23); _Library of Universal
Adventure by Sea and Land_, including the original narratives and
authentic stories of personal prowess and peril in all waters and
regions of the globe from the year 79 A. D. to the year 1888 A. D.,
compiled and edited by William Dean Howells and Thomas Sergeant Perry
(Harper, 1893).

=The Traveler's Sketch=

Mandeville's _Voyages and Travels_ (C. N. L.); Marco Polo's _Voyages
and Travels_ (Bohn); Captain Cook's _Voyages of Discovery_ (E. L.);
_Travels of Mungo Park_ (E. L.); Hakluyt's _Voyages_, 8 vols. (E.
L.); Darwin's _Voyage of the Beagle_ (E. L.); Fielding's _Journal of
a Voyage to Lisbon_ (W. C.); Smollett's _Travels through France and
Italy_ (W. C.); Borrow's _Bible in Spain_ (E. L.) and _Wild Wales_
(E. L.); Bayard Taylor: _Library of Travel_, 6 vols.; W. D. Howells's
_Italian Journeys and London Films_; Henry James's _Little Tour in
France_; F. Hopkinson Smith's _White Umbrella in Mexico_; H. M.
Stanley's _In Darkest Africa_ and _How I Found Livingstone_; Lafcadio
Hearn's _Gleanings in Buddha-fields_ and _Glimpses of Unfamiliar
Japan_; W. E. Curtis's _Between the Andes and the Ocean_ and _Egypt,
Burma, and British Malaysia_. For Western travel and adventure in
America between 1748 and 1846, see _Early Western Travels_, 32 vols.
(A. H. Clark & Co. Cleveland, 1904). A tour through the island of
Luzon in 1800 is charmingly recorded by Joaquin Martinez y Zuñiga in
his _Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas_, ed. by W. E. Retana (Madrid).
An English translation under the title _An Historical View of the
Philippine Islands_ was issued at London in 2 vols. 1814 (printed for
J. Asperne). A breezy artist-sketch, written with the purpose only to
please and to satirize, is Heine's _Die Harzreise_ (American Book Co.).


=CHAPTER VIII=

=Journal and Diary=

John Evelyn's _Diary and Correspondence_ (E. L., Bohn); Amiel's
_Journal Intime_, translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. 2 vols.
(Macmillan); Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary and Letters_, edited by her
niece, with preface and notes by Austin Dobson, 6 vols. Samuel Pepys's
_Diary and Correspondence_ (Globe edition); Fielding's _Journal of a
Voyage to Lisbon_ (W. C.); Hesdin's _Journal of a Spy in Paris during
January-July, 1794_ (Harpers, 1896); Swift's _Journal to Stella_ (N.
U. L., Bohn); _Journal of the Reigns of George III and William IV_,
by Charles C. F. Greville. 3 vols. (Longmans). Gideon Welles' _Diary_
(_Atlantic Monthly_, 1909-1910); John W. Audubon's _Western Journals_
1849-1850 (A H. Clark, Cleveland).

=Autobiography and Memoirs=

J. S. Mill's _Autobiography_ (Holt); Benvenuto Cellini's
_Autobiography_ (E. L.); _Autobiography_ of Franklin (P. W. C., A. B.);
Helen Keller's _Story of My Life_ (Doubleday); Gibbon's _Autobiography_
(W. C.); Herbert Spencer's _Autobiography_, 2 vols. (Appleton).
Joseph Jefferson's _Autobiography_. A good collection of memoirs and
autobiography is the Colonial Press's _Classic Memoirs_, 3 vols. (W. G.
C.). J. H. Newman's _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ (N. U. L.); De Quincey's
_Confessions of an Opium-Eater_ (E. L.); St. Augustine's _Confessions_
(E. L.).

=Biography=

_Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, by G. O. Trevelyan (Longmans);
_History of Carlyle's Life_, by J. A. Froude (Longmans); _Life of
Shakespeare_, by Sidney Lee. _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, by J. G.
Lockhart, 5 vols. (Macmillan); _Life of Johnson_, by James Boswell,
edited by Geo. Birkbeck Hill, 6 vols. (Cambridge); _Lives of the
Poets_, by Samuel Johnson, edited by G. B. Hill (Cambridge); J.
Forster's _Life of Dickens_, 2 vols. (Scribners), _Life of Goldsmith_
(Stokes); Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_ (Crowell); Goldsmith's
_Biographies_, vol. IV of collected works (Bohn); Lockhart's _Life of
Burns_ (E. L.); Southey's _Life of Nelson_ (Bohn); Hazlitt's _Life of
Napoleon_, 6 vols. (Illust. Cabinet Ed.); Macaulay's _Life of Johnson_
(Heath); Carlyle's _Life of John Sterling_ (W. C.); Carlyle's _Life of
Frederick the Great_, 8 vols. (Scribners).


=CHAPTER IX=

=Notable Histories=

Grote's _History of Greece_, 12 vols. (E. L.); Green's _Short History
of the English People_ (American Book Co.). _History of the English
People_, 4 vols. (Burt); Macaulay's _History of England_, 3 vols. (E.
L.); Hume's _History of England_, 6 vols. (Harper); Machiavelli's
_History of Florence_ (W. G. C.); Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire_, 7 vols. (W. C.); Motley's _Rise of the Dutch
Republic_, 3 vols. (E. L., W. C.); Sismondi's _Italian Republics_ (E.
L.); Hallam's _Middle Ages_ (W. G. C.); Prescott's _Works_, 14 vols.
(Lippincott); Parkman's _Works_, 12 vols. (Library edition); J. A.
Symond's _Renaissance in Italy_, 7 vols. (Holt); Carlyle's _French
Revolution_, 2 vols. (E. L.).

=Annals=

Tacitus's _Annals_ (E. L.); _Annals of English History_, by Roger de
Hoveden, 2 vols. (Bohn). _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, with an English
translation by Richard Price: in the "Monuments Historica Britannica"
(1848). Voltaire's _Annales de l'Empire_ was first published in 1753-4.
It has been translated into English.

=Chronicles and True Relations=

_Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda, de rebus gestis Samsonis Abbatis
Monasterii Sancti Edmundi_ (Camden Society, London, 1840). The second
book of Carlyle's _Past and Present_ is based on this old chronicle.
Froissart's _Chronicles_ (E. L.); William of Malmesbury's _Chronicles
of the Kings of England_ (Bohn); _Old English Chronicles_, including
Ethelwerd's Chronicle, Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Britons,
Gildas's Chronicle, Nennius's Chronicle, and the spurious Chronicle of
Richard of Cirencester, (Bohn); _Chronicles of the Crusades_, by Lord
John de Joinville (Bohn).

Ticknor discusses in detail the origin, subjects, and character of the
Spanish chronicles, in his _History of Spanish Literature_, Vol. I. pp.
166-228 (fourth American edition, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). For account
of early French chronicles see Saintsbury's _Short History of French
Literature_, Book I, chapter XI (Oxford, 1907).

Blair and Robertson's _The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898_, in 55
vols. (A. H. Clark Co., 1905) contains many early Spanish relations
translated into English. Among the notable ones are Loarca's _Relacion_
(vol. 5), Chirino's _Relacion_ (vols. 12-13), Morga's _Sucesos_ (vols.
15-16), Medina's _Historia de la Orden de S. Agustin_ (vols. 23-24).




INDEX


  Abbott, Jacob (1803-1879), 364.

  _Abou Ben Adhem_, 102.

  Actual adventure, Tale of: 512-513; characteristics, 512; directions
    for writing, 513.

  Addison, Joseph (1672-1719), 86, 115, 347.

  _Address of the Soul to the Body_, 115.

  Ade, George (b. 1866), 86.

  _Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_, 225.

  Adventures; see Probable adventure; Actual adventure.

  Aesop (619?-564 B. C.), 83-84.

  Aikin, John, M. D. (1747-1822), 116.

  Aitken, George, 371.

  Alberich, 46.

  Aldrich, T. B. (1836-1907), 301.

  Alfred the Great, (848-901), 532

  Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284), 627.

  _Alice in Wonderland_, 67.

  Allegory: 112-120, 154, 345; defined, 112, 117; combined with myth,
    113-114; distinguished from myth, 6; distinguished from parable,
    116; how to write, 117-118; distinguished from fable, 117.

  _Amateur Cracksman_, 301.

  _Ambitious Guest_, 346, 459.

  _Ameto_, 275.

  Amiel, Fréderic (1821-1881), 558.

  _Among the Corn Rows_, 427.

  Ana, 491-492; defined, 491.

  _Andreas_, 24.

  _Andvari_, 46.

  Anecdote: 490-496, 302, 371; compared with legend, 25; defined, 490,
    492; how to write an, 493.

  _Anecdotes_ (Percy's), 492.

  _Anecdotes_ (Spence's), 492.

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 614.

  Annals: 613-616; defined, 613-614; suggestions on material, 615.

  _Annales Ecclesiastici_, 614.

  _Annales et Historia de Rebus Legicis_, 614.

  _Annals_ (Goethe's), 612.

  _Annals of the Parish_, 612.

  _Annals of Scotland_, 614.

  _Apologia pro Sua Vita_ (Newman's), 574.

  _Apology for My Life_ (Cibber's), 573.

  _Apparition, The_, 401.

  _Arabian Nights, The_, 129.

  _Arcadia_ (Sannazaro), 274.

  _Arcadia, Countess of Pembroke's_, 275.

  Aristotle (383-320 B. C.), 84.

  Arthur, King (500?-537?), 24-25.

  _Artist's Secret, The_, 114.

  Ascham, Roger (1515-1568), 361-362.

  _As You Like It_, 275.

  _Atlantic Monthly_, 118, 560.

  _Aucassin and Nicolette_, 274.

  Austen, Jane (1775-1817), 372, 456, 457.

  Autobiography: 572-575; distinguished from memoirs, 572; suggestions
    for writing, 574-575.

  _Autobiographical Leaves_, 573.

  Audubon, John James (1780-1851), 512.

  _Autobiography of Cellini_, 573.

  _Autobiography of De Quincey_, 574.

  _Autobiography of Franklin_, 574.

  Ayala, Pedro Lopez de (1332-1407), 626-627.


  _Barlaam and Josaphat_, 23.

  Barclay, Alexander (1475?-1552), 115.

  _Baron Munchausen_, 153.

  Baronius, 614.

  Barrie, J. M. (b. 1860), 301.

  Beast epics, 88.

  _Belinda_, 430.

  _Berenice_, 400.

  Bergerac, Cyrano de (1619-1655), 151, 153, 154.

  Berkeley, George (1685-1753), 151.

  _Beowulf_, 23.

  Berners, Lord (1467-1533), 626.

  Bestiaries, 85, 115.

  _Bible_, 3, 103, 116.

  Bibliography, 648-660.

  _Biographical Sketches_, 593.

  Biography: 590-595; beginnings of English literary biography, 591;
    great biographies in English, 591-592; special characteristics,
    592-593; outline for, 594-595.

  Björnson, Björnsterne (b. 1832), 456.

  _Black Pearl, The_, 225.

  _Blue Bird, The_, 119.

  _Blue Flower, The_, 114.

  Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-1375), 85, 275, 299, 346.

  Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), 131.

  Borrow, George (1803-1881), 531.

  Boswell, James (1740-1795), 492, 591.

  _Branch Road, A_, 427.

  Brentano, Clemens (1778-1842), 48.

  Bronté, Charlotte (1816-1855), 431.

  Brooke, Henry (1703-1783), 363.

  Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810), 399.

  Browning, Robert (1812-1889), 481.

  _Brut, The_, 24.

  Buddha (6th century B. C.), 23.

  Bunyan, John (1628-1688), 115.

  Burney, Frances (1752-1840), 560.

  Burton, F. R. (b. 1861), 225.

  Byron, Lord (1788-1824), 456.


  Cable, G. W. (b. 1844), 301.

  Caesar, Julius (100-44 B. C.), 491.

  _Candide_, 347.

  Canton, William (b. 1845), 314.

  _Captain Singleton_, 256.

  _Career of Farthest North, The_, 301.

  Carlyle, Jane Welsh (1801-1866), 481.

  Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881), 492, 613.

  Castiglione, Baldasarre (1478-1529), 362.

  _Castle of Indolence, The_, 116.

  _Castle of Otranto, The_, 398-399.

  Catherine II (1729-1796), 572.

  Caxton, William (1422-1491), 24.

  _Celestial Railroad, The_, 117.

  Cellini, Benvenuto (1500-1571), 573.

  Cervantes (1547-1616), 275, 347.

  Changelings, 47.

  _Chanson de Roland, The_, 23.

  "Character," The, 430.

  Character-environment story: 426-432.

  Character-events story: 455-460.

  Charles V (1500-1558), 570.

  Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770), 513.

  Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340-1400), 115, 130, 300, 346, 627.

  Chesterton, G. K. (b. 1874), 67.

  _Chinese Tales_, 129.

  Chirino, Pedro, 629.

  Chivalry, Tales of, 131.

  Christmas, 314.

  Chronicles: 626-629; defined, 626.

  _Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family_, 612.

  _Chroniques de France, etc._, 626.

  Cibber, Colley (1671-1757), 573.

  Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B. C.), 490, 491.

  _Cid, The_, 23.

  Cinderella, 65, 66, 67.

  Clavijo, Ruy Gonzales de (15th century), 558-559.

  Clemens, Samuel Langhorne ['Mark Twain'] (1835-1910), 299.

  _Cloister and the Hearth, The_, 561.

  _Cockowe and the Nightingale, The_, 115.

  Collins, William (1721-1759), 116.

  _Complaint of Papingo, The_, 115.

  _Comus_, 3.

  _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, 574.

  _Conquest of Mexico_, 613.

  Coppee, Francois (b. 1842), 456.

  _Country of the Pointed Firs, The_, 299.

  _Court of Love, The_, 115.

  _Courtier, The_, 362-363.

  Cowper, William (1731-1800), 86, 481.

  _Coverley Papers, de_, 430.

  Craik, Dinah Maria (née Mulock) (1826-1887), 48.

  _Cranford_, 430.

  Croesus (fl. 560 B. C.), 83.

  _Crucial Instances_, 456.

  _Curse of Kehama, The_, 152.

  Curtis, W. E. (b. 1850), 533.

  Cynewulf, 24.


  _Daisy Miller_, 372.

  Dana, R. H., Jr. (1815-1882), 533.

  Dante (1265-1321), 85.

  Daudet, Alphonse (b. 1840), 456.

  _Daphnis and Chloe_, 274.

  Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882), 533.

  Davis, Richard Harding (b. 1864), 274.

  Day, Thomas (1748-1789), 364.

  _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, 613.

  Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731), 151, 152, 154, 371, 561.

  Deities-- Egyptian, 8; Filipino, 12-13; Finnish, 11; Greek, 7;
    Hindoo, 9-10; Norse, 12; Roman, 7; Russian, 11.

  _De Jocis Ciceronis_, 491.

  Delena (scribe to John II of Spain), 500-501.

  De Quincey, Thomas (1785-1859), 574.

  _Descent of Man_ (Wharton), 456.

  Detective story: 225-228; relation to tales of ingenuity, 225;
    suggestions for writing, 227.

  Dialect, 301, 429.

  _Diamond Lens, The_, 197.

  _Diana_, 275.

  Diary: 533, 557-561; defined, 557; distinguished from journal, 557;
     great diaries and their characteristics, 560; suggestions on
    writing, 561.

  _Diary of Mme. D'Arblay_ [Fanny Burney], 560.

  _Diary of Evelyn_, 560.

  _Diary of Gideon Welles_, 560.

  _Diary of Pepys_, 560.

  Dickens, Charles (1812-1870), 314, 501.

  _Discourager of Hesitancy, The_, 226.

  _Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, 114.

  Dodsley, Robert (1703-1764), 86.

  _Domestic Annals Of Scotland_, 614.

  Douglass, Frederick (1817-1895), 512.

  Douglas, Gawain (1474?-1522), 115.

  Doyle, A. C. (b. 1859), 225.

  Drake, Alexander Wilson (b. 1843), 199.

  _Dream_, 115.

  _Dream of the Rood, The_, 115.

  Dunbar, William (1465-1530), 115.


  Easter, 314.

  Edgeworth, Maria (1767-1849), 346, 364.

  Elbegast, 46.

  _Elder Edda_, 23.

  Eliot, George (1820-1881), 456, 457.

  _El Passo Honroso_, 500-501.

  _Emile_, 363.

  _Emma_, 430.

  _England's Mourning Garment_, 275.

  _Euphues_, 362.

  _Evelina_, 430.

  Evelyn, John (1620-1706), 560.

  _Everyman_, 113.

  Eye-witness account: 499-503; defined, 499; methods of writers of
    the, 501-502; suggestions on writing, 502-503.


  Fable, 83-89, 345; distinguishing characteristics, 87-88; kinds of
    fables, 87-88; defined, 87; origin, 83-84; distinguished from
    allegory, 117.

  _Fables in Slang_, 86.

  Fableaux, 299-300.

  _Faerie Queene_, 113.

  Fairies: characteristics of, 44, 45, 46, 47; Northern, 46, 50; Irish,
    51; Scotch, 51; Filipino, 51-53; Russian, 53; Arabian, 54; Malayan,
    46; Miscellaneous, 54-55.

  Fairy tale: 43-50; characteristics of, 43; distinguished from nursery
    sagas, 48; directions for writing, 49; defined, 50.

  _Fall of the House of Usher, The_, 399-400.

  _Father, The_, 456.

  Faust, legend of, 25.

  _Ferdinand and Isabella_, 613.

  Fielding, Henry (1707-1754), 398, 431, 531, 533, 534, 558.

  Firdousi [Abul Kasim Mansur] (c. 940-1020), 23.

  FitzGerald, Edward (1809-1883), 482.

  Fletcher, Phineas (1582-1650?), 115.

  _Flower and the Leaf, The_, 115.

  Fontaine, Jean de la (1631-1697), 85.

  _Fool of Quality, The_, 363.

  Forster, John (1812-1876), 592.

  _Frank_, 364.

  Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), 102, 573.

  Frederick the Great (1711-1786), 572.

  Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins (b. 1862), 301, 372, 397, 402, 420, 427, 429.

  Fremont, J. C. (1813-1890), 558.

  _French Revolution_, 613.

  Froebel, Friedrich Wilhelm August (1782-1852), 364.

  Froissart, Jean (1337-1410), 626.


  _Galatea_, 275.

  Galt, John (1779-1839), 612.

  Garland, Hamlin (b. 1860), 427-428.

  Gaskell, Mrs. [Elizabeth Stevenson] (1810-1865), 592.

  _Gate of the Hundred Sorrows, The_, 426.

  _Gaudentio de Lucca_, 151.

  Gay, John (1685-1732), 86.

  _General Chronicle of Spain_, 628.

  Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century), 24, 628.

  _Gesta Romanorrum_, 346.

  Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794), 572, 613.

  _Gil Blas_, 301.

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832), 612.

  _Gold Bug, The_, 226-227.

  _Golden Legend, The_, 24.

  _Golden Targe, The_, 115.

  Goldsmith, Oliver (1728-1774), 86, 592.

  Gondemar, 46.

  Gothic romances, 398-399; characteristics of, 399.

  Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), 481.

  _Great Stone Face, The_, 114.

  _Greater Inclination, The_, 456.

  Green, J. R. (1837-1883), 612.

  Greene, Robert (1560?-1592), 275.

  _Grettir the Strong_, 23.

  Grimm, Jacob (1785-1863), 66.

  Grimm, Wilhelm (1786-1859), 66.

  _Griselda_, 346.

  Grote, George (1794-1871), 613.

  Grotius, 614.

  _Gulliver's Travels_, 151, 154.

  _Guzman de Alfarache_, 300.


  Hailes, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord (1726-92), 614.

  Hakluyt, Richard (1553-1616), 629.

  Halévy, L. (b. 1834), 456.

  Hall, Bishop Joseph (1574-1656), 430.

  Hallam, Henry (1777-1859), 613.

  _Hand, The_, 401.

  Harris, J. C. (b. 1848), 301.

  Harte, Bret (1839-1902), 314, 428.

  Hawes, Stephen (?-1523?), 115.

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864), 3, 114, 116, 117, 346, 397, 459,
    593.

  Henryson, Robert (15th century), 86.

  Heroes of nursery sagas: 66, 67-68; of legends, 22, 27.

  Heroic romances, 131.

  Hesdin, Raoul, 558.

  _Hildebrand_, 23.

  _Hill of Science, The_, 116.

  _Historia Britonum_, 24.

  _History of England_ (Macauley's), 613.

  _History of Orosius_, 532.

  _History of the English People_, 613.

  _History of the States and Empires of the Moon_, 151.

  _Hitopadesa_, 84-85.

  Holberg, Ludwig (1684-1754), 151.

  Holinshed, Ralph (died about 1580), 628.

  Holmes, C. W. (1809-1894), 197.

  Hook, Theodore (1788-1841), 591.

  _House of Fame, The_, 115.

  Howells, W. D. (b. 1837), 370, 371, 372, 373, 512.

  Humorous story: 299-302; relation to _fableau_ 299; relation to
    picaresque romance, 300; relation to comic anecdote, 302.

  Hunt, Leigh (1784-1859), 102.

  _Hunter, The_, 114.


  Ibsen, Heinrich (1828-1906), 119.

  Igorots, 3.

  Imaginary voyage: 150-154; characteristics, 150; suggestions on how
    to write, 153-154.

  Incident: 480-482; defined, 480; distinguished from eye-witness
    account, 480.

  _Incident of the French Camp, An_., 481.

  Ingelow, Jean (1830-1897), 48.

  _Insurgent, The_, 456.

  Irving, Washington (1783-1859), 26, 397.

  _Italian Republics_, 613.

  _Italian, The_, 398.

  _Italian Renaissance_, 613.

  _Ivan the Fool_, 68.

  _Ivanhoe_, 227.


  _Jack and the Beanstalk_, 66, 67.

  _Jack the Giant Killer_, 65, 66, 67.

  Jacobus de Voragine (13th century), 24.

  James, Henry (b. 1843), 371, 372, 373, 533.

  Jewett, Sarah Orne (b. 1849), 299.

  John of Damascus (b. at end of 7th century; died c. 760?), 23.

  Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784), 116, 347, 491, 492, 533, 590, 591.

  Johnes, Thomas, 626.

  _Jonathan Wild_, 301.

  Journal: 533, 557-561; defined, 557; distinguished from diary, 557;
    great journals and their characteristics, 558; suggestions on
    writing, 561.

  _Journal Intime_, 558.

  _Journal of the Plague_, 561.

  _Journal of a Spy in Paris. A_, 558.

  _Journal to Stella_, 558.

  _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, A_, 558.

  _Journey of a Day, The_, 116.

  _Journey to the Western Isles, A_, 533.

  _Jumping Frog, The_, 299.

  _Jungle Book, The_, 86.


  Keats, John (1795-1821), 3, 314.

  _King Hart_, 115.

  Kingsley, Charles (1819-1875), 48.

  Kipling, Rudyard (b. 1865), 48, 49, 86, 397, 426.

  Kriloff (1768-1844), 86.


  _Lady Eleanor's Mantle_, 346.

  _Lady of the Aroostook, The_, 372.

  _Lady or the Tiger, The_, 226.

  Lagerlöf, Selma (b. 1858), 26.

  Langland, W. (14th century), 114.

  Laurin, 46.

  Layamon (fl. 1200), 24.

  _Lazarillo de Tormes_, 300.

  Legend: 22-28; defined, 28; compared with myth, 6, 22; myth-legend
    or saga, 22-23; saint legends, 23; legends of growth, 25; legends
    of art, 26-27; legend compared with anecdote, 25; legends about
    places, 26; legends about persons, 24-25, 131.

  Legendary Romance, 24-25.

  _Le Grand Cyrus_, 131.

  _Leonard and Gertrude_, 361.

  Letters, 481, 533.

  Lewis, Matthew (1775-1818), 399.

  _Library of Universal Adventure_, 512.

  _Life of Beau Nash_, 592.

  _Life of Burns_, 592.

  _Life of Byron_, 592.

  _Life of Charlotte Bronte_, 592.

  _Life of Dickens_, 592.

  _Life of Goldsmith_, 592.

  _Life of Johnson_ (Macaulay's), 592.

  _Life of Macaulay_, 592.

  _Life Magnet, The_, 197.

  _Life of Napoleon_, 592.

  _Life of Nelson_, 592.

  _Life of Samuel Johnson_ (Boswell's), 492, 591.

  _Life of Savage_, 590, 591.

  _Life of Scott_, 591.

  _Lives of the Poets, The_, 590, 591.

  Loarca, Miguel de, 629.

  Lockhart, J. G. (1794-1854), 592.

  Lodge, Thomas (1558?-1625), 275.

  Loomis, Charles Battell (1861-1911), 301.

  Lover, Samuel (1791-1868), 301.

  Lowell, James Russell (1819-1891), 482.

  Lucian (125?-210?), 84, 151.

  Lyly, John (1554?-1606), 362.

  Lyndesay, Sir David (1490-1555?), 115.


  Mabie, Hamilton (b. 1846), 314.

  Macaulay, T. B. (1800-1859), 590, 592, 613.

  Machiavelli (1469-1527), 613.

  Maclaren, Ian [Reverend John Watson] (b. 1850), 301.

  Macpherson, James (1738-1796), 513.

  _Madam How and Lady Why_, 48.

  Madison, James (1751-1836), 558.

  Maeterlink, Maurice (b. 1862), 119.

  _Mahabharata, The_, 22.

  Malory, Thomas (15th century), 24-25.

  _Man Who Would be King, The_, 426.

  _Man without a Country, The_, 26.

  Mandeville, Sir John (14th century), 151, 532.

  Märchen, 48, 65-69.

  Marie de France (12th century), 84, 130.

  _Markheim_, 400.

  Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593), 558.

  _Mary Barton_, 430.

  _Masque of the Red Death, The_, 400.

  _Mateo Falcone_, 456.

  Matthews, Brander (b. 1852), 396n, 401.

  Maupassant, Guy de (1850-1893), 395, 397, 456, 458.

  Memoirs: 572-575; distinguished from autobiography, 572; suggestions
    for writing, 574.

  _Memoirs of a Cavalier, The_, 256.

  _Memoirs of My Life and Writings_ (Gibbon's), 572.

  _Menaphon_, 275.

  _Merchant of Venice, The_, 23.

  Meredith, George (1828-1909), 129.

  Merimée, Prosper (1803-1870), 456.

  Metternich, Prince von (1773-1859), 572.

  _Middle Ages_, 613.

  Milton, John (1608-1674), 3.

  Mirabeau, Comte de (1749-1791), 572.

  _Mirror for Magistrates, A_, 115.

  _Mogol Tales_, 129.

  "Molière" [pseud. of John Baptiste Poquelin] (1622-1673), 131.

  _Monk, The_, 399.

  _Monk's Tale, The_, 627.

  Montaigne, Michel Eyquem (1533-1592), 558.

  _Montcalm and Wolfe_, 613.

  Montemayor, Jorge de (d. 1561), 275.

  Montepolitiano, Barthelemi (15th century), 491.

  Moore, Thomas (1779-1852), 86, 592.

  _Mopsa the Fairy_, 48.

  Moral story, 345-348; distinguished from symbolic-didactic group,
    345; purpose defined, 345-346.

  _Morall Fables of Æsop the Phrygian_, 86.

  Morga, Dr. Antonio de, 629.

  _Morte d'Arthur_, 24.

  _Mother Plays_, 364.

  Motley, John (1814-1877), 613.

  _Muhammad Din_, 426.

  Mulock, Miss, _see_ Craik.

  _Murad the Unlucky_, 346.

  _Murders in the Rue Morgue, The_, 225.

  _Mystery of Marie Rogêt, The_, 225-226.

  _Mysteries of Udolpho, The_, 398.

  Myths: 1-15; classes of, 1; Igorot myths, 3; how to collect, 4-5; how
    to compose, 5-6; distinguished from allegory, 6; distinguished from
    legend, 6, 22; defined, 7.


  _Necklace, The_, 456.

  Nennius, (fl. 796?), 24.

  _New Atlantis_, 153.

  _New Arabian Nights_, 129.

  _New England Nun, A_, 426.

  _New Heloise_, 363.

  Newman, J. H. (1801-90), 573.

  _Nibelungenlied_, 23.

  _Niel Klim's Underground Journey_, 151.

  _Northanger Abbey_, 457.

  Novel, 430-431; manners, 430; psychological problem novel, 431.

  _Novelas Ejemplares_, 347.

  _Novelist's Allegory, The_, 118.

  Nursery saga: 65-69; origin, 65; distinguishing elements, 66-68;
    defined, 69.


  _Oak and the Reed, The_, 85.

  Oberon, 46.

  O'Brien, Fitz-James (1828-1862), 197, 401.

  Occasional story, 313-315; spirit of the, 313, 314; suggestions for
    writing, 314.

  Ohthere, 532.

  _Old English Baron, The_, 398.

  _One Hoss Shay, The_, 197.

  _Orlando Furioso_, 23.

  Osborne, Dorothy (1627-1695), 481.

  _Other Wise Man, The_, 26.

  _Outcasts of Poker Flat, The_, 428.

  Overbury, Thomas (1581-1613), 430.


  Page, Thomas Nelson (b. 1853), 301.

  _Palace of Honor, The_, 115.

  Paltock, R. (1697-1767), 152-153.

  _Panchatantra_, 84-85.

  _Pandosto_, 275.

  _Panther, The_, 115.

  _Paradise Lost_, 3.

  _Paradise of Fooles_, 115.

  Parable: 101-103; contrasted with fable, 101; defined, 103;
    characteristics, 101-102; suggestions on writing, 103;
    distinguished from allegory, 116-117.

  Parkman, Francis (1823-1893), 613.

  _Parlament of Foules, The_, 115.

  Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718), 115.

  _Passions, The_, 116.

  _Pastime of Pleasure, The_, 115.

  Pastoral romance, 274-276.

  Pedagogical narrative: 48, 361-365; characteristics, 361, 363.

  _Peer Gynt_, 119.

  Pellico, Silvio (1788-1854), 572.

  Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703), 560.

  Percy (anecdote writers), 492.

  Peri, 47.

  Perry, T. S., 512.

  _Persian Tales_, 129.

  Pessimism, 347.

  Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich (1745-1827), 361, 365.

  _Peter Schlemihl_, 114.

  Petrarch, Francesco (1304-1374), 85.

  Petronius Arbiter (d. 62), 300.

  Phædrus (time of Nero), 85.

  _Phantom 'Rickshaw, The_, 401.

  Philippines, 3, 46, 629.

  _Phoenix, The_, 115.

  Picaresque romance, 300-301, 371.

  _Piers Plowman_, 114.

  _Pilgrim's Progress, The_, 113, 115.

  _Pit and the Pendulum, The_, 399.

  Planudes, 84.

  Plasencia, Juan de la, 629.

  Plato (427-347 B. C.), 3, 4, 84, 113-114, 491.

  Pliny the Elder (23-79), 512.

  Plot, Tales of Pure, 225-8.

  Plutarch (46?-120?), 3, 84.

  Poe, E. A. (1809-1849), 225-226, 395, 396, 397, 399, 400.

  _Poems in Prose_, 114.

  _Poems on the Naming of Places_, 481.

  Poggio, Gian Francesco (1380-1459), 85, 491.

  Polo, Marco (1254-1324), 151, 532.

  Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), 86.

  Prescott, W. H. (1796-1859), 613.

  _Pride and Prejudice_, 457.

  _Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries_, 629.

  Prior, Matthew (1664-1721), 86.

  _Prisoner of Zenda, The_, 227.

  Probable adventure: tale of, 255-257; definition, 256; the writing
    of, 256-257.

  Procopius (6th century), 490.

  Proverbs: Armenian to be used for fables, 89-90; to be used for
    parables, 103-104.

  _Puck of Pook's Hill_, 48, 49.

  _Purloined Letter, The_, 225.

  _Purple Island, The_, 115.

  Pushkin, A. (1802-1837), 227, 456.


  Quiñiones, Suero de, 500, 501.


  Radcliffe, Anne (1764-1822), 399.

  _Ramayana_, 22.

  _Rasselas_, 347.

  Reade, Charles (1814-1884), 458, 561.

  Realism, 370, 371, 372, 373, 457.

  Realism, story of present day: 370-374; elements of, 370-371;
    suggestions on types to treat, 373.

  Reeve, Clara (1729-1807), 398.

  Religion, Primitive, 1-2.

  Reporting, 501.

  _Republic, The_, 113.

  _Return of the Private, The_, 427.

  _Revelation, The_, 116.

  _Revolt of Mother, The_, 429.

  _Reynard the Fox_, 85.

  Rhyme in nursery sagas, 66, 67, 68.

  Ribeyro, Bernardino (fl. 1500), 275.

  Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761), 398, 431.

  _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 613.

  _Rip van Winkle_, 26.

  _Robin and Makyne_, 86.

  _Robinson Crusoe_, 151, 152, 256, 481.

  _Roderick Random_, 301.

  _Rollo Books, The_, 364.

  Romance, 114, 130-131, 227.

  _Romance of the Forest, The_, 398.

  _Romaunt of the Rose, The_, 115.

  Roosevelt, Theodore (b. 1858), 533.

  _Rosalynd_, 275.

  _Rosamond_, 364.

  Rostand, Edmond (b. 1862), 86.

  Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), 363, 574.

  _Rumpelstiltskin_, 66.


  Sackville, Thomas (1536?-1608), 115.

  Saga: defined, 22; compared with legend, 22-23; compared with nursery
    tale, 65.

  St. Augustine (354-430), 574.

  Saints, legends of, 23-24.

  _Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories_, 299.

  _Sandford and Merton_, 364.

  Sannazaro, Jacopo (1458-1530), 274-275.

  Sardou, Victorien (b. 1831), 225.

  _Saturday Evening Post_, 301.

  _Satyricon_, 300.

  Saxo Grammaticus (fl. 12th century), 628.

  Schiller, Johann Friedrich (1759-1805), 613.

  _Scholemaster, The_, 361-362.

  School of Terror, 398-399.

  Scientific discovery, tale of: 194-199; origin, 194; differentiated
    from imaginary voyage, 195-196; essential elements, 196;
    suggestions for writing, 197-199; humor in, 199.

  Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832), 456, 457.

  Scrap-books, 458-459.

  Schreiner, Olive (b. 1862), 114.

  Scudéri, Mme. de (1607-1701), 131.

  _Secret History of the Court of Justinian_, 490.

  Selden, John (1584-1654), 491.

  _Shah Nameh_, 22.

  Shakespeare, (1564-1616), 23, 275, 628.

  _Shaving of Shagpat, The_, 129.

  Shaw, G. B. (b. 1856), 67, 257.

  _Ship of Fooles, The_, 115.

  Short-story, the artistic: 395-398; elements analyzed, 396, 497;
    compared with romance and novel, 395-396; kinds of, 397.

  _Shot, The_, 456.

  Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1586), 275.

  _Siege of Berlin, The_, 456.

  Sismondi (1773-1842), 613.

  Skeat, Walter William, 115n.

  Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771), 398, 531.

  _Snow Storm, The_, 227.

  Society story: 273-277; defined, 274; compared with pastoral romance,
    274-275; suggestions for writing, 276-277.

  Socrates (469-399 B. C.), 84, 491.

  Southey, Robert (1774-1843), 152, 592.

  Spence, Joseph (1699-1768), 492.

  Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599), 115.

  _Spider's Eye, The_, 197.

  _Squire's Tale, The_, 130.

  Staël-Holstein, Mme. de (1776-1817), 572.

  Stanley, Sir Henry M. (1841-1904), 256, 533.

  Steele, Richard (1672-1729), 86, 347.

  Stevenson, R. L. (1850-1894), 114, 129, 256, 397, 400, 482, 533.

  Stockton, F. R. (1834-1902), 197, 301.

  _Stories of the Supernatural_, 402.

  Stow, John (1525-1605), 614-615.

  Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1812-1896), 299, 346, 347.

  _Substitute, The_, 456.

  Supernatural elements, 67-68.

  _Survey of London_, 615.

  Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745), 151, 558.

  Symonds, J. A. (1840-1893), 613.


  Taal volcano, eruption of, 512, 513n.

  _Table Talk_, 491.

  Tacitus, Caius Cornelius (fl. about 75-120), 6.

  _Tamburlane_, 558-559.

  _Tartar Tales_, 129.

  Tarnkappe, 46.

  Taylor, Bayard (1825-1878), 533.

  _Temple of Glass, The_, 115.

  _Tennessee's Partner_, 428.

  Terror, School of, 398-399.

  Thackeray, W. M. (1811-1863), 314, 466, 458.

  Theocritus (fl. 3rd century B. C.) 275.

  _Thirty Years' War_, 613.

  _Thistle and the Rose, The_, 115.

  Thomson, James (1700-1748), 116.

  Tiberius (45 B. C.-37 A. D.), 85.

  Ticknor, George (1791-1871), 500n.

  Tolstoy, Count Leo (1828-1910), 26, 68, 102, 119, 347, 373.

  _Tom Tit Tot_, 66.

  _Toxophilus_, 362.

  _Transferred Ghost, The_, 226.

  Traveler's sketch, 530-534; defined, 530.

  _Travels of Marco Polo_, 532.

  _Treasure Island_, 256.

  Trevelyan, Sir George Otto (b. 1838), 592.

  _Tristram Shandy_, 430.

  Trollope, Anthony (1815-1882), 431.

  _True History_, 151.

  _True relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal_, 371.

  True relations, 629; distinguished from chronicle, 629.

  _Turkish Tales_, 129.

  Twain, Mark [pseud. of Samuel L. Clemens]. _See_ Clemens.

  _Two Years Before the Mast_, 533.


  _"Uncle Remus" stories_, 86.

  _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 346.

  _Uplondish Mous and the Berger Mous_, 86.

  _Up the Coolly_, 427.

  _Utopia_, 153.


  _Van Bibber, and Others_, 274.

  Van Dyke, Henry (b. 1852), 26, 114, 314, 626n.

  _Venetian Glass, The_, 401.

  _Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 430.

  _Vida del Gran Tamurlan_, 558-559.

  _Views Afoot_, 583.

  Virgil (70-19 B. C.), 275.

  _Vision of Er, The_, 4, 113-114.

  _Vision of Mirza, The_, 115.

  _Volsunga Saga, The_, 23.

  Voltaire, F. Arouet de (1694-1778), 347.

  _Voyage and Travaille_, 532.

  _Voyage in Italy, A_, 558.

  _Voyage of Peter Wilkins, The_, 152.

  _Voyage of the Beagle, The_, 533.

  _Voyages Imaginaires_, 150, 256.


  Walpole, Horace (1717-1797), 398, 491.

  _Walpoliana_, 491.

  _Waltharilied_, 23.

  Walton, Isaac (1593-1683), 362-363.

  Wandering Jew, legend of the, 26.

  Waverley Novels, 456.

  Weird tale: 49, 398-402; origin, 398; material and method, 402; form,
    402; suggestions for writing, 401-402.

  Welles, Gideon (1802-1878), 560.

  Wharton, Edith (b. 1862), 456.

  _What is It? a Mystery_, 401.

  _What Men Live By_, 26, 102.

  Wiggin, Kate Douglas (b. 1857), 301, 314.

  Wilde, Oscar (1856-1900), 114.

  _William Wilson_, 400.

  _Wind in the Rose Bush, The_, 401, 402.

  _Without Benefit of Clergy_, 426.

  Wilkins, M. E.; see Freeman.

  _Wonder Book_, 3.

  Wonder, tales of mere: 6, 25, 128, 129-132, 346, 398; defined, 129;
    suggestions for writing, 129-131; contrasted with folk tales, 129.

  Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), 481.

  Wulfstan, 532.


  Xenophon (435 B. C.), 491.


  Yeats, William Butler (b. 1865), 46, 301.

  _Youth's Companion_, 256.

  _Ysopet_, 84.


  Zeus, 2.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] According to Skeat.

[2] Friend, don't poke your nose into another's business which you
don't understand.

[3] A Tagalog word meaning husk; but here it is used as an adjective
husky, and signifies a political party.

[4] The Magic Reciprocals, or Harmonic Responses, were discovered by
Gustavus Frankenstein, and are properly drawn in color. The following
are extracts from letters received from Mr. Frankenstein, to whom the
author is indebted for the drawing which appears at the beginning of
this story: "Tomorrow morning I shall send them. They are most lovely.
They are halos, if ever there was a halo. So wonderfully magical are
they that I think thou wilt modify thy language, and perhaps say
that Frankenstein produces halos almost, if not quite, to the very
perfection. Why, they seem to dazzle and bewilder like the very sun
itself. They do not actually emit light, but they look like the soul of
light. More like beautiful thoughts are they, spirits of loveliness,
than like anything tangible." ... "I was a long time working out
the mathematical problem of the perfectly balanced and completely
symmetrical circular harmonic responses; and then the drawings were
executed with the greatest care as to perfect precision and accuracy."
... "The little round white spot in the center imparts an animating
expression to the whole Response; and now, as I write, it occurs to me
very forcibly that the whole Response looks something like--and very
much like--the iris of the eye, and the little round spot in the center
is the pupil. If the iris were all iris, having no pupil in the center,
it would appear expressionless and not vividly suggestive of the soul
of life. The spot in the center may be looked upon as the tangible
existence or thing which is the source of the surrounding halo. Again:
The true and complete Response--the mathematical assertion--has the
animating spot in the center."

[5] I follow M. Gaston Paris's spelling of the word.

[6] This is a translation of a Tagalog prose version. The episode
of the story appears in metrical form as a beggar's song among the
Pampangos.

[7] "Vailima Letters," I., p. 147, quoted by Matthews.

[8] _Caballos_, horses; _Caballeros_, gentlemen.

[9] See Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature--Volume 1, page 204.

[10] In the interest of the unusual I can not refrain here from
personal reference. As I sit writing this notice of Pliny and old
Vesuvius, my house continues being shaken every few minutes by one of
the most prolonged series of earthquakes known to science, according
to the report of our famous observatory chief, the Jesuit, Father
Jose Algue. Taal volcano, fifty miles from Manila, is now in violent
eruption, January 29. The microseismographs by 9:15 last night had
already recorded one hundred and seventy-two shocks in five minutes
less than twenty-four hours, and the shaking still goes on, while a
party of scientists from the government bureau is preparing to visit
the spot. There should surely be material for a story in that trip.

[11] The reigning _Capitan_ (town President).

[12] Van Dyke's Introduction to Froissart's Chronicles (Colonial Press).




Transcriber's Note

Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation
inconsistencies have been silently repaired.

Corrections

p. xvii

  The Expatriation of Jonathan Trantor
  The Expatriation of Jonathan Taintor

p. 9

  They overturn trees, destoy whole forests
  They overturn trees, destroy whole forests

p. 49

  From these lists pick our the being
  From these lists pick out the being

p. 81

  When she was a hundred yards from the shehperd's cottage,
  When she was a hundred yards from the shepherd's cottage,

p. 90

  9. Before Susan had done princking, church was over.
  9. Before Susan had done prinking, church was over.

p. 101

  we have such statements are these:
  we have such statements as these:

p. 130

  or at the murmuring of a secret phase.
  or at the murmuring of a secret phrase.

p. 149

  Juan asked him magical ring to give him
  Juan asked his magical ring to give him

p. 177

  for his wife kept on retching so constanty that
  for his wife kept on retching so constantly that

p. 184

  by the appearance of a scawny young man
  by the appearance of a scrawny young man

p. 213

  through the frosted window and the feathery snow, such a vision of
  lovliness
  through the frosted window and the feathery snow, such a vision of
  loveliness

p. 259

  bow would be drawn nor quarel
  bow would be drawn nor quarrel

p. 274

  but it is not the hard, toil-beleagured life of
  but it is not the hard, toil-beleaguered life of

p. 284

  of taking my gold sleeve bottons
  of taking my gold sleeve buttons

p. 323

  the faithful fellow went off to the café which he frequentel
  the faithful fellow went off to the café which he frequented

p. 377

  at Jourdain's, the inkeeper who dealt in horses
  at Jourdain's, the innkeeper who dealt in horses

p. 425

  After much fumbling in the darkness he placed in Ivan't hands
  After much fumbling in the darkness he placed in Ivan's hands

p. 433

  But how had be managed to see that polo ball?
  But how had he managed to see that polo ball?

p. 460

  the tarnished furniture, the ugly curtains; deficienices which would
  the tarnished furniture, the ugly curtains; deficiencies which would

p. 475

  the governor delivered a short spech of welcome
  the governor delivered a short speech of welcome

p. 483

  retreating before the Prussian army, had bivoucked near a town
  retreating before the Prussian army, had bivouacked near a town

p. 549

  the little Turks come out and laugh it him.
  the little Turks come out and laugh at him.

p. 629

  If differs from journal and diary
  It differs from journal and diary

p. 677

  _Peirs Plowman_, 114.
  _Piers Plowman_, 114.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64210 ***